Saint Maggie — Janet R. Stafford

Maggie Blaine, a widow with two teenage daughters, runs a rooming house smack dab on the town square.  In 1860 this makes her a social outcast.  Boarding houses are only semi-respectable and hers has a collection of eclectic boarders - a failed aging writer, an undertaker's apprentice, a struggling young lawyer, and an old Irishman.  In addition, she has a friendship with Emily and Nate, an African-American couple with whom she shares her home and chores.  It is a good thing the town doesn't know that Maggie, along with Nate, Emily, and Eli Smith (the free-thinking editor of the weekly newspaper) are involved in the Underground Railroad.  When she is asked to house handsome, gifted Jeremiah Madison, the new Methodist minister, Maggie hopes that he will both revive the little church she attends and provide her boarding house with a bit of badly-needed respectability.  But Jeremiah comes with some dark secrets that challenge Maggie's resolve to love and respect all people.  As the town's people reel from a series of shocking events, the compassionate, faithful Maggie searches for truth and struggles to forgive and love. (Based on a historical event.)

2012 B.R.A.G. MedallionTM Honoree