Fabrics of Freedom

About the Book

"Fabrics of Freedom" is the saga of a family whose origins are in the Marches of Scotland. Tragedy, born of the desire to live free, gives birth to one desperate challenge after another as Robbie Liddle is swept toward his destiny on the battlegrounds of America's War for Independence. The deaths of his father and maternal grandfather conspire to send his mother, grandmother, and uncle on the perilous journey across the Atlantic in hopes of founding a tailor shop. This dream was inspired by the contents in his grandfather's chest of tools of the trade. Through shipwreck and financial hardship, they are led to the possibility of freedom in the Township of Leacock, County of Lancaster, Proprietorship of Pennsylvania. In spite of physical challenges, Robbie displays hereditary skills in the demands of tailoring. Bondage to his uncle, however, arouses in him the first yearning for freedom. With his best friend, Robbie flees northeastward to West Jersey. His wit and charm, inherited from the father he never knew, combined with the skills learned at his mother's knee, enable Robbie to find a new kind of freedom in the arms of the maiden who captured his heart--Miss Isabella Barclay. The Jerseys, however, are directly in the path of the coming conflict for a national freedom. Back and forth across what would become the third State among the United States, the forces of the British and the Continentals bloody the soils of this tiny colony. For the sake of freedom from such bondage to England, Robbie enlists in the New Jersey Militia. His military experiences in places like Brandywine and Monmouth and Valley Forge provide fodder for the tales he will spin throughout the rest of his long life. The tailor becomes the teller of tales. Heroes of such world-changing conflicts are not entirely the general officers, but the citizens who answer the call to risk their lives in the cause of freedom. Every chapter of Robbie Liddle's story is loosely connected with the various fabrics and materials with which he worked and in which he and his family dressed. Together they create that wonderful quilt of a life that rejoices in a liberty that is never free.

About the Author

C. K. Little was educated at General Motors Institute (now Kettering University) and Columbia Theological Seminary. His interest in research and writing was directed toward the tasks associated with teaching and preaching in churches of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Kansas. Upon retiring in Tennessee he redirected this interest toward genealogy. This led him to tell this story about his wife’s great-grandfather. Previously he wrote “Fabrics of Freedom,” a story about his patriot ancestor, published by Xlibris in 2007. He is a member of the Clan Little Society of North America, Clan Barclay, and the John Sevier Chapter of the Tennessee Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. He is married to the former June Blanche McCusker. They have four children and three grandchildren.