Frederick Demond

[L Verge]

I agree, Susan. I'm finding that the younger generations, especially, are flabbergasted that some of us have close ancestors who were living during the Civil War era.

For example, I have written a chapter on Mrs. Surratt that will appear in a new book in 2016 (the work of a group of us nuts to be entitled The Lincoln Assassination Riddle). We received our chapters for copy editing yesterday, and I'm betting that the publisher's editor is between the age of 21 and 30! In my chapter, I mention that David Herold spent the night of April 13 with my great-grandparents and that Mrs. Surratt and her brother were acquaintances of my great-grandfather. This editor wanted me to verify that I actually had great-grandparents who were alive in 1865! I even went so far as to tell her that every one of my grandparents was born in the 1860s or 70s. And no, I'm not older than dirt, yet.

While working on replying to her editing changes, however, I came to the realization that I was going to have a stroke with all the changes that have been made in publishing styles since I minored in English decades ago. My professors would have had a red-pen field day with what she had changed.