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Text Box: Homesteading was Uncle Sam’s grand plan for populating the west. Most prospective homesteaders would come from farms within the vast, fertile Mississippi River basin, where large families easily subsisted on forty acres or less. So the government offered 160 acres, which amounted to more land than most could imagine owning, to any willing to take the risk of a new start. Not only families, but entire communities flocked west at the promise of free land and easy wealth, only to be robbed by the nature of barren desolate plains. Seemingly, these toiling, relentless spirits, conspired with the land in the consumption of their own souls as promises faded with their life savings, leading to bankruptcy and despair. Behind this cover is the reality of homesteading, a period romanced by historians but where love was as practical, tedious and often as violent as the hardships. This story is alive with the voice of a woman educated in a one-room schoolhouse, who raised a family in a community so rural a chance human encounter was cause for celebration. Yet, from that historical period of endurance, these desperate pioneers honed an American generation, sturdy and sound enough to guide the world through a global depression and two World Wars.