book details

Book: Trail to Glory - One Family's Journey West by Marilyn Meredith

categories: Book, Strong Indepedent Women, Menominee Indains, Calamity Jane, Romance, Family, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Bakersfield CA, Southern Pacific Railroad, Los Angeles, Historical Family Saga

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Marilyn Meredith

about this book: TRAIL TO GLORY is an historical family saga inspired by my mother's genealogy. My sister did all the research to find out about our family's history and presented her findings to me. While looking over her work, there were so many questions. There was no Ancestory.com when my sister worked on her project. She sifted through census reports and learned when our relatives were born, married and died. Fortunately, our grandparents were still alive and able to answer some of our questions.

What we learned was that many of the female members of our family had numerous tragedies: husbands and children dying, one daughter disappeared, often the women had to raise their children on their own, and figure out how to make a living during a time when there weren't many jobs for women.

When I decided to write this story, I began by researching what was going in the particular places and time periods the family members resided. This gave me some answers to the questions, and if not an answer, at least an idea as to what might have happened.

The more I learned, the more excited I became about writing the story of these strong women. Though the women carry the biggest weight in the novel, I learned a lot about my grandfather and what he went through growing up in an orphanage, the abuse he received in a foster home, his career on the railroad and his romance with my grandmother.

Writing TRAIL TO GLORY was a labor of love.