Biography-
Dora Lee Thompson was born in Arkansas in 1930. She attended public schools in Livermore and Pleasanton, California and graduated from Pleasanton’s Amador High in 1948. Known as a “goody goody” girl, she made the principal’s honor roll, along with five other students selected from the entire school.
In 1949 she married Jack D. Thompson, a Navy man, and they had their first child, Dan, in 1950. When Dan was a few months old they packed everything they owned into their car and drove to Provo, Utah where Jack enrolled in BYU University.
In 1955, they returned to Livermore, California to be near family, bought a home, stayed 28 years, and raised their seven children. Dora Lee spent her spare time teaching genealogy classes and researching her own family tree. She claims descent from John Harrington, a poet and court jester as well as the godson of Queen Elizabeth (the maiden queen). Harrington is said to have invented one of the first flush toilets in England.
After Jack’s retirement and the children were grown, he and Dora Lee moved to Modesto, California. Still active in church work, they extracted genealogical records and enjoyed their grandchildren and great grandchildren, but Dora Lee yearned to express herself through creative writing. She had taught others to write their life stories and had written her own, but had no formal training. The desire to learn the mechanics of writing sent her to the local library to find some how-to books. “How to Write Popular Fiction,” a creative writing book authored by Dean Koontz became her best teacher. Soon she added Writer’s Digest magazine and Fiction Writer magazine to her reading list. Now, she was off and running. Her husband proved to be her trusted critic and made sure she had time to pursue her new passion.
Dora Lee lost her sweetheart of 55 years to Parkinson’s disease in 2004. She has continued her interest in genealogy, alternative medicine, and writes articles and humorous tidbits about family life. Her debut novel, 'Pocket of Guilt', representing forty years of work, concentrates on the plight of Germany’s teenagers in their struggle to survive WWII.
This great grandmother of five is just getting started. She continues to write and contemplates a sequel to 'Pocket of Guilt'.
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Dora's Dream
I began writing 'Pocket of Guilt' around 1968 and worked at it off and on while raising seven children. It became an outlet for me, a way to escape my world of diapers, dishes, and children chatter. It's incredible, I know, but I have been working on this book for about forty years!
There were several occasions when I lost parts of the manuscript, either through computer malfunction, failing to back up material often, or just having weird things happen with my word processor. I would scream for a while, mentally kick myself, then, trying to see the keyboard through my tears, forge ahead and do what had to be done to rectify the situation.
During those trying years, I had frequent dreams about being in a hospital giving birth, searching for my lost baby, or trying to protect my baby. I would wake up feeling bad and wondering what that was all about.
One day, it occurred to me that I was dreaming in symbols and that my manuscript was my baby. Now that 'Pocket of Guilt' is ready for the shelves, congratulations are in order. After forty years of hard labor, finally, I have a baby!