Last week pandemic cabin fever motivated me to deep clean my office and I found this rather fondly remembered little book from years ago. Other copies were godchild or Christmas presents. I suppose I saved this copy for myself or for bookcrossing. This morning I decided to sit down with it again. Christian pastor Robert J. Morgan tells the story of Susan and Anna Warner, sisters who lived on Constitution Island on the Hudson River near West Point, The United States Military Academy. From an old and prestigious American family, the girls were survivors. Their mother and siblings died when they were young. Their uncle was a "black sheep" of an Episcopal minister who died in debt in France where he was buried in a pauper's grave and their father lost the family's wealth in the terrible American economic panic of 1837 and the depression that followed. The widowed father was forced to give up the family home with all of its extravagant trappings in New York City and to take his young adult daughters to live on the island, once a part of George Washington's fortifications in the Revolutionary War. They lived in a drafty Colonial era home there that would become a haven for their writing and Bible studies for West Point Cadets. Susan Warner there wrote THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD, a forgotten novel that was the first American book to sell over one million copies. Though both sisters developed literary careers, they lived pretty much to themselves in relative poverty for the rest of their lives. The song "Jesus Loves Me' comes from a book the sisters co-authored in 1860, SAY AND SEAL. Readers loved a comforting poem within the novel and the great American hymn writer William B. Bradbury was inspired to write what soon became a children's Sunday School standard. The book contains charming pictures of the Warner Home, now a museum, and other period illustrations. It has a patriotic theme. One treasure the Warner's did not sell was Gilbert Stuart's painting of George Washington. With Constitution Island it was their greatest asset. The island was bequeathed to the United States during the tenure of President Teddy Roosevelt, who initiated the National Park Service. The original Gilbert Stuart hangs at West Point and a reproduction is in the Warner home. The sisters are buried at West Point. Susan was the first civilian to be buried there. Morgan authored another book on well-known hymns: THEN SINGS MY SOUL. Pastor of The Donelson Fellowship in Nashville, Tennessee, Morgan has written more than twenty books.

This book for some reason brought Heartthumper and her mother to mind. They are dear BookCrossing friends. I don't know if this will reach you all by the 4th but I want to say: God Bless America!

Thank you! It arrived yesterday and is spending the weekend with my mom. She was really excited to read it. She said to let you know she keeps you in her prayers.

What a wonderful little book! I meant to tell you we loved the postcard, also. Thank you so much!!!

Releasing in the Small Box of Small Books Bookbox to continue it's travels.

This looks like a book that will be lovely to read and then pass on.

The story of the authors of "Jesus Loves Me."