Hope & truth from the prairie
Whether you are a die-hard country resident, you grew up rural and long for simpler days or you live in the city and yearn for wide open spaces, I’m “your kind of people.” Even if you’re a city dweller who loves life among the skyscrapers but is intrigued by history and rural life, we’ll get along just fine.
I grew up and now again live in northern Colorado on a farm a few miles from the land homesteaded by my great-great grandparents in the 1880s. The closest town is Galeton, and when I was young, Dillard’s was the mom and pop grocery store where people bought supplies until they could “get into town and stock up.” Dillard’s had those heavy, wide-planked oak floors and a post office in the back. They still sold most of their wares on account, and families paid their bill once a month.
When it was time to attend junior high school, my Galeton classmates and I rode the bus to the next closest town, Eaton, itself a town of only one stoplight. I neither dreamed of escaping my tiny town and rural landscape, nor did I plan to stay on the farm. I did know I loved to write and tell stories that moved people. So, I got a degree in journalism, lived in Costa Rica and then Taiwan in my twenties and was a successful public relations executive.
When my oldest daughter started elementary school, it hit me like a brick that I just had to get her out into a rural community. I also figured the neighbors might not take too kindly to our raising sheep in the back yard. We landed on a rural property on the Eastern Colorado plains, where I raised sheep, cultivated a large garden and enjoyed a couple of horses for nearly two decades. A divorce brought me back in 2017 to live on the farm where I was raised. The change in marital status also is the reason you will see my first two books published under my married name, Marilyn Bay Wentz, and my third book under Marilyn Bay.
Prairie Grace, published by Koehler Books in December 2013, is a historical fiction novel about the people, places and events leading up to the Sand Creek Massacre, which occurred Nov. 29, 1864. The conflict is told from the very different points-of-view of a young lady settler and a Cheyenne brave. The storyline is tied very closely to the Colorado Territory timeline of 1862 to 1864. The story is fast-moving, not mushy at all, gentlemen.
In 2015, Cladach Publishing came out with All We Like Sheep, Lessons from the Sheepfold, a Christian devotional co-written with my mother Mildred Nelson Bay. It pulls from our collective seven decades of sheep raising experience and is a collection of sheep stories and the lessons our experiences have taught us about ourselves, others and God. Running the gamut from sad to touching to hilarious, All We Like Sheep, Lessons from the Sheepfold is presented in a devotional format.
Cladach Publishing will also publish Prairie Truth, set in 1886 in the San Luis Valley of Colorado. This sequel to Prairie Grace is the story of Caroline, who seeks to escape the difficulties of her inter-racial heritage by pretending to be someone she is not in a land that is foreign to her. Prairie Truth also is fast-paced, deals with cultural and racial issues, delves into the impact of the Spanish and Mexican land grants in what is now the United States. It is history intensive. For you horse enthusiasts, expect to read about a talented and daring horse trainer in Prairie Truth.
That’s plenty about me. What about you? What do you love to read about? Why does the prairie call to you? Why do you think reading about simpler times is so uplifting? PLEASE get in touch with me by subscribing to my blog or sending me a message through the “Contact Me” tab on this website. I’d love to hear from you.
If we haven’t met, I hope we have the opportunity to do so somewhere along the trail.
Marilyn
