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Faithful Unto Death provides a window into the daily lives of small-town Michiganders at the turn of the century wrapped up in a riveting whodunit. The children are Roy, 19: musical, a good student, but a little too wild for Benzonia Ralph, 17: trying to shoulder the responsibilities of farm and family and Lottie, 14: a talented young artist trying to take care of young Will and Josie. The beauty, silence, stillness, perfection and disruption of Gods glistening masterpiece. She could be a suspect-or the next target.

but perhaps just a trifle too fond of the attractive young housekeeper and Charlotte Spencer, the pretty missionary sister, almost saintly in her efforts to bring Jesus to the Armenians in the mountains of Turkey, though a bit prone to exaggeration.

Taking a true story of a murder in her own family, Becky Thacker has crafted a historical mystery novel whose cast of characters rapidly builds, including William Henry Thacker as deputy sheriff, deacon in his church, a kind man. Was it truly an unfortunate illness? Or was it murder-or suicide? She is suddenly stricken with a mysterious ailment that soon proves fatal. Anna Spencer Thacker is the daughter of missionaries, a faithful wife, and mother of five, pious to a fault. Ĭompany lore even has it that President Theodore Roosevelt climbed aboard a 95-ton Bucyrus steam shovel while inspecting progress on the Panama canal in 1908.īucyrus, in one of the most common ironies of business, wound up buying one of its biggest longtime rivals, Marion (by then named the Marion Power Shovel Company), in 1997.Benzonia, Michigan, 1894: a sleepy Congregationalist community, dedicated to the education of hardworking and virtuous young people of both sexes and all races. According to the company history, 77 Bucyrus shovels were used for the historic dig connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Bucyrus, too, could lay claim to pitching in on some of the most ambitious engineering projects of the time - including the Panama Canal. Manuela Bartosch Hemera Thinkstock (Close-up of beautiful woman face. Īnother power player in the steam shovel business, Bucyrus Foundry and Manufacturing Company (established in 1880), committed itself to excavating machinery in 1896 as it became obvious what profit potential lie in steam shovels and other heavy digging equipment. Michael Blann DigitalVision Thinkstock (Leaves and open umbrella blowing. Scripps Scripps is located in San Diego County and a perfect novice hot-spot. By the early 1900s, Marion was such a dominant steam shovel manufacturer that the town came to be known as 'the city that built the Panama Canal,' for the crucial role steam shovels played in that massive undertaking. The Marion Steam Shovel Company, founded in 1884, in Marion, Ohio, sprang up in direct response to the railroad boom that opened up the western United States and Canada. This advance was followed by others, including wheels that didn't have to be mounted on rail tracks to move the equipment steel cable that was more durable than the chains used to operate the hoisting mechanisms and increasingly larger shovel sizes that could perform bigger jobs.

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The first 'full-swing' steam shovel - one in which the bucket and arm could swing a full 360 degrees, was invented in England in 1884 and brought new versatility and value to the machines. But eventually, other inventors and companies sprang up with their own steam shovel designs to feed the exploding demand to move earth faster - a demand created by railroad expansion in the United States and elsewhere.

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