Touching on frontier life
By By Dane Roberts Wans On Bookreview
LIFE ON THE FRONTIER IN 1902 WASN’T easy, especially if you were a farmer. There was the dreaded hoof and mouth disease that could wipe out your livestock. There was the weather that could hinder your planting. It is this time period that this work explores.
This story becomes a love story between Grace and Jonathan, even though Grace thinks she is in love with Toby, a young gentleman she grew up with. Grace is a deaf 18 year old who has learned to sign and to read lips. This is how she has survived in a world of sound. Jonathan is a rich kid who has been sent to spend time on a farm in North Dakota in order to grow up. This is where he meets Grace and the family. He is concerned for her and he joins her world by learning how to sign a bit.
Jonathan is spending his summer with the Knutson family. He had been there before.
“That had been a brief visit for the graduation before heading to San Francisco, where his father had a business meeting. This time he was here for the summer to find out what manual labor was like.”
He finds farming interesting him more than business. How is he going to convince his father to allow him to study farming and not business?
The story is told in multiple viewpoints: The viewpoints are these: Jonathan Gould, Grace “he had not remembered that Grace was deaf until she spoke. Though he had to listen carefully to understand her, her tonal speech had a softness to it.”; and Ingeborg, the mother, “He knew that Mrs. Knutson ran the school for the deaf.”
It moves along in three parts. Part one is concerning Jonathan, a young gentleman from a rich New England family, and his work on the farm. Also we see Grace’s interest in Toby. But Toby is interested in someone else. Section two begins when the dreaded hoof and mouth disease strikes and almost destroys the local economy. Section three commences when Grace journeys to New York and attends school at an academy for the deaf where she becomes a teacher.
The theme of this book is dreams. Grace dreams of being useful. Ingeborg dreams of starting a school for the deaf in her community. Jonathan has the dream of becoming a farmer and marrying Grace.
While this is going on, Jonathan falls in love with her and wants to marry her. According to the proper custom of the day he asks for permission to take her hand in marriage. Yet he must wait until they both finish their education.
In case you get lost the Bjorlund Family Tree is located before the first chapter.
This is the third book in “The Daughters of Blessing” series. It is set back in the area of Blessing, N.D. in 1902. Lauraine Snelling has written over 50 books, both fiction and nonfiction. She is a writers’ conference teacher, who has had a number of articles published. She and her husband have two grown sons and a basset hound named Chewy. The two have their home base in California.
I hope you find reading fun. I do. And so relaxing. You meet so many new people and time periods when you read. You can contact me at I will be waiting to hear from you.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 9, 2008. Read the original PDF.