Esther's Gold

About the Book

Esther’s Gold is a non-traditional western told from a young woman’s point of view.
The story begins on the outskirts of Boston in 1845. Esther grows up working in a hotel with her widowed mother. She longs for a home of her own and freedom from the hard work in the hotel She falls in love with a young man who wants to go to California to find gold. She travels west on horseback with her husband and her husband’s friend. They are forty-niners who expect to go to California where they will all become rich. Esther announces that God will be with them as they leave, but she learns that traveling west was more difficult than she imagined.
Esther left her mother behind in Boston, yet she feels her presence as they encounter tough times while traveling.
The travelers come upon an unusual situation that changes the plans for their lives.

About the Author

I was born in a farmhouse in Minnesota. When I was about a year old my family moved west. We moved often, living in Washington and Oregon while my father worked on large construction jobs, such as McNary Dam. My mother was tired of moving with four children, so our family moved one last time back to the farm in Minnesota.
I married a year after graduating from high school. Nursing schools would not allow students to be married at the time because nurse’s training was considered too difficult to complete while married. Years later I became a nurse when I was not only married, but had six children. I worked as a psychiatric nurse for nearly 16 years.
Now, retired from nursing, I live with my husband in the farmhouse where I was born. We have nine grandchildren. We care for a small flock of chickens and tend a large garden.