Southwest USA Genealogy & History

Although this book is not an actual history book… It is an historical novel in the style of Nancy E Turner.  If you have read Sarahs Quilt and liked it…. then you will love One Thousand White Women.

The author, Jim Fergus, knows the country and the history of the American West and its native people. This book is a chronicle of the Old West in way that helps you live in that time period.  You are not reading a historic representation of the times, but living with the people of the times.

One Thousand White Women is a story of sorrow.  You will be completely engaged by the characters in the book and learn the personalities and quirks of each one. It is always an emotional roller coaster for me, when a beloved character dies… especially if that death is particularly violent.

But… the times were violent and this fact should always be remembered.

Jim Fergus envelopes us into the heart and minds of each character and their everyday lives. You will find mourning, and courage throughout. The main character is Mary Dodd, she is fictional of course, but seems to be a blend of Sacajawea and Anne Okley.

Mary Dodd keeps a running journal or diary for us all to read. It is personal and probably was never meant to be shared. Although, at times, she writes letters to her lost children and distant family in this diary, we know that Mary never expected them to be read.

One thousand white women are promised to the Cheyenne nation and Mary Dodd is one of them.  She along with her companions share this adventure with dread and camaraderie.  Their is jealousy, cattiness and emotional ties that seem to bind these women through all perils. 

Each woman is married off to a "savage" to bear a child. The idea was that these children would better assimilate into the white mans world. Of course, this idea was doomed from the beginning, and yet these women had made a commitment and stuck to the plan.

The years that are chronicled in Mary Dodd's diary will transport the reader to another time and place. This is one of those books that you will never want to end. It is also one of those books that gives the reader pause thinking about the wisdom of our government.

  One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd: A Novel

A few years ago I read the Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kinsolver which was an Oprah Book club recommendation. The story was about an American family who travel to the Congo as missionaries in 1959. It was an eyeopening epic and I was hooked on Barbara Kingsolver the author.

The Bean Trees is a story about a young woman bent on changing her life in a big way. Stuck in a small Kentucky town after graduating high school and not wanting to continue life as her classmates had - pregnant and unaware of the world that awaits them. Taylor Green earns enough money to purchase an '55 Volkswagen with threadbare tires, no starter and no windows.

When she ends up in Tucson, Arizona, she has a three year old Cherokee Indian child on the seat beside her. This trip only took several months, but the story behind this cross country travel is extraordinary and believable.

This book is full of surprises and adventure. It is also full of thought provoking chapters about family, illegal aliens and their plight and hardship. At times every character is tender and giving in nature… and then you turn a page and find this new family unit at odds.

Taylor finds herself employed at a tire repair shop called Jesus Is Lord Used Tires with a huge mural on the outside fence of Jesus with what appears to be a tire yo yo in one hand. This establishment is on the outskirts of Tucson, Arizona and also happens to be a sanctuary for Central American refugees.

The young, strong, level-headed young woman who grew up in rural Kentucky, finds love and friendship, abandonment and belonging and finds that apparently empty spaces are full of amazing surprises waiting for her to find them.

For a girl bent on not getting pregnant at an early age, she ends up with a three year old child. She becomes first a protector and then a mother. Just at the end of the novel, when you know life is going to throw Taylor one more curve ball and take her new child away… you see how clever she really is.

“Sarah’s Quilt” A Novel of Sarah Agnes Prine and the Arizona Territories, 1906 by Nancy E Turner Author of “These is My Words”

The long anticipated sequel to “These Is My Words”, continues the story of Sarah Agnes Prine. If you read the first book, then don’t read anymore of this article…just get the book. If you didn’t read the first book, don’t read anymore of this article… go get the book “Sarah’s Quilt” Now.

Oh well… I guess you need to read a little more about this story of an extraordinary pioneer woman and her struggle to make a home in the Arizona Territories.

This story covers a 3 year drought and the hiring of a water witch…Lanus is a desert vagabond and claims to know where to find water. He stalls for time all the while developing a frightening “stalker” like quality towards Sarah.

Then… Sarah learns that her brother and his family are living in San Francisco during the Great Earthquake of 1906. She and her father-in-law take off into unknown regions and disaster to rescue her kinfolk.

In this book you will feel what a true and courageous spirit can accomplish. Unforgettable characters are portrait and a large amount of history, love, emotion and adventure are piled one on top of another until it becomes almost too much to bear. So full is the narration that it’s hard to believe it’s not a true story.

Don’t miss reading this “5 hanky” tear jerker. It will leave you breathless and begging for more.

Does Sarah ever find another true love? She found and lost so much love in the first novel… is their another chance for her?