Smoky Mountain News

Author Barbara Dumas Ballew will be signing copies of her novel, George’s Creek to Georgia, on Oct. 23 at PumpkinFest in Franklin.

Ballew, an accomplished genealogist and storyteller from Franklin, takes readers back to a simpler time in her novel, a time when a young illiterate pioneer purchased land for his first farm, met the woman of his dreams, and started a family. Ballew’s great-grandmother Lurana, one of Elijah’s children, took on the strong nature of her father, persevering even when her parents died and she and her husband were left homeless expecting their first child.