An Ozark Mountain Waltz

When the Croley family comes to the Ozark Mountains to find shelter from the realities of life during the Great Depression, they find a new home in an old wooden cabin borrowed from a friend. As time goes by, they find more than a new start. They find neighbors willing to help, discover the value of having a sense of humor, and regain hope. This story comes from actual written letters and verbal accounts from the family and their friends. These accounts tell of the music, the faith found in hymns, the sound of nature in streams, the varieties of birds and even tree frogs, and the waltzes played on a fiddle to three quarter time. As a family, they encounter drought, snakes, spiders, poverty, illness, and loss of life. Above all these tragedies and challenges, love endures, as the music does in a mountain melody that circles on through those misty, green hills and lingers in our hearts.

-- Fern Croley Jones