Francine Falk-Allen's Discovery of Family Secret Inspired 'A Wolff in the Family'

In A Wolff in the Family, award-winning author, Francine Falk-Allen, writes her first published novel, a historical fiction, based on real events that took place in her family in the early 20th century. The book tells the story of Frank and Naomi Wolff, a young married couple, who live in Ogden, Utah. Throughout the years, they had many children and Naomi was often left caring for them on her own as Frank was away frequently for his job as a railroad engineer. As readers find out later in the story, Frank decides to abandon his youngest children in an orphanage and it is slowly revealed as to why he committed such an appalling act. Since the story was based on real events in her family, how much of the story is true and how much was made up? Falk-Allen explained, “The major events in the story are true, and I created how they would’ve happened, like how did different people meet, that part I had to create… all the characters in the book actually existed, all of them… My grandfather definitely took the children to an orphanage, that really happened. They really lived in the orphanage at the time that I have them living there, and the reasons he took them were true. What happened beforehand that led him to do that, those were true events. The actions that some of the other family members took afterward were actually true, and the character, Marie, who came from Germany, that part is essentially true… she became my step grandmother much later… the structure of it is true and I made up the personalities and how people met, and mostly the things that they said…”

While Falk-Allen did write her book chronologically, she decided to start the story with a significant event that happened later on. “…I wanted the first chapter to be a look ahead because I wanted to set the scene that Frank had taken these kids to an orphanage and you want to know why, and you can assume that it’s because times were hard financially because most people know that in 1929 the stock market had fallen, especially people who’ve read a lot of history or historical fiction, but that actually isn’t the case. So, I just wanted to set up that little deception in the beginning that he had taken the kids to an orphanage and you want to find out why, and then go back in time to set up the way their life was from 1918 through 1930.”