Oemler, Marie Conway
"Where the young child was" by Marie Conway Oemler is a collection of Christmas stories written in the early 20th century. The tales blend romance, sentiment, and gentle humor to highlight compassion, faith, and the quiet miracles of the season, following figures such as army families, a novelist drawn to a haunted Southern house, and a brave soldier’s child faced with class and family divides.The opening of the collection offers three holiday narratives set in the snowy West, the Carolina Lowcountry, and a New England town. In the first, a train stalled in a Wyoming blizzard becomes the scene of a boxcar birth that softens hearts across class lines; a proud doctor and his glamorous wife reconnect, and charming Sally Compton chooses Captain Hoban’s love over a millionaire’s wealth as miners, soldiers, and railmen welcome the newborn with gifts and carols. The next story finds writer Anthony Trescott led on Christmas Eve to an abandoned plantation, where a mysterious young woman promises a gift; he uncovers an 18th‑century diary and miniatures of Lydia King and an earlier Anthony, and then meets a modern Lydia who mirrors them, sealing a timeless love. The third begins with Junior, a captain’s son, living under a strict aunt while his father serves overseas; after he rescues a runaway little girl who falls through thin ice, he is carried to the great house where the child lives, and her grandmother recognizes him by his locket as the estranged family’s lost grandson—the episod…
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