Scenic, Historic Virginia--Beth Trissel

The rich history of Virginia, the Native Americans and the people who journeyed here from far beyond her borders are at the heart of my inspiration.  Not only have I lived in the Old Dominion for most of my life, but also several previous centuries in the sense that my ancestors were among the earliest settlers of the Shenandoah Valley (1730’s/1740’s). Chapel Hill, circa 1816, the Churchman family home place on my father’s side, is part of the inspiration behind the old homes in my novels, as are the other early plantations I’ve visited like Berkeley, Shirley and Carter’s Grove.  My Scots-Irish forebears settled Augusta County in the southern valley with names like Houston, Patterson, Finley, Moffett and McLeod.  These clannish people often intermarried, so I can tie in with many other early families depending on how I swing through the ancestral tree.

Colonial Virginia encompassed a vast territory.  Initially  Augusta County named for Princess Augusta, wife of Frederick, Prince of Wales, stretched northward from the present day county of Rockingham to include part of Page; to the South it extended the full length of Virginia’s border, and to the northwest it included the present day states of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and part of western Pennsylvania, all the territory claimed by Great Britain at that time.

Jamestown, the earliest successful English colony, and  Williamsburg,  a vital center in early America, are both in Virginia.  If you haven’t visited Williamsburg, Jamestown, and Yorktown, you’re in for a real treat.  These sites are wonderfully  restored so it’s like stepping back in time to another age, one that fascinates me.

Virginia is steeped in history.   How could I not be drawn to this wealth of stories here?  They span centuries.  And if the earth could speak what tales it would tell, some of them horrific.

Virginia is also the site of more battles than any other state in the union, encompassing the Indian Wars, the Revolution and that most uncivil of wars, the Civil War.  Not to mention, Virginia has more ghost stories than any other state.  Also fodder for the imagination and yet more stories.

If You Would Be Wise--Quotes and Images

'Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, ‘Where have I gone wrong?’ Then a voice says to me, ‘This is going to take more than one night.’ ~ Charles M. Schulz

“There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart.”-Charles Dickens

“He who knows others is learned; he who knows himself is wise.”- Lao Tze

“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”- Mohandas K. Gandhi

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it”-Albert Einstein

***Mount Mansfield, image by my brother, photographer and artist John Churchman. For more on his work visit: http://www.brickhousestudios.com/

“Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.”-Sophocles

“It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.”- Robert Green Ingersoll

“It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.”-Walter Lippman

“Wisdom is a sacred communion.”-Victor Hugo

“Wisdom begins in wonder.”-Socrates

“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.”- Lin Yutang

“Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?”-Friedrich Nietzsche

“If I have been of service, if I have glimpsed more of the nature and essence of ultimate good, if I am inspired to reach wider horizons of thought and action, if I am at peace with myself, it has been a successful day.”- Alex Noble

“Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.”- Baltasar Gracian

“Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.”-Thomas Jefferson

“The truest greatness lies in being kind, the truest wisdom in a happy mind.”-Ella Wheeler Wilcox

“My experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren’t so because of what they know but because of their insatiable need to know more.”-Michael Gerber

“Too bad that all the people who really know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs and cutting hair.”- George Burns

“Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.”-Sandara Carey

“We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.”- George Bernard Shaw

“Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.”- Confucius

“Great beginnings are not as important as the way one finishes.” -Dr. James Dobson

“Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”-Nathaniel Hawthorne

“The well bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.” -Oscar Wilde

***Apart from the image by my brother, John Churchman, the remainder of the images are royalty free.