The Gold Rush and Western Travel

I’m just getting started on my next Proxy Brides book (releasing at the end of March). A recent trip to hike in Death Valley has given me so many ideas!! Have you ever heard of the California 49ers? Yes, they are a sports team, but it also refers to the peak year of influx of people moving to California searching for gold (1849). One group who were looking for a shortcut to the gold fields got a wee bit lost and ended up wandering around the desert for a couple months. Finally they burned their wagons and ate their oxen and walked out on foot. Death Valley National Park has several monuments to their adventures and losses. I can’t even begin to imagine how terrifying that must’ve been! At least that story has a happy ending (except for the oxen).

The trains only went so far West but were a whole lot faster than travelling by wagon. You could get almost halfway across the country in a week by the late 1840s. But then, if you didn’t get lost, it would take about another month to get all the way to California from New York or Boston.

The California Gold Rush brought a sudden influx of gold into the money supply and reinvigorated the American economy. The population boom vastly altered California, leading it to become a state in 1850. Agriculture and ranching expanded throughout the state to meet the needs of the settlers. Roads, churches, schools, and other towns were built throughout the state.

I think the groom in my next book will have made his wealth through some of these exploits. It’s quite fascinating to read about the massive shift in fortunes during the 40s and 50s. We’re so used to stores, and roads, and hotels today. People must have been truly intrepid back then! I can’t wait to explore some of these themes in my next manuscript J

I’ve got a series set in Missouri centered around train travel (specifically young ladies escorting children on the Orphan Trains). It’s fascinating how much the development of train travel changed life, communication, and the economy. Check out the Orphan Train series. Here’s the blurb for book 1 – Sophie’s story:

She’d happily give him her heart … if only it wouldn’t cost her the only home she’s known

Sophie Brooks thought she had everything she could want in life. Friends, loved ones at the orphanage where she was raised, a job that gives her purpose, and a chance to help children every day … what more could she need? But a chance encounter with a handsome stranger has her wondering if a life—and love—outside the orphanage might be exactly what she never knew she needed.

Renton Robert Rexford III has never wanted for anything. Until he meets Sophie. The charming, intelligent beauty draws him like no other.  But, thanks to a disapproving benefactor who threatens to pull the orphanage’s funding, his pursuit of her could cost Sophie everything she holds dear. She’s all he wants in the world, but how can he ask her to give up so much when all she’d get in return is his heart?

It’s not long before Sophie is forced to weigh her loyalty to the only home she’s ever known against the needs of her heart. Can love prevail—or is the cost simply too high?  

And then travel along with the young women who escort the orphans in Books 2-4

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American Frontier Christmas Food & Recipes by Shirleen Davies

If you’re adventurous, you might include Christmas recipes prepared over 150 years ago by pioneers living in the western frontier.

A special item pioneer women carried with them across the plains was their family recipes.  So, frontier Christmas dinners also varied based on the heritages of the different pioneer families.

Here are four recipes I hope you try and enjoy!

Flannel Cakes (Hotcakes or Flapjacks or Griddle Cakes)

1 quart (4 cups) of flour
1 pint (2 cups) milk or water
1 tablespoon butter - melted
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
Add melted butter to milk or water. Then stir in the baking soda. Now slowly stir into flour. Take cream of tartar and mix with a small amount of water. Add to flour mixture. Now pour out a spoonful onto hot lightly greased skillet. 

Original Recipe
One quart of flour; one pint of milk or water. Put one tea-spoonful of carbonate of soda into the milk or water. Dissolve two tea-spoonfuls of cream of tartar in a small quantity of water. Add it to the batter immediately before baking it. To be baked in thin cakes, on a griddle. These are favorite breakfast cakes in Virginia.

Molasses Cake

1 cup molasses or cane syrup
1/4 cup butter, cut in pieces
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
2 small eggs, beaten
1 3/4 cups sifted flour
1/2 teaspoon soda dissolved in small amount of warm water

Take molasses or cane syrup and add butter pieces into a saucepan. Stir over very low heat until butter is soft enough to mix together easily. Then add cinnamon, beaten eggs, and sifted flour. Then after you stir that till most of lumps are out, add in the soda which was dissolved in warm water.
Grease baking pan and bake 350 for 45 minutes.
350 for about 45 minutes
note: recipe cut in half from original

Original recipe
Molasses Cake. - Cut up a quarter of a pound of fresh butter unto a pint of West India Molasses. Warm it just sufficiently to soften the butter, and make it mix easily. Stir it well into the molasses and add a tablespoon of powdered cinnamon. Beat three eggs very light and stir them, gradually into the mixture, in turn with barely enough of sifted flour (not more than a pint and a half) to make it about as thick as a pound-cake batter. Add, at the last, a small or level tea-spoonful of pearl ash, or a full one of soda, dissolved in a very little warm water. Butter some small tin cake-pans, or patty-pans, put in the mixture, and set them immediately into the oven, which must not be too hot, as all cakes made with molasses are peculiarly liable to scorch on the outside.

Cream Cheese frosting
1 package cream cheese
1 tablespoon milk
3/4 cup powdered sugar
dash cinnamon

Cream the cream cheese, add the powdered sugar and then mix well. Add the milk and test to make sure its sweet enough, if not you can add more powdered sugar till desired. Then add dash of cinnamon and spread on cooled Molasses cake.

Baked Rice Pudding

1/2 cup uncooked rice
2/3 cup molasses or cane syrup
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon butter
4 cups milk

Stir together all ingredients, except milk. Once thoroughly mixed add in milk. Stir well. Preheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit. Bake first hour stirring occasionally. Then finish baking until firm, which for me took a total of about 2 hours.

Original Recipe
Baked Rice Pudding. One gill of rice; two thirds of a cup of molasses; one tea-spoonful of cinnamon; one of salt; a small piece of butter. Stir this together, and add a quart of milk. Bake this in a moderate oven. Stir it occasionally for the first hour. Bake three hours.

1859 Sweet Potato Pie (Very close to the original recipe)

1 cup brown sugar
3 cups mashed sweet potato
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup of milk
3 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon vanilla

Cream your butter. Then add sweet potato and sugar, mixing well. Next add in eggs. Next stir in the milk. Add your spice and vanilla being sure to mix well.
Pour into 2 unbaked pie shells. Bake at 350 for about 40mins to an hour, or until knife comes out clean.

I’d love to hear your results if you try any of these recipes!

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a story

by Rain Trueax

Historic photos from Ancestry.com

When we do research on an historic figure, we get the bare facts (which don't always agree). Rarely do we get the emotional stories behind those facts. I live on land that has one of those amazing stories that could fit into a romance-- or not. I know the bare facts, but what lies behind them? That is where imagination takes over.

This story begins with two brothers, John and Sebastian Ritner, born in 1804 and 1815 in Helvetia Confederacy, Switzerland. I've been curious as to why and what year they immigrated from there to the United States. Did Europe have a reason a younger and older brother would leave? How about their parents or other siblings? None of that shows up in records. Records from way back are not always tidy.

Whatever the case, it must have been in Pennsylvania where they met Sarah Jane Woodling, born in 1817, the daughter of Peter Woodling and Mary Houghner. When she was sixteen and he was twenty-nine, John and Sarah married in Easton, Pennsylvania. There is no information on when John and Sarah moved to Missouri, but they had four daughters there:  Missouri Ann born 1840; Mary Elizabeth born 1841; Julia Ann born 1848; and Flora born 1850.

Facts don't tell stories. Sarah and John were married 7 years before their first daughter was born. Were there miscarriages? Was it a marriage in name only for a while? What caused them to leave Pennsylvania for Missouri. Maybe Sarah had to nurse ailing parents, and it delayed things. With old historic records, they often have dates different or names spelled other ways.

After researching several sites (in the years before the Internet) I found some dates for Sebastian that make for more curiosity. One site said that he came to Oregon with cattle in 1845. Except, how does that fit with the claim he went to California in 1847 for gold (which he reportedly found)? Did he go off and leave the cattle or sell them out there-- if he even brought them? Then, there is how does it fit with his time in the military, which is among the facts. He was baptized in 1848 while serving with Company C, Fourth Regiment, Oregon volunteers in the Cayuse Indian War. Or how about that he was confirmed in 1845 as Private  Sebastian Ritner?  The second one fits better with his first communion being May 5, 1845 while serving in Captain Solomon Tetherow's company as a private.

He also is said to be the third foreigner naturalized in Polk County where he presumably took those cattle. In 1850 (some records claim 1848), he took up a Donation Land Claim in a valley and hills that he said reminded him of his homeland, presumably meaning Switzerland, which meant he didn't leave Europe as a baby. He liked this valley, it was claimed, as it was far from people and good for raising cattle.

Sebastian certainly fits the romance hero, having left his family to become an adventurer, Indian fighter, and miner before settling on his valley to build a cabin with what he'd made in the goldfields. When he wrote his brother to tell him what a wonderful land he had found, he would have been thirty-five and no sign of a woman in his life. When John wrote back that they would come, Sebastian headed back to the goldfields for more money. He left a pair of his pants on the floor of the cabin with a $50 gold piece in the pocket knowing only a woman would pick them up to wash them and find it (story told to me by one of the locals).

In response to Sebastian's letter, John left the farm he had built up in Missouri, with his wife and four daughters, the oldest being twelve, and headed out on the Oregon Trail. The story of what happened next varies depending on the source. It is agreed that their oxen were spooked by something. One source said Indians had been trying to steal stock. Whether it was that or an over rambunctious Fourth of July celebration, John stepped onto the wagon tongue to try and settle them. He lost his balance and fell beneath the wagon that ran over him. He died July 05, 1852 in On Horse Creek, east of Laramie where he was buried in an unmarked grave. 

I don't know if Sarah was able to get word to Sebastian of the tragedy; or if she just had to go on with no idea he'd not even be at the homestead. Might she have gone back to Missouri? No idea, but she did go on, did find the money, and then Sebastian returned. As a widow, she was entitled to and filed for her own Donation Land Claim September 15, 1853, land adjoining Sebastian's.

History only records facts, oftentimes families don't remember details. It is romantic to think how a lonely man and woman might have realized they were in love. Is it possible that Sebastian had always loved his brother's wife since he was only two years older than her? John, as a mature man, would

have had the money and ability to provide for a life that an 18 year old would not have. Whatever the reason for the second marriage, October 20, 1854, Sarah married Sebastian and with the ensuing years bore him four children, John, Lewis, Sophronia and Frank. They built a cabin that straddled both land claims, built barns, cleared more of the land, raised horses, hay, and lived out their days. For a time, their home became the community church. Traveling ministers came through the valleys, preaching to those who would come. The Ritners helped build the first schools and churches, making what had been a wilderness into a community.


On a hill high above the creek, they and many of their descendants, their names engraved on granite tombstones, are buried in a small, well-kept, family cemetery. For over a hundred years, the land of Ritner Creek Ranch remained in the hands of Sebastian and Sarah's descendants.

Of the physical things they built here, only the harness shed remains today. The stories though, the ford on the creek, the logging chains across it, they were there when we arrived-- the ones from outside the family who bought it from the widow of a descendant of Missouri. Our buying it is a story all on its own for how that came to be-- pure serendipity. There were and still are two wagon wheels from the wagon that probably brought Sarah to Oregon. Physical things though never remain forever. The stories can if someone saves them. I wanted to save this one, as since 1977, I have lived on the land they settled where they created a life for themselves. I hope my family can hold onto it as long as theirs did. Only time will tell on that, but our son wants to hold onto it as a start.

There are ironies in this, as when I was a girl, I wrote a story about the Oregon Trail, which finally came out when I became an indie writer. In my story, there was an accident with a run away team of mules and the hero was badly injured. In romances, heroes don't get killed. Real life isn't always so kind, but then is the real romance a man who always loved a woman he couldn't have? I wrote one of those too-- based in a different part of Oregon.

As you can see from the research, romances can't always get all the details. That's where writers take over and merge what they know with what they surmise :)

My story of the Oregon Trail: Round the Bend at Amazon
It is also wide at Barnes and Noble, Kobo, etc.

The Telegraph by E. AYERS

With Christmas around the corner, we tend mail Christmas cards, call old friends, and connect with distant family. It wasn’t always easy to do that. By the time the 1900’s rolled around, we managed to keep in better contact with our friends and family. The telegraph changed the way we communicated and ultimately made it possible for our instant communications today.

Telegraph comes from the Greek words tele meaning far, and graphein meaning write. The telegraph had been around for a long time, but is now defunct. Computers have replaced it, but its history is rather interesting. It goes back quite a few centuries, but really wasn’t used until it became an electrical system. Instead we relied on smoke signals or light signals to quickly communicate with distant people. Using the Greek term of far writing, these old systems were the first telegraph communications.

A British inventor, William Sturgeon came up with an electromagnet and that opened up a whole new field. But took an American inventor, Joseph Henry, to play around with the electromagnet. He was able to transmit a signal over a wire for one mile and ring a bell at the other end. Samuel Morse took Henry’s invention and bettered it. Thus started the first commercial use of the telegraph in 1838. In 1843, Congress awarded Morse $30,000 to create the first telegraph system between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland, a distance of 40 miles.

Morse invented a code that consisted of dots and dashes to replace the alphanumeric system. A person on one end could send the code and another person listening at the next station would receive the code, write it down, and send it along to the next destination, or have it delivered locally. 

Using the railroad land, the telegraph system went to the various railroad stations that were manned 24/7. That made the most sense because trains traveled in fairly straight lines, and the telegraph had to travel in a straight line. No right turns! There were no telegraph stations in remote towns off the path of the railroads. If there was a telegraph office in a remote town, that office was probably a postal office. They would take the note and send someone on horseback to the nearest town with a telegraph relay station. Then it would be transmitted.

Could a remote town have an actual telegraph office? Yes. But it would be extremely expensive because the telegraph operator by the railroad would have to send the message on a separate line, and it would have to be received by another telegraph operator at the destination. Also there was the expense of erecting the line on which it would travel and buying the land for that line. The railroads were using land given to them by the government and the telegraph companies used that same land. There is no remote telegraph station that I am aware. Although within a city, there often several.

Western Union supplied the lines and the trained operators. The US postal system got into the telegraph business but merged in the 20^th century with Western Union.

The telegraph was used extensively during the Civil War. It was during that time that the telegraph crossed the USA. It was said that President Lincoln often stayed at the telegraph office to hear from his generals. 

It also meant any news traveled faster. In 1851, a functional telegraph wire was laid under the English Channel, giving fast communications between London and Paris. Once the 2500 miles of cable was laid between Newfoundland and Ireland in 1858, the world would never be the same. Soon underwater cables connected places like Singapore to Australia. By the end of the 1800’s, the world was covered with telegraph wires.

As the telegraph took a foothold in communications, the telephone began to replace it. Today, satellites utilizing cell phones and computers to communicate connect us. Yet, President Lincoln is considered the technology president, as he was the first to use electronic communication.

Most of rural America  in the 1800's still communicated by mail placed in pouches that hung from poles. A train would whiz by and, using a shepherd’s hook, it would grab the pouch and drop another with mail to be delivered. We continued to use that method for another hundred years. But telegraph was available, except it was expensive.

Trains were the main users of the telegraph to communicate train movement, weather, and serious problems. It wasn’t until the 1900’s that multiplexers made it possible for the telegraph to transmit eight signals at once. That meant four signals in each direction at once. (And you thought multiplexer was a new computer term?)

A Telegraph Machine

Understanding how things work makes a huge difference when we write, and it makes an even bigger difference for the reader who expects our historical stories to be accurate. I’m so pleased to be part of the Sweethearts of the West because I know my fellow authors here stand on their heads to provide accurate history within their stories. I hope that you as a reader enjoy our books and learn a little bit of history that was never taught in school.

Happy Holidays to all our readers no matter what you celebrate. I love this time of year because everyone seems to smile more and is more courteous. Enjoy the holidays, and a very merry one from my house to yours!

A Creek in Wyoming

 Enjoy a contemporary Christmas story, A Snowy Christmas in Wyoming. The historic story behind this one is coming in 2020. This is the story that launched me into writing historic fiction when I mentioned the diary.

Unusual Research Method for Authors

Unlike this guy...

we can’t go back in time.

But, thanks to Ebay, we can buy a piece of history and then have it delivered right to our front door.

I’ve found Ebay to be a valuable research tool. In recent weeks I’ve sought out pictures using the search terms, “Handwritten letters, handwritten journals/diary, vintage diary,” and all sorts of other terms because ebay is nice enough to suggest related search terms for you.

Try it. You might be surprised at the time you’ll waste looking at the cost of your toys you had while growing up how much you’ll learn about the past.

Do you have any unusual research methods? And, even more importantly, PLEASE tell me you know the name of the movie in the above picture?

*FYI: I watched this movie LOTS of times growing up. My favorite part was watching the fashions change via the mannequin.

R.I.P. By Cheri Kay Clifton (Part 2)

In October, I posted an article about  how a few famous legendary men and women's lives ended and where they now "rest in peace." I want to add four Native American leaders who also changed the course of history:

 Hunkpapa Lakota Sitting Bull, holy man and tribal chief, led several attacks on U.S. forts in the West and played a role in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Years later, he was offered a pardon.  By 1885, Buffalo Bill had him in his Wild West Show and Sitting Bull gained significant popularity.  He befriended, Annie Oakley and often made public appearances. However, in 1890, after returning to the Agency reservation and during the Ghost Dance Movement, he was accused of encouraging Indian rebellion and his arrest was ordered.  Sitting Bull refused to cooperate and a scuffle ensued.  A nearby Lakota, Catch-the-Bear, shot the arresting officer, who fired back, killing Sitting Bull. Sixteen people were killed in the skirmish, including eight police officers, Sitting Bull, and seven other Sioux. Two weeks later the massacre at Wounded Knee would take place.  Age 59, Sitting Bull was initially buried at Fort Yates, ND, the remains were supposedly dug up in 1953 and moved to Mobridge, SD off U.S. 12.

Crazy Horse, literally "His-Horse-Is-Crazy" was a leader of the Oglala Lakota. He took up arms against the United States Federal government to fight against encroachments on the territories and way of life of the Lakota people, including leading a war party to victory at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.  Four months after surrendering to U.S. troops under General Cook, in May 1877, Crazy Horse was fatally wounded by a bayonet-wielding military guard, while allegedly resisting imprisonment at Camp Robinson in present-day Nebraska. His remains were given to his elderly parents who secretly buried the 35 year-old Sioux leader somewhere in the wilds near Nebraska’s Red Cloud Agency.  No marker exists showing his final resting place.  He ranks among the most notable and iconic of Native American tribal members and was honored by the U.S. Postal Service in 1982 with a 13¢ Great Americans series postage stamp.

Red Cloud was another highly respected leader of the Oglala Lakota. He led from 1868 to 1909 and was one of the most capable Native American opponents the United States Army faced.  After finally signing the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868), Red Cloud led his people in the important transition of reservation life. He continued fighting for his people, even after being forced onto the reservation.  He outlived all the other major Lakota leaders of the Indian Wars. He died in 1909 at age 88 on the Pine Ridge Reservation, where he was buried. He is quoted as saying in his old age, “They made us many promises, more than I can remember. But they kept but one – They promised to take our land…and they took it.”

Last but not least is one of the most recognizable names in the world, Geronimo. After years on the warpath, Chiricahua Apache warrior, Geronimo achieved fame when he turned himself in for the final time in 1886. He traveled with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show and made appearances at fairs and gatherings before dying in the prisoner of war camp in 1909, never achieving the freedom he had been promised. He died quietly of pneumonia in the post hospital at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in 1909 a few months before his 80th birthday. He was buried in the fort’s Apache cemetery, but tribal legend says his remains were secretly removed to the Arizona Mountains of his youth.

There are so many stories of where the famous legends lie.  As you’ve read, some of the stories of how they died, though sad, were almost as interesting as how they lived. I could go on & on, but have to end somewhere!

Happy Holiday Trails,

Cheri

Please visit my web site at cherikayclifton.com

ALICE RAMSEY, THE FIRST WOMAN TO DRIVE ACROSS AMERICA!

By Vicki H. Budge

            My latest book, Winds of Change, was so much fun to research and write because 1903 was the beginning of a new era for the automobile. The automobile had been a toy and a luxury for the wealthy before this time, but because of Horatio Nelson Jackson’s successful road trip from San Francisco to New York City in 63 days, more and more people set out to beat his record and show that automobiles could be driven in the west.

One of them was Alice Ramsey.

            Alice, a young mother of 21, didn’t set out to be the first woman to drive across America. It all started when she was nearly thrown from a cart one day when the loud noise of an automobile caused her horse to bolt. Her husband, who was 24 years older than her, immediately went out and bought her a Maxwell Runabout, thinking that if she was driving an automobile, she would be safer than in a cart with a horse. What he didn’t expect was that she would become passionate about the automobile, even entering a dangerous race where the automobiles had to be driven around curves and hug a cliff above the ocean.

Alice Huyler Ramsey

            After finishing the race, Alice was approached by a man who represented the Maxwell Company, her car’s manufacturer. After watching her driving skills, he had the idea that she could handle the difficult roads or lack of roads out in the west and could be the first woman to drive an automobile across the country. The Maxwell Company would provide her with a brand new automobile, plus all the provisions, and send a pilot car ahead into the western states to help map out her journey.

            The only way Alice’s husband would agree to let her take on this cross-country road trip was if his two sisters, Nettie who was 47 and Maggie who was 44 went along for the ride. Alice invited her friend, Hermine Jahns who was 16 years old to join them, and started preparing for the journey.

Alice, ready to leave on her travels

            On June 9, 1909 the four ladies packed a 30-horsepower Maxwell automobile and set out to drive from New York City to San Francisco. They wore billowing rubber ponchos to keep their clothes clean from all the dust and dry from the many rain storms they were sure to encounter. They hoped to accomplish their goal in less than 40 days.

            There were a lot of people who didn’t like automobiles at this time, and a lot of other people who didn’t think a woman should be driving one, so not everyone was friendly on their trip. The New York Times referred to Alice as “A Freak.” A farmer doubled his fee to tow them out of a mud hole with his horse. Other people called out insults to them. One man went so far as to paint his building green to cause trouble for the travelers because the guide book Maxwell furnished said to turn left at a certain yellow building. This misdirection didn’t stop Alice for long. There were no good surveyed maps or road signs at this time.

Being towed

            Alice and her three traveling companions were proper ladies and didn’t appreciate these rude behaviors by people who were against their journey. After an overnight stop in Chicago, Alice’s  sisters-in-law appeared the next day in fancy clothes and huge fancy hats, hoping their appearance would earn them more respect.

Rain accompanied them on much of their journey out west. Their automobile tires were outfitted with chains to see them through the mud, but the chains only worked when the mud wasn’t too deep. Of course the clanking of the chains and the pop, pop, popping of the engine meant that the ride was a noisy one. Mud slowed them down many times, especially on the poor roads out west, but dealing with miles of mud holes couldn’t stop them. Alice changed 11 flat tires on the trip and made many repairs to the Maxwell herself. She wouldn’t let anyone change the automobile tires for her, showing that she was truly in charge of her automobile. She also wouldn’t let anyone else “crank” the car to start it.

Alice changing a flat

Gasoline wasn’t easy to find the further west they went, and the best place to find it was a the local mercantile. The only way Alice could check the fuel level of her Maxwell was to get out of the automobile and remove her seat cushion where there was access to the tank. There was a wooden measuring stick to use for guessing how much fuel was left.

The ladies got stopped by the sheriff in Nebraska and had to show that they did not carry any guns. They had crossed the trail of a manhunt for a killer in the area. In Wyoming, they ended up with a case of bedbugs from a local hotel. In Nevada they were chased by a Native American hunting party with their bows and arrows drawn. The travelers were delighted to discover that the Native Americans were actually chasing a rabbit, not them. 

Another flat

            After many more trials, Alice and her companions arrived in San Francisco on August 7, 1909. The journey had taken 59 days, not the 40 that they had hoped for. Alice had driven the Maxwell the whole way by herself.

            Unfortunately, Alice realized at the end of the journey that the whole thing had been a publicity effort by the Maxwell Company, and all the press reports going back east had been about the automobile and not about her and her companions. Alice finally received the recognition she deserved when she was named “Woman Motorist of the Century” by AAA in 1960. She wrote a book about her journey in 1961 while living in West Covina, California, entitled Veil, Duster, and Tire Iron. Later in 2000, after her death, she was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame, the first woman to receive that honor.

Alice drove clear across the United States 30 more times over the next 70 years. She lived to be 96 years old and is considered a vehicular pioneer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Cora Gardner reads about a wealthy doctor who’s attempting to drive an automobile from San Francisco to New York City via southern Idaho, she makes a fifty-cent bet that he’ll succeed. But there are only 150 miles of paved roads in the country, and none in Idaho, so her chances of winning are slim. Her enthusiasm for the cross-country road race excites all the young people in town who are fascinated with the idea of horseless carriages. All the young people, that is, except for that stubborn Gideon Lewis.

Gideon Lewis learned to build wagons and wheels from his father, a master craftsman in his trade. He’s positive the automobile is simply a passing fancy for the wealthy, and that the doctor who’s attempting to drive across the country will bog down in Nevada’s sand like his predecessor. Gideon accepts Cora’s bet, however, and humors her in the attempt to win her hand.

Will the biggest event of 1903 in southern Idaho enable Cora and Gideon to stop arguing about the future of the automobile? Is the beginning of a new era in America also the beginning of a new era for Cora and Gideon?

Winds of Change is a fictional story based on an exciting true adventure. It’s a story of love and friendship and the ability to dream anew.

Authors Promise: This is a clean and wholesome historical western romance with no cliffhangers.

Buy link: https://www.amazon.com/Winds-Change-Surveyors-Daughters-Book-ebook/dp/B07ZS4T5TK