Combines are running full blast to get the wheat harvested before the next storm blows into the state. Rain is good for the row crops (milo, corn, and soybeans are grown in our area), but not when you need to get the wheat harvested.

Not only must the combines manuver through the field without being stuck in mud, big trucks must drive next to the combine in the field while the wheat seed is augured out of the combine bin into the truck’s bed.

Then what happens to this grain? The loaded truck drives to a nearby grain elevator to unload the wheat, and then back to the field for the next load. Eventually semi-trucks will move the wheat from the storage elevators to rail cars or ships to travel where it will be used. This Kansas wheat might be in your next loaf of bread or bowl of pasta, whether you live in the United States or overseas.

It takes a lot of hard and fast work—and faith—that you’ll get the wheat cut while it’s at the right ripe stage. Hail can break the straw stems so that it can’t be cut, or continuing rain can cause the wheat seed to sprout while the plants are still standing, and ruin it.

Farming is always a gamble but it seems to be intensified during wheat harvest. No forty-hour weeks now. The combine is running continually until the straw is too tough to cut—which could be anywhere from 6 pm to 1 am. During the downtime (early mornings) machinery needs to be repaired and maintained, besides whatever else needs to be done on the farm.

Uprooting their families and moving to Kansas was a gamble for the Swedish immigrants too, just like wheat harvest. The Planting Dreams series (with Harvesting Faith being the third book) is dedicated to the people that homesteaded on the Kansas prairie to make their living by farming.

After 142 years from my immigrant ancestor’s arrival, my family is still farming and harvesting wheat today.

The Trail of Thread book series got a great review from Tina, “The Book Lady” on the Family and Literacy and You website today.

“I thoroughly enjoyed Deborah’s story as she and her family traveled to their new home in the Kansas Territory. Written as a series of letters from Deborah to her stepmother who raised Deborah and her siblings you learn about the trials she and her family went through during the journey to their new home in the new Kansas territory in 1854. Deborah shares everything in her letters – her emotions, her triumphs, her worries and sorrow as another family loses everything they own (can you imagine?).

The Trail of Thread series is a set of 3 books and is the story of the author’s mother’s ancestors. Very well researched (she includes the Bibliography in the back of the book) and well written it’s easy to image the sheer amount of work Deborah went through to prepare for the journey, from sewing the canvas for the wagon top, making sure it was waterproof, packing the wagons, deciding what to take, what to leave behind and more. You’ll also “feel” the emotions of wondering and planning in case something happens to your family. Will everyone survive the trip?

The book is a quick very enjoyable read and you’ll definitely want to read the 2nd and 3rd books in this series. Imagine the Little House on the Prairie books but written from an adults perspective. Share these books with your family. Read them aloud and talk about what it would be like to ride in a covered wagon, to walk across the states instead of taking a 10 hour car ride to get where you want to go. These books would also be great for kids that need to write a report for history class – the research and the writing will help them prepare for a top notch report. They’re perfect for everyone age 9 – 99!”

In honor of Father’s Day, three ebooks will be on sale for $3.99 for a month at only two sites, Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can either download them for Kindle or Nook. Get them now and enjoy!

Planting Dreams Series- Historical Fiction About Pioneer Families

My third book series is based on my father’s Swedish ancestors who came first to Illinois, and then on to Salemsborg, Kansas in 1869.
Charlotta’s thoughtful writing covers the time period of 1868-1919 and tells why the Swedish immigrants decided to leave, their journey, and their life on the Kansas prairie.

This book series is based on stories and photos from Johnson descendants, along with fiction depicting Kansas history during this time period.
 

Planting Dreams: A Swedish Immigrant’s Journey to America
Book 1, 1868-1869

Drought has scorched the farmland of Sweden and there is no harvest to feed families or livestock. Taxes are due and there is little money to pay them. But there is a ship sailing for America, where the government is giving land to anyone who wants to claim a homestead. Can you imagine starting a journey to an unknown country, no knowing what the country would be like, where you would live, or how you would survive? Did you make the right decision to leave in the first place?

For more information and how to buy the Planting Dreams ebook or book>>>

Cultivating Hope: Homesteading on the Great Plains
Book 2, 1869-1886

Can you imagine being isolated in the middle of a treeless grassland with only a dirt roof over your head? Having to feed your children with whatever wild plants or animals you could find living on the prairie? Sweating to plow the sod, plant the seed, cultivate the crop- only to lose it all by a hailstorm right before you harvest it?

The second book, in the Planting Dreams series portrays Swedish immigrant Charlotta Johnson as she and her husband build a farmstead on the Kansas Prairie.

For more information and how to buy the Cultivating Hope ebook or book>>>

Harvesting Faith: Life on the Changing Prairie
Book 3, 1886-1919

Imagine surveying your farmstead on the last day of your life, reviewing the decades of joys, hardships, and changes that have taken place on the eighty acres you have called home for the past fifty years. Would you feel at peace or find remorse at the decisions that took place in your life?
This third book in the Planting Dreams book series portrays Charlotta Johnson as she recalls the events that shaped her family’s destiny.

For more information and how to buy the Trail of Thread ebook or book>>>

In 1990 my husband had a two-year engineering project that required us to move to the San Francisco area. I sold my wholesale horticulture business because it wasn’t something I could maintain from out of state.

Searching for what I wanted to do while in California, I decided to look into my ancestors past as a project to work on. I researched and found my family’s history, not only the important dates of their lives, but also their stories.

What I realized is that all my ancestors traveled from other places to settle in Kansas when the territory opened up in 1854, or shortly after the Civil War when land was available to homestead. They were from European countries, leaving family, community and the life they knew behind to start a new and hopefully better life In America.

The history that my family just happened into, because of the state and nation’s situation, inspired me to write the Trail of Thread series. To give them a personal feel, I wrote the stories in the form of letters sent back home to loved ones.

For example my ancestors Deborah and John Pieratt (with six children along), featured in the first book of the Trail of Thread series left Kentucky in 1854 when the Territory of Kansas was formed. They were part of the thousands of families that packed wagons and headed west for the promise of a new life. My mother, uncle and I actually drove their trip—by car in a few days—to see what they would have seen in person.

Thimble of Soil, the second book in the series, features a great aunt Margaret Ralston Kennedy. She was a widow who moved with eight of her thirteen children from Ohio to the Territory Kansas in 1855. I found out by research that she helped with the Underground Railroad in both Ohio and Kansas!

Orphaned Maggie Kennedy, my ancestor portrayed in Stitch of Courage, the last book in the series, followed her brothers to Kansas as the states fought out the history of the Civil War. She found love with Deborah Pieratt’s son and gave birth to the great grandfather I knew.

Not only did this information give me a look into my ancestors’ life and times, it inspired me to write books to give readers a “slice of life” of my ancestors, and all people that lived through this time period.

I hope you’ll read the Trail of Thread series to get an insight into your family’s history too.

Pretend your husband—or father—decided to leave the home you’ve always known and you’ll be traveling through several states to a new territory he heard about. It’s the nineteenth century and you may not even a paper map to guide your family to this new free land—but he is determined to start a new farm in some wild land behold civilization.

My ancestors, John and Deborah Pieratt—with six young children along—left Kentucky in 1854 to move to the new Territory of Kansas. Their journey was the basis of my book Trail of Thread, which was written in the form of letters that Deborah wrote and mailed back to family in Kentucky. Deborah describes what she saw, and what their family experienced on their three-month journey.

The family had to carefully plan first so they would be prepared for the journey, and for the wilderness land they would eventually homestead on.

Pretend you want to prepare for this journey as a class or family project.

What—and how—do you pack in the four by ten foot wagon for a family of eight? (And what do you need for your trip to begin with?!) How much weight can the wagon hold and the oxen (or horses or mules) pull?

How long will the trip take? What will be your route? What roads (or rough trails) will you use and what towns will you be traveling through?

How will you cross rivers with your wagon? Is there any rough terrain along the way that may make the trip hard and dangerous?

How much food should you pack? How do you keep it from spoiling?

When you’re done researching the trip preparation and route, look for stories from old newspaper clippings of what was going on in the Territory of Kansas during 1854-1865. The Pieratts settled in an area and time frame known as the Bleeding Kansas conflicts due to the tension mounting about the slavery issue that exploded into the Civil War. (You can read more about these conflicts and how it affected the family by reading the rest of the Trail of Thread series, Thimble of Soil and Stitch of Courage.)

I brought the Pieratt’s story to life in the pages of Trail of Thread. Now can you plan your own trip in 1854?

By definition, a quilt is a coverlet or blanket made of two layers of fabric with a layer of cotton, wool, feathers, or down in between, all stitched firmly together, usually in a decorative crisscross design. The top layer may be a single piece of fabric, or it may be a made from a variety of scraps of material that were pieced together to form blocks, that are then sewn together to make the top layer.

When one thinks of pieced quilts, pioneer women automatically come to mind. This group of women often had to move, start new households, and work with what they had on hand. Their quilts would have been used daily, made and patched to last through the rigors of pioneer life.

For example Deborah and John Pieratt, featured in the first book of my Trail of Thread series, left Kentucky in 1854 when the Territory of Kansas was formed. They were part of the thousands of families that packed wagons and headed west for the promise of a new life. Quilts would have been used for bedding—in the wagon or on the ground, as a hanging shelter, or as a partition for privacy. They were also used for burial of loved ones along the trail.

Thimble of Soil, the second book in the series, features Margaret Ralston Kennedy. She was a widow who moved with eight of her thirteen children from Ohio to the Territory Kansas in 1855. She was dedicated to the cause of the North, and helped with the Underground Railroad in both Ohio and Kansas. It is possible that some of the quilts she made had special blocks giving direction to runaway slaves.

Orphaned Maggie Kennedy, portrayed in Stitch of Courage, the last book in the series, followed her brothers to Kansas looking for a better life as the states fought out the history of the Civil War. Women made and gave quilts for the soldiers to use during their journeys and battles.

What was the meaning for all these quilts? They were all just fabric to provide warmth and protection, but they also connected the hearts and souls of the past, present, and future.

The young woman on the trail packed quilts to use, but also to bring memories of her family left behind to her new frontier home.

The older woman—who stitched directions in her quilt that hung outside to air— gave freedom to people trying to escape a bad life.

The soldier wrapped in a dirty quilt, trying to keep warm and get a bit of sleep, was given the security of knowing that someone from home was thinking of him and waiting for his return.

Think of the countless hours of work and devotion it took to create these pioneer quilts. These finished masterpieces of the fingers gave a sense of accomplishment to the makers, and comfort and connection to the users.

Do you have a special quilt passed down through your family? What does it mean to you?

(Caroline Clemmons interviewed me for her book review blogspot. She posted an excerpt from my book, Trail of Thread too. Please enjoy both.)

Caroline: Readers love to get to know authors. Share anything that lets readers get to know the real you.

Linda: I grew up on a wheat farm in central Kansas. This farm was featured in my Butter in the Well series, and my parents still live there. I was a shy tomboy who preferred being outdoors, and working with animals, farming or gardening—rather than being inside doing housework and cooking. (And my husband would say I’m still that way.)

I have two older brothers and a younger sister and we were all involved in 4-H, church and community projects growing up. One brother now farms the family land and the other two live out of state. My husband and I have lived in three other states due to job careers, but then moved back to Kansas in the 1990s to be close to family.

Caroline: Who are your favorite authors and favorite genres?

Linda: When I read books, it’s right before bedtime so I want something fun, romantic, and not something that will give me nightmares. Right now I’m into contemporary western romances.

Caroline: How many books do you read a month? What are you reading now?

Linda: Depending on the time of year, I read from two to eight books a month. I seem to have a “Linda” theme at the moment…as I’ve been reading Linda Lael Miller’s and Linda Warren’s books.

Caroline: Can’t go wrong there. When you’re not writing, what’s your favorite way to relax and recharge?

Linda: Reading in a quiet room with a nice stash of chocolates…or out walking….off those chocolates…

Caroline: Can I stay behind with the book and chocolates? 😀 Would you like to share any guilty pleasures that feed your muse?

Linda: Chocolates and chocolate ice cream is my guilty pleasure…for any reason!

Caroline: Me, too. How long have you been writing?

Linda: I started writing books in 1992 when my husband was transferred to California for a two-year engineering project. I was homesick for the Midwest and started writing about the Swedish immigrant woman that homesteaded our family farm.

Caroline: Where do you prefer to write? Do you need quiet, music, solitude? PC or laptop?

Linda: I write in my office with my big computer monitor and curved keyboard attached to my laptop. It’s got to be absolute quiet for me to concentrate so nobody can be in the room with me.

Caroline: Are you a plotter or a panzer?

Linda: Do I plan ahead or charge my way through life or writing? Depends on the day and the situation!

Caroline: I always ask here if you use real events or persons in your stories, but I know that you do.

Linda: All my series have been based on real people, places and the events that went on during their lifetime. It’s a good way to get the research and story started.

Caroline: I was impressed with evidence of your research for TRAIL OF THREAD. Do you research before you begin a new project, or as you go along?

Linda: I start out with lists of ideas first, then research, then outline, then start expanding the chapters—combining everything I’ve absorbed in the process.

Caroline: Tell us about your writing schedule. Do you set goals? Do you write daily?

Linda: My day depends on life…and aging parents’ doctor’s appointments right now. I don’t set goals like I used to as something unforeseen can change and then just makes life stressful. I write something every day and sometimes at night in my dreams too.

Caroline: Yes, family comes first. Do you write full time or do you have a day job. If you have a day job, what is it?

Linda: I’m just getting back to full-time writing. We started raising bison in the 1990s and we ended up opening a Visitor Center on our farm because we had so many people coming in for tours. But both us— and the buffalo herd—were getting tired of tourists and being open seven days a week, so we closed it last year to get our lives back to a more normal pace.

Caroline: I love that you use your ancestors as souces. What do you hope your writing brings to readers?

Linda: I hope my writing gives readers a sense of their ancestors’ lives, and to maybe search out their own ancestors’ stories.

Caroline: What advice would you give to unpublished authors?

Linda: Now you can publish your work by yourself on the internet if you don’t want to look for a publisher, but please be sure to protect your book as best you can with an ISBN, copyright date, etc. You can learn how to do all of this through the internet.

Caroline: Tell us about TRAIL OF THREAD.

Back cover blurb: Taste the dust of the road and feel the wind in your face as you travel with a Kentucky family by wagon trail to the new territory of Kansas in 1854. Find out what it was like for thousands of families who made the cross-country journey into the unknown.

In this first book of the TRAIL OF THREAD series, in the form of letters, Deborah Pieratt describes the scenery, the everyday events on the trail, and the task of taking care of her family. Stories of humor and despair, along with her ongoing remarks about camping, cooking and quilting make you feel as if you pulled up stakes and are traveling with the Pieratts too.

Excerpt from Trail of Thread: January 24, 1854 . . .

“I don’t usually pay attention when the men talk about politics, but I automatically listened while I laid the dishes of food in front of them. They were discussing the new government bill that proposes to open up prairie Indian land, west of Missouri, to white settlement. A bill called the Territory of Platte failed last spring due to Southern opposition. Now an amended bill, breaking up the land into two sections, the Territory of Nebraska and the Territory of Kansas, is being discussed. Problems of slavery being legal in the new territories are being hotly debated between the Northern and Southern states. It sounds like the government has determined that the people who settle the territories can decide whether they want to allow slavery in their new states.

The traveler carefully pulled a folded newspaper clipping out of his front jacket and handed it to John. Holding it up to the candlelight, John read out loud that when the bill passes in the spring, as they predict it will, a man can claim whatever land he wants in these new territories for about a dollar an acre.

Kentucky was a wilderness in the early 1800’s, when John’s grandfather, Valentine Pieratt, moved his family from Maryland. He sailed across the sea in 1780 from France to fight in the Revolutionary War, decided to stay in the New World, and moved westward to a new wilderness whenever the area he lived in became populated.

Because land is getting scarce here for new generations, the idea of plenty of cheap land immediately stirred our men’s interest. I believe the adventure of their grandfather haunts their thinking, too.

When John finished reading that article and looked up into my eyes, I knew his mind was set to move as soon as possible. He wanted to blaze his own trail to the new territory and be ready to stake his claim when the land opened up. We are partners in life, but I knew I had no say in this move.

Today is my thirty-third birthday. Where will I be on the next? Will my children survive the trip and be around me to help celebrate it?”

Caroline: I love that–“partners but no say in this.” Where can readers find your books?

Linda: Go through my website to find all the links for book ebooks and print books.
Amazon.

Books are also available wholesale for stores, libraries and schools through http://www.butterfieldbooks.com/.

Caroline: How can readers learn more about you?

Website: http://www.lindahubalek.com/

Blog: www.LindaHubalek.com/feed/rss

Facebook: www.Facebook.com/lindahubalekbooks

Thanks so much for joining us today, Linda. Continued success with your books!

Hello from the Kansas prairie!

I’m pioneer writer Linda Hubalek, roaming the Internet—via my laptop—on a WOW! Book Blog Tour. Because my Trail of Thread book series weaves stories and quilts together, the Quilting Gallery is a perfect stop to tell you a little bit about the series.

I’ve written ten books about pioneers; about women that forged trails and built homesteads during the 1860s to the 1910s. These main characters were my ancestors who decided to make the Kansas frontier their home. A woven mixture of facts and fiction, you’ll be drawn into their pioneer stories.

Quilts and quilting seemed like a perfect theme for the stories of my mother’s side of the family after my mother told me the story behind one special quilt she’s had since she was a teenager.

In 1938 my mother’s great aunt Martha Pieratt gave her a quilt. At that time the quilt was over 100 years old and had been handed down through her mother’s Kennedy family. Doing some research on it while planning my Trail of Thread book series, it turns out to be the Cleveland Tulip pattern and it traveled with Martha’s mother Maggie Kennedy when she moved from Ohio to Kansas in 1858.

Cleveland Tulip

So I wove a quilting theme into the titles and the Trail of Thread book series by featuring twelve quilt patterns in each book.

My Trail of Thread book was about my ancestor Deborah Pieratt’s wagon trail journey to the Territory of Kansas in 1854. The second book, Thimble of Soil featured Margaret Ralston Kennedy’s decision to move her family from their safe Ohio home to the unsettling territory in 1855. And the final book in the series, Stitch of Courage, followed Maggie Kennedy Pieratt during her young years as she marries James Monroe Pieratt during the Civil War.

Next Quilting Series by Linda Hubalek

As I work on my fourth series, The Kansas Quilter, I’m taking a closer look at the family quilts that my great grandmother Kizzie Hamman Pieratt made during her ninety-seven years.

I think of the time it took to make each quilt, the preparation, the cutting of the material, the hours sewing the blocks and then quilting all the layers together. And who helped her put them together? What conversations passed across the quilt frame? What was going on in the community, state and world during the construction of that particular quilt?

These are just a few of the questions I’m trying to “stitch” together as I research and write about this pioneer woman that spent so much time making quilts. Please join me in this new “quilting” project by reading my blog and “liking” and following me on Facebook as I post tidbits and photos about Kizzie Pieratt. I think she’s a Kansas pioneer quilter you’d like to meet.

BOOK REVIEW – TRAIL OF THREAD: A WOMAN’S WESTWARD JOURNEY

by Caroline Clemmons

Do you like history? Do you like stories of pioneers? Wagon trains? Genealogy? Quilting? If you answer yes to any of these, this book and its companion series will interest you.

Linda K. Hubalek has written TRAIL OF THREAD as if it were a series of letters written by her great-great-great grandmother, Deborah Goodpaster Pieratt. Deborah and John Pieratt left Kentucky to find better land in the newly opened Kansas Territory. Ms Hubalek has researched this history so well the letters engage the reader immediately. I have often studied this era in both family history and in writing historical fiction. I thought I was well versed on what went into a covered wagon, but I learned a great deal from this book.

The letters are  filled with Deborah’s emotions at leaving her home and family. Along the way, she exchanges quilt patterns and recipes with other travelers she meets. The reader joins Deborah in facing the dangers and hardships of her trip.

The author includes small details most would not consider. She writes of incidents that must have meant surprising hardship for pioneers–such as yoke sores on oxen, moist flour, mosquito coated bread, storms, river crossing accidents, lost supplies, walking in mud, sleeping on damp bedding, sleeping in winter clothing to keep warm, not having clean water for laundry or bathing.

I found the descriptions of building the covered wagons and stocking them very helpful for my personal research.

As the Pieratt family travel to their new home, they are aware of the trouble brewing over slavery. Not wishing to become embroiled in the controversy and endanger themselves, they answer the inevitable question of where they stand on the issue in nomcommital ways to Southerners. In fact, they were not slave holders and were against slavery. Even in 1854-55, the time period covered in this book, abolitionists and slaveholders were drawing lines in the sand. The readers sees the Civil War building.

I can highly recommend this book to anyone who answered yes to any of the initial questions. Even though my historical novels are set in Texas, I’ll keep my copy of TRAIL OF THREAD in my research library.

TRAIL OF THREAD is followed by THIMBLE OF SOIL and STITCH OF COURAGE and is one of three series Linda K. Hubalek has released from http://www.butterfieldbooks.com/ The books are available individually or in a set.

Please return on Wednesday, May 25th, when author Linda K. Hubalek will be my guest here. She will answer questions regarding her writing, research, and any comments from readers.

(Here’s my guest blog today at Cathy C’s Hall of Fame.)

My mother gave me a page-a-day diary for Christmas the year before I got married. She thought that I could record the planning of my August wedding in this little hard bound book.

I started on January 1st, my fiancé’s birthday, telling of what we did for his special day. And I continued to write short bits of my daily life, besides the intended lists of preparations for our wedding.

Thirty-five years later I’m still writing in a page-a-day book. I sometimes get behind and don’t write for a week or two, but the majority of my life is recorded the 35 books that are stacked in a file cabinet.

The neat thing is I can go back to any given day in any of those years to see what I did, or what the weather was like. I can go back to remember a special person’s birth or death, and be drawn into the same feeling I had that exact day.

My family knows I’ve written down my life—and theirs— through the years. I haven’t written down anything that will embarrass anyone, but I think the entries will give the next generations a good glimpse of their ancestor’s lives, and the times we’ve lived in.

Will that inspire them to keep their own diaries? I really doubt it, although it would be great if someone was motivated to write and pass down more of the family history.

What I hope my diary entries would do is to inspire descendants to remember family members as I mention their birthdays, to learn the history of the family pieces they inherited, and to give them a sense of whom their family was— and did during their lifetimes. My Trail of Thread series, written in the form of letters to other family members, gives the reader a sense of the character’s lives and the history that was happening at that very moment.

Please read the books, and then think how you could pass on your life story to your descendants. How will you inspire them? It’s up to you….