Down Home Musings

About the Book

Down Home Musings is a collection of observations of life in a small sleepy town in Missouri where "the Ozarks meet the Prairie." Population 1,000, the town of Osceola offered a quiet, serene place for the author to retire. A daily (almost) memoir of the author's last months there before moving to Oregon, the stories she tells capture a 1950s way of life that still exists in hidden corners of the Midwest. A place of simple people and simple pleasures, the town and its residents offered many opportunities to comment on down home living and the cycles of nature.

Musings first emerged in phone calls to cheer the author's close friend who was dying of inoperable cancer. This remarkable woman, The Rev. Katrina Martha van Alystyne Welles Swanson, also known as "Keppy," laughed uproariously about the tales of "The Lone Eggplant" and "The Grass Police" and encouraged the author to write down "the stories."

Sometimes sad, now and then poignant, often hilarious, occasionally meditative and even provocative, Musings will make you laugh and reminisce and maybe long for the good old days and another quieter, simpler way of life. Sally Cheriel, Health Editor of The Oregonian, calls the author "a very good writer!"

About the Author

When Patricia Anderson retired, she moved from California back to her roots in Missouri. From the front porch of her home, she mused about life in the small town of Osceola. She now lives near her family in Portland, Oregon with her dogs, cat, books, knitting, and hiking boots.