Yesterday’s Magnolia
by Betty J Vaughn
Jo envies Margo and Maurice for their ready charm, looks, wealth, glamour, and exciting lives never realizing that it is she who is envied for a life that contains the things that they themselves long for and have not attained.
‘It’s a shame to have so damned much and yet so little.’ An eastern North Carolina farmer’s daughter, Margot, streaks like a comet into the life style of the rich and famous. Her beauty and exuberant, zestful personality gain her entrance to boardrooms, the White House, a corporate jet stocked with Cristal champagne and caviar, a villa in Italy, and marriage to one of the world’s most powerful men. Maurice, the spurned suitor, seeks friendship and comfort from Margot’s sister, Jo, a quiet, bookish art history teacher. Jo envies them both for their ready charm, looks, wealth, glamour, and exciting lives never realizing that it is she who is envied for a life that contains the things that they themselves have not attained. Like the comets they so resemble both Margot and Maurice are consumed by the friction of life, leaving Jo to remember the magic moments they brought to a more conventional path.
About the author
Betty J. Vaughn, former department chair and art teacher at Enloe Magnet High School in Raleigh, NC, following 32 years of teaching, launched a career as an author on retirement. She is the 2013 winner of the award for historical fiction from the North Carolina Society of Historians for her latest manuscript Run, Cissy, Run. Previously her books Muddy Waters and Turbulent Waters won the awards for 2011 and 2012 respectively. The most recent novel, Yesterday’s Magnolia, is not part of the historical fiction series.In honoring her books, in a unanimous decision, the judges commented: ‘It is gratifying to find an astute historian whose skills far exceed that realm; someone who can take facts and weave them together with fiction and end up with a story that actually could have happened…[It is] a wonderful story full of emotion, unexpected twists and turns, close calls and tragic moments…Mrs. Vaughn can consider herself a seasoned novelist…[Her books] are fast paced, action packed, and full of adventure…Her work simply isn’t just a flurry of words, dry, and boring…She is a master of literary technique as she weaves together her tapestry of words.’A prize winning visual artist with paintings in collections worldwide, Mrs. Vaughn designed the magnet art program at Enloe where her students consistently won top honors. The recipient of a three year Federal Grant to the Wake County School System, she led Enloe Enterprises, Inc. in operating an art gallery, a summer arts camp, and an Emmy award winning television production company. As a result of the Enterprises Enloe was selected as one of the ten best art schools in the nation by Business Week Magazine. She wrote and published a monthly newsletter for the Enterprises and is the author of numerous professional articles. She loves to travel and led study tours of Europe for many years. History, art, and books are a lifelong passion. Both as a teacher of advanced placement art history and as a writer, Mrs. Vaughn brings the story of the past alive through the people who lived it.
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