Cherie Dargan
Author
Cherie is a retired Community College teacher who reinvented herself in retirement: she’s an active volunteer, a writer, blogger, and family historian working on a series about a midwestern family, Grandmother’s Treasures. She’s also a geek, who loves to play with technology and write about it. She’s married to retired librarian Mike Dargan and they have two grown children, both married: Jon (and Anna) and Michelle (and Sean), and two lively grandsons, Corbin and Mason.
Shortly after retirement, Cherie joined a community-wide Committee for the Cedar Falls Authors Festival (CFAF) and became the webmaster for www.cfauthorsfestival.org. The CFAF celebrated the literary legacy of five nationally known, best-selling authors with Cedar Falls connections: Bess Streeter Aldrich, Ruth Suckow, James Hearst, Nancy Price and Robert James Waller. Over twenty local organizations came together to plan 60 programs beginning in May 2017 and ending in May 2018. More recently the CFAF II offered programs during 2021.
She’s written two academic chapters for collections of essays about Midwestern writers.
Her most recent chapter is about the city of Cedar Falls, and its literary heritage. “Mind and Soil: an Iowa Town that Grows Writers.” The Sower and the Seer: Perspectives on the Intellectual History of the American Midwest. February 2021. Wisconsin Historical Press.
Her chapter, “The Realistic Regionalism of Iowa’s Ruth Suckow,” was included in The Midwestern Moment, a collection of essays about Midwestern authors in the 1900’s, published by Hastings College Press June 1st, 2017.
Cherie earned her B. A. from Buena Vista University, an M. A. from Iowa State University, and another M. A. from the University of Northern Iowa. She’s a member of the Cedar Falls Supper Club, a member and webmaster for the Ruth Suckow Memorial Association, as well as the Cedar Falls Authors Festival.
Featured Title
Featured
The Legacy
American Civil War Era Historical Fiction
Life is sweet for Mary Carlson. The 20th century is more than a decade old; she is nearly eighteen years old and is finishing up her senior year at Jubilee Junction High School. And she is experiencing her first romance. Charlie O’Connor has started leaving sweet notes for her and has asked for her hand in marriage. She spends time each day filling her lovely cedar chest, the one Papa made for her sixteenth birthday and carved with beautiful roses and vines on top, with pillowcases, towels, aprons, and other items necessary for a new bride starting her home. Soon she will begin work on a new quilt using the double wedding ring pattern. She blushes to think about it. But in the midst of such happy bliss, the war that is ripping Europe apart threatens to draw America into the fray. Congress declares war and institutes a military draft. Will Charlie have to go to war before they can even say their vows? And if he goes, will he ever come back.
In present day, Gracie and her new husband, David, are setting out on a most unusual honeymoon. They are driving cross-country in a Class C motorhome retracing the route taken by the regiment of Gracie’s ancestor Michael during the Civil War and visiting the battlefields and historic sites along the way. But before they leave, Gracie gets a call from a relative with a cryptic request.
“Mother gave me an antique hope chest that belonged to Grandma Mary some years back, and I thought it was empty,” she says. “But when I cleaned it, I found a false bottom. Beneath it I discovered a bundle of letters, linens, and a pristine wedding ring quilt in the cubby hold underneath. It does not appear to ever have been used.”
Now it’s up to Gracie to once again investigate the origins of a family heirloom. But not everyone wants the past uncovered. “My Great-Grandma Mary is dead and can’t defend herself,” declares Aunt Catherine. “Do we really need to dig into all the unpleasant circumstances of her life? Do we have the right?”
Can Gracie find the story behind the red and white double wedding ring quilt; and if she does, what long buried family secrets will she have to dig up?
Also by Cherie Dargan
The Gift
The Gift, takes us back to the days of WWII with a set of cassette tapes telling the story of three Iowa farm girls who went to California to work at an aircraft factory and hospital at a nearby navy base. Grace, a country schoolteacher, and her younger twin sisters Vera and Violet. When they returned, their family would never be the same.
The Legacy
arah, a widowed schoolteacher, rushes to be with her sister, Emily, about to give birth. It’s September 1864, and the war has come to Winchester, Virginia yet again. Sadly, Emily and her baby die, leaving Sarah to take Emily’s maid Rebecca and son Bobby to freedom. Her mother insists she take along a young slave named Thomas for protection. It’s almost one hundred miles to Baltimore, where they can take a boat to Boston, and then board a train west. Can Sarah lead this group to safety, avoiding stray Confederates, Union soldiers, and slave catchers? And why does Rebecca say to look for quilt squares on their journey?
“Quilt lovers will flock to this novel which offers mystery, love, betrayal, and family reconciliation played out in two connecting eras.”