Many Roads in One Life
My Road to Finding Her Story
“This became more than a project for me. It became a minor obsession.” C. V. Wooster
How the Story Was Researched
Research included:
THE AUTHOR
C. V. Wooster
Described on the original author page as a person with a deep interest in many subjects, C. V. Wooster holds BA degrees in English Literature and History and MA degrees in Political Science and Multi-Cultural Education, and is an NBCT-certified teacher. He wrote a doctoral dissertation on classroom technology while that technology was still new in schools, and he taught history for decades.
A September 2025 press note from Taciturn Studios calls him a California native who grew up traveling desert highways and a writer of overlooked histories. The same note points readers to cvwooster.com.
“I write so people like Margaret aren't forgotten.” C. V. Wooster
cvwooster.com · All books · Amazon author page · Goodreads · Substack
advertisement
Mrs. Orcutt's Driveway
EnglishFrançaisEspañolMore from C. V. Wooster → cvwooster.com
More desert history from C. V. Wooster: The King of Quacks (Zzyzx) · When the Birds Go Silent (the Mojave War)
Substack
The parchment, postmarks, stamps, gilt corners, and desert sketches come from C. V. Wooster's presentation for the book. Photographs are credited where they appear. The award seals and the signed manual page are from the author's materials.
Read
The road
Visit & play
Why this story
C. V. Wooster has talked about a childhood spent on Mojave road trips between Los Angeles and Arizona, and about the bits and pieces of desert stories he heard from family along the way. Some sixty years later, a YouTube recommendation put Bonnie Orcutt's story in front of him again. He went looking for a full history of her life and found that nobody had written one. In his words: “Someone needed to tell her story.” He has also said, “This became more than a project for me. It became a minor obsession.”
How he works
The research for this book meant going to the place where the events happened. It meant finding witnesses and people connected to the story, getting in touch with distant relatives, and working through primary documents from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library. The book is a historical narrative. It is built on the record, and it says plainly where conversations and characters are composites and where events were shaped for story continuity.
That way of working comes out of his background. He holds BA degrees in English Literature and History and MA degrees in Political Science and Multi-Cultural Education. He is an NBCT-certified teacher, and he taught history for decades. The site describes him as a teacher, builder, carpenter, musician, writer and historian.
Other desert histories
Bonnie's is one of several overlooked histories he has written. The King of Quacks tells the true story of Curtis Howe Springer, the radio cure-seller who built the Zzyzx health resort at Soda Springs, just off Interstate 15 in the eastern Mojave. When the Birds Go Silent is a novel set during the Mojave War of 1858 to 1859, a story he came across while researching this book. He has also written Searching for Bowlby, about the British psychiatrist John Bowlby. The full list is on the other books page and at cvwooster.com.
Awards for this book
Mrs. Orcutt's Driveway won a Literary Titan Book Award, with the review published on July 15, 2025. In Summer 2025 it also took a NABE Pinnacle Book Achievement Award for Best Book, Women's Interest. On Amazon it reached #1 in Women's Studies History and in 1960s History of the U.S.
What to read first
Most new readers begin with the excerpt and then turn to the driveway story for the background. Teachers and book clubs can head straight for the reading group guide. The author's years in the classroom shaped it, so the questions are there to start a discussion, not to test anyone's recall.
Getting in touch
Readers can write to info@cvwooster.com, which is the address printed in the book. Corrections that come with a source are welcome, and they will be made. Requests from the press and for review copies go to press@taciturnstudios.com.