Cherie Dargan
Author
After nearly 30 years in education and 20 years teaching writing, literature, and educational technology courses at Hawkeye Community College, Cherie took early retirement in 2016. She joined the Cedar Falls Authors Festival planning committee, celebrating the five best-selling writers with ties to Cedar Falls—Bess Streeter Aldrich, Ruth Suckow, James Hearst, Robert Waller, and Nancy Price.
Cherie contributed two chapters for collections of academic essays: one about Iowa writer Ruth Suckow and the other about the literary history of Cedar Falls, Iowa. She is the author of the Grandmother’s Treasures series, including Book 1 The Gift, Book 2 The Legacy, Book 3 The Promise, and Book 4 The Recollection with one more volume in the works.
She serves as the past president, historian, and program chair of the League of Women Voters of Black Hawk-Bremer Counties advocating for voting rights for all. She is Mom to four children and Grandma to three grandchildren. Cherie is married to retired librarian Mike Dargan, who serves as her tech support, fact checker, and head cheerleader.
Featured Title
Featured
The Recollection
A Great Depression Era Historical Novel
The Dust Bowl has devastated farms across the midwest. World war looms on the horizon. Banks are failing. The Great Depression has come to Jubilee Junction.
In the present day, Gracie and her team of history sleuths have a new quilt mystery to piece together, not that will join to families together.
And in the midst of it all, Christmas in Jubilee Junction is celebrated with new family, new babies, old traditions, and a fresh and unexpected opportunity to practice forgiveness, reconciliation, and peace on Earth.
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
Sarah, 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?
The Promise
Life is sweet for Mary Carlson. The 20th century is more than a decade old; she is nearly eighteen years old, in her senior year at Jubilee Junction High School, and is experiencing her first romance. Charlie O’Connor has asked for her hand in marriage. Soon she will begin work on a new quilt using the double wedding ring pattern. 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?
“Quilt lovers will flock to this novel which offers mystery, love, betrayal, and family reconciliation played out in two connecting eras.”