When one lives a life that would stop a clock, that life is worth writing about.

So, Pamela Manners, retired Troy University professor, wrote about her grandmother Emmy’s life in Southeast Oklahoma during two “great times” – the great dust storms and the Great Depression.

Manners said her grandmother, Emmy Rowan, had such an indomitable spirit and sense of adventure that she realized she must tell her story.

“My grandmother was a very important person in my life and in the life of so many,” Manners said. “As I began to put my thoughts together with what I had been told about my grandmother and with the ‘detective work’ I had done, it all grew into the book that is ‘Emmy’s Time.’”

The book was five years in the making, and during that time, the book took on a life of its own.

“All of the events in ‘Emmy’s Time’ are real. Not all factual but all true as I remember and as the stories were told to me,” Manners said. She did admit, with a smile, that she embellished a bit. “I had to fill in the places that I didn’t know about.”

Growing up poor and restless in rural Oklahoma was reason for Emmy to forge her own path in life.

“While Emmy’s parents did their best to keep their brood fed, clothed and sheltered, Emmy ran wild with her best friend,” Manners said. “The book covers only the early years of Emmy’s life, even though her entire life could be a book.”

For Manners, the writing of the book was a journey in itself. She took what she knew and appreciated about her grandmother and molded the character of Emmy, the impetuous young woman who would sneak off to a local roadhouse to go dancing, while maintaining the will and spirit necessary to survive in the early days of Oklahoma’s statehood.

“My grandmother was not a cookie baker,” Manners said. “She lived in poverty in a frontier place during the dust bowl and the depression. As the book character, she became real to me. She was in my head and it was almost, at times, as if I were channeling her.”

During the process of developing the character of a young Emmy and writing the plot of the book, Manners said she would often write only a paragraph or a single sentence over a period of time. Other times, the words would flow like a bubbling spring or not at all.

“I would put the book down and not pick it up for a long while,” she said. “But, when I did pick it back up, it was like I had never put it down.”

Most of Manners’ inspiration came on early morning walks with her dog.

“I’d try ideas out on my dog,” she said, laughing. “It just all come together. And, yes, I am pleased with ‘Emmy’s Time.’”

Manners’ book is now available at Barnes & Noble on the campus of Troy University and on Amazon.com for $13.99.

She will be in her native Oklahoma on Oct. 17 for a book signing in Oklahoma City.