Joyce Hilliard Stotts – Author

https://joycehilliardstotts.com

For inquiries about book signings, scheduled events and public appearances send email to: Rodantha1840@gmail.com

Rodantha’s Road

In 1856, newlyweds, Rodantha Hywell, a young backwoods woman, and Welsh emigrant, William Hywell, 28, travel west by covered wagon, from Virginia to newly opened Kansas Territory. Unknown to Rodantha, William is an abolitionist and fugitive from the law for helping slaves escape on the Underground Railroad. Will and Danna travel over a thousand miles on the National Road, Boones Lick Trail, and Santa Fe Trail to reach Diamond Spring where Will gets a job building rock fences at Waldo-Hall Stage Station. It is the last good place to get water before venturing westward out into the wild unsettled Indian and buffalo lands.

The Hywells become the proprietors at the Santa Fe Trail stage station, hotel and eatery at Diamond Spring and are caught up in the pre-Civil War fighting over slavery called Bleeding Kansas. When Missouri ruffians burn down the station their lives hang in the balance.

Rodantha’s Road is based on the real lives and times of Kansas pioneers It resonates with our 21st Century issues of race, immigration, national discord and violence, and can help us to understand the history behind many of our current conflicts and issues.

Music videos are posted: http://www.youtube.com/@JoyceHilliardStotts

Author and historian, Joyce Hillard Stotts grew up in Kansas, and taught junior/senior high school English and History After earning an M.S. degree from Kansas University, she was a corporate Instructional Designer/Technical Writer. She belongs to professional writers’ groups: Society of Children’s Scribes, Dunedin (Florida) Writers Group and Kansas Authors Club. Part of the year she lives in a restored 1880s storefront in the Flint Hills of Kansas. She is currently a partner in a family business, Spice of the Harbor in Safety Harbor, Florida where she lives part of the year.