Rose Here: I am happy to introduce you to my newest writing friend, Rita Gerlach, whom I recently cyber-met by working on this novella together. So glad she joined us in the Erie Canal Brides Collection.
Wedding of the Waters by Rita Gerlach
Goshen Creek, New York. 1819
Short blurb: Charlotte Verger, a physician’s niece, is unexpectedly reunited with her first and only love, Blaine McKenna. When word comes that the Erie Canal builders at the Montezuma Swamp (where Blaine is working as a surveyor) are stricken with malaria, Charlotte risks a journey to reach him.
As long as I can hold a pen and have all my faculties, I will never turn down the opportunity to write a story. When I was asked if I’d like to be included in the Erie Canal Brides Collection, I had to pause at first. I knew nothing about the Erie Canal and found it to be an unusual title. I wondered how could a writer write a romance set along a muggy ditch, a swampy canal, a place of sinners and saints among surly boatman, during the time of its building. That feeling some of us writers get when a story pops into our minds welled up inside me. Here was an exciting challenge set before me and I couldn’t wait to roll up my sleeves and get to it. The research was absolutely fascinating.
Wedding of the Waters is the first novella printed in the collection. I chose this title for two reasons. One was the historical significance of two bodies of water meeting after years of labor to connect them, a nice metaphor for love. The other was the chance to bring to readers a romantic, inspirational story of two people brought together after many years apart all due to the building of the canal and the needs of a little New York village in want of a physician.
The year is 1819. In the Wedding of the Waters, readers meet Charlotte Verger, the niece of a country doctor, and Blaine McKenna a surveyor for the Canal. When malaria breaks out among the builders, their love for each other is tested. I say this because we all know that true love is selfless and often times tried under difficult circumstances. You might not find ‘sugar and spice and everything nice’ in Wedding of the Waters. But you will find a story reflective of the times the characters live in, that is meant to inspire you to live a life of loving others unconditionally.
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Bio:
Best selling author Rita Gerlach lives in a historical town nestled along the Catoctin Mountains in central Maryland, amid Civil War battlefields and Revolutionary War outposts. In many of her stories, she writes about the struggles endured by early colonists. Her first book in the historical series for Abingdon Press, ‘Daughters of the Potomac’, was nominated for an Inspy Award. She is currently writing in the Edwardian era, and writing novellas for Barbour Publishing.
I loved this story in The Erie Canal Brides Collection. Thank you for sharing.
Hi Rita, one of my longtime writing friends wrote me that she knew a former classmate named Rita Gerlach. I wonder if this is the same person. She also said, “I attended Immaculata University, a Catholic college in the Philadelphia area.” Could that be you? Rose
That is so interesting. I might know her. I didn’t attend that college, but my parents send me to a St, Catherine Laboure School in Wheaton, MD.
I didn’t go to that college, but we might know each other.