"I'm glad I'm alive."

Doris Louise Bailey, a teen in the Prohibition era, writes this sentiment over and over in her diaries as she struggles with a life-threatening bout of scarlet fever. But it's also an apt summation of how she lived in the years following her brush with death. Reaching for the Moon: More Diaries of a Roaring Twenties Teen (1927-1929) contains Doris's true-life adventures as she flirts with boys, sneaks sips of whiskey and bets on racehorses - breaking rules and hearts along the way. In Portland, Oregon, she's the belle of the ball, enjoying the attention of several handsome gents. In Arizona, she rides a wild strawberry roan, winning races and kissing cowboys. From hospital wards and petting parties to rodeos and boarding school, this older, more complex Doris faces the dawning of the Depression and her own emergence as a young adult with even more humor, passion and love of life than she showed in her earlier diaries. Readers of all ages will relate to her pursuit of true love, freedom, and adventure in her own time and on her own terms.

It is July of 1925 when, on a whim, fifteen-year-old Doris Bailey decides to keep a diary-a place where she can openly confide her dreams, hopes, and ambitions. Doris is flirtatious, untamed, and romantic, imagining herself in and out of love with each passing day.

In this first volume of Th e Doris Diaries, her great-niece, Julia Park Tracey, shares Doris's journals capturing a year in the life of a precocious teenager in the rapidly changing world of the mid-1920s. Doris chats on the telephone and dances to records on the Victrola. Not only does she flirt, kiss, and ride in cars with boys, but she also sneaks out, cuts school, and chops off her hair. While Doris constantly pushes the boundaries of acceptable behavior for a young girl, she retells juicy gossip from St. Helen's Hall, a military academy dance, and an Oregon dude ranch-sharing an unforgettable glimpse into a treasure trove of authentic American life in the Northwest.

"I've Got Some Lovin' to Do," with commentary, footnotes, and photographs, presents an entertaining portrayal of an American girl brimming with curiosity, a zest for life, and a hunger to experience love for the first time.

Based on the author’s research into her grandfather’s past as an adopted child, and the surprising discovery of his family of origin and how he came to be adopted, Julia Park Tracey has created a mesmerizing work of historical fiction illuminating the darkest side of the Orphan Train. In 1859, women have few rights, even to their own children. When her husband dies and her children become wards of a predator, Martha—bereaved and scared—flees their beloved country home taking the children with her to squalor of New York City. She manages to find them shelter in a tenement packed with other down-on-their-luck families and then endeavors to find work as a seamstress. But as a naive woman alone, preyed on by male employers, she soon finds herself nearly destitute. Her children are hungry with no coal for their fire. Illness lays them low and Martha begins to lose hope.  The Home for the Friendless, an aid society, offers free food, clothing, and schooling to New York’s street kids. When a cutpurse takes the last of their money, Martha reluctantly places her two boys in the Home, keeping daughter Sarah to help with the baby. Martha takes roommates into her one room, rotating her and Sarah’s bed in shifts with other struggling women.  Finally, faced with prostitution and homelessness herself, Martha takes Sarah and baby Homer to the Home for what she thinks is short-term care. When her quarterly visit to her children is blocked, Martha discovers that the Society has indentured her two eldest out to work in New York and Illinois via the Orphan Train, and has placed her two youngest for permanent adoption in Ohio. Stunned at their loss, Martha begs for her children back, but the Society refuses.  Rather than succumb—the Civil War erupting around her—Martha sets out to reclaim each of them.

"I'm glad I'm alive."

Doris Louise Bailey, a teen in the Prohibition era, writes this sentiment over and over in her diaries as she struggles with a life-threatening bout of scarlet fever. But it's also an apt summation of how she lived in the years following her brush with death. Reaching for the Moon: More Diaries of a Roaring Twenties Teen (1927-1929) contains Doris's true-life adventures as she flirts with boys, sneaks sips of whiskey and bets on racehorses - breaking rules and hearts along the way. In Portland, Oregon, she's the belle of the ball, enjoying the attention of several handsome gents. In Arizona, she rides a wild strawberry roan, winning races and kissing cowboys. From hospital wards and petting parties to rodeos and boarding school, this older, more complex Doris faces the dawning of the Depression and her own emergence as a young adult with even more humor, passion and love of life than she showed in her earlier diaries. Readers of all ages will relate to her pursuit of true love, freedom, and adventure in her own time and on her own terms.

It is July of 1925 when, on a whim, fifteen-year-old Doris Bailey decides to keep a diary-a place where she can openly confide her dreams, hopes, and ambitions. Doris is flirtatious, untamed, and romantic, imagining herself in and out of love with each passing day.

In this first volume of Th e Doris Diaries, her great-niece, Julia Park Tracey, shares Doris's journals capturing a year in the life of a precocious teenager in the rapidly changing world of the mid-1920s. Doris chats on the telephone and dances to records on the Victrola. Not only does she flirt, kiss, and ride in cars with boys, but she also sneaks out, cuts school, and chops off her hair. While Doris constantly pushes the boundaries of acceptable behavior for a young girl, she retells juicy gossip from St. Helen's Hall, a military academy dance, and an Oregon dude ranch-sharing an unforgettable glimpse into a treasure trove of authentic American life in the Northwest.

"I've Got Some Lovin' to Do," with commentary, footnotes, and photographs, presents an entertaining portrayal of an American girl brimming with curiosity, a zest for life, and a hunger to experience love for the first time.