This delightful collection of heartwarming verses reveals a lifetime driven by the poet's love for God, her family and the world that surrounded her. One is drawn into the heart and soul of Helen Corrigan Iekel (1905-1988) when reading her poetry. The casual reader will appreciate the uniquely descriptive narrative provided by the author that invites the reader into the poet's life experience and offers a setting for her poetry.

"The Candles of My Life" is the story of Helen Corrigan Iekel, an everyday twentieth century wife and mother who was also a poet. For Helen, writing poetry was life-giving. With a tenacity largely unrewarded, she wrote of the ones she loved and of the world that surrounded her. In those lines, she expressed the beauty of her life experience and often found comfort when her world seemed to collapse. The courage and heart of this wife and mother combine with the soul of a poet in an offering of simplicity that conceals the depth of her emotion and shines with brilliance.

Stranded on a remote country road, Jessie and her Native American friend, Rose Mary, seek shelter from a storm in an old abandoned house. But, this house has a past, a spirit and a voice. After a rocky introduction, the house shares the story of its first occupants. This story is the tale of nearly every pioneer family in the rural Town of Ashford, New York. The year is 1848. With only a wagon, a few belongings, two oxen and a cow, Michael and Sarah bring their young family to the recently opened wilderness of Northern Cattaraugus County. This formerly forbidden land of the Seneca Nation was,...