Faith R. Connors, author Love, Midgie

The Costume Maker’s Secret

Note: This blog is the beginning of a new story by author Faith Connors based on the research she conducted while writing Love, Midgie, the story of Miriam Morris Connors’ girlhood in a small town (Summerfield) near Ocala, Florida, and later, in Jacksonville, Florida’s historic Springfield neighborhood.

After Mama dies, Midgie and Henry miss her terribly and worry that Daddy, too, will take sick and die.

Daddy is sad and tired because he works long hours at the railroad yard. Worse yet, he no longer wants to live in the house he bought for the family when Mama came home from the hospital months ago.

When Daddy decides to move the three of them across town to an apartment, for a new start, Midgie and Henry wonder what to expect. They hope there will be children their age living beneath them in their new apartment on Spruce Street.

At first, they are disappointed to learn that a costume maker lives in the first floor apartment. But then some curious events take place involving a car chase, a fire, danger at a mob scene and enough strange characters coming and going that Midgie and Henry begin to think they are living in a haunted house. They have even seen a baby bat hanging upside down by the front door – leaving bat dung on the shingles!

They decide to investigate thoroughly. Who is the costume maker and what is he involved in that has the mayor paying regular visits to the downstairs apartment?