In Barbours Cut, novelist Nancy E. Potter has combined family lore, documented facts, and her imagination to create this largely factual, story of her ancestors. Potter's great-grandfather, Clyde A. Barbour, a determined young man with boundless ambition, lived and worked on his family's flatboat on the Mississippi River before becoming a steamboat captain. A self-educated man of culture with a passion for architecture, design, and the arts, Clyde grew into a successful businessman and pioneer of American industry and development. With his beloved wife,Jennie, by his side, he built a life for his growing family that provided them with opportunities and life experiences even beyond what even he had imagined. In his colorful life Barbour dealt with significant life challenges among them family alcoholism, infidelity, jealousy and many other dangers, such as dealing with Mexican revolutionaries. He enhanced the lives of many of those around him, as well as many he had never met.

Nancy E. Potter was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. At the age of nine, she moved with her family to Europe. While spending five wonderful years abroad, Potter gained an appreciation for people from very different cultures. After graduating from college, Potter moved to Washington, D.C., to work on Capitol Hill and at the White House in the Office of Communications. Her entrepreneurial mindset led her into the garment industry, where she designed fashionable maternity clothes.

One of Potter's sons was born with a rare genetic skin disease called Epidermolysis Bullosa (often referred to as E.B.). Out of her son's many years of pain, she learned to marvel at the little thing he could accomplishand gained great compassion for those with special needs and their caregivers. Her son is now 30 and doing well. To raise awareness and funds for much-needed research, she put on the first-ever major fundraisers for E.B. in the1990s, and continues to work to bring awareness to the disease. Please consider donating to this organization by visiting www.debra.org.