Flora Beach Burlingame February 15, 2019–release date for Path of Progress almost here, so how about a sample read with the beginning of the first chapter?
The coming of equal suffrage of equal rights and duties irrespective of sex may be promoted or retarded but it cannot be stopped. As well try to thrust the dawning day back into the caverns of night. It is part of that age long movement now recognized and named evolution which is carrying the race to higher things. If my testimony or work can promote it in any degree, however small, I shall be satisfied.
John O. Stevenson, from his first editorial for The Woman’s Standard, the ficial organ of the Iowa Woman Suffrage Association, September 1899 (later Iowa Equal Suffrage Association.)
Chapter One TRAPPED
The Reverend John Stevenson, pastor of the First Congregational Church of Waterloo, Iowa, stood, stretched, and stepped to his study window. He had been lost in time for two hours at his desk while working on a sermon. Pushing aside the curtains, he watched soft flakes of snow float down from the dark clouds.
Better put an extra log on the fire before the children get home from school, he thought, and was about to drop the curtain when an unexpected carriage pulled up in front of the parsonage. A woman, face hidden in a dark cape and hood, emerged from the vehicle and made her way cautiously up the walk. Something seemed not right. A sense of alarm stirred in John. Rolling down his sleeves and buttoning the cuffs of his white dress shirt, he reached for the well-worn black coat draped across a chair.
A rap sounded on the study door as he reached to open it. Mrs. Henderson, his middle-aged, part-time housekeeper stood there, eyes wide. “Sir, there’s a Mrs. Cooper here to see you. She–she don’t look so good, Reverend. She’s hurt bad.”