Among the Ashes

During the summer of 1958, a local church burned to the ground in a small town in central Virginia. While the details of what happened that early June morning were lost over the decades, Mansion Springs still has descendants who knew the people and the places involved. Our modern-day narrator is fascinated by the local legend and tries to decipher the truths from the myths. He tells the story of Rev. Og Shaffer, the minister of a neighboring church in the 1950s who found himself knee-deep in a situation that threatened not just his church building but possibly the lives of some in his congregation. One person held the answer, but it took the contribution of many of the local citizenry to peel away years of deception. Among the ashes, real and emblematic, the story unfolds through some colorful characters and plenty of conflict along the way. And in Mansion Springs, sometimes the silence rings truer than what folks say and do.

Don Reid, lead singer for The Statler Brothers, is a three-time Grammy Award winner with twenty-one gold and platinum albums. He is a member of the Country Music & Gospel Music Halls of Fame. As a songwriter, he holds twenty-one BMI (Broadcast Music Inc.) awards. Reid spent seven years as a television series writer, and this is the twelfth book he has published since his retirement from the music industry. Reid lives in his hometown of Staunton, Virginia, with his wife, Debbie.