Homesteading

His memories flow as naturally as his writing. . . . The reader is transported back to the day when a six-year-old stepped from the train into a new life.--<i>Smithsonian</i> <p/> As a grown man Percy Wollaston almost never spoke of the homestead where he grew up--until in 1972 nearing the age of 70 he wrote this book about his childhood years. <p/> Lured by the government's promise of land and the promotional literature of the railroads six-year-old Percy Wollaston's family left behind their home in North Dakota in 1909 heading West to take up a claim. They settled near Ismay Montana where they attempted to carve a successful homestead out of the harsh plains. In compelling plainspoken language Wollaston tells of his pioneer family's everyday existence--constructing a sod house digging a well trapping and hunting courtships and funerals an influenza epidemic and a superstitious Irish neighbor. He also recalls the events of the world beyond Ismay from the sinking of the<i> Titanic </i>to Prohibition to World War I as well as the first sign of the town's demise during the Great Depression. <p/> With a foreword by Jonathan Raban who discovered this memoir while researching his award-winning <i>Bad Land</i> <i>Homesteading</i> is a rich and vivid look seen through the eyes of a hopeful young boy at the forces that shaped the destiny of a family a town and the American West. <p/> Vivid . . . plainly written and satisfyingly detailed.--<i>The Washington Post</i>