When He Was Gone

Elizabeth Garraux deeply loved her husband, Frederick, and he was willing to turn their lives upside down to please her. And yet, within years of a perilous Atlantic crossing, she ended up on her own in a new country with eleven children. So how, during the tumultuous post-Civil War years in the deep South, was Elizabeth able to become a great success? It was a time of social upheaval, racial tension, and systemic misogyny, with women often treated as nothing more than their husband's property. This novel is woven around the Garrauxs' true-life story -- one of triumphs and of tragedies so disturbing they were reported in newspapers across the country.

Elizabeth, five feet tall and 100 pounds, was truly indomitable. She shattered expectations and conquered adversity to create a new life in Greenville, South Carolina, despite her husband's mysterious absence. Several years ago, I discovered that we currently live on the land that was once her home. And Elizabeth's unrelating, insistent whispers from the past required that her story be told.