Joyce Blaylock

ADELICIA Grace, Grit and Gumption is not a biography, but an historical fiction based on Adelicia's life and historical events of the time. Twenty-one, self willed and ambitious, Adelicia steps into the Nashville of 1838, as it is making its transition from frontier town to enterprising city. After her first husband's death, she arguably becomes the wealthiest woman in America. However, her wealth offers little protections against the sufferings of the human heart, and Adelicia has her share. She endures the premature deaths of her fist two husbands and the deaths of six of her ten children. Structurally, Adelicia's story unfolds in five parts, revealing the most legendary aspects of her life: Part I (1838-1846), recounts the drama of the young woman in her twenties, her marriage to Isaac Franklin, his death, the losses of three of her four children, and the unprecedented contesting of Isaac's will, from the Supreme Court in Tennessee to the Supreme Court in Louisiana. Part II (1847-1863) hurls the reader full force into the maturing business woman in her early thirties and forties, her marriage to Joseph Acklen, receiving her inheritance from Franklin, the deaths of three more children, the onset of the Civil War and Acklen's death. Part III (1863-1864) presents Adelicia as a mature main-chancer, traveling through battlefields with a mule and wagon, befriending the influential of both North and South, and daringly shipping her cotton crop from New Orleans war-time port to England, taking payment in gold. Part IV (1864) finds Adelicia returning to a war-torn Nashville, shockingly discovering that Union General Thomas Wood is occupying Belle Monte. Part V (1864-1867) introduces the dismayed, yet, undaunted heroine traveling to Europe, where in Paris, she is hosted by the Countess Eugenie and Napoleon III. After continuing her Post-war tour, she returns to Nashville, rebuilding and establishing herself as doyenne of a city that is both repelled and mesmerized by her. Adelicia's universal and timeless appeal is driven by the enthralling adventures of the compelling heroine, and the numerous sub-plots that keep both dialogue and narrative active. Much of the Civil War material, is taken from depositions and logs of both Union and Confederate forces.