Sins of the Seventh Sister by Huston Curtiss
This book is insane. The fact that it's supposed to be true is the only thing that makes it palatable, yet it cannot be true. It's like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil meets...like, the National Enquirer or something. Complete craziness. Lots of fun period detail about making food and gardening and farming, and the plot points...well, they really defy categorization. I won't say that this is a good book, necessarily, but I will say that I enjoyed it tremendously.
Is there any way to contact Huston Curtiss?
Posted by: Mary Lee Scalf | January 06, 2005 at 02:32 PM
I loved the characters in this book and wished to know them. Hated to put the book down and I wore it out. Great period piece as well as character study. I have recommended it to several people. These characters will stay with me...unforgettable and very likeable. I, too, want to contact Huston Curtiss.
Posted by: Carrie | July 28, 2005 at 09:55 PM
Being from Elkins WV, I find this book to be full of baloney. He has names of most landmarks correct and some events. But for the most part it is all ficticious. I had my doubts for awhile, until he got to the part about his mother being contacted for land for the airport. Knowing how the county acquired this land(being from the family it came from)I then knew beyond a doubt he was making it up.
Posted by: Randy Harper | March 13, 2007 at 04:59 PM
Huston Curtiss has died. He died August 1, 2007.
Posted by: Miguel Valdes-Sueiras | March 13, 2008 at 10:31 AM
Huston Curtiss had died. He passed away August 2007.
Posted by: Miguel V-Sueiras | March 13, 2008 at 10:33 AM
I am from huston curtiss' family and this is all bull.
Posted by: elkins native | March 29, 2008 at 10:13 AM
I am from huston curtiss' family and this is all bull. don't believe any of it. just check with anyone from ther and they will tell you the same
Posted by: elkins native | March 29, 2008 at 10:14 AM
I did a little research in W.V. history but can't seem to piece it together. There was an Ici Pearl Curtis (yes one s) who passed at 49 in 1946. Her father was a Peter Fansler died 1945 and married to a Jermina Fansler 1940. Lester Adams passed in 1950 at 50 years old. In looking for Stella I came across a Susanne Fisher that seems to fit the role. She stared in Madame Butterfly in the 1930s and claims to be raised on a farm in Sutton. In one of the newspaper articles she mentions 7 siblings. I can't seem to put anything togther on Alemda. There is an Alvin M. Channell who committed suicide by hanging but not until 1947 and no Emma except the Emma Pritt on the certificate. The website is not that good on history searching so I could not search on the fires.
http://www.wvculture.org/history/archivesindex.aspx
Posted by: S.F. | May 15, 2008 at 02:38 PM