Virginia Ames was born in the Deep South at the dawn of the twentieth century. In her hundredth year, Ames takes us back to the 1970 cross-country sojourn wherein she and daughter Mary poignantly and critically looked at a century of sociability and social change-including race relations, revolutionary politics, the auto, space exploration, and flight. Braided into the sinuous strands of an epic journey in an old Dodge Wayfarer are stories of a lifetime of issues that continue to touch our lives. Ames muses on upheavals in how Americans act and think, and how, in spite of our nation's progress, some things don't change. From the Deep South to California, Ames paints word-pictures for us to experience firsthand. Transported through her experiences, impressions, and the characters she met along the way, readers will tune into a cultural history one will never find in history books. Wayfarers is crowned with the author's art images from the colorful Southwest to the Mediterranean and South Pacific and archival photos that make her anecdotes come alive. With each mile of this travel adventure, prepare for surprises, new sights, and fresh insights ...
About the Author: Centenarian Virginia Wade Ames has led a life of creativity, using the arts to express her love of life, people, and beauty. While rearing her family, needle, thread, fabric, and food were her media. Friends and neighbors became the players on her stage as she and her husband choreographed social gatherings with unsung heroes, characters of the times, movers, shakers, and invisible makers of history. With children educated and off on their own, she perfected her passions for silk-screen printing, watercolor, acrylic, and pastel painting. When a friend ran for office, her elegant paper hat-making events successfully threw his hat into the ring. Ames is a cultural catalyst, not only bringing interesting people together but also seeing potentials for bringing about good-her work to get the Torpedo Factory Center for the Arts established in Alexandria is a prime example. In her "retirement" to Arizona she has enriched lives with her artful teaching at the University of Arizona's lifelong learning SAGE/OLLI Society. As macular degeneration began taking its visual toll on her artist's eye she turned her energies to word craft. At ninety-nine, she has four more manuscripts ready for publication and four great-grandchildren who will especially enjoy them. Her genteel wit and seasoned thoughts on how to treat each other can touch us all.