Missing Lucille
Dec 20, 2010
Missing Lucille
Author: Suzanne Berne
Publisher: Algonquin
Publication Date: October 2010
ISBN: 978-1-56512-625-1
One might wonder how a biography of a women that no one really knew can be so fascinating. But it's pulled off wonderfully here. Lucille was a Kroger heiress, one of seven children. Her father, Bernard Henry Kroger started the chain that serves the South today.
Lucille died very young from cancer. Suzanne, who wrote this book, is her granddaughter, but even Suzanne's father barely remembers his mother as she died when he was 6.
The stories in this book are pulled from letters (Lucille was a voracious letter writer), journals, photographs and memories. A woman who no one remembers well at all apparently packed quite a lot into her life. From growing up surrounded by wealth and industry to working as a nurse/truck driver on the front lines in France during WWI, Lucille rarely had a dull moment.
Sadly her life was cut short, but from all reports, she simply ignored her illness and kept living as she had until she was no longer able.
The books itself is very well written and keeps you engaged the entire time. In the end, you wish Lucille had not succumbed to illness so that you would be able to read of her further adventures - I'm certain there would have been many.
Go HERE and read an excerpt from the book.
