Thimble of Soil. Trail of Thread, #2

Historical Letters 1854-1860 Trail of Thread Series, Book 2 Experience the terror of the fighting and the determination to endure as you stake a claim alongside the women caught in the bloody conflicts of Kansas in the 1850's. Follow the widowed Margaret Ralston Kennedy (a relative of the author) in this second book of the Trail of Thread series, as she travels with eight of her thirteen children from Ohio to the Territory of Kansas in 1855. Thousands of American headed west in the decade before the Civil War, but those who settled in Kansas suffered through frequent clashes between proslavery and free-state fractions that gripped the territory. Told through her letters, Thimble of Soil describes the prevalent hardships and infrequent joys experienced by the hardy pioneer women of Kansas, who struggled to protect their families from terrorist raids while building new homes and new lives on the vast unbroken prairie. Margaret was dedicated to the cause of the North, and while the male members of her family were away fighting for a free state, she valiantly defended their homestead and held their families together through the savage years of Bleeding Kansas. Twelve old quilt patterns are mentioned in the letters, and the sketched designs are in the front of the book for reference.