Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

There was a chill in the air, although the sun was a golden orb in a clear blue sky. The early daffodils with their bright yellow petals were swaying against the clipped green lawns that rolled down to a nearby pond. Spencer drew in a breath of fresh air. He smelled the sweet fragrance of spring bulbs heralding spring after a hard winter. It rained earlier in the day, and even if it was almost noon, the dew from the shrubs gave an iridescent quality on a cool spring day. Spencer looked up at the house and could not help admiring its majestic grandeur surrounded by acres of rolling meadow, gardens, and rare specimens of trees just like Paul had told him earlier. The brick façade, flat balustraded roof, five-bay central block flanked by the extended bay on each side, with mullioned…

Photo Credit: Wikimedia.org.

The Chinese on the West Philippine Sea is a very hot topic in the Philippines right now. With the election coming in 2022, President Duterte is under pressure to defend his stand on China’s ignoring the 2016 Arbitral victory of the Philippines.

In Philippine law, the West Philippine Sea refers only to the portions of the South China Sea, which the Philippine government claims to be part of the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone. The area’s naming became official through Administrative Order No. 29 by President Benigno Aquino III on September 5, 2012. The administrative order asserts the Philippine claim over its EEZ in the South China Sea. It conveys the Philippine government’s position that it has sovereign rights under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea over the West Philippine Sea.

Since 2013, China has been island-building in the Spratly Islands and the Paracel…

May is a great month for gardeners. Spring is in full force, and everything is blooming. Here in the South, it was such glorious days.

I have never seen my garden so beautiful. Last year was a bummer. Early in the season, my husband was so sick I had no time for gardening. After he passed on, I was so depressed and could not get going. So this season, I made up for what I lost last year, and it shows.

I packed the front bed with plants, just what I did in my garden in New York. I have orchestrated the planting so that I have color in the garden continuously. I usually forget to take photos of my garden, but this year I took some to plan where to put more spring bulbs for next season.

The season started with spring bulbs and violas. Pansy loves the cold…

Official website: https://www.green-wood.com/

BillionGraves: https://billiongraves.com/cemetery/Green-Wood-Cemetery/71872

Cemetery Census – http://cemeterycensus.com/ No listing located

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/historicgreenwood/

Find-A-Grave:https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/64718/green-wood-cemetery (372 Famous memorials – https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/64718/famous-memorials)

Flickr: Some listings located https://www.flickr.com/photos/emilio_guerra/35618835782/

Foursquare: https://foursquare.com/greenwoodhf

GenealogyTrails: http://genealogytrails.com/ny/kings/cem_greenwood.html

Google Maps: Google Maps, Brooklyn New York (finally got Street View to come up)

Histopolis: https://www.histopolis.com/Place/US/NY/Kings_County/Green-Wood_Cemetery

Historical Marker Database: https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=69543

Hometown Locator: No listing located https://www.hometownlocator.com/

Inspirock: https://www.inspirock.com/united-states/brooklyn/green-wood-cemetery-a821473687

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/historicgreenwood/

Interment.net: http://www.interment.net/data/us/ny/kings/greenwood/index.htm

Gravestones.org: https://newyorkgravestones.org/cemetery.php?cemID=3819

Only In Your State: #2 https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/new-york/creepy-cemeteries-ny/

Pinterest: Some listings located https://www.pinterest.com/realtycollectiv/greenwood-cemetery/

RecordAGrave – https://www.recordagrave.com/records No listing located

Roads and Kingdoms: No listing located https://roadsandkingdoms.com/

Roadside America:https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/26837

Road Trippers: No listing located https://maps.roadtrippers.com/

Trip Advisor: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60827-d565061-Reviews-Green_Wood_cemetery-Brooklyn_New_York.html

Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/greenwood+cemetery

Twitch channel or search: No listing located https://www.twitch.tv/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/GreenWoodHF

US GenWeb Tombstone Project: No listing located http://files.usgwarchives.net/

Vimeo channel or search: Has its own channel https://vimeo.com/channels/79170

Waymarking: https://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/wm2BZ2_Green_Wood_Cemetery_Brooklyn_NY_USA

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green-Wood_Cemetery

World Wide Cemetery: https://cemetery.org/.There is a one-time $90 fee to add a memorial: https://cemetery.org/memorial-form/

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

As the RMS Olympic continued toward the New York Harbor, Spencer Wentworth crossed the huge hall with luxurious carpeting and splendidly decorated for the first-class passenger. He aimed toward the door leading to the outside deck, where he would join some first-class passengers enjoying the last few nautical miles of the voyage. As the ship entered the New York harbor, the fog was low but not as thick as the fog that enveloped London when he left his London home to come back to New York. Spencer could barely see the outline of the Statue of Liberty. He still could not hear the pulse of this great city from across the water.

Half an hour before sunrise, New York, the most garish of the Atlantic ports, was beautiful as seen in the distance from the waters of the harbor with the fine mist softening…

As a leading province during the Spanish Colonial Era, the province of Iloilo is widely known for its beautiful old-world Spanish architecture similar to that of Latin American Countries. Spanish colonial churches are amongst the well-known tourist sites in the province. The presence of many old churches underscores the high regard the Spanish colonizers had for Iloilo Province as a religious center for the region.

The Miag-ao Church is one of the finest Baroque Churches in the Philippines. It is the most impressive among Iloilo’s formidable array of centuries-old churches. UNESCO declared it as a World Heritage and Conservation Site primarily because it best exemplifies the tropical baroque style of architecture. It is the centerpiece of Iloilo’s architectural tradition. Built in 1786, the Aztec-Baroque-inspired church with Filipino botanicals carved on the façade is known for its intricate facade and pyramidal bell towers. This massive structure…

Syns. R. banksiana, Banksian rose, Banks’ Rose, Lady Banks’ Rose Species.

Cultivated since 1796

If you are in Charleston, SC area, this rose is blooming its head off right now. It’s the best time of the year to see it. It is part of the Charleston landscape at this time of the year!

Rosa banksiae is one of the best shrubs for a wall and will reach the top of most houses in a few years. It produces an abundance of pretty small roses with the sweetest fragrance you can imagine. The flowers are borne on last year’s wood, so it is well-advised not to prune in the spring. Only dead or useless branches have to be trimmed. The introduction date is unknown, but the double white form was first described in the Botanical Magazine for 1818 as Lady Banks’ Rose and one of the sweetest of roses. It has…

Islam predated the arrival of Christianity in the Philippines by at least a century and a half. Towards the end of the fourteenth century, Muslim missionaries from Islamic countries of Malaysia and Indonesia brought Islam to the southern Philippines, even reaching Palawan, Mindoro, and Luzon’s east coast, notably Maynila (the present-day Manila). With Islamicized communities spread strategically through the archipelago from Luzon in the north, Sulu and Maguindanao in the south, and Palawan in the west, the archipelago would have evolved into an Islamic nation were it not for the Spaniards’ colonization.

In 1517, thirty-nine-year-old Portuguese navigator, Ferdinand Magellan, out of favor with the Portuguese King Manuel, crossed the border into Spain and convinced its young, adventurous seventeen-year-old Hapsburg monarch, Charles, to finance an ambitious undertaking: Magellan would discover a new route to the fabled Spice Islands by sailing west across the Atlantic, to South America, from where he could…

The Wentworth Legacy

A Long Island Novel

To read Chapter 1, click here.

Kirkus Review:

Morgan (The Iron Butterfly, 2015, etc.) offers a historical novel about a wealthy young man struggling to choose between marrying the woman he loves and maintaining his family’s legacy.

In 1927, 25-year-old Spencer Wentworth receives a telegram calling him home to New York City from his travels in London. When he returns to his family’s estate on the North Shore of Long Island, known as the “Gold Coast,” he’s devastated to learn that his grandfather has died. Worse, the old man has bequeathed all his personal holdings to Spencer. Daunted by his new obligations regarding the family banking business and the Wentworth Hall estate, he decides to work as a teller in order to learn his business from the ground up. Meanwhile, he grows emotionally attached to his sister’s friend, Lorna Beckett, a middle-class…

Iloilo City, the capital of Iloilo province, is on the southeast coast of Panay, the Ilonggos or Hiligaynons’ homeland. Iloilo City is on the Iloilo River’s wide mouth, which juts out into the Guimaras Strait. The offshore Guimaras Island shelters it.

Iloilo is one of the country’s loveliest Spanish colonial settlements. Iloilo City is a charming place known for its 16-century churches, ancestral mansions, beautiful gardens, unspoiled beaches, and bustling markets in addition to jusi (raw silk) and piña (pineapple fiber) fabrics.

Iloilo is also the cultural, religious, educational, commercial, manufacturing, and transportation center of the Western Visayas. It has retained some of the period’s genteel charm while remaining the most important port in the region since international shipping opened in 1855. Fortunes were made in sugar during the late 19^th century, and some fine old mansions still stand. Life is more relaxed here than in Manila or Cebu…