*

It took me a couple of years to write Toby’s Curse, and along the way many people contributed, knowingly and unknowingly, to the project:

 

Mary Rose Ditz - Mary Rose is just about exactly 30 years older than I, and we have been pals for five years or so. A few winters ago, we met every other week to discuss her long and interesting life, and it is from listening to her that I learned better how to tell a tale, and also got the idea for the Susan Frolic character in the book.

 

Bill Lauer - Bill is a distant relation and was raised by my great-grandfather in Fryburg in the 1920s. He and Mary Rose grew up in the same social setting. Bill wrote an autobiography a few years ago called Long Ago. He, like Mary Rose, is an excellent story teller, and an inspiration for my own efforts in the line.

 

Pam Hufnagel - Pam is my wife and encouraged me throughout the process of creating the book, patiently listening as I struggled to find the story and put it on paper. She was also a most helpful proofreader of the various versions.

 

Pam Hufnagel - As chance would have it, my brother also married a Pam, and so there are two. Pam in Virginia proofread the second version of the book and was expert at pointing out punctuation problems, awkward sentences, inconsistencies, unneeded material and places where the volume could benefit from reordering or rewriting.

 

Sandy Robinette - My Aunt Sandy read an early, flawed, version of the book, and helped me to see how I might change it to make the material more approachable. She also read the final draft and was a big help in eradicating problems with grammar, punctuation and logic.

 

Brandy Getschman - Brandy is my next-door-neighbor at work, and it was just luck I happened to see her the week after I thought the book complete.  She offered to read the final product, and I thought, well, why not. Good thing, too. Brandy has a sharp eye for character and as a result of her suggestions, Susan Frolic became a much more sympathetic heroine.  

Kate Hufnagel - My sister Kate read an early version of the book, and because of her I began to see that a major rewrite would be required.

 

Paul Hambke - My brother-in-law Paul is a bona fide editor and, as he has done with every other book I have written, he had his look at this one. Nothing much concerning what is wrong with the nuts and bolts of my writing ever seems to escape him.

 

Jim Anderson - Jim is my friend and contact at the Historical Society in Clarion. He never tired of my many requests as I burrowed through their collections in search of my stories.

 

Dolores (Tick) Ferraro - When I was looking for fresh eyes to read the final draft, Jim Anderson suggested that his Aunt Tick might like to give it a try. Her letter to me after she had had her look went a long way toward convincing me I was closing in on a finished product.

 

To the above list, I would add:

 

Joanne Hosey - Joanne was Library Director at the Eccles-Lesher Library in Rimersburg when I was doing my early research. She was most accommodating about lending me rare newspapers that contained much material that was later incorporated into the book.

 

Jeanne Hufnagel - My mother, whose continuing interest in the project helped see me through the dead period between the first, failed attempt at the book, and my own renewed interest in completing it.

 

Leon Hufnagel - My father, who had been gone since well before the book was begun, but who somehow always seemed nearby as I wrote on this subject that would have been of such great interest to him.