The Lake of the Ozarks was created during the 1920s and ‘30s to support nationwide electrification, when huge hydroelectric projects dammed rivers and created equally large reservoirs behind them. For better or worse, these projects changed the land as it had existed for thousands of years and directly affected thousands of families.
In this context, St. Cloud resident Tim Pilkington decided to write a fictional biography of his family, going back several generations to when development began to take hold around the newly completed dam and the reservoir it created.
“We know many of the facts of what happened with our parents and grandparents, but we have no way of knowing exactly what was said, and what happened day to day, which is why the fictional elements need to be added to create the story,” said Pilkington.
“The White House Hotel” is the story of a generation of young people drawn together by life to a new community-Lake Ozark, located near the new Bagnell Dam. The White House Hotel becomes one of the centers of the community, hosting a highway bus stop, liquor store—important for its proximity to some of the “dry” counties in the region, even after the end of Prohibition—a restaurant/ballroom, and a few rooms available for a night.
A group of young adults coalesces around happenings at the “White House.” Together they face the life-changing events encountered by all families, including marriages, children, illness, and the inevitable passing of family members, amid the backdrop of the Great Depression and then World War II.
A bit of the arc of emerging technology of the day is portrayed in the book, when a sound system is installed in the hotel so patrons can dance to music from the radio during the days when no live band is scheduled. An enterprising Harold Pilkington, the author’s father, adds an external speaker at the bus stop area so passersby can hear a bit of the popular St. Louis Cardinals baseball games and perhaps buy a newspaper on sale there. The book is a great, epic slice of Midwest Americana, in the tradition of authors Willa Cather and Sherwood Anderson. Pilkington studied Film in college, has written several plays for community theater, and that reflects in the style of the novel, which really reads like a screenplay. A bout with bad health motivated him to write the book.
“I wanted to be sure to get the ‘oral tradition’ of my family down in writing for the next generations,” said Pilkington.
He hopes readers get value from the book by being able to both laugh and cry along with the characters in the book, and he hopes to write another book as he approaches age 80.
For more information on the author and his book, see https://bit.ly/4ghoNgy.
