Children Alone
Mike’s Comments on this book:
This is a true story. This is the story of my great grandfather, as told to me in many bits and pieces by my relatives over many years.
While I have had to take some creative liberties in fictionalizing some of the elements of this book, such as the dialog – after all, who can know the exact words that were said more than 100 years ago? – and the scene descriptions, I have related the tale in this book as accurately as I could.
I am pleased that I have been able to combine all my memories and other documentation into what proves to be a riveting tale of perseverance and faith. I hope you enjoy it.
Detailed Synopsis:
In the rugged hills of 1880’s Tennessee, an intense family drama unfolds, reminding us that truth is indeed stranger, more harrowing, and more miraculous than fiction.
Children Alone follows the true-life story of young Edmund Buck Yarbro and his sister Alice Delilah, detailing their struggles to survive against all odds and to emerge victorious over a series of seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
At tender, young ages, Edmund, Alice, and their three siblings – one of whom is mentally challenged – tragically lose their mother, an event that takes the family on an intense downward spiral into misery, despair, and the ultimate nightmare.
As a single parent of a house full of children, Edmund and Alice’s father Milton Jasper feels the need to remarry, and within a year he has brought home a new wife to serve as a mother figure in his household. But the situation isn’t quite as simple – or as idyllic – as that.
Milton Jasper and his children never could have anticipated the living hell his new wife would make of their lives and her evil attempts to tear the family apart forever.
Edmund, Alice, and their siblings are soon terrorized by on onslaught of abuse and mistreatment at the hands of their new stepmother. Their formerly happy lives are plunged into a dismal world where survival is key and where nothing matters but the next moment. Little do they know that their situation is about to deteriorate even further.
When Edmund and Alice’s stepmother gives birth to her first child, she becomes an even harder, crueler mistress. Even Milton Jasper’s love for his children does not prove valiant enough to save Alice and Edmund, only 10 and 11 years old, respectively, from being cast out of the family forever.
Turned out of the house by their stepmother one cold, frozen night during a bitter Tennessee winter, the young boy and girl are told never to return to the family farm. They are on their own now, and they must make their own choices, forge their own way, and struggle to survive against the harsh elements.
At last, they come to a rundown shack on the banks of the Tennessee River, where they set up house and do their best to scrape by on a rudimentary existence. Between odd jobs and foraging for food, Edmund and Alice learn to make do. But while they are sustaining their physical lives, what has become of the emotional and the spiritual?
Will young Edmund and his sister forever be broken and remain victims, haunted by the tragedy that tore apart their lives? Or will they find a deeper meaning, a purpose, a flash of divine intervention that will lift them out of the ashes of their heartache and pain?
Witness firsthand this true-life testimony of how God can work through even the most impossible of situations, how he can bring good out of evil, and how he wrought a miracle in the lives of Edmund and Alice Yarbro, making them strong pillars of light, love, faith, and honesty in the midst of a dark and lonely world.
©2016 Mike Yarbro (P)2019 Mike Yarbro
Where You can Buy This Book:
