Grace Street
by
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Grace Street is more than a street or a location. It is a place in my heart and mind, frozen in time, but burnt into my soul forever. Kids were safe to wander their neighborhoods and explore ponds and woods, and ride their bikes to the library or take the city bus to the movie theater. Mothers sent their children to buy bread and milk at Tanber's store, and Uncle Eddie owned part of the street. Adults laughed and talked about Nazita, yelled at each other in frustration, gossiped in Lebanese and cooked stuffed grape leaves for a treat.
Grace Street was in an ethnic neighborhood on the east side of Michigan City, Indiana. Adults spoke broken English and held onto many old world beliefs. We kids were caught up between the customs of the old country and the growing Americanization of our parents and grandparents.
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About the Book
Grace Street is about children growing up in a Lebanese neighborhood in Michigan City, Indiana, during the 1950s. Children in that era were safe to walk city streets and explore parks and wooded areas. Racial prejudice was rampant, and most families had stay-at-home mothers. The South Shore Railroad was in its heyday and Washington Park was a popular recreation area. With a healthy dose of humor tempered with a pinch of pathos and a sprinkling of irony, Grace Street touches on old-world beliefs and customs while telling the story of siblings and cousins who grew up in a sometimes confusing ethnic environment. This close-knit family had a few secrets, including an alcoholic uncle and a grandmother who was nearly deported, but the parents rarely spoke of these matters, especially to the children.
About the Author
Diane Jacks Saunders, a Lebanese-American, is an award-winning journalist who has worked more than three decades for community newspapers. With no formal training in journalism, she carved out a career as a writer, editor and photographer while raising three children as a single parent in Indiana. Diane believes lessons learned as a child in an ethnic family prepared her for a career as a journalist. After raising her children, Diane relocated to southeast Arizona to escape the harsh Indiana winters. As a resident of the Southwest, Diane was introduced to "cowboy poetry" and self-published a limited-edition cowboy poetry book. Diane and her husband Charles "Chuck" Saunders live in the mountains on a small ranch with horses, dogs, cats, a burro and a pot-bellied pig named Pork Chop.