Meggie

About the Book

One week before her 94th birthday, Frances Gaddy Stegall awoke with an idea for a book. As soon as she finished her breakfast and did the dishes in her small home in Muleshoe, Texas, she went directly to her old manual typewriter. Three weeks after the last birthday party, she handed the completed manuscript to a friend.

Meggie is the story of a young woman who, as an infant, was found floating in a tributary of the Rio Grand River. Through teenage years, heartaches, and romances, the reader is taken on adventures that only a pioneer woman could relate. Told in the words Stegall finds most comfortable, she uses cowboy lingo and west Texas slang to produce a spellbinding page-turner of a novel.

Meggie finds herself in situations that require strength, independence and boldness. Women of all ages will relate to her experiences as a love-struck teenager and a woman seeking to make her family proud. Men will admire her while identifying with the male characters.

Although the book is not autobiographical, Stegall's knowledge of cowboys, ranches, and romance came from a 63 year marriage to one of the last genuine cowboys in Bailey County.

About the Author

Frances Gaddy Stegall, 94, author and artist, published her first book, at age 91. She gave up her car at 92, but lives independently, does her own housework and attends church regularly at the First Methodist Church of Muleshoe, Texas. Stegall has one son, Frank, of Bailey County; two grandsons and three great-grandchildren.