A Celerus Books publication

Few tangible family heirlooms remain from the generations discussed in this book. Among them are the circular hooked rug and kerosene lamp pictured above with the author. Hester Thompson, Valerie’s great-grandmother, stitched the multicolored rug from strips of rags. Its design is part of the inspiration for the book’s title. Hester carried the kerosene lantern in the early 1900s as she tucked her children into bed each night.

Valerie Thompson Cearley and her husband Ray live in northeast Georgia near their large family, which includes parents, four children, a son-in-law and daughter-in-law, and five grandchildren. Valerie is a writer, editor, and college English instructor. She combines her love of history, family, and writing by traveling to ancestral hollows and towns of North Carolina and Tennessee, visiting and interviewing their residents, and writing about local and family history.