Mischevous Editor

"No one will ever love your words as much as you do," said someone I've forgotten. The meaning, of course, is that a person other than the author will make the best critical evaluation of that author's writing. That evaluation is the job of an editor. Well, an excellent editor has made just such an evaluation of my well loved writing. Her eleven page critique suggests substantial deletions in some areas, and reordering and expansion in others. The task looks daunting, but I cannot disagree with her inputs. So I'm doing it.

I hate to see the information in the deletions simply evaporate, so I will post the deleted content to this blog, probably with added content to provide context. The first will be the story of the Van Ostern family, like the Kokernots Jews from Amsterdam who emigrated to New Orleans. David Kokernot's brother, Louis, married the oldest Van Ostern daughter, Nancy, and both families initially prospered in the dry goods business. Find the details here.