Dennis Swan

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Dennis was born on a dairy farm in Brookfield Township in Eaton County, Michigan on land his ancestors took up from the government. He attended Eaton Rapids Schools and worked the family farm with his father after graduation. Dennis started working at the US Post Office in Eaton Rapids after his marriage to his wife, Kathi. Soon after, they switched from dairy to raising beef cattle. That gave them time to pursue their passion for antiques. They became dealers with booths in several antique malls, as an outlet for the treasures found that they no longer had room for. They soon opened their own shop in the old grist mill in Eaton Rapids. Poor health forced them to close their shop, and retire from the Post Office. Dennis always had a love for history, especially local history. He knew his family had lived in the area for a long time, from the stories he heard growing up. Through genealogical research conducted by Kathi, which is her love, he soon found out his forefathers were some of the first settlers in Eaton County. One was the first lawyer in Eaton Rapids, started the first newspaper, became the prosecuting attorney and went on to be a State Representative. Since Dennis has been an avid reader since a young child and comes from a long line of storytellers, he decided to spin a tale of what might have happened. Using what history he found by researching the local library, he blends together historical facts and fictional characters. With no diaries to read or journals to aid his research, he had to use his imagination to what it was like living on the Michigan frontier in 1835, and what kind of people would have been living there, among the Native American Indians to weave a charming tale of life in the early days of Eaton Rapids.

Dennis's Books

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​Alone in the Michigan wilderness with only the Pottawatomie Indians for neighbors, Olive and Simon Chatfield, educated Quakers from New York state, start a two-room log cabin and trading post on the banks of the Grand River, a place the Natives call the Forks. When Olive goes into early labor for her ninth child, her two younger boys bring Cloud, the Pottawatomie medicine woman, to help, and a life-long friendship is forged. 
As the white man’s civilization takes hold and turns the pristine virgin forests of the Michigan territory into farms and businesses, the Natives try to adopt the ways of the white man by learning their 

language, farming and attending their schools and churches. Glyn, Simon and Olive’s son, knew only pain and sorrow until he fell in love with Gray Dove, a Pottawatomie maiden who lost most of her family to smallpox. As the government and everyone around them turns hostile towards the Natives, Glyn struggles desperately to find a way to keep Gray Dove from being removed when President Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act.
The author has put to pen the vibrant tales told by his ancestors about the early settlement of the Michigan territory. He has woven these stories together with historical fact, to bring to life the adventures of the Chatfields in the 1830s as they struggled to help build up a town now known as “The Only Eaton Rapids on Earth.”

An antiques store owner and his wife are pulled into a ring of sex and blackmail when they discover the long abandoned Westover House, a stately Victorian mansion on a secluded hilltop. Forgotten by man and time, the mansion holds the memories of Victrola jazz music, children playing in the nursery, wisps of Cuban cigar smoke mingling with the latest Paris fragrance, and dinner conversations that last long into the night over a bottle of wine.

 On nights of the waning moon, wisps of foggy mist play hide-and-seek with the mansion's facade, guarding the secrets that lay within. Those luminous reminiscences, like motes of dust, hold on to the memory of the last owner, who took her children and fled from despair into madness.