The strong sense of place that pervades DeFreitas' work derives from her roots in rural Michigan and her feeling for the land, its waters and people.

Born Sally Chesness, she grew up on a farm where she learned to ride a horse, shoot a gun and drive a John Deere tractor. She did her share of farm work, but still found time to swim in the river or spend an afternoon with a book.

Sally was just twenty when she finished nurse's training and went to work at Wesley Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Her first vacation, a Caribbean cruise, literally changed her life. She left nursing and went to work for Windjammer Cruises.

After a year in the islands, she landed a job on a private yacht which took her into the Mediterranean. She then moved to San Francisco where she witnessed demonstrations against the Vietnam war and the influx of flower children. Working as a nurse again, she felt an urge for a career change and took classes in writing and literature at San Francisco State.  She also studied Middle Eastern dance and had a brief but stellar career performing in Greek and Turkish supper clubs.

Returning to Michigan, she honed her homestead skills while living in a hundred-year-old log cabin. During this period she had her first writing published, in a magazine called The Mother Earth News. She was a founding member of the Happy Farmer Co op, a group devoted to whole and organic food, which is still thriving after more than thirty years.

On her second Caribbean venture, she lived in the Virgin Islands, where she met and married Bruce DeFreitas. Together they worked on a tugboat that took them to the coast of South America. She and her husband returned to Michigan where her daughter, Susan, was born.  The marriage ended and she settled down to raise her daughter. Sally worked as a nurse until her daughter was in college, then became a reporter for the Muskegon Chronicle.

Today she sings, plays guitar and writes mystery novels. Sally's first book, "If the Shoe Fits", was published in 2005, followed by "If You Play With Fire" in 2008. A third book is under way.

On the bowsprit

4-H Rodeo

Graduate Nurse