Under The Broom Tree

Under the Broom Tree is a memoir chronicling the life of Annie Grace Chandler in Emanuel County, Georgia. Widowed after 12 years of marriage with eight children to raise, she struggles to keep her poverty-stricken family together as she fights to suppress her fears of abandonment as a child. Annie Grace’s story shows the courage of a proud-spirited woman whose faith sustained her as she both struggled, and rested Under the Broom Tree.

Under the Broom Tree is a memoir chronicling the life of Annie Grace Chandler in Emanuel County, Georgia. Following the death of her mother, four-year-old Annie Grace Chandler and her brother, Buddy, get sent away by their father to live with relatives. Suffering abuse at the hands of their uncle, Annie Grace and her brother are eventually abandoned by him on a street corner. They are taken in by their aged grandparents until their deaths in the late 1930’s. Wanting to make something of himself, seventeen year old Buddy joins the Army and is sent to Germany during WWII. Left homeless, Annie Grace marries an abusive, alcoholic sharecropper 25 years her senior. Widowed after 12 years of marriage with eight children to raise, Annie Grace struggles to keep her poverty-stricken family together as she fights to suppress her fears of abandonment as a child. With the love and support of her beloved, but largely absent Buddy, she perseveres and outlives two more husbands and bears two more children. Annie Grace’s story shows the courage of a proud-spirited woman whose faith sustained her as she both struggled, and rested Under the Broom Tree.

Born in rural southern Georgia, Gerri was raised in the share cropping culture in the WW11 decade of the 1940's. Moving to Florida as a young girl, she met and married her husband, Mel with whom she had three daughters. She now also has three sons-in-law and has been blessed with five grandchildren. She retired from a major telecommunications company where she often did public speaking on behalf of her company. During these years she also found time to teach catechism classes at her church, and delivered Meals on Wheels to members of her community. She later became a Licensed Realtor and sold for 15 years before retiring. Following the death of her Mother in 2003 she became inspired to write her Mother’s memoirs, hoping to preserve for her family the life and character of a woman who met and prevailed over a life often spent "under the broom tree". An avid reader and gardener, Gerri is presently living in Loveland, CO where she enjoys family, friends and photography, while contemplating her next writing endeavor.