Overview

Tommy, The Civil War Childhood of a President, is the story of President Woodrow Wilson's youth during the years of the American Civil War and Reconstruction in Augusta, Georgia where the future president and his family lived from early 1858 until the 1870's. This childhood biography, the only one of its kind, allows readers to share experiences with Tommy (as he was called during his early years) as he grows from a two-year-old to a teenager. Readers will learn that Tommy's earliest memory was the election news of Abraham Lincoln. They will learn that Tommy watched the Confederate wounded arrive at his father's church-turned-hospital, gazed in wonder at the Union war prisoners housed within the churchyard, and helped his community prepare ammunition for the Confederacy. Readers will learn about Wilson family life during Reconstruction. They will learn that Tommy, like many students, was a reluctant scholar who did not enjoy school and did not learn to read until he was nine years old. The lessons learned from family and church, and the history lived, were later evident as President Wilson guided his country through World War I. The book includes an early photograph of Thomas Woodrow Wilson plus other photos and historical drawings related to the story and their significance to Augusta during the Civil War. Readers will also learn that the Wilson home has undergone a complete restoration and is now open to the public. The church where his father preached is one of the major landmark churches in downtown Augusta, Ga. It is still in use today.

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9781478228882

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Julia Faye Dockery Smith, a native of Alabama, attended local public schools in Tuscaloosa. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Montevallo, receiving a degree in education with an English major. She received her master's degree in education with an emphasis on reading from Colorado State University. For several years, she taught in Florida high schools. After marriage to a journalist and several years' hiatus to raise three children, she returned to the classroom in Colorado. She completed her 34 years of teaching in Georgia classrooms. She and her husband, Jim, live in Florida with a son and daughter and their spouses and all five of their grandchildren. Another son lives in Texas. She has written several short stories and picture books, mostly for the enjoyment of her family and friends. Among these are: Watermelons Under the Bed, The Lovely Alligator, Owl Summer, The Legend of the Snow Queen and Flip-Flop Phil. She has also published a genealogical history of the paternal side of her family: Dockery-Morrison Family History, available through Amazon. She is currently working on a World War II novel set in Western Colorado. Tommy: The Civil War Childhood of a President, is the result of Mrs. Smith happening, by chance, upon the Augusta, Georgia boyhood home of President Thomas Woodrow Wilson. She wanted to read of his Civil War childhood and when she searched for books on this subject, found there were none. She felt that the dozen years President Wilson spent in Augusta represented a singular moment in our nation's history and the most formative years of a young boy's life. Working from bits and pieces of information, searching records and journals of the time, reading his speeches, and meeting with people knowledgeable about his past, Mrs. Smith was able to write about President Wilson's youth. By then, she no longer thought of him as President Woodrow Wilson, but, like his family she knew him as Tommy. Get in touch with the author: jfstommy@gmail.com

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