Sarah Mustard, 1923 – present

Timeline (3 Stars)

For this assignment I created a timeline of major events in Sarah Mustard’s life and also showed how these events interacted with what events were occurring in the world at this time. The bold events are what happened in Sarah’s life directly and the events that aren’t bold occurred in the rest of the world.

March 14, 1923 Sarah is born in Hartford, Connecticut

1924 Sarah’s mother passes away

1929 Stock Market Crashes, the beginning of the Great Depression

1930 Sarah gets her first journal and begins writing in it

1933 Adolf Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany

1933 FDR launches the New Deal

1934 Dustbowl

1935 Sarah gets caught spying on the Scarlet family mansion and is run off the property by guard dogs

1939 World War II begins

1940 Sarah meets Robert Martin, her high school sweetheart

1941 Sarah graduates high school

1941 The Japanese attack Pearl Harbor and the U.S. enters WWII

1942 Robert Martin is drafted in the war and killed soon thereafter

1942 Sarah gives birth to her daughter and gives her up for adoption to a family in Los Angeles

1943 Sarah moves to Los Angeles and gets a job working as a private investigator

1945 Yalta Conference, WWII ends

1946 Sarah meets Sasha Kellogg while working for the same PI Company

1946 Nuremburg trials

1947 Sarah instructs Sasha Kellogg on how to use a gun

1948 Berlin Airlift

1949 First Nonstop flight around the World, NATO established

1950 Sarah’s father, Colonel Mustard, is investigated for a murder in Connecticut

1950 Korean War begins

1952 Sarah meets Shelley Layton at a cat convention and solves the case arresting Shannon Mills

1952 Polio Vaccine created

1953 Sarah and Shelley travel to San Francisco to visit Sasha, present day

I chose this assignment because I thought it would be interesting to look at the historical context of what is going on in the world where Sarah Mustard lives. I think that the state of the world as Sarah Mustard grew up could have contributed to her closed-off and reserved nature. Also the tragic death of her first love, Robert Martin, only contributed to Sarah alienating herself from the rest of the world. I think though that as the state of the world starts to look up after World War II ends, so does Sarah’s life in turn, when she meets Sasha Kellogg in 1947 and finally has a friend. I think that Sarah is character is growing increasingly less reserved and lonely as she progresses into the 1950’s when the Steadfast Sleuths solve their first case.

I kind of unintentionally made Sarah Mustard’s life parallel of the state of world. I started by just writing Sarah Mustard’s life events and what years it would make sense for them to fall into and then I began listing the years where major world events occurred. Coincidentally, the two sets of events ended up paralleling each other quite a bit which only added to the emotional depth of my character. In general, I found this assignment to be both fun in the creative sense, but also pretty informational. I enjoyed incorporating Sasha Kellogg, Shelley Layton, and Shannon Mills into Sarah’s timeline to show how instrumental all of these characters were in Sarah Mustard’s life. I’m also really enjoy history and so it was cool to think of Sarah’s life occurring along with all of the historical events happening from 1923-1953.

Shelley and The World

I chose the Writing Assignment Timeline to be about what world events happened during my character’s lifetime, some of the events affect her personally, affect London, or are just important things that happened in history that year. Most of the events listed on the timeline are noir-like in nature because they are considered catastrophes in one way or another. I decided to add a few positive events in the timeline so her life events weren’t completely negative. I made the timeline in Powerpoint using the Textbox and Shape tools and found the teddy bear, Titanic, London apartment, and pocket watch pictures through Google Images searches. I looked at the world events of the early 1900’s on this site.

Character timeline

I uploaded my timeline as a Powerpoint file because when I attempted to change the file into a jpg. or png. the quality went down and you couldn’t read the events on the timeline. Here is a pixelated version:

Character timeline

 

 

Sasha Kellogg vs. The World

Instead of comparing my own life with world events, the “timeline” assignment provided an excellent opportunity to further develop my character Sasha Kellogg. It is easy to announce that a character has lived from 1927 to 1952, but this timeline shows in greater detail what she would have lived through and (with simple addition) how old she would have been. Therefore, this project brings Sasha off the page and into the real world. The events that are unique to Sasha are in bold, and world events are regular. While there are important events in the Kellogg company timeline, they are only in bold during the time Sasha takes control of the company.


 

  • Jan 26, 1927: Sasha Kellogg born
  • Oct 6, 1927: first full length talking movie The Jazz Singer released
  • Sept 28, 1928: penicillin discovered
  • 1928: Kellogg’s Rice Krispies first come to market (it’s Sasha’s favorite food)
  • 1928: Kellogg Company expands Battle Creek plant and offers economical meal to those in great depression
  • Mar 4, 1929: Herbert Hoover takes office
  • Oct 28-29 1929: Stock Market Crash
  • Feb 18, 1930: Pluto discovered
  • 1930: the W. K. Kellogg foundation is founded
  • 1930: John Leonard Jr. named Vice President of Kellogg Company
  • Feb 14, 1933: Sasha’s sister Amy born
  • Mar 4, 1933: Franklin D. Roosevelt takes office
  • July 3, 1934: Amy learns to say “Sasha” (instead of “sasa”)
  • July 27, 1934: Sasha fell and broke her forearm
  • Sept 15, 1935: Nuremberg Laws passed in Germany
  • May 6, 1937: Hindenburg disaster
  • June 12, 1937: Sasha’s parents and sister killed
  • July 2, 1937: Amelia Earhart reported missing
  • May 1938: Kellogg plant opened in Manchester
  • Sept 1, 1939: Germany invades Poland (start of World War II)
  • October 1939: W. H. Vanderploeg became president of Kellogg company
  • 1940: Auschwitz/ Warsaw ghetto created
  • July 1940-May 1941: Battle of Britain
  • Sept 1, 1941: Sasha takes control of Kellogg company
  • Dec 7, 1941: Attack on Pearl Harbor
  • 1942: Kellogg’s helped develop “food for victory” rationing program
  • 1942: Kellogg’s broke ground at new power plant in Battle Creek (completed late March)
  • 1942: Manhattan project begins
  • 1943: Italy joins allies
  • Dec 10, 1943: Sasha’s first date with boyfriend Erik
  • June 6, 1944: D-day
  • Apr 12, 1945: Harry S. Truman takes office
  • Apr 30, 1945: Hitler commits suicide
  • July 4, 1945: Erik tells of his plans to blackmail and kill Sasha. She decides to leave company and go into hiding
  • Aug 6, 1945: US drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima
  • Aug 9, 1945: US drops atomic bomb on Nagasaki
  • June 21, 1946: becomes part-time secretary at PI office in Los Angeles and gets a gun at the advice of one of the employees there
  • Aug 15, 1947: India’s independence
  • Oct 14, 1947: Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier
  • Nov 17, 1947: Sasha decides to leave LA for San Francisco
  • Jan 2, 1947: Sasha gets job as secretary for the San Francisco Chronicle
  • May 4, 1948: Israel created
  • Jan 30, 1948: Gandhi assassinated
  • June 25, 1950: Korean War begins
  • Sept 8, 1951: Peace treaty with Japan signed, World War II officially ends
  • Oct 6, 1951: Sasha’s grandfather W. K. Kellogg dies (age 91)
  • 1952: Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes debuts
  • 1952: present day

Sasha Kellogg is a fictional character, but in my opinion the accuracy of the history and events surrounding a character determine the believability of that character. Additionally, more believable characters make better stories. For instance, if Kellogg’s took a hit during the great depression, there would be less motivation for someone to kill Sasha’s family. Luckily, cereals and grains are staple crops, so Kellogg’s continued to thrive during the depression, giving motivation behind the murderer’s actions. Most of the world events wouldn’t affect Sasha’s daily life (beyond what she reads in the newspapers), but things like the great depression and World War II affected everyone in one way or another. Some dates were hard to find, especially those attached to the Kellogg company timeline, but I have tried to be as specific as possible in my research. At 25, Sasha seems to have lived through a whole lot more than my 21-year-old self (but I suppose that’s a good thing considering what she lived through). Hopefully this timeline makes Sasha more believable in your eyes, because it certainly does in mine.

timeline

Make a timeline. compare the events associated with world events with your life path .