✧ Book in the Spotlight ✧ An Echo of Ashes by Ron Allen Ames

An Echo of Ashes

By Ron Allen Ames

Publication Date: March 25th, 2025

Publisher: Historium Press

Pages: 247

Genre: Historical Fiction

An Echo of Ashes is a story lost to time, then found again in century-old letters that lay in a tattered box.

Based on actual events taken from the pages, this story tells of when the Great War and the Spanish Influenza forever altered the lives of millions, including a family of subsistence farmers who also worked the oil fields of Pennsylvania.

Ella and Almon make their home in the backcountry. Almon and his sons work in the oil fields, just as their forefathers before them. As war and influenza break out, the parents seek to shield their family from the impending perils. Earl, the eldest son, is a gifted trombone and piano player. He is captivated by Lucile Lake, a girl from a higher social status. All he has to win her heart are his music and his words as the military draft looms in the foreground. Jack, a friend as close as a brother, faces the horrors of war at the Western Front. Albert's free spirit creates chaos as he searches for direction. Arthur's patriotism leads him to the Mexican border. Young Russell must suppress his fear to save a life, while Little Clara remains protected from the distress.

World War One and the Spanish Influenza Pandemic are most often documented separately, yet they intersected in 1918. For those who endured sacrifice and loss during this time, looking forward seemed their only choice. The sharp echo of tragedy, carried through the ashes of what once was, likely dulled but never vanished from their minds. This is just one of countless family stories from such a perilous chapter in American history.

✧ Excerpt ✧

He heard footsteps coming and could see a silhouette through the lace curtains that hung in the door’s window. The curtains flicked, the door opened . . . and there she stood.

   

 “Yes?” Lucile asked the dashing young man. Earl froze as Lucile stared directly into his deep blue eyes, recognizing him.

“I am here…” Earl blurted out as he thought, I am making a fool of myself. “I mean, I am here to give lessons.” Did that sound right?

She giggled. “I do not want trombone lessons.”

“No,” Earl spoke up. “Piano lessons.”

Just then Lucile’s mother called out from the adjoining parlor, “Lucile, who is at the door?”

“It is the trombone player, mother . . . the one from the pie social. He is here from the advertisement.”

“Tell him it is piano lessons we require, not trombone.”

Earl then spied a grand piano sitting to the right of the room by a large window.

“The advertisement says a reference is required . . . may I?” He pointed to the piano.

Lucile raised her brow and hesitated. Finally, she opened the door just far enough for Earl to squeeze by. He nervously fumbled with his hat before pushing it into Lucile’s hands.

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Ron Allen Ames 

Ron Allen Ames is a history enthusiast who attributes his forty-six years of life experience as a hands-on business co-owner, for giving him insight into human nature, a benefit when portraying the lives of others. The information he received, dating from 1914 to 1919, is what prompted Ames to bring this history to light in An Echo of Ashes.

Ames lives with his wife Cathy in Pennsylvania. They have two grown sons.

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