My Grandmother's Apron: Conversations with a happily married couple from diverse backgrounds (Kentuc

Holly's love, wisdom, and humor were contagious. We wanted to be better because of her, and we believed we could be better because of her. Her goodness and cookies were legendary. That's why Everybody Comes to Holly's.

Cassandra Devereux and her husband, Nick Chiarenza, have been happily married and living in Los Angeles for over thirty years.

They both had successful careers as writers in the crazy world of Hollywood. When they decided to move to the small town (population 5,000) where Cassandra grew up to finish the rest of their life's work in peace, journalists throughout the country requested interviews trying to get the real story behind the couple who fled L.A. to live in a town no one has heard of.

The requests were all turned down until a young reporter, Paul Salvatore, who works at the local newspaper, was given permission to interview them. The stories they tell Mr. Salvatore span a century from the late 1920s to the present.

Stories passed down from their beloved grandmothers. Stories about Cassandra's father during the Depression: plowing fields in rural Alabama and then walking three rocky miles to school barefoot. In contrast, Nick's relatives worked on the construction of the Empire State Building and other monumental buildings in New York City during that same period.

They also tell stories about life during World War II, the post-war years, and the Apollo Moon landing. The stories climax with two action-filled accounts: one about two MI6 agents who, with the help of Cassandra's father (a reporter), furtively entered Castro's Cuba to free an ailing agent hiding in a bodega. The second story involves two Soviet-era spies who speak and dress like everyone else in Cassandra's hometown; their real interest is the military installation about five miles out of town where nuclear bombs are hidden in underground silos.

My Grandmother's Apron is a compelling collection of stories passed down from the couple's grandmothers to future generations, telling a story about America and its allies that you will very seldom hear or read about. The heroics of women, children, and men whose actions not only saved the lives of people in danger from foreign adversaries but also helped them assimilate and thrive in small towns and neighborhoods throughout America.