Sandra Kay Vosburgh – Real Life Romance – Part 1 of 1

Shannon here: Sandra Kay Vosburgh shares her real-life, second time’s a charm happily ever after, plus a chance to win a copy of  Book 1 in her Sacket’s Harbor Mystery Series, Scandal at Stonecroft. Answer the question in this post to enter the drawing for winner’s choice or e-book or print. Deadline: Sept 21st, 11:59 pm central time. Here’s Sandra: 

Not a Facebook Romance

Facebook is the platform for telling all. Yet, only happily married, childhood-sweetheart stories show up in my timeline. Thankfully. I mean, who wants to read about a wife whose husband is cheating on her, or about a man coming home after a hard day at work to discover his wife had packed her bags and left him with the children.

This was the case for both me and my current husband of 34 years. We were both abandoned by an unfaithful spouse.

I was 23, pregnant, financially broke, emotionally shattered, and the mother of a three-year-old. God used this breaking to bring me to Jesus Christ. He became my provider, my protector, and my comforter. He was the Father to the fatherless for the next thirteen years.

Brock’s wife had left him with two teenage sons and moved in with another man. Again, God used brokenness to bring Brock to Himself. Two years later, God put this man on my path.

As a single parent, I felt like I didn’t fit in with the singles at church because I had children. I didn’t fit in with the couples for obvious reasons. One day my best friend, also a single mother, and I commiserated about this problem of not belonging and realized other single parents must feel the same.

So, we decided to host a single-parent fellowship at my house. I invited those from the church I attended, and Jenny invited the single-parents from the church she attended, one of whom was Brock.

I still remember what he wore that day. It should have been a warning. It’s been 34 years, and I still occasionally cringe at his mismatched outfit. Oh well, you got to love them.

Our relationship started quite unintentionally, although my husband tells people I plotted the whole thing.

I had purchased new gutters and downspouts for my house and needed a pickup truck to bring them from the lumber store. I asked Jenny if anyone in her church had a truck I could borrow and she said Brock had a new pickup and she was sure he wouldn’t mind if I used it.

As a single parent, humbling oneself is a necessity. I contacted Brock—feeling very much the beggar—and asked to use his truck. He insisted on taking me and my sons to the lumberyard to pick up the supplies, despite my assurances that I could drive a stick shift. After all, I grew up on a farm.

Today he confesses, no man in his right mind would lend out his brand-new pickup.

That day was the beginning of our romance. We picked up the gutters, then stopped for breakfast at a little country diner. Then the boys, aged 13 and 10, climbed into the back of the pickup, and Brock drove slowly through Letchworth State Park, the Grand Canyon of the East, since it was on the way home, and the autumn leaves were in peak color.   

Brock was amazing to my sons. Someone asked at my 70^th birthday party what drew me to Brock, I told them it was how he treated my children. When he made a promise, he kept it. When he said he’d take them to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, he did. He was faithful.

When a woman’s world is turned upside down and her children are abandoned by the one person who should have been there for them, faithfulness is the one virtue she wants in a man.

The thirteen years of hardship and loneliness, the sometimes-rocky merging of two families, and the unpacking of a lot of baggage, has enabled me—I trust—to create complex characters. Whether in my women’s contemporary novel or my mysteries, I strive to keep my fiction real.  

Question for Readers:  What is the number 1 virtue you want to find in your mate? Explain why this is important to you.

About Sandra: Sandra Kay Vosburgh is the author of the Sackets Harbor Mysteries series. Book 2, The Death Collector, won the Editors’ Choice Award. The Girl in Her, Sandra’s women’s contemporary novel due to release later this year, won the BRMCWC Foundation Award. She is also a devotions contributor for David C Cook. Learn more & connect:

Sandra’s Website            Sandra’s Facebook

About the book – Scandal at Stonecroft:

(Now in audiobook format.)

To retired spinster Ada Whittaker, everyone is suspect. Refusing to take up knitting, as Sheriff Meriday suggests, she spends her energies investigating crime.

When an article appears in the Ontario Times asking, “Whatever Happened to Harold Ramsey?” Ada resolves to find the answer to the twenty-year-old mystery.

The townsfolk believe the treasurer of Stonecroft Lakeside Resort embezzled funds and left town with Kate Darby. If not, then where’s Kate Darby?

Blair Ramsey believes her husband is dead and returns to Sackets Harbor determined to clear his name. But why now, after all this time?

The death of his son and his wife’s social isolation weigh heavily on Felix Zohlar, but there’s a new trigger to his explosive temperament. What’s he hiding?

And who is sending those anonymous letters to Ada’s Ask Adrienne column?

So many questions. If only Ada’s housekeeper and secretary would stop bickering, Ada could devote more emotional energy to her hobby!

Can’t wait for the drawing? Worried you won’t win? Interested in Sandra’s other titles? Get your copy/copies now!

Scandal at Stonecraft           Sandra’s Books

Come back Sept 13th for Terr1 Wangard!