A Sense of Place

The entire If I Remember Him series of novels takes place in and around the small town of Croy, Oklahoma. Although fictional, readers familiar with south central Oklahoma will recognize settings, place names, and perhaps a few local legends and legendary characters. Geographically, Croy is located approximately where Ada is today, but Ada is a larger town, hosting, among other things, East Central Oklahoma University. Croy is much smaller, about 12,000 souls, more the size of Marlow, Oklahoma, about eighty miles to the west. In doing my research for the novels, I spent time in both cities, interviewing people, taking photographs, and making notes on the quality of light on a late September afternoon, the sound of wheels on brick-cobbled streets, the call of a scissor-tail on a telephone wire, and the anise-and-tar scent of tickseed growing by the side of the railroad tracks.

Alleyway in Ada,
2008.

Small house in Marlow,
2008.

Bible Wesleyan
Church, Ada, 2008.

Marlow Mercantile, with History Museum upstairs, 2008.