This book is adapted and enhanced from Diane Campbell Green’s “A Ghost’s Story,” entered in the Reedsy Prompt Contest # 189, March 2023
Chapter 1
Yardley
Yardley, Pennsylvania, is a lovely little town on the Delaware River. The area was first occupied by the Turtle Clan of the Lenape Nation, who lived as farmers and fishermen. The Lenape are described as people with gentle hearts. William Yeardley (later spelled Yardley) bought a 519-acre tract from William Penn and settled on this land in July 1682. Yardley and his family were Quakers. (A Quaker is a member of the Religious Society of Friends, a Christian movement devoted to peaceful principles.) They called their home ‘Prospect Farm’ and family members lived there for over 150 years. In the early years, Yardley had two flour mills and a ferry line. Later, there was a sawmill locally noted for its five o’clock whistle that could be heard all over town in the 1960s. 8 Until the mid-twentieth century, Yardley and the surrounding countryside was still relatively open and in agricultural use. In the 1950s, the Cadwallader Court (Kad Wall Der Kort) neighborhood was built. Sturdy, compact, cookie-cutter homes were constructed, and veterans of World War II settled in them to raise families. The population of Yardley hasn’t changed much since 1960. The United States Census records of that year list 2,271 people residing in Yardley. In 2020, Yardley’s population was 2,498 people. Across the mighty Delaware River from Yardley, lies Trenton. Trenton was established by Quakers as well. On Christmas of 1776, George Washington and his army crossed the Delaware (no small feat) and defeated the Hessian troops garrisoned there to assist the British. Recently, I stumbled on a wonderful essay by Yardley Librarian, Doris Chapman. * (I played with Nadine Chapman as a child.) “Where would you find a more picturesque scene in the summer than little boys fishing on the banks of the Lake or parents on their way to the library with small children and bags of corn or bread to feed the ducks, or the children 9 in the house across the lake paddling their canoe to the library or watching the growth of families of ducks in the spring…. Winter was more of a problem. The Yardley Recreation Board installed flood lights for night skating, which were great for the skaters, but hectic for the library staff. We had phone calls as to the safety of the ice = “was it frozen?” The library patrons had problems with people blocking the steps while putting on their skates. …We had skaters try to enter the library with their skates on to use the lavatory. They used our porch railings and lakeside wooden benches to chop up for firewood to be used in bonfires to keep warm. We had hockey pucks sail through the windows…. We put Band-Aids on skaters’ boo boos, and the next morning we picked up skaters’ hats, scarves, socks, etc. We also rescued ducks frozen in the ice.” “Halcyon Days: Recollections of the Old Library,” Yardley Historical Association, 2023. *I must add that my character, Maxine Pincher, in the Becky Chalmers Series, is strictly imaginary and only like Mrs. Chapman in Maxine’s gracious moments. 10 It is no exaggeration that Yardley was and is a marvelous place to have lived in or to live in now. See “Yardley, Pa.: An Affordable Option Between New York and Philadelphia,” The New York Times, by Dave Caldwell, Oct. 20, 2021.
