As a reader of a courageous memoir, we can discover a new unsung hero or be inspired to make a course adjustment or an attitude change in our own lives. We can learn how an obstacle faced head on, can become a challenge conquered, a goal met. Or gain a new sense of admiration for another we would never have imagined came from such perilous and meager beginnings. In Just a Common Lady by Dr. Karen Hutchins Pirnot, I was privileged to experience all of these possibilities in one book.

Some shy away from reading memoirs of less than nationally known celebrities or they limit biographical reading to a personal hero in a certain field or period of history. Granted, a good many memoirs written by mature folks are a recounting of a life with family and close friends being the intended, or limited, audience. Often they may be a life story that is really pretty much like a thousand other life stories of a certain generation.

An author/editor/book reviewer myself, occasionally, I’ve been blessed with reading a memoir that is an inspirational saga truly painful for an author to re-visit; one that did require a great amount of ‘courage’ to pen. Such is the superb book by Dr. Karen Pirnot. Few novels are more able to draw you in to a character’s life as Just a Common Lady is able to embrace the heart.

Karen Hutchins was a child of parents plodding through the Great Depression and into World War II, in itself a trial, but not unlike ‘thousands of other stories’ from that generation. But Karen and her three siblings had their true trials yet coming when their mother died shortly after the birth of the youngest brother, leaving four children, the oldest a boy just in elementary school, behind. Karen describes her father’s soul as “jumping into the grave with her mother” and the life path of the four children becomes a foray into surviving without a mother, a father never again the same, and poverty a continual presence. The moving about between well-intentioned relatives, though helpful, still left the children caught in a web of insecurity and uncertainty. The trials and tribulations over the years simply cannot be summed into a book review. I can only say the book is a treasure for anyone who cares to look outside themselves and experience true compassion for a fellow being, an unsung hero.

I can share that the burdens borne by Karen Hutchins Pirnot gave birth to a nurturing, strong, wise and determined woman who would serve as a role model for anyone. And has, for countless numbers, including the family for which she became the tether, the “Keeper” that held them all together in spirit over the decades. Just a Common Lady is a story for all that share a human spirit. For those in need of one, it could be the bearer of a gift.

Susan Haley, Author

RAINY DAY PEOPLE

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