The Daisy Chain
by
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It was a cold day early in 1912 and there was no heat in the house when the authorities showed up at the door of the two-room, tarpaper shack that was Daisy’s new home in northeast Kansas City, Missouri. This dreary house was far different from the modest but cozy home she had left in Arkansas after her husband Elijah Jackson “Jay” McIntyre died. Daisy, a young widow of only a few months, was at home alone with her children. Laid off from her job at the meat packing plant, living far away from family and friends in Arkansas, she was desperate with worry about where the family’s next meal was coming from.
Work at the meat packing plant was grueling hard, meager pay, and deplorable working conditions. There were labor unions at that time but they were in their infancy and “sweatshop” labor prevailed. An employee might give his employer a good steady, seven days of work a week for months, but have one sick day off and be fired, no matter how well they worked or how dependably they performed in the past. Employers didn’t worry about replacing an employee because times were hard and other workers waited in line to take the low-paying jobs.
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About the Book
The Daisy Chain is a three-part book.Part one is the story of Daisy Petty McIntyre, a courageous mother of four children. Widowed in 1912 in her early 30s, she was forced by circumstances to leave her cozy home in the Ozark Hills of Northwestern Arkansas, where she was surrounded by family and friends to wrest out a living in a large city where she knew few people.She soon learned that the many skills that served her well in the Ozarks had little financial value in earning a living for herself and her children in Kansas City. Daisy faced hardships and destitution, but she did it with great heart and fortitude, never letting her children see the fears and desolation she felt on an almost daily basis.
About the Author
Muril Hart is 83-years-old. She grew up in Kansas city, Missouri, met her husband, Troy, just out of the U.S.Navy, in Texas in 1946, married him in 1947. They lived most of their married life in the Houston, Texas area where Troy was metallurgist for Armco Steel Corp. for 36 years. Muril was a stay-at-home mom but she had a secret smbition to write and in the 1960s and 70s when her three children were in their teens, she went to work as a part-time reporter for the Baytown sun Newspaper. As a child she heard her grandmother, Daisy Petty McIntyre's story from her mother, Lillian McIntyre Knight many time during her growing up years. She always thought she would one day put the stories in a book. This book,at last, is a result of that ambition. The Harts now live out in the woods on a Central Texas ranch about 20 miles from the nearest town. They have five grandchildren and seven great grandchildren.