Elisabeth Hartog Hess

In the summer of 2011, as Florida’s housing market continued to unravel, I found myself unexpectedly without a job. At the same time, my beloved Tanté Ellie received the news that her cancer was terminal. Faced with the fragility of time, I decided to preserve the one thing illness could not take from her: her story.

Every Wednesday that summer, I drove to visit Ellie and her sister Joké, who lovingly cared for her. Together, we wandered through the landscapes of their memories, revisiting childhood adventures, unfulfilled dreams, cherished loves, and life’s inevitable heartbreaks. My father, Ruud, would occasionally join us, and when he did, the conversations seemed to take on a life of their own, colored by laughter, spirited debate, and the fading hues of another era.

What began as a simple effort to preserve my aunt’s memories became the first step in the journey of Ellebel, the historical Christian novel I am writing today. In 2011, there was no AI, no effortless dictation software, only a recorder, stacks of transcripts, and patience. Each week, I would transcribe our conversations by hand, return the pages to her for review and correction, and then sit down to capture another chapter of her remarkable life.

For the next fifteen years, I tended the story little by little, gathering facts and chasing details in the margins of a demanding career as a financial controller. Research often felt like searching for scattered pieces of a mosaic. But with the arrival of AI, those pieces began to fall into place. What once took weeks can now be accomplished in hours, and with tools such as ChatGPT helping me verify facts, organize decades of information, and untangle historical threads, the story has blossomed in ways I never imagined. What simmered quietly for years has finally burst into full bloom.

Because the story is ultimately about Ellie and her amazing dance with life, there are so many facts and side stories that are not written into the novel that are fascinating. Rather than discard that research and information, this blog is about those stories between the facts.