DP News

February 7, 2010

Dallas author wins ‘Mom’s Choice Award’

By Sarah Hite shite@timesleader.com
Staff Writer
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Mary Garrity Slaby, Ph.D., discovered a family secret a few years ago while doing genealogy research.

Garrity Slaby, 54, of Dallas, was shocked to learn that her great-grandmother, Catherine McCafferty, was the aunt of Alex Campbell, a member of the Molly Maguires, a secret Irish organization. Campbell was one of four men hanged for allegedly killing two mine operatives in Mauch Chunk, located in Carbon County.

It was Garrity Slaby’s genealogy research and her aunt, Margaret Bonner, who inspired her to write a book for young adults called “Call Me Kate: Meeting the Molly Maguires.”

The book, published in 2008, was recently named a silver recipient for historical fiction in the young adult books category in the 2010 Mom’s Choice Awards.

The Mom’s Choice Awards recognize authors, inventors, companies, parents and others for their efforts in creating quality family-friendly media, products and services. Award recipients receive a lapel pin, seals for the winning product and a certificate.

Set in the 1860s, “Call Me Kate: Meeting the Molly Maguires” is a historical fictional story centered on 14-year-old Catherine McCafferty, a character named after Garrity Slaby’s great-grandmother. In the story, McCafferty’s best friend joins the Molly Maguires and McCafferty wants to intervene.

Garrity Slaby says she applied for the Mom’s Choice Awards but wasn’t sure if she would win.

“I didn’t know really because I thought the book is different than a lot of books being written for young adults these days,” she said.

Garrity Slaby wrote the book under the pen name Molly Roe because she thought it would be better to have a pen name for fictional writing in case she does more academic writing. She says Mollyroe is the name of the town land in Ireland where her great-grandfather Peter Bonner lived before moving to Pennsylvania.

“I thought it was a suitable way to memorialize my ancestors and posthumously thank him for being smart enough to put the town on his naturalization papers!” Garrity Slaby said. “Having the town land helped me find the actual location when the family took a trip to Ireland in 2002. It is also coincidental, but two of us on the trip were my cousin Rosemary and myself. Since Molly is a nickname for Mary and “Ro” is our nickname for my cousin, it fit.”

Garrity Slaby hopes the book will teach history to adolescents and give them a sense of peoples of previous generations experienced. Despite geared the book toward young people, the author has also received feedback from people in their 80s.

“A lot of people said, ‘We’re not Irish or Polish, but we remember those times. We remember how they were treated,’” she said.

Books for young adults are not foreign to Garrity Slaby as she has been a reading and language arts teacher for 20 years at Lake-Lehman Junior/Senior High School. Prior to that, she taught in Schuylkill County and in Virginia.

She and her husband, John, also have two grown children: John Garrett Slaby, of Philadelphia, who illustrated the cover of her book; and Melissa Slaby, of State College.

Although “Call me Kate: Meeting the Molly Maguires” was Garrity Slaby’s first non-academic publication, she doesn’t intend to make it her last. In fact, she hopes the book will be the first in a trilogy.

Currently, Garrity Slaby is halfway finished writing the series’ second book, “Sarah’s Story: The Curse on Centralia.” She thinks the third book will be centered in Philadelphia because that’s where her father’s family eventually moved and it is where she was born.

Garrity Slaby was also a contributor for the book, “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Teens Talk High School.” The book features a true story she wrote about a girl she went to high school with who seemingly had everything, but eventually died at a young age from diabetes.

In addition, she is a member of the Endless Mountains Writers Group and Beta Sigma Chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma Society International, a professional honor society for female educators. Last year, Garrity Slaby was selected as the woman of distinction for the Beta Sigma Chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma.

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