A.M. Foley is an inspiration when it comes to the history near our Chesapeake Bay Regions. She has taken local history and transcribed it into masterpieces. There are four books that are for sale for purchase on this website. Descriptions and testimonials on the books are all on their separate pages. Visit our Shop to Purchase your book.Personalized, signed books made thoughtful, inexpensive gifts. To arrange one from Ms. Foley use her Contact page.
PURCAHSE A.M. FOLEY'S COLLECTION OF BOOKS
Holland Island: Lost Atlantis of the Chesapeake
"A Triumph! Writer Ann Foley has done it again. She has made the reader feel like family as she pieces together the history of Holland's Island. With help from historian P. Smith Rue, Foley introduces numerous personalities who, over the centuries, gave life and character to a vanished community. Mysteries are revealed and stories told in the best book yet about this ghost island in the Chesapeake Bay."
—Brice N. Stump, Author,
Working Skipjacks of Deal Island
Holland Island
REVEALING HUMAN LOSS BEHIND THE MYSTERIOUS FLOATING HOUSE
REVEALING HUMAN LOSS BEHIND THE MYSTERIOUS FLOATING HOUSE
REVEALING HUMAN LOSS BEHIND THE MYSTERIOUS FLOATING HOUSE
Ancient myth depicted an earthly paradise sunk beneath the waves— a description any Holland Islander would have recognized. This white-framed survivor capturing boaters' imaginations was no apparition, but a relic of nineteenth century life on Holland Island.
Here is the true story of people who lived and loved in this once-upon-a-time community—their laughter, labors, and the ultimate loss of a civilization they expected would withstand any assault the Chesapeake could throw against them.
To tell their story, writer A. M. Foley collaborated with P. Smith Rue, an island aficionado who collected photos and clippings on many islands over the years.
THE BUZZ HAS BEGUN AND HERE’S WHAT THEY’RE SAYING:
REVEALING HUMAN LOSS BEHIND THE MYSTERIOUS FLOATING HOUSE
REVEALING HUMAN LOSS BEHIND THE MYSTERIOUS FLOATING HOUSE
"Friends, your personal library of Delmarva Lore will be much richer and more intriguing to your children if it includes Ann Foley’s work. These are personal accounts of real people, the kind of history that would be lost if not for this . . ."
—Charles Paparella, WBOC-TV
"This book is fantastic. One of the Chesapeake Bay's most haunting stories: an island town, slowly swallowed by the waves."
David Fahrenthold
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, The Washington Post
"OHHH, did you ever tell it well! The writing was so smooth, I could see everything. It all came alive before my eyes."
—Arline Chase, Publisher & Author
"Ann Foley and P. Smith Rue have done a masterful job working with local stories, legends, and church records to produce their book Holland Island. While the island has slowly disappeared from the Chesapeake seascape, Ms. Foley and Mr. Rue collected the annals of a community that will preserve the culture and events for generations to come."
—Terry L. White, Author, Runaway Hearts
"Having spent many years in Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod, and winters in Key West, my trip to Hollands Island, thru your book, turned pages back in my life and urged me forward thru your pages to a time gone by. The stories reflect such a resilience and true community of its people. A simpler temperament of the soul with a more valued appreciation of time. What a wonderful read from a gifted storyteller."
—John Twomey, Cork, Republic of Ireland
"One need not go far into the Prologue of A. M. Foley’s latest book before feeling drawn inexorably into another time and world. Living on the Eastern Shore only a short time, I felt no nostalgia for personal memories, yet the honest, unadorned, masterful way of the author is compelling. Now I realize I watched a pageant of life: its loving, its struggles, its rewards, its defeats, and its aftermath—the likes of which I never thought about. I now feel a greater kinship and understanding of Eastern Shore people among whom I settled."
—Jerry Sciortino, Author, For the Want of a Musket
Elliott's Island
". . . superbly written in the clear concise style which won a Nobel Prize for Ernest Hemingway. . . Every library from Maine to Florida should have a copy."
—P. J. Wingate, Author, Bandages of Soft Illusion and Before the Bridge
THE WIDE WORLD OF ELLIOTT ISLAND
Before the world discovered the Eastern Shore of Maryland, each isolated hamlet was distinct. On a Saturday night, as busloads of shoppers poured into downtown Cambridge, an observant bystander watching them unload could guess which came from Hoopers Island or Taylors Island or Elliotts Island.
Nowadays, with a car in every garage, and more and more houses linked to the World Wide Web, rivulet and mainstream have co-mingled. Small communities are rapidly losing their special characteristics.
Until the 1990s, Elliott Islanders were linked to folks "up on land" by a one-lane causeway that wound across thousands of acres of tidal marsh. At that time, A. M. Foley and Fred Waller, aided by recollections of countless neighbors, began five years of recording the way of life on the island during generations of isolation.
The Chesapeake Bay Program recommends this on its short list of suggested histories.
HERE'S WHAT THEY'RE SAYING
"A wonderful job...charming and evocative."
—Helen Chappell, Author, Oysterback Tales
"Elliott Island is at the end of a thread that weaves natural patterns into art, small talk into poetry, and joy into living."
—Geoffrey M. Footner, Author, The Last Generation and Tidewater Triumph
"Wonderful book . . . beautifully written. I found myself turning pages without noticing . . .Great praise also to Katie Slattery for an unusual and eye-catching piece of book production. One day I may use it as a model for a project, a delicate form of flattery."
—Michael O'Donnell, Tipperary Historical Society, Republic of Ireland
"What the Island got out of this project was a golden goose—the first book ever on the history of one of the county's most remote communities . . .Ghosts of the past live again, as though time stood still."
—Brice Stump, Author, The Skipjacks of Deal Island
"I'm almost too excited to eat. This book brought the past back to life. It's wonderful."
—Capt. C. Calvert Evans, Cambridge, Maryland
"It is wonderful .The authors have captured the charm, wit, architecture and history of the islanders and I highly recommend it."
—Debby Moxey, Dorchester Genealogy Magazine
". . . there were a few tears and some good laughs."
—Anna Aird, Ingram, Texas
A Dorchester County Scrapbook
"Congratulations . . .you have a love for the rich heritage and history of Dorchester County. Thank you for the time and effort you put into helping to preserve the wonderful 'stories' of times past for future generations. . . ."
—Senator Richard F. Colburn
PEOPLE GIVE EASTERN SHORE ITS SPECIAL AURA
A Dochester County Scrapbook, co-written with Terry White, provides readers with a user-friendly Eastern Shore history. Over two hundred illustrations are interspersed with personal stories from long-time residents, prompting the book’s subtitle, “That Reminds Me of a Story.”
An image of life on the isolated, pre-bridge Eastern Shore emerges from the prose as vividly as from the pictures in Scrapbook. Storytellers include businessmen, crabpickers, decoy carvers, watermen and waterwomen, a freighting captain, farmer, and boatbuilder. Photos include a chapter of box camera shots taken by the late Captain C. Calvert Evans, who shared his collection, which dates back to childhood aboard his father's schooner, sailing freight up and down the Chesapeake Bay.
WHAT THEY'RE SAYING
"Ann Foley and Terry White have given local history heart and soul with this book that combines personal stories, memories, and photographs of life that once-was in Dorchester County. Thorough research and fresh material make for great reading and will educate 'new-comers' and delight long-time residents about life on the Eastern Shore."
—Brice Stump, The Daily Times
Author, Working Skipjacks of Deal Island
"Ann Foley and Terry White have captured the spirit of a time and place when Dorchester County was wild, beautiful, and isolated. With pictures and interviews of people who lived it, A Dorchester County Scrapbook is must-read for anyone who loves the Eastern Shore. I read it from cover to cover, studied the photos and really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it so much I read it again."
—Helen Chappell Author, Oysterback Tales
"The pictures are wonderful and the stories are treasures."
—Christina Vickers
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Having My Say
". . . vital to any bookshelf dedicated to Maryland history."
—Baltimore Magazine
ONE MAN’S UNIQUE INSIGHTS INTO LIFE ON THE WATER
Wylie Abbott’s story of a lifetime spent on the water has special meaning for residents of Maryland’s tidewater region, but also resonates with readers far beyond Chesapeake Bay. In Europe, readers considered him Everyman and compared him to Breton fishermen.
Abbott started his career in the early 1940s, as soon as he could walk, fishing minnows and “turkles” from ditches in southern Dorchester County. Eventually, he engaged in nearly every variety of work on the water, and also did business ashore buying and retailing seafood, plying his trade from Baltimore to Texas.
In Louisiana he was feted as the World Champion Muskrat Skinner, a title that landed him on the front page of The Wall Street Journal, startling prominent investors—especially highrollers he’d guided through Dorchester marshes hunting ducks.
Long-time friend and neighbor A. M. Foley captured Abbott’s story in interview sessions and on windy days spent among loiterers in Nora Foxwell’s store.
WHAT THEY'RE SAYING
". . . This new book takes readers inside a life spent on the water and marshes of Dorchester County. Having My Say is Abbott’s first-hand, unfiltered view of his childhood growing up in southern Dorchester County in the 1940s, and his life as a commercial fisherman and guide."
—The Mariner
"This unique book takes a reader inside the life of an Eastern Shore waterman and reveals the personality behind the white boots, cap, and worn jeans. In relating their conversations, A. M. Foley captures the essence of Wylie Abbott...one of the Shore's genuine personalities."
—Brice N. Stump, The Daily Times
Author, Working Skipjacks of Deal Island
"I'm so glad you have done this . . . preserving some of the Shore the way it was for so many years and never will be again...I send you a pat on the shoulder for a job well done!"
—C.R. Hook, Radio personality and Entertainment Promoter
"Compelling . . ."
—Bobbie Christmas, Zebra Communications, Author, Write In Style
"I finished reading with a sense of loss. I have little interest in hunting or fishing, yet for all of that your book held me to the end...A kind of Everyman...his life reminded me of some Breton watermen who live along the west coast of France, resolute, strong men I have long admired..."
—Michael O'Donnell, Tipperary Historical Society, Republic of Ireland
". . . a real treasure . . Even if you've never met Wylie Abbott, never seen a muskrat or an oyster tong, the stories in Having My Say are compelling."
—Gail Dean, Editor, Dorchester Star
". . . an amazing man and a wonderful storyteller . . .the last of the breed. When they pass, they'll take the old Shore with them, because we'll never see their like again. . . It was just like sitting in Miss Nora's listening to all those boys talking. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed Having My Say. . . . Your book has become a treasured part of my Eastern Shore Collection."
—Helen Chappell, Author, Oysterback Tales
"A masterpiece..."
—George and Suzanne Hurley, Authors, Shipwrecks & Rescues
"The most interesting life of an Eastern Shore waterman..."
—John Goodspeed, Star Democrat
"This book is a great read."
—Capt. Edgar Hansen & Nick Mavar, FV Northwestern
personalized copies
Personalized, signed books make thoughtful, inexpensive gifts. To arrange one from Ms. Foley use her Contact page.
Ann M. Foley is happy to sign a Personalized Copy of any book!
Please e-mail at dogwdbooks@shorenet.net to arrange a signed copy of her books Holland Island, Elliott’s Island, Having My Say, and A Dorchester Scrapbook.