[the natural circle is... --Redbear]

Jamie came into the kitchen and set groceries on the table. Her aunt Helen
was peeling potatoes, and her mother was chopping carrots, silently except
for the dull whack whack whack of the knife against the wooden block.

"Mom?"

"Yes?" her mother said flatly. Jamie still couldn't figure out when her
mother's temper would flare, and her flat voice never gave a hint. "I brought
groceries."

"Just leave them on the table."

Jamie had long since learned not to bother sharing her excitement with
either of them. Her aunt was always caught up in what she was doing at that
moment, and her mother just gave no sign that she was interested, unless you
touched off her temper.

She hurried up to her room, lugging a bag of heavy books. She'd convinced
Ms. Jacobsen to let her take the dusty public records volumes out on a
weekend, on the condition that she return them by Monday.

She started taking names. Meeting minutes mentioned some of them. Fifteen
women had protested their sons being drafted into the military for the
Korean war. Fifty-five people, women and men and children had linked arms
during the Vietnam war and blocked access in and out of the room where the
draft board met. The sheriff at the time arrested every one.

Eleanor Black had been at every meeting. The scant notes of each meeting
mentioned her needling, pushing, and making sure that every decision to send
a young man off to war was a difficult one.

She decided her new truck was going be useful. She wrote down names of
everyone who was with Eleanor, and borrowed her aunt's tattered phone book
and looked up every one. Half still lived in the area.  Some she suspected
were the same women, last names changed, but she couldn't be sure from the
yellowing pages of the book. 

She started paying visits and asking questions.