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Series: Best Personal Memoir Books
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Lessons Learned From Living in the Country
For anyone who has just moved to the country, or for those just thinking about making a move to the country, the material and pictures in this book will help ease the transition from city to country living.A wide range of helpful ideas about animal care, gardening, rural home maintenance, do-it yourself construction, and other…;
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For anyone who has just moved to the country, or for those just thinking about making a move to the country, the material and pictures in this book will help ease the transition from city to country living.
A wide range of helpful ideas about animal care, gardening, rural home maintenance, do-it yourself construction, and other helpful projects will make a move to the country easier and more pleasant.
There’s no reason to learn all of country living’s lessons on your own- learn from a former urbanite who became a country resident a long time ago- and lived to tell about it.
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The Good Life: Helen and Scott Nearing’s Sixty Years of Self-Sufficient Living
This one volume edition of Living the Good Life and Continuing the Good Life brings these classics on rural homesteading together. This couple abandoned the city for a rural life with minimal cash and the knowledge of self reliance and good health.Great product!;
Schocken BooksPrice:
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This one volume edition of Living the Good Life and Continuing the Good Life brings these classics on rural homesteading together. This couple abandoned the city for a rural life with minimal cash and the knowledge of self reliance and good health.Great product!
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Homesteading: A Montana Family Album
“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.”—Smithsonian 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…;
Penguin BooksPrice: $13.00 Free Shipping
“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.”—Smithsonian
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.
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 Titanic, to Prohibition, to World War I, as well as the first sign of the town’s demise during the Great Depression.
With a foreword by Jonathan Raban, who discovered this memoir while researching his award-winning Bad Land, Homesteading 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.
“Vivid . . . plainly written and satisfyingly detailed.”—The Washington Post
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Arctic Homestead: The True Story of One Family’s Survival and Courage in the Alaskan Wilds
In 1973, Norma Cobb, her husband Lester, and the their five children, the oldest of whom was nine-years-old and the youngest, twins, barely one, pulled up stakes in the Lower Forty-eight and headed north to Alaska to follow a pioneer dream of claiming land under the Homestead Act. The only land available lay north of…;
St. Martin’s GriffinPrice:
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In 1973, Norma Cobb, her husband Lester, and the their five children, the oldest of whom was nine-years-old and the youngest, twins, barely one, pulled up stakes in the Lower Forty-eight and headed north to Alaska to follow a pioneer dream of claiming land under the Homestead Act. The only land available lay north of Fairbanks near the Arctic Circle where grizzlies outnumbered humans twenty to one. In addition to fierce winters and predatory animals, the Alaskan frontier drew the more unsavory elements of society’s fringes. From the beginning, the Cobbs found themselves pitted in a life or death feud with unscrupulous neighbors who would rob from new settlers, attempt to burn them out, shoot them, and jump their claim.
The Cobbs were chechakos, tenderfeet, in a lost land that consumed even toughened settlers. Everything, including their “civilized” past, conspired to defeat them. They constructed a cabin and the first snow collapsed the roof. They built too close to the creek and spring breakup threatened to flood them out. Bears prowled the nearby woods, stalking the children, and Lester Cobb would leave for months at a time in search of work.
But through it all, they survived on the strength of Norma Cobb—a woman whose love for her family knew no bounds and whose courage in the face of mortal danger is an inspiration to us all. Arctic Homestead is her story.
Arctic Homestead The True Story of One Family s Survival and Courage in the Alaskan Wilds
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Bachelor Bess: The Homesteading Letters of Elizabeth Corey, 1909-1919 (American Land & Life)
In July 1909 twenty-one-year-old Elizabeth Corey left her Iowa farm to stake her claim to a South Dakota homestead. Over the next ten years, as she continued her schoolteaching career and carved out a home for herself in this inhospitable territory, she sent a steady stream of letters to her family back in Iowa. From…;
University Of Iowa PressPrice:
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Used Book in Good ConditionIn July 1909 twenty-one-year-old Elizabeth Corey left her Iowa farm to stake her claim to a South Dakota homestead. Over the next ten years, as she continued her schoolteaching career and carved out a home for herself in this inhospitable territory, she sent a steady stream of letters to her family back in Iowa. From the edge of modern America, Bess wrote long, gossipy accounts—”our own continuing adventure story,” according to her brother Paul—of frontier life on the high plains west of the Missouri River. Irrepressible, independent-minded, and evidently fearless, the self-styled Bachelor Bess gives us a firsthand, almost daily account of her homesteading adventures. We can all stake a claim in her energetic letters.
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The Personal History of Rachel DuPree: A Novel
Soon to be a Major Motion Picture Starring Emmy Award Winner and Oscar Nominee Viola Davis; “An eye-opening look at the little-explored area of a black frontier woman in the American West.” –Chicago Sun-Times Praised by Alice Walker and many other bestselling writers, The Personal History of Rachel DuPree is an award-winning debut novel with incredible heart…;
Penguin BooksPrice:
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Soon to be a Major Motion Picture Starring Emmy Award Winner and Oscar Nominee Viola Davis; “An eye-opening look at the little-explored area of a black frontier woman in the American West.” —Chicago Sun-Times
Praised by Alice Walker and many other bestselling writers, The Personal History of Rachel DuPree is an award-winning debut novel with incredible heart about life on the prairie as it’s rarely been seen. Reminiscent of The Color Purple, as well as the frontier novels of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Willa Cather, it opens a window on the little-known history of African American homesteaders and gives voice to an extraordinary heroine who embodies the spirit that built America.The Personal History of Rachel DuPree
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Almost Pioneers: One Couple’s Homesteading Adventure In The West
In the fall of 1913, Laura and Earle Smith, a young Iowa couple, made the gutsy—some might say foolhardy—decision to homestead in Wyoming. There, they built their first house, a claim shanty half dug out of the ground, hauled every drop of their water from a spring over a half-mile away, and fought off rattlesnakes…;
TwoDotPrice:
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In the fall of 1913, Laura and Earle Smith, a young Iowa couple, made the gutsy—some might say foolhardy—decision to homestead in Wyoming. There, they built their first house, a claim shanty half dug out of the ground, hauled every drop of their water from a spring over a half-mile away, and fought off rattlesnakes and boredom on a daily basis.
Soon, other families moved to nearby homesteads, and the Smiths built a house closer to those neighbors. The growing community built its first public schoolhouse and celebrated the Fourth of July together—although the festivities were cut short because of snow.
By 1917, however, the Smiths had moved back to Iowa, leasing their land to a local rancher and using the proceeds to fund Earle’s study of law. The Smiths lived in Iowa for most of the rest of their lives, and sometime after the mid-1930s, Laura wrote this clear, vivid, witty, and self-deprecating memoir of their time in Wyoming, a book that captures the pioneer spirit of the era and of the building of community against daunting odds.
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Alaska’s Homesteders: By Martha Markey
Join Bob and me on our two trips to Alaska from Michigan. How two nine-inch frying pans got us up the hill near Scotty Creek in 1951 and how we crossed the approach to Bear Creek Bridge after rushing flood-waters had created a twenty-five-foot dry chasm in 1953.Learn about our moving onto our homestead in…;
Ladybug PublishingPrice: Free
Join Bob and me on our two trips to Alaska from Michigan. How two nine-inch frying pans got us up the hill near Scotty Creek in 1951 and how we crossed the approach to Bear Creek Bridge after rushing flood-waters had created a twenty-five-foot dry chasm in 1953.
Learn about our moving onto our homestead in 1956, twelve miles from Fairbanks, and then a half-mile over a path thru the trees created by long forgotten engineers, Find out how little by little we developed the land: by building a road, pounding down a well, building a house, and in time obtaining a patent, in spite of long cold winters, a forest fire, earthquakes and a flood.
Read about the responses we received from the wild life that were there first: The big horned owls that sat in the tall trees, with eyes searching for movement on the ground; the gray lynx with long limbs and big feet that carry it effortlessly over the terrain; the red fox that birthed her kits in a den on the creek-bank, and moose that peeked in our window in the middle of winter.
Join us on sightseeing trips to view Alaska’s many wonders, when visitors come from the lower forty-eight: such as the stop at Worthington Glacier, were road crews used dozers to push the ice off the road. Explore with us, the ninety-two mile Denali Park Trail that took us to the base of Mt McKinley, the highest peak in North America.
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Twenty Miles From A Match: Homesteading In Western Nevada (Bristlecone Paperback)
Originally published in 1978, this is the autobiography of an indomitable woman and her family’s 20 years of adventures and misadventures in a desert wilderness. In 1908, Sarah Olds packed up her brood and went homesteading. Her book tells of their hardships, poverty and tribulations.Used Book in Good Condition;
University of Nevada PressPrice:
$16.95$13.13 Free Shipping
Originally published in 1978, this is the autobiography of an indomitable woman and her family’s 20 years of adventures and misadventures in a desert wilderness. In 1908, Sarah Olds packed up her brood and went homesteading. Her book tells of their hardships, poverty and tribulations.Used Book in Good Condition
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BUCKSHOT PIE: A Family’s Struggle Through Homesteading, The Great Depression, and WW II
Buckshot pie is a metaphor for pioneer spirit, tough times, and the bitter-sweet struggle to survive and live off the land. Pearl’s wild elderberry pie was jokingly referred to as buckshot pie by her five sons. They followed the winding banks of Rock Creek near Winona and then Pine Creek near Oakesdale and they rode…;
Semper Pi PublishingPrice: Free
Buckshot pie is a metaphor for pioneer spirit, tough times, and the bitter-sweet struggle to survive and live off the land. Pearl’s wild elderberry pie was jokingly referred to as buckshot pie by her five sons. They followed the winding banks of Rock Creek near Winona and then Pine Creek near Oakesdale and they rode the countryside on horseback to pick the fruit for their mother because they loved her lattice-crust berry pies. However, they ate them carefully to avoid the occasional hard seed.
Buckshot Pie chronicles the struggles of this family to provide for a living on marginal wheat farm land. It follows the early deaths and the loss of the homestead through bank foreclosure. It continues through the Great Depression and the difficult economic times as Pearl tried, but failed to retain the mortgage on her beloved Corner Café. But the most difficult times for the family were experienced in World War II. The eldest brother fought through the Battle of Bataan and survived the Bataan Death March. He survived 30 more months under torturous conditions at the hands of sadistic Imperial militarists. After suffering recurring bouts of malaria, beriberi, dysentery, as well as, beatings, and starvation he lost his battle aboard the Hokusen Maru, one of the Japanese hellships. Two other brothers were in numerous combat flights and both narrowly survived crash landings. The youngest brother, badly wounded by a German grenade, recovered, but lost sight in one eye while a prisoner of the Nazis for over 13 months. The grief and anguish took its toll on Pearl with cause for broken heart throughout most of her life, and culminated in failing health and death from cancer at age 52. The surviving boys and their sister went on to marry, raise families, and continue the struggle with success, but always remembered their humble beginnings… and their mother’s buckshot pie….
These eleven chapters are book-ended by a prologue and epilogue that start and finish with the placement of a gravestone on the unmarked grave of the first born of the homestead family. The vigil to the cemetery leads into the discussion of the family’s origins on the Whitman County homestead, north of Winona in the channeled scabland area of Texas Draw. The story finishes with the placement of the stone on little Neva’s resting place almost a century after her birth and short fragile life, and 97 years after her heart wrenching death… .
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COFFEE-DRUNK or BLIND: An Alaskan Homesteading Adventure
An incredible true tale of the journey of one family’s travel and destiny of homesteading the Alaska wilderness in the mid-twentieth century.Coffee Drunk or Blind An Alaskan Homesteading Adventure;
CreateSpace Independent Publishing PlatformPrice: $12.95 Free Shipping
An incredible true tale of the journey of one family’s travel and destiny of homesteading the Alaska wilderness in the mid-twentieth century.Coffee Drunk or Blind An Alaskan Homesteading Adventure
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Letters of a Woman Homesteader (Dover Books on Americana)
As a young widow with a small child, Elinore Pruitt left Denver in 1909 and set out for Wyoming, where she hoped to buy a ranch. Determined to prove that a lone woman could survive the hardships of homesteading, she initially worked as a housekeeper and hired hand for a neighbor — a kind but…;
Dover PublicationsPrice: $8.95 Free Shipping
As a young widow with a small child, Elinore Pruitt left Denver in 1909 and set out for Wyoming, where she hoped to buy a ranch. Determined to prove that a lone woman could survive the hardships of homesteading, she initially worked as a housekeeper and hired hand for a neighbor — a kind but taciturn Scottish bachelor whom she eventually married.
Spring and summers were hard, she concedes, and were taken up with branding, farming, doctoring cattle, and other chores. But with the arrival of fall, Pruitt found time to take her young daughter on camping trips and serve her neighbors as midwife, doctor, teacher, Santa Claus, and friend. She provides a candid portrait of these and other experiences in twenty-six letters written to a friend back in Denver.
Described by the Wall Street Journal as “warmly delightful, vigorously affirmative,” this unsurpassed classic of American frontier life — enhanced with original illustrations by N. C. Wyeth — will charm today’s audience as much as it fascinated readers when it was first published in 1914.
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Farm Flop: A City Dweller’s Guide to Failing on a Farm in Two Years Or Less
Peek inside the journal of a young suburban family who made the leap to a hobby farm, only to find themselves returning to the city less than two years later. What follows is the chronological, no-nonsense account of what the Rose family faced and how they handled it. Sometimes they made mistakes; other times they…;
Independently publishedPrice: $9.99 Free Shipping
Peek inside the journal of a young suburban family who made the leap to a hobby farm, only to find themselves returning to the city less than two years later. What follows is the chronological, no-nonsense account of what the Rose family faced and how they handled it. Sometimes they made mistakes; other times they found help and kindness in unexpected places. Inside you will discover stories and tips on: finding good land, developing ponds, rotational cattle grazing, how to not get ripped off, farm trucks, tractors, and other engines that fail, Jersey cow milking, good (and not-so-good) country neighbors, seeding, permaculture, gardening, chainsawing, and feral hog avoiding. The information may just save your life, or at least prevent you from making the same mistakes they did.
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My Life In The Wilderness: An Alaskan’s Story
Robert Hilliker was born in the southern Lower Peninsula of Michigan, in the late 1920’s, just before the Great Depression of 1929 and the 1930’s. As a young boy, the tales of Daniel Boone, Jim Bowie, and the stories of the Mountain Men who roamed the great Rocky Mountains in search of beaver struck a…;
My Life In The Wilderness: An Alaskan’s StoryPrice: $19.99 Free Shipping
Robert Hilliker was born in the southern Lower Peninsula of Michigan, in the late 1920’s, just before the Great Depression of 1929 and the 1930’s. As a young boy, the tales of Daniel Boone, Jim Bowie, and the stories of the Mountain Men who roamed the great Rocky Mountains in search of beaver struck a chord deep down inside that he could neither understand nor explain. They did, however, produce in him a strong desire to experience such a life for himself. In the following years, almost every decision he made was in accordance with an “inner compass” which pointed steadily to the Northwest. “To go into the wilderness, build a strong and warm log cabin with my own two hands, and hunt for my food. Trap fur bearing animals to sell to the fur buyers for money to buy the things I couldn’t produce myself, get my water from the creek, cut the firewood I would need to cook my food and to keep me warm through the long cold winters of the ‘North Country,’ could I do something like that?” This is his story.
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Go North, Young Man: Modern Homesteading in Alaska
Go North, Young Man, first published in 1957, is Gordon Stoddard’s account of his first four years as a homesteader on Alaska’s Kenai peninsula in the 1950s. From building his first cabin (with only the aid of a basic do-it-yourself pamphlet), to growing an abundance of over-sized vegetables, to hunting and foraging and surviving the…;
CreateSpace Independent Publishing PlatformPrice: $12.95 Free Shipping
Go North, Young Man, first published in 1957, is Gordon Stoddard’s account of his first four years as a homesteader on Alaska’s Kenai peninsula in the 1950s. From building his first cabin (with only the aid of a basic do-it-yourself pamphlet), to growing an abundance of over-sized vegetables, to hunting and foraging and surviving the long winters, Stoddard portrays a down-to-earth look at the simple life he desired and created for himself. Includes 19 pages of photographs and maps.Go North Young Man Modern Homesteading in Alaska
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Woodswoman: Living Alone in the Adirondack Wilderness
Ecologist Anne LaBastille created the life that many people dream about. When she and her husband divorced, she needed a place to live. Through luck and perseverance, she found the ideal spot: a 20-acre parcel of land in the Adirondack mountains, where she built the cozy, primitive log cabin that became her permanent home. Miles…;
Penguin BooksPrice:
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Ecologist Anne LaBastille created the life that many people dream about. When she and her husband divorced, she needed a place to live. Through luck and perseverance, she found the ideal spot: a 20-acre parcel of land in the Adirondack mountains, where she built the cozy, primitive log cabin that became her permanent home. Miles from the nearest town, LaBastille had to depend on her wits, ingenuity, and the help of generous neighbors for her survival. In precise, poetic language, she chronicles her adventures on Black Bear Lake, capturing the power of the landscape, the rhythms of the changing seasons, and the beauty of nature’s many creatures. Most of all, she captures the struggle to balance her need for companionship and love with her desire for independence and solitude. Woodswoman is not simply a book about living in the wilderness, it is a book about living that contains a lesson for us all.
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Letters Of A Woman Homesteader: Premium Edition – Illustrated
Why buy our paperbacks? Standard Font size of 10 for all books High Quality Paper Fulfilled by Amazon Expedited shipping 30 Days Money Back Guarantee BEWARE of Low-quality sellers Don’t buy cheap paperbacks just to save a few dollars. Most of them use low-quality papers & binding. Their pages fall off easily. Some of them…;
CreateSpace Independent Publishing PlatformPrice: $3.99 Free Shipping
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Winds of Skilak: A Tale of True Grit, True Love and Survival in the Alaskan Wilderness
FIRST PLACE – JOURNEY AWARDS for Narrative Non-Fiction Chanticleer Book Reviews 2015 WINNER – NEXT GENERATION INDIE BOOK AWARD memoir 2014 HONORABLE MENTION – FOREWORD REVIEW’S BOOK of the year 2014 FINALIST – USA BEST BOOK AWARD Autobiography/Memoir category 2014 Leaving behind friends, family, and life as they know it, the Wards embark on a…;
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$18.99$17.40 Free ShippingFIRST PLACE – JOURNEY AWARDS for Narrative Non-Fiction Chanticleer Book Reviews 2015
WINNER – NEXT GENERATION INDIE BOOK AWARD memoir 2014
HONORABLE MENTION – FOREWORD REVIEW’S BOOK of the year 2014
FINALIST – USA BEST BOOK AWARD Autobiography/Memoir category 2014
