I love a good mystery. I enjoy peering into clues from the past, like my childhood hero, girl detective Nancy Drew, and putting together pieces of a story. My love of research has been useful in my current project. I am writing about the lives of eight women for my book - that now has an offical title: When Others Shuddered: Eight Women Who Didn't Give Up. These women all lived more than a century ago - so I can't talk to them. I can only read about their lives on dusty old pages and microfilm. They grew up in small towns across the country. Some of them were members of wealthy families - one was the child of slaves. Many of them had tragic events, briefly inserted into reports of their life stories, that certainly impacted who they became. Right now, I am researching wealthy philanthropist Nettie McCormick - wife of Cyrus McCormick, inventor of the reaper. While Nettie had all the money she would ever need, she faced troubles with her family. Two of her ch...