Out of Difficulty: Hope Lives On is a work of narrative nonfiction that traces the connected journeys of two American families, shaped by the lives of their founding patriarchs, George Simmons and Elijah Sharkey. Born into the antebellum South, these African American men came of age in a nation struggling to define itself—and their families would carry that struggle forward across generations.

 

Set against war, Reconstruction, violence, migration, betrayal, and tragedy. The Simmons and Sharkey families built legacies rooted in land, kinship, faith, and perseverance. George Simmons was forced into exile after a whispered “difficulty” in Texas, yet his family endured—stretching across state lines and time itself. Elijah Sharkey, father to more than 60 children, left a far-reaching legacy that grew from the red clay of Kosciusko, Mississippi, reaching places he would never see but would deeply influence.

 

Together, these stories reveal something unmistakably American: how ordinary people navigate extraordinary circumstances, how love becomes a form of resistance, and how hope is passed forward as inheritance.

 

This book was never meant to be a chronicle of pain alone, though pain runs through it. It speaks to a quieter form of resistance—one that does not always shout but always endures. It is a story of hope that emerges through difficulty.

 

At its core, this is an American story that asks questions every family eventually faces. What do we really inherit from those who came before us—beyond land, names, or possessions? How do families survive when history overlooks them or leaves their stories unfinished? What does hope look like when it is carried quietly, passed from one generation to the next, long after the original struggle has faded? And how do we reclaim the stories that shaped us before they disappear?

 

These are more than questions of history.  They are questions of belonging, memory, and survival.