Angelina- Prolouge

      Prologue



  As I gaze out over the trampled and weed-choked rose gardens, the wheel-rutted lawn and the blackened shell of my family home, it’s very hard to believe that it was once one of the most beautiful homes in all of Virginia.

Roselawn was to have been home to generations of Anderson's. That had been my father’s wish and his vision when he first staked claim to this land, land in a state that had nourished men like Jefferson and Washington and Lee. He envisioned being surrounded by his children, grandchildren and even beyond to their children as his beloved Roselawn delivered it’s riches to them as it had to him. It was to be his lasting legacy. Unfortunately, war came, and left in its path death, waste and destruction, as it inevitably does.

  Now, as I think back on my life before the war, very little of it seems real. In my mind it feels more like a dream; a very pretty, innocent dream.

If I try very hard, I can close my eyes, and almost see the dream come to life. I can immerse myself in the sight of my mother tending her beloved roses, their color and fragrance spread like a luxurious quilt across the lawn of my family home.

My father named Roselawn in honor of my mother’s love of her favorite flowers, and her devotion to their care. My mother was as renowned for her prize-winning rose garden as she had been for her beauty and popularity as one of the most sought -after belles of her day. Born of a fine old Virginia family, Caroline Moore could have had anyone she desired, but it was my father that captured her heart and devotion. A self-made man, Micheal Anderson saw something in her that none of her other suitors had seen; a soul mate. From the moment they met they became part of one another- neither fully complete without the other. It was that kind of devotion I sought in a life mate. Something I never came close to finding until the war and its consequences delivered it to my doorstep.



Among my fondest memories are those of the child I was, frolicking in my carefree pursuits, or adoringly tagging after my older brother, Colin.

Although I was sure I was a horrid nuisance to him growing up, he never made me feel that way. Five years older, he was my hero, and in those moments when my insatiable curiosity, outspokenness, or tomboy ways would land me in hot water, he was my champion. Colin could always smooth frayed tempers, or calm our mother’s frustration at her inability to shape me into well brought up little lady.



My father was always the easiest to calm, since I was more like him than my mother, and I think some small part of him was flattered by the likeness. He encouraged me to be strong-willed and independent. These were odd things for a man of his generation to want in a daughter, and I wonder now if some part of him knew that I would have need of those attributes in life, and was trying to prepare me for what was on the horizon.

  Both Colin and I were encouraged by our parents to savor life to its fullest, and we did - right up until the war came, and changed everything for us, as it did for countless others