Elaine Ambrose

Bestselling Author, Ventriloquist, & Humorist

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Memoir Reviewed by Acclaimed Idaho Author

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My memoir Frozen Dinners is available on Amazon for pre-order. Brown Books Publishing has announced a release date for November 2018 to secure holiday promotion and purchases. Watch for the local premiere party, complete with TV dinners!

I appreciate this review from Kim Barnes, author of the Pulitzer Prize Finalist Memoir: In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country

“Full of luscious details, clear-eyed compassion, and enduring joy, Ambrose’s memoir gives us an insider’s view of one family’s rocky pursuit of the American Dream. Even when she is relating personal stories of conflict, loss, and grief, Ambrose does so with a survivor’s voice made strong by experience, stubbornness, humor, and love.”

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I worked on the manuscript for 20 years. My mother’s death in 2014, followed last year by the death of my younger brother George, convinced me to complete the book. The memoir tells the story of my father Neal Ambrose, born in Wendell, Idaho, as he climbed out of poverty and created an extensive fortune through trucking and farming enterprises. In the early 1950s, he established one of the first trucking companies in the country to haul frozen TV dinners, and during the 1960s, his farming operations introduced the first pivot sprinklers in southern Idaho. The pivots allow sprinkler pipes to rotate around a center pump to water crops.

However, the family lived in a state of emotional paralysis, and after my father’s death, everything was destroyed as the assets were squandered, the companies closed, and hundreds of employees lost their jobs. A chapter titled “Judgement Day” describes a brutal courtroom scene where a ruthless Boise attorney badgered my 77-year-old mother until she wet her pants. Another chapter devoted to her is titled “The Book of Leona.” The memoir concludes with my half-century journey to find warmth beyond the contaminated legacy of frozen dinners.

While ripping open the scars to write the book, I covered the wounds with healing humor and wrote Menopause Sucks, Midlife Cabernet, and Midlife Happy Hour.  I’m eager to return to writing humor.

Click this link for pre-ordering details about the hard cover edition: Frozen Dinners

 

 

Memoir and Metaphor

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My memoir Frozen Dinners is in production and soon the proofs will be distributed for professional review. The publication date will be in a few months.

The book contains several original poems in a chapter titled “Potatoes and Poetry.” I wrote one titled “1964 Town Crier” as a student in a writing class at the University of Idaho. At the time, I didn’t know the poem would become the metaphor for a memoir I would finish almost 50 years later.

 

1964 Town Crier

 Ragged, rhythmic clouds of breath escape from my mouth

as I push my burdened bicycle over the patches of frozen snow.

Frost fills my nostrils and hardens wayward hairs

poking beneath my knit hat like spikes of rigid spider legs.

The only sounds on this dark moonless morning

come from the rustle of my frozen pant legs

and my boots squeaking and crunching through the crusty layers.

I know every house on my paper route, so I keep my head down

in a futile attempt to ignore the bitter winds that slice through my coat.

Take a newspaper from the bag, slap it into a roll, stick it into the can, keep going.

I’m 12 years old, and I’m outside in the brutal Idaho winter

at 5:30 am to deliver 70 newspapers. Every day. By myself.

My fingers hurt. Snot freezes on my lip. A dog growls but doesn’t leave its shelter.

Crunch. Breathe. My bag becomes lighter as a sliver of daylight emerges through the dark.

I arrive home, and my father sits to read the newspaper while my mother hands me

hot cocoa with marshmallows happily bobbing and melting on top.

My aching hands circle the mug, and I lean over so the steam can warm my face.

Silent tears roll down red cheeks.

I am the Messenger. I am the Town Crier.

 

 

 

 

Come to the Mountains to Write, Tell, and Record Your Story

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Mill Park Publishing of Eagle, Idaho is sponsoring a women’s writing Retreat on November 4-6, 2016, for those who want to preserve and share their stories. We’ll focus on how to write a memoir, how to participate in verbal storytelling, and how to record an audio book. Registration is limited to 12 women, and accommodations include two deluxe mountain cabins with two private rooms with private baths and five shared rooms with shared baths.

Cost is $400 per person for private room and bath or $300 per person for shared room and shared bath.

Cost includes two light dinners, two breakfasts, one lunch, snacks, materials, and speakers.

Transportation from the airport, to the cabins, and back to the airport will be provided for guests from out-of-state.

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On Saturday night, participants will be encouraged to stand and read to the group. There will be free time to write, hike, read, or visit the nearby recreation area and hot springs.

Workshops will be facilitated by Elaine Ambrose, author and owner of Mill Park Publishing. Preview her credentials at www.ElaineAmbrose.com.

cabin back deck

Topics include:

  • Why Your Story Matters – How to Outline Your Memoir
  • Tell Your Story – How to Speak in Public, Read Your Work, and Prepare an Audio Book
  • Setting Goals Beyond Next Week – How to Design a Workable Schedule to Complete Your Work

Registration is due by October 15. No refunds after October 20, 2016. Follow this link: Retreat.

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The cabins are located in Garden Valley, approximately an hour’s drive from Boise, Idaho, and are equipped with linens, towels, high-speed Internet, land-line telephone, and modern amenities. Please respond with dietary requirements and mobility issues. Past evaluations and reviews are available upon request.

Preemptive Political Plea:  The writer’s retreat is a few days before the election. Any political discussions will be moved outside…with the bears, wolves, and mountain lions. Quarreling interferes with the laughter.

More details and directions to the cabins will be sent after payment is received.

How to Thaw a Cold Childhood and Create a Warm Family

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ambrose truck elaine tom

Grown-up Me traveled to a conference in Nashville last week to speak to a national gathering of women bloggers. I smiled with confidence and prepared to meet, greet, and tweet. Then I noticed the conference sponsor — a frozen food company introducing a new product — and Grown-up Me disappeared. A small child stood in my place.

As the Little Girl Me, I felt the business clothes hang loosely on my youthful frame and my small feet wobble in the heeled shoes. I stared at the compact packages of frozen meals as the stage and podium turned into the cold dining room from my past. Again, I was a sad girl in need of comfort food that never came.

I grew up eating frozen dinners on disposable aluminum trays that provided exact portions of mixed vegetables, a meat concoction, manufactured potatoes and bland apple crisp or a meek cherry cobbler. My father was a stern, successful workaholic who built a trucking empire in the 1960s hauling frozen food and TV dinners throughout the Northwest. He was gone during the week, driving trucks from California to Montana, then back to California. He’d stop by our house in Idaho and leave a box of frozen dinners. And then he was gone again.

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My mother dutifully heated and handed the aluminum trays to her children, and we ate in silence. As a stubborn girl, I defied the orderly presentation and pushed the wrinkled peas into the potatoes and plopped the dessert onto the meat. It all tasted the same, anyway. As we consumed our meal, I wondered how it would be to live in a place of warmth, peace and laughter. I longed for a hearty homemade meal shared with a happy family, so I made it my mission to have that scenario.

You can relate to my story if you spent your childhood sitting silently around a table in a cold room, chilled from within, following a predictable pattern that would repeat for years. As a young girl, I vowed to someday come in from the cold when I had a family of my own. Decades later, I finally realized my childhood dream of living in a warm, loving home full of laughter. Challenges remain, as in all situations, but my table is covered with home-cooked food and surrounded by contented grown children and giggling grandkids.

Here are some life lessons that can help navigate beyond a cold childhood:

You are not disposable. Just as the trays from frozen dinners were tossed into the garbage, I often felt unwanted during my childhood. After I left home and financially supported myself, I felt the first taste of freedom. I finally mattered, and my skills were worthy of a paycheck.

You can create your own path. My adult journey often was treacherous as I took risks to find a better life. I stumbled, fell and had to start over several times. But, I always stood, brushed off the dirt and kept going because I knew what I didn’t want and what I wanted. I worked at several jobs and found better ones. I attended cooking classes and registered for cooking tours to visit other cultures and learn how to make special dishes. I earned enough money to purchase quality plates, silverware and glasses that weren’t tossed into the garbage after every meal. I married, divorced and remarried and finally found my forever love. My children survived many meager meals while they were young, but we survived together. After many years of trial and error, we finally got to enjoy dessert.

You can envision and achieve your goals. My desire to provide and enjoy a warm home was fueled by the vision of a festive holiday table. Over the past few years, I’ve dined at such a table and thankfully watched my adult children and grandchildren laugh, tell stories and barter for the last piece of pie. Then my husband will offer a toast, and we’ll raise our glasses in celebration. This spontaneous merriment often leads to multiple toasts.

Your parents had struggles, too. I didn’t get along with either of my parents, and we were all happy when I finally went away to college. Looking back, I have developed a new empathy for them. They did the best they could as they battled health, economic, and relationships issues. They have both passed away, and I regret not trying one more time to kindle a small spark that would have bonded us together. As their legacy, I will honor them with positive thoughts and not dwell on sad memories.

Acceptance is liberating. Now I have the maturity to appreciate the work my father did to advance his business success and support the family. But the wealth came with a price. Every mile he drove, he purposely placed distance between himself and his family. Even after he stopped driving and had accumulated the resources to buy more trucks and hire other drivers, the house remained cold. I used this experience to motivate my own search for emotional and physical nourishment.

Family mealtime is an important ritual that forms the basis of childhood memories. Successful dinners don’t need to be cooked from scratch from original recipes. Frozen entrees are a handy substitute after a hectic day and the family needs to eat before midnight. A home-cooked meal or a microwaved dinner can be the centerpiece of an abundant family feast; it all depends upon the warmth in the room, not just from the dish.

Back at the conference in Nashville, Little Girl Me held out my hands and accepted the offering of warm macaroni and cheese cups from the representative. Grown-up Me smiled and said, “Thank you.” You can’t go wrong with macaroni and cheese, the proven comfort food. “Frozen Dinners” is now just a metaphor, a birthmark that someday I will turn into a memoir.

 

(Featured on The Huffington Post Fifty on March 16, 2015)