Macon Magazine

JUNE/JULY 2013 MACON MAGAZINE I 45 A D V E R T I S E M E N T "Prejudice is the reason of fools," to her mother (the co-protagonist Lilo) and to Dodie's husband, local contractor Randy Bickley. Although her husband was always enthusiastic about Dodie's book project, she felt her mother might discourage her work, especially since the manuscript included Lilo's wartime romance, a tender love story that predated her marriage to Dodie's father. When word of the project leaked out, Lilo insisted that her daughter show her the manuscript-in-progress. Thankfully, she was pleased with it and began to open up about her past. The extent of her mother's efforts to assist Jews in Germany had remained in the shadows for most of the author's early years. Dodie recalled as a child accidently seeing a vivid scar on her mother's leg, the result of an injury sustained at the Deutscher Madel camp. Later, Dodie and her family lived on a U.S. Army post in France and attended a French school where the Cantrell children were called names and had rocks thrown at them if they spoke German, their mother's native language. After that, Dodie began questioning her mother and grandmother in earnest, pleading for more details about their lives as Germans living under Hitler. "I decided their stories were worth memorializing since much of what they shared is not found in any history book," she said. "I had to look for the truth." The second book in the series will be available in September. "A Reason to Fear" picks up in 1945 after Hitler's fall and includes the de-Nazification of the Germans, the Nuremberg Trials and the presidential order to integrate the U.S. armed forces. Published by Regeneration Writers' Press, Macon 318 pages soft cover available from the publisher at www.regenerationpress. com; www.amazon.com; or at select bookstores. $19.95 and $24.95 Watch the book trailer on YouTube and visit www.dodiecantrellbickley.com Peace with the Past continued from page 43

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