The Spirit in the South

About the Book

The Rev. Dr. Cynthia Vold Forde, Author What questions would you like to ask your grandmothers, great grandmothers or tenth great grandmothers? In this work, the authors of the “grandmother stories”(Dr. Forde and cousins) imaginatively ask their grandmothers questions about the source of their indomitable spirit; and as you read, you will appreciate the choice. The centerpiece of the book consists of interpretative essays featuring our grandmothers in times of trial and times of joy. The essays are accompanied by descriptive chronologies, with the reader appropriately instructed by maps from each period, photographs, sketches, portraits and recipes. An encyclopedic Appendix in CD-ROM form offers further documentation, extensive genealogies, and even more maps, photographs, and archival materials; all of which will eventually be published as Volume II. The Rev. Dr. Cynthia Vold Forde’s valiant work of genealogy presented herein is encyclopedic, intelligible and thoroughly entertaining. Lineages of our scattered kindred so lovingly compiled by her, are a “collection for remembrance” inspired by the faithful lives of ten generations of Southern ancestors. Impressive archival research and background materials on the Bankston, Brooks, Cobb, Hamlin, Henderson, Ivey, Jarrett, Lea, McDonald, Miller, Rambo, and Sappingtons of Georgia lines are included. Within the pages of this book, you will find adventure, love, war, peace, depression, and prosperity in the lives of our valiant colonial, pioneer, antebellum and postbellum ancestors. You may correlate traits of these brave and steadfast women with those in your own mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and daughters. If you seek a greater understanding of your Southern ancestry and of yourself, you will surely find it here.

About the Author

The Rev. Dr. Cynthia Vold Forde, an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, grew up in Northwood, Iowa. Cynthia retired from parish ministry in 1999 to create a Sabbath house for pastors located on the Forde Ranch in southeast Texas; she serves as the spiritual director.  She received a Bachelor of Science from the University of New York in art and speech communications, a Master’s degree in theology from Houston Graduate School of Theology, a Master of Divinity from Wartburg Seminary and Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, a Doctor of Ministry in Spiritual Direction and a PhD (abd) from the Graduate Theological Foundation in Donaldson, Indiana, with studies at Christ Church College in Oxford, England. She is a member of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors and Spiritual Directors International. She and Stan Forde, a highway and bridge contractor, raised five children and celebrate the gift of ten grandchildren.