Made to Last Forever

In the shadows of the English Plague of 1625, Jonathan Fairbanks finds himself snubbed in his father’s will and thrust into the chaos of King Charles’s Puritan persecution and political turmoil. Risking everything, he sails with his young family over treacherous seas to the uncertainty of the wilderness founded as the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Jonathan struggles to carve a place for his family in the new inland town of Dedham. Grace, his wife, strives to overcome her superstitions, doubts and hardships while sustaining their family. Just when Jonathan sees security for his family, his son, Jonas, asserts his own ambitions – contrary to his father’s. This takes Jonas to Hammersmith and to a new frontier where he finds a way to marry for love.

The Fairbanks family built the oldest standing frame house in America in 1637. It is now a National Historic Landmark. Hammersmith is now the Saugus Ironworks, NPS. The nation is nearing the 400th anniversary of the Boston and Massachusetts Bay Colony in 2030; Dedham, MA, in 2035/36; The Fairbanks House in 2037. This story ties to the Ancient and Honorable Artilery Company, to Lancaster, Massachusetts and ultimately to the King Philip’s War.

Author Biography

Sharmin Fairbanks McKenny grew up on a traditional family farm and continued her ancestor’s pioneering legacy by soloing in an airplane before earning her driver’s license. With a master’s in nursing, she cared for early kidney transplant, severely burn and trauma patients. Sharmin was one of the first civilian nurses on a hospital-based emergency helicopter. Ms. McKenny has visited her ancestor’s historic homes and workplaces, staying at their early 1600s ancestral house in England and visiting the 1637 Fairbanks House in Dedham, MA., where she now serves as a board of director and acting historian for the Fairbanks Family in America, Inc. Sharmin has published articles for her community newspaper, historical societies, museum newsletters, and newspapers. She received an award for her historical fiction, “Soles of War,” from the Daughters of the American Revolution. At home, she enjoys golf, walking, biking, reading, painting, traveling, managing her Orphan Orchid Project and researching and sharing family and national history. Of her many pets, her favorites were Harvest, a spaniel, and Tiki, a monkey. She cherishes her husband, John, and two children, Aaron and Macy.