Literary Las Vegas: Kathryn Grant
Kathryn Grant started teaching for the Clark County School District 23 years ago. For the last 10, she worked with students while she wrote and illustrated children’s books. “My first passion was to create books with heart and art for all ages,” she said.
After retiring from the classroom, Grant had time to dedicate to “Honorable,” her first book for adults, a historic novel spanning six decades of Lucy Higgs Nichol’s life. Grant said Nichols, who escaped from slavery, was the only woman elected to the Grand Army of the Republic and is one of four black women to receive a pension after nursing during the Civil War. For more information, visit kathryngrantbooks.com.
Excerpt:
Born a slave as Providence planned, Lucy Higgs Nichols was snatched from her mother and sent south, still an innocent child. Risking everything as a young woman, she escaped in 1862 to save her only daughter the same destiny. Documented evidence of her tenacious struggle from slavery to freedom exists. Indiana’s 23rd infantry gave her refuge near the onset of the Civil War. Eventually revered by these same men, she served as nurse, cook, and laundress to their advantage in almost 20 battles from Tennessee to Washington D.C.
After the war she marched to the beat of her own identifiable drum. Settling back in New Albany, she continued to nurse sick vets back to health and work in the homes of various officers.
