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Best-selling author Leila Meacham didn’t find success as a novelist until late in life, but her writing edified many in her final days as she detailed her battle with pancreatic cancer on social media. .
Meacham, a retired teacher from San Antonio, died Sunday at the age of 83.
In one of his last Facebook posts, Meacham wrote about resuming chemotherapy after a fall.
“Alas, alas. Surely there is a divine plan behind this, a reason to smile again, â€she wrote. “Whatever mine is, you all keep smiling, hold on to the faith, and pray for my endurance and strength. “
Her husband of 55 years, Richard “Dick” Meacham, broke the news to his late wife’s thousands of Facebook followers on Monday.
“Shortly after her last message on September 8, Leila developed double pneumonia and had to be hospitalized. She fought valiantly for over a week, but the cumulative effects of cancer, chemotherapy, strokes, pelvic fractures and pneumonia severely weakened her, â€he wrote, adding, “Thank you for being there for her. Your responses to his messages gave him strength and kept him going.
Leila Meacham has written a series of historical romances that have captivated audiences across the country. Her breakout book, New York Times bestseller “Roses,” was published in 2010 when she was 70 years old. Set in a small town in east Texas, “Roses” traced the far-reaching effects of a thwarted marriage between tycoons Mary Toliver and Percy Warwick. at the start of the 20th century, winning comparisons with “Gone with the Wind”.
However, she felt her second effort represented her best work, according to Dick Meacham.
“If you asked him, I think his favorite was ‘Tumbleweeds’,†he said. Spanning several decades, the novel traces the intertwined life trajectories of three orphans who ultimately find themselves drawn into a love triangle.
Over the next six years, Meacham published six more books, including “Somerset”, a prequel to “Roses”. Its most recent, the thriller “Dragonfly,” follows a motley team of five American spies, including a fashion designer, a stunning swordsman and an impoverished fly fisherman, tasked with infiltrating the inner circle of the Nazis in occupied Paris during the Second World War.
Meacham herself was born in Minden, Louisiana, in 1938, several years before the United States entered the fray in December 1941. She and Dick Meacham met while in the Air Force. and were married on July 2, 1966.
Meacham’s passion for writing and reading first took the form of a career in education. Between the 1960s and 1990s, she taught English at schools in several states, including Judson High School and Kitty Hawk Middle School in Texas.
“She was so encouraging to her students – the students who struggled with their studies, their social issues, their family issues. She loved helping students achieve their goals successfully. She took a lot of people who weren’t going anywhere, and she helped them do something on their own, and she did it just because of her personality and the way she treated people †, said Dick Meacham.
Witnessing her impact, he said, many of her former students have stayed in touch with her.
“How many times have you run over your teachers 20 or 30 years ago and come to see them?” ” he said. “I don’t think you probably did that. I did not do it.
Leila Meacham was working on a ninth book, tentatively titled “April Storm”, around the same time that she was diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer in August 2019 and started chemotherapy in September 2019. She was almost having it. finished with it – going through the last chapter. – when she died, said Dick Meacham. He described “April Storm” as a contemporary mystery.
“She basically touched everyone she spoke to,†Dick Meacham said.
“She has so many friends. You don’t have a lot of friends if you’re not a special person.
A visitation will take place on Friday October 1 and his funeral is scheduled for October 2.
