Rags
A Shaker Love Story
by
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The scene as we descend is Massachusetts. We are on a road in the beautiful Berkshires, full of color. It is spring, and every field and every hillside is ablaze with the glory of the season. The briskness in the weather is quieted by the beauty and warmth of the golden sun upon every field, and barn, and grazing cow.
We are at the Shaker Village. The setting is the neat, clean community, with its small communal buildings of white, and tan, and red. The all-wood and all-brick buildings, although different in their composition and structure, are all so very much the same in their neatness and orderly appearance. Whatever their makeup, it is evident that they are all of the same community. The bland, red-brick residence halls, woodworking shops, and stone barn are surrounded by beautiful, manicured farm pasture, orchards, and spice gardens. Being it is Sunday, there is no one at work, but the evidence that work has been done is obvious in the fact that in spite of a long, hard winter, the community is already so much in order that it would appear that perhaps the winter bypassed this village.
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About the Book
On a stormy, winter night in nineteenth-century Massachusetts, young Joshua Jenkins becomes orphaned by a blizzard. For a short time two loving strangers, Tom and Belle, care for the boy, but they know the nearby Shaker village will provide him with a better upbringing. It is here Joshua grows and learns the goodness and values of the Shaker people.
As Joshua matures into a young man, he falls in love with Sara. They leave the community to start a new way of life in a growing America. The enterprising Joshua establishes a fine foundation for his family by building a factory—only to have tragedy take it from him. But his Shaker upbringing and values lead him to fight back and regain the American dream for himself, his family, and his grandson Rags.
Rags, although having inherited the abilities of his grandfather, is different from his grandfather Joshua in many ways. However, unbeknown to him, he too will have to one day raise a son, a young boy named Patches who has adopted Rags as his family.
Spanning several generations, Rags tells of hard times and good times, of more simple times and more complex times, and brings us back to a way of life in the hard but fun-filled “good old days”.
About the Author
Joseph Durante earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Rutgers University College of Agriculture and his Doctor of Dental Surgery degree from Fairleigh Dickenson University.
Louis Durante graduated from Holy Cross College in Massachusetts and the Webber Douglas School of Drama in England. He also studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in England.