Obituary of a high school friend

This obituary was published in Fredricksburg.com and is echoed in the Let's Write blog, as a tribute to  the life of Nancy Panzer McHugh.  In the narrative, we read a creative example about how a person's life review can become a role model for others. This obituary is recommended reading, because it is a fresh perspective about how to write with love and respect about others. Nancy was one of my high school classmates. Rest in peace, dear Nancy.  Certainly, your obituary raises us up to want to aspire to bring the joys you shared with so many people, into our own lives. Kudos to the person who wrote this obituary.  I suspect Nancy had a say in how the author reported about her life's story.

FREDRICKSBURG, Virginia - Nancy J. McHugh, 74, of Fredericksburg, passed away on Sunday, May 12, 2019 at Mary Washington Hospital. 

Nancy was born and raised in Dundalk, Maryland, the daughter of George and Jackie Panzer. She was a loving, generous, and fiercely independent lady. 

After graduating from Dundalk High school in 1963, she became a radiologic technologist in 1965, a profession in which she excelled for 48 years. During her career, she worked at Union Memorial Hospital, as a practice manager and x-ray technician for Dr. Jack Gordon, and at St. Joseph's Medical Center, from which she retired in 2013. Wherever she went, she set the standard for dedication to her patients, her profession, and her colleagues. 

Nancy will be forever remembered at St. Joseph's for "Chocolate Mondays" in the emergency x-ray department, for never forgetting a birthday, and for making sure that anyone who was experiencing financial difficulties got the first chance at overtime hours. Nancy was devoted to her friends and family, and her days were filled with spending time with the people and pursuits she loved. An irrepressible teller of jokes and dropper of puns, she brought uproarious laughter to any gathering, whether a casual lunch with friends or a formal holiday dinner. Her friends and family knew well that little grin that meant she was brewing a good one. From holidays and special occasions at Thelma's, to the annual cousins' party at Bruz's, to many "Happy Hours" shared with the "Old-Timers" of St. Joe's, to gatherings of neighbors on front porches in summer, her humor and her heart made her company a pleasure to all. Nancy loved holidays, and celebrated every one with themed gifts and a complete changeover of her household décor, including the shower and window curtains. 

Christmas at her house was an all-out festival of beautiful lights, an extravagantly decorated tree, and exquisitely wrapped gifts for everyone she loved. It was her favorite holiday from the time she was a little girl, awakening on Christmas morning to find a tree, hung with tinsel strand by strand, that hadn't been there the night before. Her Christmas cookies were legendary, each batch baked with love and packaged like the crown jewels they were. If you ever received a package of Christmas cookies from Nancy, you felt like a national treasure and in her heart, you were. Nancy loved to travel, and did so extensively, but her heart belonged to Ocean City. The consummate Marylander, she was at her happiest with sand in her toes, sun on her face, a little Old Bay still sticking to her fingers, defending her Thrasher's fries from marauding seagulls while waiting in line for a bucket of caramel corn from Dolle's to take home, and she never left without a custard from Dumser's. Nancy taught her daughter and grandchildren how to make a "beach in a bottle" to bring home, so they'd never be too far from the ocean, and was always looking forward to her next trip to hear the crash of the Atlantic Ocean on the sand. Nancy's gardens at home were always immaculately tended. She loved hydrangeas, azaleas, hostas, and forsythias, and had a flair for getting pachysandra to stay where she wanted it. Her birdfeeders were always filled with the perfect blend of seed to attract the most colorful songbirds, and she particularly delighted in seeing bright red cardinals when the trees were bare for winter. If you chanced to call her while she was sitting on her porch, you were likely to get a running commentary on the feathered visitor population, along with some invective, directed at raiding squirrels. 

Nancy Panzer McHugh

She was an ardent conservationist as well, devoted to preserving the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed. Nancy's greatest loves, though, were her daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren. From the nights in a two bedroom apartment playing Scrabble or watching movies on a VCR rented from Greetings and Readings, to being the first person who got to hold her first grandchild, Nancy's presence and influence were constant and profound. Nancy taught her daughter about all the things that really mattered, and then helped teach her grandchildren that authentic love doesn't always look like shiny paper and pretty ribbons. Often, and at its best, love gets dirt under its fingernails, and sometimes it bleeds. From Disney movies and 80s music to her absolute belief that there is no job beneath any person's dignity, Nancy shared the best of herself with her family. Nancy was small in stature, but that just meant she was concentrated awesomeness, and her loss leaves a very large hole in a great many lives. 

She leaves to carry on her legacy a daughter and her husband, Kelly and Emmanuel Lucia, and grandchildren Jacqueline, Dorothy, George, Salvatore, and Donatello Lucia, along with a great host of beloved friends and relatives. There will be neither a funeral nor a memorial service, at her vehement insistence. Nancy wanted those who loved her to celebrate her life instead of grieving her death, and the celebration she wanted will take place later in the summer. 

If you would like to honor her in the meantime, you could contribute to Doctors without Borders, Meals on Wheels, the Wounded Warrior Project, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, or the Kitchen Fund at St. Jude Catholic Church in Fredericksburg, VA, all of which were dear to her and received her regular contributions. 

Online guest book at covenantfuneralservice.com.

General Dwight Eisenhower on June 6, 1944 - historic narrative

"Nazism and its attendant evils— barbarism, unprecedented genocide, the enslavement of tens of millions of Europeans—might yet prevail..."

Anyone who has had the privilege to visit the beaches in Normandy, in France, will find this historic excerpt to be particularly compelling.  By reading this, I can feel the tension in the room where General Eisenhower made his final invasion decision. 

The D-Day Warriors Who Led The Way to Victory in World War ll

A History News Network (HNN) essay, by Alex Kershaw

From THE FIRST WAVE: The D-Day Warriors Who Led The Way to Victory in World War ll by Alex Kershaw, published by Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2019 by Alex Kershaw.

The clock in the war room at Southwick House showed 4 a.m. The nine men gathered in the twenty‐five‐by‐fifty‐foot former library, its walls lined with empty bookshelves, were anxiously sipping cups of coffee, their minds dwelling on the Allies’ most important decision of World War II. Outside in the darkness, a gale was blowing, angry rain lashing against the windows. “The weather was terrible,” recalled fifty‐three‐year‐old Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower. “Southwick House was shaking. Oh, it was really storming.” Given the atrocious conditions, would Eisenhower give the final go‐ahead or postpone? He had left it until now, the very last possible moment, to decide whether or not to launch the greatest invasion in history.

Seated before Eisenhower, in upholstered chairs at a long table covered in a green cloth, were the commanders of Overlord: the no‐nonsense Missourian, General Omar Bradley, commander of US ground forces; the British General Bernard Law Montgomery, commander of the 21st Army Group, casually attired in his trademark roll‐top sweater and corduroy slacks; Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, the naval commander who had orchestrated the “miracle of Dunkirk”—the evacuation of more than 300,000 troops from France in May 1940; the pipe‐smoking Air Chief Arthur Tedder, also British; Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh‐Mallory, whose blunt pessimism had caused Eisenhower considerable anguish; and Major General Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower’s chief of staff.

Tribute- General Eisenhower statue at Bayeux, in France

A dour and tall Scotsman, forty‐three‐year‐old Group Captain James Stagg, Eisenhower’s chief meteorologist, entered the library and stood on the polished wood floor before Overlord’s commanders. He had briefed Eisenhower and his generals every twelve hours, predicting the storm that was now rattling the windows of the library, which had already led Eisenhower to postpone the invasion from June 5 to June 6. Then, to Eisenhower’s great relief, he had forecast that there would, as he had put it with a slight smile, “be rather fair conditions” beginning that afternoon and lasting for thirty‐six hours.

Once more, Stagg gave an update. The storm would indeed start to abate later that day.

Eisenhower got to his feet and began to pace back and forth, hands clasped behind him, chin resting on his chest, tension etched on his face.

What if Stagg was wrong? The consequences were beyond bearable. But to postpone again would mean that secrecy would be lost. Furthermore, the logistics of men and supplies, as well as the tides, dictated that another attempt could not be made for weeks, giving the Germans more time to prepare their already formidable coastal defenses.

Since January, when he had arrived in England to command Overlord, Eisenhower had been under crushing, ever greater strain. Now it had all boiled down to this decision. Eisenhower alone—not Roosevelt, not Churchill—had the authority to give the final command to go, to “enter the continent of Europe,” as his orders from on high had stated, and “undertake operations aimed at the heart of Germany and the destruction of her armed forces.” He alone could pull the trigger.

Marshaling the greatest invasion in the history of war had been, at times, as terrifying as the very real prospect of failure. The last time there had been a successful cross‐Channel attack was 1066, almost a millennium ago. The scale of this operation had been almost too much to grasp. More than 700,000 separate items had formed the inventory of what was required to launch the assault. Dismissed by some British officers as merely a “coordinator, a good mixer,” the blue‐eyed Eisenhower, celebrated for his broad grin and easy charm, had nevertheless imposed his will, working eighteen‐ hour days, reviewing and tweaking plans to launch some seven thousand vessels, twelve thousand planes, and 160,000 troops to hostile shores.

Eisenhower had overseen vital changes to the Overlord plan. A third more troops had been added to the invasion forces, of whom fewer than 15 percent had actually experienced combat. Heeding General Montgomery’s concerns, Eisenhower had ensured that the front was broadened to almost sixty miles of coast, with a beach code‐named Utah added at the base of the Cotentin Peninsula, farthest to the west. It had been agreed, after Eisenhower had carefully managed the “bunch of prima donnas,” most of them British, who made up his high command—the men gathered now before him—that the attack by night should benefit from the rays of a late‐rising moon.

In addition, it was decided that the first wave of seaborne troops would land at low tide to avoid being ripped apart by beach obstacles. An elaborate campaign of counterintelligence and outright deception, Operation Fortitude, had hopefully kept the Germans guessing as to where and when the Allies would land, providing the critical element of surprise. Hopefully, Erwin Rommel, the field marshal in charge of German forces in Normandy, had not succeeded in fortifying the coast to the extent that he had demanded. Hopefully, the Allies’ greatest advantage—their overwhelming superiority in air power— would make all the difference. Hopefully.

Not even Eisenhower was confident of success. “We are not merely risking a tactical defeat,” he had recently confided to an old friend back in Washington. “We are putting the whole works on one number.” Among Eisenhower’s most senior generals, even now, at the eleventh hour, there was precious little optimism.

Still pacing, Eisenhower thrust his chin in the direction of Montgomery. He was all for going. So was Tedder. Leigh‐Mallory, ever cautious, thought the heavy cloud cover might prove disastrous.

Stagg left the library and its cloud of pipe and cigarette smoke. There was an intense silence; each man knew how immense this moment was in history. The stakes could not be higher. There was no plan B. Nazism and its attendant evils— barbarism, unprecedented genocide, the enslavement of tens of millions of Europeans—might yet prevail. The one man in the room whom Eisenhower genuinely liked, Omar Bradley, believed that Overlord was Hitler’s “greatest danger and his greatest opportunity. If the Overlord forces could be repulsed and trounced decisively on the beaches, Hitler knew it would be a very long time indeed before the Allies tried again—if ever.”

Six weeks before, V Corps commander General Leonard Gerow had written to Eisenhower outlining grave doubts, even though it was too late to do much to alter the overall Overlord plan. It was distressingly clear, after the 4th Division had lost an incredible 749 men—killed in a single practice exercise on April 28 on Slapton Sands—that the Royal Navy and American troops were not working well together. Apart from the appallingly chaotic practice landings—the woeful yet final dress rehearsals—the defensive obstacles sown all along the beaches in Normandy were especially concerning.

Eisenhower had chided Gerow for his skepticism. Gerow had shot back that he was not being “pessimistic” but simply “realistic.” And what of the ten missing officers from the disaster at Slapton Sands who had detailed knowledge of the D‐Day operations, the most important secret in modern history? They knew about “Hobart’s Funnies,” the assortment of tanks specially designed to cut through Rommel’s defenses—including flail tanks that cleared mines with chains, and DUKWs, the six‐wheeled amphibious trucks that would take Rangers to within yards of the steep Norman cliffs—and they knew exactly where and when the Allies were landing. Was it really credible to assume that the Germans had not been tipped off, that so many thousands of planes and ships had gone unseen?

Even Winston Churchill, usually so ebullient and optimistic, was filled with misgivings, having cautioned Eisenhower to “take care that the waves do not become red with the blood of American and British youth.” The prime minister had recently told a senior Pentagon official, John J. McCloy, that it would have been best to have had “Turkey on our side, the Danube under threat as well as Norway cleaned up before we undertook [Overlord].” The British Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, chief of the Imperial General Staff, had fought in Normandy in 1940 before the British Expeditionary Force’s narrow escape at Dunkirk. Just a few hours earlier, he had written in his diary that he was “very uneasy about the whole operation. At the best it will fall so very, very far short of the expectation of the bulk of the people, namely all those who know nothing about its difficulties. At the worst it may well be the most ghastly disaster of the whole war!”

No wonder Eisenhower had complained of a constant ringing in his right ear. He was almost frantic with nervous exhaustion, but he dared not show it as he continued now to pace back and forth, lost in thought, listening to the crackle and hiss of logs burning in the fireplace. He could not betray his true feelings, his dread and anxiety.

The minute hand on the clock moved slowly, for as long as five minutes according to one account. Walter Bedell Smith recalled, “I never realized before the loneliness and isolation of a commander at a time when such a momentous decision has to be taken, with the full knowledge that failure or success rests on his judgment alone.”

Eisenhower finally stopped pacing and then looked calmly at his lieutenants.

“OK. We’ll go.”

I was saddened to see the Notre Dame in flames: - Texas teacher essay

Architectural history expressed with spiritual emotion:

"Michelangelo said that God had placed the image inside the marble he was getting ready to carve. His task simply was to chip away the marble until the image became visible." Ramnath Subramanian 

Firefighters and technicians work on a balcony of Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral in Paris, four days after a fire devastated the cathedral. Thousands of Parisians and tourists watched in horror from nearby streets on April 15, as flames engulfed the building and rescuers tried to save as much as they could of the cathedral's treasures built up over centuries. (Photo: Lionel Bonaventure, AFP/Getty Images)

Essay published in El Paso Times newspaper:

Notre Dame Cathedral reminds us about how protection, preservation of history is paramount.

Ramnath Subramanian- When I was standing with my wife, Maria, in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral, in Paris, two years ago. A few words written by Ernest Dimnet (1866-1954), a priest, who wrote in the “Art of Thinking”, came to my mind.

He had written that “Architecture, of all the arts, is the one which acts the most slowly, but the most surely, on the soul.”

The Notre Dame, I thought to myself, far from being just a grand building, is — to quote Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe — “frozen music,” which stirs the soul to contemplate God and divinity.

I had the same feeling standing in front of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo) in Florence, the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai, and the Blue Mosque in Istanbul.

No building of the modern era has this kind of an effect on me.

Modern buildings have impressive scale and height, but they lack transcendence.

Take the Duomo, for example. The plan for the dome’s construction submitted by Brunelleschi in 1418 was considered by many to be a madman’s scheme.

However, the architect, with his head full of God, heard “harps in the air.”

Eschewing (aka, bypassing) the flying buttresses, which were quotidian (aka, common) in architecture all across Europe, Brunelleschi’s proposal, as Ross King writes in “Brunelleschi’s Dome,*” was to erect the dome literally over thin air by the “perfect placement of brick and stone.”

He also “built ingenious hoists and cranes to carry an estimated seventy million pounds hundreds of feet into the air.”

Brunelleschi worked out the kinks in the design and construction over a period of several years, and gave us a masterpiece that hovers in the air like God’s signature.

Likewise, in Istanbul, the Blue Mosque lifts the city heavenward with its ascending domes and six slender minarets.

In Madurai, it is impossible to look at the Meenakshi Temple and not be awed by its elegance and beauty, which, though created by man, is firmly bosomed in God.

The protection and preservation of all these ancient buildings is a supreme duty of man, for as God willed the genius architects to build, he so wills us to protect their works.

I was saddened last week, therefore, to see the Notre Dame in flames.

As details of the tragedy emerged, I was nonplussed by the failure of authorities and technology systems to detect the fire early and to put it out with dispatch.

As images of the conflagration flooded news channels, I felt an extraordinary sadness which, try as I might, I could not shake off.

How sad it is to see old things die.

The cathedral will be rebuilt, for sure, but it won’t be the same, because the new builders will not hear the same harps in the air that the old builders did.

Regardless, whether reality is in front of us, or is a transfiguration of what was in front of us, the truth that God’s hand makes wonders to happen cannot be attenuated.

Michelangelo said that God had placed the image inside the marble he was getting ready to carve. His task simply was to chip away the marble until the image became visible.

Individual ambition and civic pride are always at play in grand constructions, but when religious faith enters the equation, grandeur puts on a show that is for all ages.

Of all the cities I have visited, Florence is my favorite, because it preserves its historical roots well.

Walking down the cobblestone streets you wouldn’t be too surprised if you espied Michelangelo or Brunelleschi rushing about to get their day’s work done.

History comes alive and stays alive when we take care of the things that belong to the past.

Ramnath Subramanian is a retired public-school teacher. 

* Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture

On August 19, 1418, a competition concerning Florence's magnificent new cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore--already under construction for more than a century--was announced: "Whoever desires to make any model or design for the vaulting of the main Dome....shall do so before the end of the month of September." 

The proposed dome was regarded far and wide as all but impossible to build: not only would it be enormous, but its original and sacrosanct design shunned the flying buttresses that supported cathedrals all over Europe. The dome would literally need to be erected over thin air.

Of the many plans submitted, one stood out--a daring and unorthodox solution to vaulting what is still the largest dome (143 feet in diameter) in the world. It was offered not by a master mason or carpenter, but by a goldsmith and clockmaker named Filippo Brunelleschi, who would dedicate the next twenty-eight years to solving the puzzles of the dome's construction. In the process, he did nothing less than reinvent the field of architecture.

Brunelleschi's Dome is the story of how a Renaissance genius bent men, materials, and the very forces of nature to build an architectural wonder we continue to marvel at today. Denounced at first as a madman, Brunelleschi was celebrated at the end as a genius. He engineered the perfect placement of brick and stone, built ingenious hoists and cranes to carry an estimated 70 million pounds hundreds of feet into the air, and designed the workers' platforms and routines so carefully that only one man died during the decades of construction--all the while defying those who said the dome would surely collapse and his own personal obstacles that at times threatened to overwhelm him.

Even today, in an age of soaring skyscrapers, the cathedral dome of Santa Maria del Fiore retains a rare power to astonish. 

Author Ross King brings its creation to life in a fifteenth-century chronicle with twenty-first-century resonance.

Letter tribute to an American Hero - nicely nuanced

An echo tribute published in The Dallas Morning News. 

An overdue recognition with a patriotic and sensitive point of view.

Another hero among us- from Dallas

This letter to the editor was written in response to "An American hero may be next door — Or at the service station, like Hiroshi 'Hershey' Miyamura,", a report by Mike Tharp

LETTER- In February 1955, I returned to Gallup, New Mexico, after two years of military duty in Japan. 

I returned to my job with the federal government. One day, I met Eddie Shibata, owner of Tom's Variety Store, in downtown Gallup and a Japanese American. For several years, I stopped at least once a week to buy a newspaper or magazine. We became good friends.

I learned that Shibata had fought in Italy with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. I continually asked him about his exploits. I asked him how rough it was. He replied "a lot especially when we had to knock out the German pillboxes on top of mountains. They rained bullets down on us. We lost many soldiers."

I asked him why he joined the Army and he replied, "because it was my duty as an American." He said he joined in early 1942 right after Pearl Harbor was bombed. Shibata seemed to be more interested in my stories of Japan where I had made many Japanese friends. His wife Keiko told me that Shibata was wounded but returned to duty after healing. She added sometimes he had bad dreams.

Several others of Japanese descent from Gallup were also in the Army. It's also the home of Hiroshi "Hershey" Miyamura, a Medal of Honor winner.

Carlos J. Romero, Dallas

Writing about World War II in France - published in France Today

This book essay caught my attention because my husband was attached to the Seabee Batallion MCB 71, in Vietnam where they were stationed at Chu Lai. 

Obviously, in this essay, the French connection with the Seabee subject are, to me, a dual interest. Thanks to the author.

An echo essay about the book "Finding Gilbert: A Promise Fulfilled" by author Diane Covington-Carter:

Johnson and Gilbert. courtesy of Diane Covington-Carter

Reflections on “The Greatest Generation” and D-Day in France

My relationship with the D-Day invasion began before I was born. My father landed on Omaha Beach in June, 1944 and I came along later as part of the ‘post war Baby Boom generation’.

Dad was a Seabee, an engineer in the Naval Construction Battalion Corps, whose mottos are ‘We Build, We Fight’ and ‘Can Do!’; their mascot, a bee, carries a drill and a gun. He spent five months on the cliffs above Omaha Beach where, after he supervised the construction of the navy camp, he then organized the rebuilding of bridges, the carving out of roads and whatever construction and engineering projects needed doing.

Dad’s stories about his time in France were as much a part of my childhood as the yellow Formica table we crowded around each evening, and the glasses of frosty, whole milk from the local dairy we drank with dinner.

He’d describe how his high school French made ‘s’il vous plâit’ come out sounding like ‘silver plate’, but would smile when he told how patient the French were with his efforts.

As a lieutenant in charge of the mess hall in the camp for two months, he’d load up pans of fresh food that would have gone to waste and take them to a different farm house each evening. “Oh, they would be so grateful,” he’d say, and his eyes would shine remembering the happiness of the farmers at this simple gesture of goodwill.

The Seabee unit of Diane Covington-Carter’s father (back left) in Normandy, 1944

Dad also became close to an orphan boy Gilbert, who lived near the camp, making sure that Gilbert came through the lunch line with Dad every day. Dad even tried unsuccessfully to adopt Gilbert and bring him home. In my childhood, I felt curious about this French boy who could have been my older brother. He hovered in my consciousness, slightly out of focus.

I studied French in high school and college and worked hard to keep it up in my adult life. It was as if I had a connection to France through my father, and, though I couldn’t explain it, it felt deep and true.

Near the end of my father’s life, his body weak with cancer, I noticed how when he spoke about his time in France during the war, his eyes shone, he sat up straighter and his voice came out clear and strong. It was if he regained some of the youthful vigor of his part in turning the tide of World War II.

He even mentioned Gilbert again, his voice becoming quiet, wistful. “I wonder what ever happened to him?” My father died in 1991.

For the 50th anniversary, June 6, 1994, I traveled to Normandy where I accepted a medal in my father’s honor in a moving ceremony for veterans and their families. I spent a day touring the invasion beaches and learned that Dad had been a part of the largest land and sea invasion in the history of the world.

I had adored my father and thought I knew him well. But there was so much that he’d seen and experienced that he hadn’t talked about. Why hadn’t I encouraged him to come back to France again? Why hadn’t I asked more questions and paid more attention, before it was too late?

Though I wasn’t even sure how to spell his last name, I put an ad in the Normandy paper to look for Gilbert. By a combination of miracles and providence, I connected with Gilbert on what would have been my father’s 80th birthday.

Gilbert had told his wife, his daughter and his grandsons about the kind lieutenant who had wanted to take him home to America and that someday, someone would come. In our emotional reunion, when I told Gilbert that my father had never forgotten him, he wept.

My father’s stories led me to France and to Gilbert. They also created a deep connection to the D-Day anniversaries that didn’t end with the 50th. I have stayed close to Gilbert and his family, and attended both the 60th and the 70th anniversaries of D-Day, working as a translator and guide for returning veterans. The French locals would swarm around them and we’d all be wiping away tears as I translated their words of gratitude.

Now I will be in France again for the 75th ceremonies in France, the last time that veterans from D-Day will be alive for the events. I’ll be staying with Gilbert’s widow, who has become like a sister to me.

My heart is pulling me back, for my father, for Gilbert and for all the men of ‘The Greatest Generation’ who risked their lives in France, fighting to preserve our freedom.

And standing there with us, unseen, will be all the men who never came home. The words from the cemetery chapel above Omaha beach in Normandy express it well: “Think not only of their passing. Remember the glory of their spirit.” We will remember them that day and, I hope, from now on.

Diane Covington-Carter’s award-winning memoir, "Finding Gilbert, A Promise Fulfilled," tells the story of finding her father’s French orphan. The book recently won the Gold award in a Society of American Travel Writers competition.