Character Interview: Annie Ashley

Character Interview:

Annie Ashley

Finding Papa’s Shining Star




If you missed the interviews with Alan Ashley and Lenore Seldon of Where
Is Papa’s Shining Star? be sure to read
them in previous blogs to put this interview in perspective.







TWP:  Welcome to The Word Place, Annie Ashley. You started
life under another name, I believe.




AA:  I was born Roberta Annette Rycroft.




TWP:  How did you become Annie Ashley?




AA:  It’s complicated. Basically, my parents
divorced, and my mother remarried. Her husband sent me to his sister, Lenore
Seldon, when…well, when things weren’t going well. When she married Alan
Ashley, they adopted me, and I took the name Annette Lenore Ashley. Roberta was
my biological mother’s name, and I didn’t want anything to do with her.




TWP:  What was life like with the Ashleys?




AA:  Idyllic. I had the best of everything. We
loved each other.




TWP:  You married during the war, right?




AA:  It was one of those hasty wartime things.




TWP:  So it didn’t work out?




AA:  It did, and it didn’t.




TWP:  Children?




AA:  I lost a child.




TWP:  I’m sorry. What do you do now?




AA:  After my parents’ deaths, I became the head
of Ashley Enterprises. Now David--that’s my husband--has turned up again and
wants me to raise the five-year-old daughter of my cousin.




TWP:  You don’t seem enthusiastic about that.




AA: I’m just not
sure I can do it.




TWP:  You had good parental role models in the
Ashleys, didn’t you?




AA:  Yes, but…Chava needs two parents, and David
and I…he has a business in Israel,
and I have responsibilities here.




TWP:  What happened to your biological parents? Did
you ever see them again?




AA:  Roberta Rycroft either committed suicide or
was murdered shortly after I was sent North. I don’t really care. Papa--Albert Rycroft--disappeared. He said
he’d come for me…for Bobbie, his shining star…but he never did. He never did, but he promised...




TWP:  Is he still living?




AA:  I’m not sure. I think so. David knows, but he
won’t tell me anything. He knew Papa--Albert Rycroft in Israel.




TWP:  So what’s next for you?




AA:  I have a business to run. A lot of people
depend on me for their livings. David says I need to get in touch with who I
was…find Papa’s shining star…but she doesn’t exist anymore.




TWP:  You’re sure about that?




AA:  I’m not sure of anything except that my
schedule says I have a business meeting in fifteen minutes, so I have to go.




TWP:  Well, thanks for stopping by The Word Place
today. Good luck.




Tomorrow:  David Levinson,
Annie’s husband




Read the first chapter of Finding Papa’s Shining Star at my website.




Buy Links




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