Raised Country Style from South Carolina to Mississippi

About the Book

The saga continues with Dr. Burel’s children moving west.  His son James led the Mississippi-bound wagons from South Carolina into another untamed frontier.  Their first Christmas in Attalaville, Mississippi, was a grand celebration of their newfound life, only to have the New Year bring tragedy.

Mississippi’s Golden Years brought prosperity to the pioneers as landowners and independent farmers.  Too soon the Civil War swept across their land leaving King Cotton reeling and survivors coping with shattered lives.  Sympathetic eyes of the world watched as they searched for ways to survive the aftermath of total war.  Lisbeth Burel struggled with the heartbreak of losing the war, her husband James, and her youngest son.  Bracing to survive post-war defeat and economic ruination, Lisbeth and her oldest son learned to cope with the nagging pain and hatred of a useless war.  With the burden of the world on William Riley’s back, he turned to God and self-reliance to get them through the bleak future.  Recovery was slow, and families joined hands to plant new fields of cotton, corn, and sorghum cane.

Thirty years of worry and hard work turned William into an old, sick man long before his time.  On a cold October morning, the stooped and frail man shuffled toward the sugarcane mill and furnace.  Assuring the old family recipe and tradition continued, he taught his grandson how to cook molasses to be as smooth as silk.  A couple months later William’s family celebrated the biggest Christmas since the war.  Sadly, two days later the celebration was marred as his thirteen proud children mourned the loss of their Pa.  After the war, William Riley took great pain to instill the belief that they, and their kind, were the moral fiber offering the best hope for rebuilding the New South.  And they were.

About the Author

Bettye Burrell Burkhalter is a Vice President, Associate Provost, and Professor Emerita at Auburn University.  Academic research and fellowships with Auburn University, the  International Academy of Astronautics, and the British Interplanetary Society sent her around the world.  Upon retirement she teamed with her eighty-nine-year-old father, Cecil A. Burrell, to capture a way of life they both loved and valued quickly fading into the pages of time: country style living.

Spanning four centuries, the saga is a testament to the author’s uncompromising vision to recapture the life and times of Dr. John Burel and his family in search of the American Dream.  Bettye brings to life the characters who pioneered westward into the heart of Mississippi, built prosperous lives as independent farmers and cattlemen, and survived the war that transformed America.

Although Dr. Burkhalter worked and visited in over a dozen countries, she prefers the quiet countryside at her rustic log home retreat.  There in the peace and quiet of nature she does most of her writing.  “There is no substitute for awakening to a sunrise with singing birds, hearing a whippoorwill’s lonesome call to his mate at dusk, or watching lightning bugs flash by on a warm summer night,” she explains.  Bettye and her husband, Boyd, also live in Auburn, Alabama.