Mildred Walker (1905–1998)

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It's hard to describe though. It's one season of a young woman's life in the early 40's based in Montana. Mildred Walker really paints a vivid picture of farm life in Montana - it's beauty and it's bitterness - and wraps in some history, love, and family interactions as well. There were times I got tired of the seemingly endless wind blowing and butte descriptions, but the story held me the whole way through. And the conclusion made the book feel complete show more - it didn't feel truncated. I'd definitely read more of her work. show less

”September is like a quiet day after a whole week of wind. I mean real wind that blows dirt into your eyes and hair and between your teeth and roars in your ears after you've gone inside. The harvesting is done and the wheat stored away and you're through worrying about hail or drought or grasshoppers. The fields have a tired peaceful look, the way I imagiine a mother feels when she's had her baby and is just lying there thinking about it and feeling pleased.”

Winter wheat, planted in the show more autumn endures through the winter to grow the next year.

This is a coming of age story of a young girl living on a dryland Montana wheat farm just prior to WWII. We meet Ellen Webb, preparing to go to college in the fall. There she falls madly in love with a boy from a totally different, more refined and educated background and the two are engaged to be married.

Her fiancé, however visits her home and sees only the roughness and hardships of the farm and the somewhat incongruous marriage of her parents; her father had been an educated man, who, wounded in WWI, had married the Russian peasant girl who nursed him. They had come to the isolated Montana farm when his family rejected their marriage.

Ellen for the first time sees her life through another's eyes and begins to question the surroundings she grew up with: the isolated unpainted house and her parents' love – or lack thereof - for each other.

She becomes a teacher in a one-room school for a year with pupils of all ages. When events there also take unexpected turns. Ellen begins to see her parents through yet another lens.

Although the novel twists and turns, there is a great deal of hope in this novel as Ellen sees that life doesn’t go as planned, but that persistence and enduring bring their own satisfactions.

This book was written in 1944 as a contemporary novel, although now, both the subject and the writing style give it the feel of an historical novel. The vivid descriptions of place and incidents as well as characters make this novel quite memorable. show less

I read this on the train, as it made it's way across Northern Montana--a great way to read it. So much of this novel is about its setting, and being able to gaze up from the book and see the same land was really a gift. Eileen's relationship with and understanding of her parents is intriguing. In the book you see Eileen grow up as she slowly learns that what she thought she knew about her parent's relationship was not necessarily true.

I kept thinking about Sarah Orne Jewett's 'The Country of the Pointed Firs' (another wonderful book!) as I read this, largely because of Marcia Elder's connection to her hillside and home (though this is in Vermont, not Maine). The story, about the elderly but completely alive Marcia Elder, is the perfect one to read on the last day of the year. Especially on a bright and cold day, curled on the couch, with some light coming in from the southwest corner of my house.