“Honey, you’re going to want to read this!” My husband had found me a treasure, this time as he read the Scranton Times on his Ipad. I call this stuff book and blog booty—lost treasures of ancient news to write about.
I glanced over his shoulder and saw a picture of a quaint, white, clapboard one-room schoolhouse.
Less than five miles from our home, Waverly, Pennsylvania boasts an Underground Railroad hideaway. According to the article, this delightful structure, built 182 years ago, is the second-oldest schoolhouse still in existence in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania. A group of runaway slaves is believed to have used this building as a church and schoolhouse.
Forgotten and abandoned, the building fell into disrepair until North Abington Township acquired it in 2008, hoping to restore it. “We bought it mainly because we didn’t want it to get torn down,” Township Manager Bill White said. “But we don’t have the money to restore it. Thankfully, a group of residents has taken the initiative to try and renovate it.” The Neighborhood Preservation Alliance, and Maryellen D’Andrea of the Historic Architectural Review Board, are among those handling this project.
I dropped the paper on the kitchen table. My Nancy Drew nose began to twitch. I had to find this praiseworthy place. My husband and I ventured on a treasure hunt that Sunday after church. We found the schoolhouse on the main road in Waverly, no thanks to my GPS that took us several miles past it.
I walked up the worn slate steps, opened the blackened screen and faced a faded red door with peeling paint. I caught my breath. “The door is red!” I said.
“Yes, I know,” my husband answered.
He and I both knew this was a God moment for me. My first novel told the story of two modern day kids who found a mysterious cellar that was once used to hide slaves on the Underground Railroad. Guess what color the cellar door was? Yep, faded red with peeling paint.
Time after time, I peddled Beyond the Red Door to agents and editors, but the door never opened. Now I stood before a real red door that had actually been used to harbor runaway slaves. God had never closed the door to my writing. He just opened a new one, in a new book, with real history about the Underground Railroad, Dark Enough to See the Stars.