I became obsessed with genealogy when I researched The Man in the Purple Cow House, a book about my father. That led me to England to investigate my mother’s family for The Search for My Abandoned Grandmother. My quest to know more about my ancestors settling New England resulted in The Lyon’s Tales. I organized all the information I gathered onto my Ames Hopkins Family Tree. There was so much information about one of those ancestors, I created a separate volume for him titled The Royal Ancestors of Edmond Hawes. By the time I discovered I was a descendant of Revolutionary War General Henry Knox, I had grandchildren. So, I wrote and illustrated Henry’s Big Kaboom as a sing-along-ballad. After my cousins shared with me a folder of letters from my grandmother to their grandmother, I compiled the letters into a book called Dear Betty, Love, Edith. For my most recent release, Charles & Fanny: 19th Century Pioneers for Human Rights, I compiled old letters and records that describe their lives and accomplishments.

All these books are published by Peach Plum Press in California. Except where specified, you can purchase them on Amazon.com by title and by author. For additional information, contact Info@PeachPlumPress.com. Here are the details.

Charles & Fanny: 19th Century Pioneers for Human Rights. Published December, 2024. ISBN Paperback: 978-0-9991505-1-1. Genre: Historical Narrative/Genealogy/History.

When organizing old family letters and photos into historical context (1828 to 1931), I discovered:

• how my great-great-grandfather Charles Gordon Ames learned as a teenager that his Christian family left him as a foundling in foster care to avert a family scandal.
• how he overcame his childhood obstacles to become one of New England’s most respected Unitarian ministers.
• why he joined the Transcendentalists in Boston in 1859 to fight for abolition, women’s rights, and social reform.
• how he and his second wife, Fanny Baker, moved to California after the Civil War to establish Unitarian churches and suffrage organizations.
• how, in reaction to the Panic of 1873, the duo organized America’s first social services to combat urban poverty.
• why Fanny was appointed as one of this country’s first two women police officers, served as a suffragette, promoted child labor reform and public education, and helped establish Philadelphia’s first kindergartens.

The Ancestors of Thomas Winter Ames and Eileen Mary Hopkins (Mary’s parents). ISBN Hardback: 978-0-9991505-4-2. First edition 2016. Revisied edition 2023. Due to copyright issues, you must purchase this book directly from Mary. Write to mmitchell at peachplumpress dot com if you want a copy.

The Royal Ancestors of Immigrant Edmond Hawes. Published 2023. ISBN Hardback: 978-0-9991505-3-5. My ancestor Edmond Hawes emigrated from Solihull, England, to Plymouth Colony in 1635. His line leads back to 81 kings and queens; a plethora of counts, earls, and barons; and eleven canonized saints. Hardback available on Lulu.com/shop.

The Man in the Purple Cow House: and other tales of eccentricity. First edition 2005. Second edition 2017. ISBN Paperback: 978-0-9850530-8-6. ISBN E-book: 978-0-9850530-2-4
In 1992, I learned that my estranged father might be living homeless in the beach community of Santa Monica, California. He had broken communication with our family thirteen years earlier. He suffered from paranoia and schizophrenia and refused any offers of help. I traveled from San Francisco to look for him, wondering if after all that time, he might really need me. I certainly needed him. Paperback and e-book on Amazon.

The Search for My Abandoned Grandmother: A genealogical journey uncovers secret love stories and family mysteries. First edition 2013. Second edition 2017. ISBN Paperback: 978-0-9850530-1-7. Genre: Personal narrative/Memoir
Bitten by the genealogy bug after researching my father’s family, I began looking into my mother’s maternal line. My grandmother Eileen had died in Great Britain in 1933, age 41, when my mother, Betty May, was only eight. Mom’s father, Prynce, had quickly replaced Eileen with Mom’s stepmother. He moved the family to California in 1939, when the Germans began bombing their home in London. When I began my research in 2000, my mother didn’t know where her own mother had died or was buried. In this book, I journal my trip to England to meet my English cousins and find my grandmother’s grave. I also transcribe parts of my grandfather’s journals in which he described courting Eileen and their marriage. Paperback and e-book on Amazon.

The Lyon’s Tales: Claiming America for England, From Cabot to Winthrop. Genre: Historical novel. Peach Plum Press, 2009. ISBN Paperback: 978-0-578-04395-1.
This novel is based on real people and real events. By the time Governor Winthrop arrived in New England in June 1630 with some 1000 settlers packed on eleven ships, 300± people already lived in Plymouth Colony. 300± more settlers lived along the coast of today’s Maine and New Hampshire. Several months earlier, Captain William Peirce had carried 90 of those settlors in the Lyon from Bristol Harbour to Salem. Most of those passengers were heading to the Massachusetts Bay to prepare for Winthrop’s arrival. However, a few represented Plymouth Colony and had partnered with Captain Peirce to establish a beaver-trading post in Penobscot Bay. Passenger Christopher Levett had toured Maine back in 1623 and was returning to claim a patent on Cosco Bay. As the Lyon made her way west, her passengers told the stories about those early developments. Captain Peirce added the adventures of John Cabot in 1498 and John Smith in 1614. Available on Lulu.com/shop.

From a New England Woman’s 1865 Diary in Dixie. Written in 1865. First published in 1906. Now in the public domain. Republished by Peach Plum Press in 2012. ISBN Paperback: 978-0-9850530-0-0.
I ran across this 100-page diary while researching at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston. The author, Mary Ames, had the same name as me. The Society told me that since the copyright had expired, I could republish it. Mary Ames of Springfield, Mass, journaled her year on Edisto Island in South Carolina right after the Civil War. She was there teaching newly freed Black Americans how to read and write. As part of Reconstruction, the Union Army had established a bureau within the United States Department of War called the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (aka the Freedmen’s Bureau). President Lincoln drafted the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill, which passed Congress on March 3, 1865, to “aid freed men with legal food and housing, oversight, education, health care, and employment contracts with private landowners.” Besides sending teachers like Mary, the Bureau built hospitals. The journal is an amazing window into a long forgotten world. Available in paperback on Amazon.com and Ingram.com.

Dear Betty, Love, Edith: Letters and secret thoughts from a Minneapolis ingénue while a Wellesley student in 1916, a nurse’s aide in WWI Paris, a newlywed in Prohibition Chicago, and a Pasadena divorcée, 1910-1965. Peach Plum Press, 2016. ISBN paperback: 978-0-9850530-7-9
My grandmother Edith Ames Winter was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She became an only child when a family friend accidently shot her brother in the stomach. To combat her lonliness, Edith liked hanging out with her first cousin and best friend, Betty Ames, who was a few months younger and had five active siblings. They lived across the Mississippi in St. Paul, a short trolly ride. After Betty went off to boarding school, the cousins wrote letters. Decades later, Betty’s daughters told me that they had a folder of the letters Edith had written to Betty during their lifetimes. My third-cousins allowed me to photograph the letters, transcribe them, and format them into this book. Before this, I knew almost nothing about my grandmother. Available in paperback on Amazon.

Henry’s Big Kaboom: A Sing-along Ballad: Peach Plum Press, 2017. Updated in 2019 with a map of the Henry Knox Trail. ISBN Paperback: 978-0-9850530-9-3. ISBN Hardback: 987-0-9991505-0-4. Genre: Children’s Book/American History/Revolutionary War
During the winter of 1776, Henry Knox claimed 58 cannons and other artillery from Fort Ticonderoga for the Continental Army. Then he, his brother, and a gang of teamsters hauled the heavy pieces over frozen fields and rivers to Cambridge, where General George Washington waited. The men accomplished the fantastic technical feat in only eight weeks. After Washington ordered the guns mounted on the heights of Dorchester aimed at the British Navy, and the British fled to Halifax, he claimed his first victory. I wrote this story in rhyme to appeal to my young grandchildren. Hardback and paperback on Amazon. Paperback on Fort Ticonderoga’s web store.

My brother, Charles Ames, arranged the music for this YouTube video.