Prologue to Love: A Novel About a Woman Financial Genius

"There can be help. There's always God," said Amy. "I'm ashamed. I'd forgotten about Him." She was quiet for a time. When she lifted her head she looked older and resolute. "Don't blame yourself too much, Cousin Caroline," she said. "That's as bad as taking no blame at all. I'm not going to blame everything on Ames; I was a little fool myself. I was old enough to know that things aren't simple." - A Prologue to Love Taylor Caldwell was born in Manchester, England, into a family of Scottish background. Her family descended from the Scottish clan of MacGregor of which the Taylors are a subsidiary clan. In 1907 she emigrated to the United States with her parents and younger brother. Her father died shortly after the move, and the family struggled.In 1918-1919, she served in the United States Navy Reserve. In 1919 she married William F. Combs. In 1920, they had a daughter, Mary (known as "Peggy"). From 1923 to 1924 she was a court reporter in New York State Department of Labor in Buffalo, New York. In 1924, she went to work for the United States Department of Justice, as a member of the Board of Special Inquiry (an immigration tribunal) in Buffalo. In 1931 she graduated from the University of Buffalo, and also was divorced from William Combs. Caldwell then married her second husband, Marcus Reback, a fellow Justice employee. She had a second child with Reback, a daughter Judith, in 1932. They were married for 40 years, until his death in 1971.