Unending Devotion (Michigan Brides #1)(108)

Through the demands for reform from the press, the citizens of Harrison and Clare County began to stand up and fight against the rampant lawlessness. When a pair of reform candidates came forward to run for sheriff and county prosecutor, Carr’s men were voted out of office. The new district attorney vowed to clean up the county and made it his number one priority to get rid of Carr.

In 1885, Carr was put on trial for the murder of Frankie Osborne. Not even his highly paid lawyers could get him out of trouble. He was pronounced guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to fifteen years in Jackson State Prison. He died at the age of thirty-seven in a trackside shack on a straw pallet, penniless and drunk.

His obituary in the Gladwin County Record read in part, “James Carr, known throughout the state, and especially in northern Michigan, as one of the most notorious and wicked of its inhabitants . . .”

He hurt countless women, like Jennie King and Frankie Osborne.

They were the inspiration for this story—they and the many women like them, who are helpless, hurting, and abused.

May we never forget them.

And may we be like the characters in Unending Devotion. May we rise up, stand tall, and fight against the injustices that still exist today.

Perhaps we can’t save the world (as Lily wanted to do), but neither do we need to sit back and let the evil go unchecked (as Connell first did). Maybe we won’t have the beauty of a perfect summer. But neither do we have to endure the callousness of an uncaring winter.

Instead, we can all look for our own spring—we can discover where God wants to use us.

Do you hear your whisper of spring?