October, 2025

Have I ever mentioned how Daisy became a fictional character? Maybe I should do that now. Daisy came to me out of the blue one day in around 2000, perhaps because I’d been trying to think of how to use Pasadena, California, in a book. After I moved to Roswell, NM, I became nostalgic about Altadena and Pasadena, where I was born and brought up. I’m still nostalgic, mostly because Altadena isn’t there any longer, having burned down in January of this year.

What I wanted to write about was the Pasadena in the Good Old Days (which probably weren’t all that good, what with epidemics of measles, whooping cough, polio, diphtheria, etc., all of which we now have vaccines to prevent). In their early days, Pasadena and Altadena were havens for wealthy easterners who wintered there, and Hollywoodland folks who wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle of work.

Rich folks need the rest of us to provide services for them. So, I was thinking about that, and suddenly a hardworking phony spiritualist who has too many burdens to bear appeared in my brain as if by magic, and Daisy was born! A friend in Roswell let me borrow her last name, Majesty, as her last name. I gave her Gumm as a maiden name (don’t ask me how or why. These things just happen), an aunt who is possibly the best cook in the world, a supportive family (hey, authors make things up), a husband who’d been grievously wounded in the Great War, and I was set to go.

Almost. I also had to give her a spirit control. I didn’t want the spirit control to be an ancient Egyption or an extinct Native American, because most phony spiritualists chose from those two cultures to find their controls. As Daisy herself once pointed out (at least I think she did), late wealthy rulers were far outnumbered by the plain old folks, not to mention poor people. And plague victims. Can’t forget them.

One day when I still lived in Pasadena, my younger daughter, Robin, bought a Ouija board for fifty cents at a garage sale. The woman who sold it to her said, “Be careful with that thing.” When Robin and I fiddled with it, we discovered (this is a true story, even if it is rather odd) Rolly! I gave Rolly to Daisy, who made much better use of him than I ever did. His background story is correct, however. According to the Ouija board, Rolly were soul mates. He and I had been married in what is now Scotland in 1055 or thereabouts and had five sons. It’s nice to know I have a soul mate, even if he is fictitious and has been dead for a thousand years.

I consider Daisy to be my alter-ego. Daisy is bold and daring. I’m not. At all. In spite of that, Daisy is the character closer to my heart than any of the other characters who have inhabited my brain. 

For instance, I took my very first dachshund to the Pasanita Dog Obedience Club. Never mind that the Pasanita Dog Obedience Club was founded in 1940, and Daisy takes Spike there in 1922 or thereabouts. I got permission from the Pasanita folks to use their name and training methods, so it’s okay. I used to buy fabric at Maxime’s Fabrics, then made clothes for my daughters and myself using Daisy’s side-pedal White sewing machine. I shopped at Nash’s, and I haunted the Pasadena Public Library (although it was in a different place in the early twenties). I took my kids to see Dr. Benjamin. In truth, Daisy and her gang mean the world to me.

It was difficult to write about Daisy’s hatred of Germans but, face it, Kaiser Bill tried to take over the world. After the war finally ended, the USA (and most of the rest of the world) held a grudge against Germany. Besides, Germans ruined Daisy’s poor husband, Billy. Not the soldiers’ fault, but there you go. Some folks even went so far as to call dachshunds liberty hounds and sauerkraut liberty cabbage.

I had intended my “Spirits” books to be historical cozy mysteries, but the Powers That Be at Kensington (my publisher at the time) asked me to take out the dead bodies and add a subsidiary romance (because Daisy is already married to the love of her life, Billy). Kensington marketed the first two books as romances, which they aren’t, so the series died unsung. Well, they weren’t entirely unsung. The few people who read them seemed to like them. Heck, the first book was a Romantic Times Top Pick and was nominated for a Reviewer’s Choice award). As money-makers, however, they tanked miserably.

Their sudden demise hurt me deeply. I began writing the Mercy Allcutt books when I believed Daisy to be belly-up in the goldfish bowl of publishing. Mercy was okay, but I didn’t love her as I did Daisy.

Yikes! That took a long time in the telling, didn’t it? But it’s how Daisy came to be. Now on to book news! Dancing Angels, Mercy Allcutt’s tenth book will be published on November 4 of this year. Please feel free to pre-order it. Here’s the link:

I’m busy writing Rosy Spirits, but I’m going to have my right shoulder replaced on October 15, and that might delay things a bit. Feel free to pre-order it anyway. Here’s the Amazon Kindle link:

Because I probably won’t write a November newsletter, I might as well hold a book giveaway for Dancing Angels in this newsletter. I won’t be able to send physical books until after my shoulder is replaced and I recover and go to physical therapy for a few weeks. Months. Whatever. I can, however, send e-copies of the book. If you, therefore, would like to be included in the Dancing Angels giveaway, please send me an email. My email address is alice@aliceduncan.net  . Poor Bam-Bam is no longer with me, so Cookie has taken over duties as winner-picking semi-wiener dog. I no longer have any dachshunds. Wow. How did that happen?

If you’re interested in purchasing a copy (or copies) of other ebooks written by me, check out my author page at ePublishingWorks and Wolfpack Publishing:

Alice Duncan - ePublishingWorks

About Alice Duncan — Wolfpack Publishing

Daisy Daze, the Facebook page Iris Evans and Leon Fundenberger created as a tribute to Daisy Gumm Majesty (and Mercy Allcutt, although she came later), continues to grow. I suspect that’s because people are finally interested in the 1920s and the “roaring twenties.” It’s a fun group. We post lots of pictures and information, mostly relating to Los Angeles and/or Pasadena, California, in the 1920s and 1930s. Not sure about anyone else, but I learn a lot on Daisy Daze. If you’d like to join, just click on this link: (20+) DAISY DAZE | Facebook

 If you’d like to check out my own Facebook page, click here: (20+) Facebook

 If you’d like to visit my web site, click here: Home | Alice Duncan

Thanks!