I burst into tears - surprising myself - when I drove up to this lovely place today - one of my favorite spots in Clear Lake. I know not one person buried here - but I spent much time exploring the cemetery during my days of researching WINNIE'S WAR . . . I'll miss it.







Fairview Cemetery was the inspiration for Winnie's cemetery, and so I'll always think of it as hers. One day as I was circling the graves, trying to figure out how many people died of the Spanish influenza of 1918, I heard a woman calling her dog and looked up to see a house right next door and wondered, Who would live next to a cemetery? And then knew: Why Winnie would.

Mary Carol Forsyth was not yet twenty when she died of the influenza. She caught it while working as a nurse in nearby Galveston:




In my novel TAKING OFF, the protagonist Annie is the granddaughter of Winnie - one scene in that book is set in this cemetery. Here's a view of the creek - the inspiration for my fictional Coward Creek:



It's not the most intriguing or the most beautiful cemetery I've ever visited, but it's the one closest to my heart.