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This book is a tribute to the undaunting
spirit of the immigrants who
came to America and laid the foundation as evidenced by my
thirteen-year-old
grandson, who feels “Eliza” should be on the “required reading” list
for all
students studying American history.
Fran
Wojnar weaves an intriguing tale.
—Jacque Hall,
author of
What Does
The Rabbit Say
and
Four From California
Fictional immigrant stories with added history
notes, are
written in epistolary form to Eliza's papa, her sisters and a cousin
back in the old country. Material for the letters are taken from the
document, "My Family History As Far Back As I Can Remember" recounted
by Eliza to her granddaughter, Elizabeth Leitgen, also from oral
history and American history from 1836-1860.
At the age of 16, Eliza, and her brother Heinrich,
age 14, are
put on a ship with a trunk full of bread. It's the solution to their
papa's lack of dowry for Eliza, compounded by the potato famine in
Lower Saxony, now part of united Germany.
Landing in New Orleans, Eliza and Heinrich are met by a
kind
lady in whose home they work and learn English. From there they make
their way north on the Mississippi River, stopping in St. Louis where
Eliza meets and marries a countryman, Johann Rolwes. The couple
continue north settling in Waupeton, Iowa, a trading post on the
Mississippi River, north-east of Dubuque, Iowa.
Eliza's letters reflect the ingenuity, humor and hopes of
frontiersmen before the Civil War. To save fuel, she writes about
putting a kettle of bread dough in bed with her, allowing her body heat
to produce the rising action. Detailed encounters with wild
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animals
and Indians are experienced and how she and Johann chose to make
coffins and lay out the dead for their settlement. The book includes
her shipboard journal, sixty letters, maps and line drawings. Notes on
how to make soap, the gestation of pigs, spring butchering, weaving,
and fee schedules are added.
ISBN 1-4134-9002-6
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