Written by Mary Alice Author

My name is Cora Brantner. The originator of the novel Mary Alice, Gypsy nurse was my mother, Ilda (pronounced: eye el dah) Bauer Weatherford. She was born in December, 1919, in Portland Oregon. Her father was an Austrian immigrant and her mother was the youngest daughter of Mary Alice Walden, the title character of the book. Ilda took what information she had about her grandmother and "embroidered" it a bit for the sake of good reading. I know that the names of the main characters, where they lived and their occupations are factual, but the details came from my mother's mind. The novel covers the first half of Mary Alice's life. I found the unfinished manuscript two years after Mom died, finished it over the next seven years, and published the book on November 30th, 2012. I am currently working on a sequel for the second half of the Mary Alice story. The working title is "MARY ALICE, Gypsy No More". My goal at this time is to release the sequel in March 2016. My mother and father, Frank Weatherford, were both veterans of World War II. They met and married in 1947 and produced three children, of whom I am the youngest. Our family moved to Renton, WA in 1966, where I met my husband Danny. We married in January,1972, shortly after he joined the Air Force. We settled in Maple Valley Washington when he retired from the Air Force, and have one child, a daughter named Carissa, and two cats.