Ted Eldridge

Biography

Ted has been collecting stories as a writer most of his life. He has been an elementary school teacher and principal, university instructor, lawn maintenance worker, water meter reader, bank teller, ski bum, short order cook, small business owner, and Savannah (Georgia) walking tour guide.

Many of Ted’s published stories center on images of the fascinating people of Savannah, his home and his hobby. Dispatches From the Deep South, Savannah Style, and Intimate Savannah chronicle incidents and traditions of this special place tucked down in the Deep South. His book, Savannah Then and Now, a coffee table book presenting the City’s evolution through photographs and narrative, was co-authored with his close friend, Polly Cooper, and has been on the local best-seller list.

Ted is currently working on a trilogy of books for young adults. Teen twins, Alexandra and Ronnock, come down to Savannah from up North to visit their Aunt Polly on her family’s plantation land. When they canoe over to Gator Island they meet Hattie, a local voodoo priestess everyone else talks about as myth. Together, with Hattie’s gift of “knowing” and the little bags of her concoctions (gris-gris) they wear out of sight around their necks, the three investigate and solve mysteries that have left the experts scratching their heads.

Ted’s recent ebook, Celestrina and the Wee Door to Life, is the product of a six-week stay in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Ted walked from his lodging, an old mill house, about a mile up to Carl Sandburg’s mountain home daily. Sitting on Sandburg’s “rock” up behind his farmhouse during these visits, he was inspired to write the tale about a little blue butterfly, Celestrina, who teaches two young sisters about what is most important in life.

Ted’s most recent short novel, Miss Martha’s Christmas, was written as a Christmas gift to his grown daughters. Through a unique snow ball globe that changes scenes daily, Miss Martha, a handicapped older woman, finds delight in experiencing simple traditions and memories of Christmas of one family. In the process of sharing her gift, Miss Martha’s circle of daily visitors and friends expands to include most of the community and results in her meeting the doctor who can change her life.

Ted is a public speaker, program developer, and licensed tour guide, who has led over six hundred walking tours of Historic Savannah. He sings tenor in the Parish Choir at Christ Church Episcopal, the first church in Savannah, the “Mother Church of Georgia,” founded February 12, 1733. He sings with Savannah’s “World-Famous Crabettes,” as one of the few jimmy crabs in this band that offers local color at conventions, meetings, birthdays and, even, funerals.

Where to find Ted Eldridge online

Books

Celestrina and the Wee Door to Life
Price: $4.99 USD. Words: 9,160. Language: English. Published: October 24, 2013 . Categories: Fiction » Children’s books » Readers / Chapter Books
A little blue butterfly, Celestrina, leads two sensitive, young sisters to an old hemlock tree with a thick root that grew up, over and back down to form a tiny door on a path that meanders up the side of a mountain. Once on the other side of the "wee door to life," the girls hear and see aspects of life as shared by others hiking up and down the path to the home of a famous writer and poet.