In my Tales of Chetzemoka series, Jacob's and Addie's personal appearances are based on a late nineteenth-century photograph from our antique ephemera collection. I'd had the picture for a few years before I ever thought of this story. When I bought the photograph for less than a dollar an eBay it came with no provenance (cheap finds never do) and I knew absolutely nothing about the couple in it. My husband and I have a number of pictures like this, but when I started this story my mind kept wandering back to one in particular.
I chose the name Adora from a list of common women's names published in Hill's Manual of Social and Business Forms by Thomas E. Hill, 1891, p. 138. It struck me as a pretty name for a romantic heroine, and I adopted it for my character a few days before I brought out the old photograph I'd been picturing to get a better look at the image I already had in my mind for her.
I'd forgotten there was anything at all written on the back, but when I turned the picture over I found the names Miss Addie Kellam and J.B. Simmons written in pencil. Addie was such an obvious nickname for Adora, the discovery seemed so fortuitous as to be almost eerie.
Read Jacob & Addie's story!
Love Will Find A Wheel:
A Victorian Cycling Club Romance
Buy the book on Amazon
Secret inside details
Terms of use:
You are welcome and encouraged to share a link to this page <http://www.thisvictorianlife.com/blog>, but I am very protective of my Chetzemoka friends so the image on today's post may not be reproduced without my express permission.
RSS Feed