As troops struggle through North Carolina’s final Civil War battle at Bentonville, widowed Adaire Sanderson leaves her nearby Sand Hill Farm to search for her teenaged son, who has run away to enlist in the Confederate Army. Captured in the crossfire, Adaire is forced to assist a Union Army surgeon at a makeshift field hospital. Following this turbulent period, Ludie, Adaire’s former slave, and her husband change their name to “Sanders” and remain at Sand Hill as sharecroppers. From these two influential matriarchs come four generations of women whose experiences from 1865-1941 are related in The Bed She Was Born In.
Through narration, letters, and diary entries, author Jeri Fitzgerald Board provides an honest, riveting accounting of how Reconstruction, racial disparity, the fight for women’s rights, and the Great Depression touched both families, as well as eastern North Carolina in general. While each endearing woman is a product of her time and place in North Carolina, she also finds opportunities to rise above its constraints through compassion and conviction. The characters’ experiences remind readers of what each generation of women shares: pain, disillusionment, love, joy, friendship, and above all, hope and healing for the next generation.
Many of the family stories Board heard while growing up in Johnston County, just miles from the site of the Battle of Bentonville, form the basis of her historical novel. After a lengthy career in education as a teacher, administrator with the University of North Carolina, and a professor of African-American Studies and American Women Writers at Duke University and St. Andrews Presbyterian College, the author currently resides in Tryon.
