B. Ashford’s childhood ran through military bases rather than one hometown — Hahn Air Base in West Germany, Marietta, Georgia, and later the Philippines, all before 1979. Every few years meant a new base, a new set of neighbors, sometimes a new language to pick up fast.

That upbringing left a permanent fascination with the twentieth century’s upheavals: the wars that reordered whole countries, the families who had to adapt or flee or simply endure, and the strange, particular experience of being a child inside history rather than reading about it later.

That fascination is the engine behind the Ashford name — family sagas set against real historical pressure, told through the people who lived inside it rather than the generals who moved them. Enduring Roots, following one Italian family through fascism, war, and reconstruction, is the first.