THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 12, 1996 TAG: 9601100203
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: L06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Seniors
SOURCE: BY JEAN GEDDES
CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
Three years ago Ruth Robinson got a letter from her nephew in New Jersey asking questions about the family's history.
As Robinson, 80, wrote back, answering his questions, it struck her that she had a wealth of information about the lives and times of her forebears in pre-Soviet Russia.
She had, she realized, enough information for a book.
So she wrote one.
The Virginia Beach great-grandmother's historical novel, set in pre-Soviet Russia, is at 400 pages now and once she writes 100 more, it will be complete and ready to submit to a New York agent.
``I never dreamed that one day I'd be writing a historical novel,'' said Robinson, a widow who eight years ago moved to Virginia Beach from New Jersey to be near her two married daughters. One of those daughters, Linda Nelson, lives in Virginia Beach; the other, Judy Townsend, lives in Hampton.
``The idea for the book began three years ago when one of my nephews wrote me an eight-page letter asking for information about his father's family. His father, my only brother, had died when his son was very young, and now the boy, grown, married with children of his own, wanted to trace his family's roots,'' she explained.
As his father's older sister she was the one he turned to for the family information.
And she replied. In the margins of the eight-page letter she wrote the answers to what he had asked. As she did this, the stories told her as a child by her parents came back to her and she began to realize that she had enough material to write a book rich in Russian history about the time of the Crimean War, a story she would like to tell.
``I remember as a child being fascinated by the tales they told me about the country they had left while still in their teens to begin a new life in America. Their stories were filled with drama, tragedy as well as humor,'' Robinson said.
While all the characters in her book, which she has titled: ``Pause And Remember,'' are fictitious, she said subconsciously she may have patterned the leading male character, Ben, after her own grandfather. ``I was fascinated by him as I pictured him as a very glamorous man,'' she smiled, then added, ``He had been married four times and had so many interesting adventures.''
Robinson had never done any writing before beginning her novel, but she had always been an avid reader. As a child she would bring home armloads of books from the library. Today she claims to be one of the city library system's best patrons. ``I go so often to the Great Neck branch and the Central Library to do my research. These places are my second home.''
The late-blooming author, now both a grandmother and more recently a great-grandmother, said she has learned much more about the history of Russia during the time she is writing about. That era has not been overwritten in either history books or fiction and she wants not only to share it with readers, but to leave a legacy to her family.
``I feel I know now more about Russia than my father did when he left there at 16,'' she said and went on to say that when her father arrived in the United States he did not know any English but went to school here, learned the language, found employment and later met and married her mother, who had also come to the States from Russia.
After the birth of their three children, the family moved to Westchester County, N.Y., where Robinson, her sister, Renee, and brother, Ben were raised.
``Pause And Remember'' concerns a young Russian, Ben, who begins his adventures at age 17 when he saves the life of a young boy whose father is a prosperous grain merchant. In appreciation, the father gives Ben a job, becomes his friend and mentor and from then on the book reads like an adventure and romance novel as the author takes her readers through each of Ben's three marriages with insight, passion and compassion as well as relating his other adventures.
``I feel it is a portrait of the era beginning in 1853 just prior to the Crimean War. As I knew little about that war, I did some intensive research on it and write about it from the Russian viewpoint instead of the English one as Rudyard Kipling did.''
Thinking further about her grandfather, she smiled as she said, ``With all those wives I thought he was so fascinating until one day my father said he had once told him, `If you want to curse a man, wish him many wives,' so I guess his life wasn't so glamorous as I thought.''
She said researching the book had given her a wonderful education. ``I spend about three days a week either researching at the library or working here at home.'' She added that hopefully after this book is published, she will continue with a sequel telling about Ben's later life in America. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by CHARLIE MEADS
Ruth Robinson's novel is about 80 percent finished. Only 100 pages
remain to be written.
by CNB