Barbara Fleming

Journeying

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Hannah Morris slips away from her autocratic stepfather and her Ohio home in 1872 to journey west in a wagon train. She goes with her intended husband, Dr. Lucas Bowman, a European-trained, bi-racial physician. They stop in eastern Colorado near a high-plains settlement, marry and begin homesteading.

Through a journal Hannah records her adventures and experiences as a pioneering woman on a working farm, the joy and anguish of marriage and motherhood, and her restlessness as an educated, sophisticated former city dweller. The couple make friends with a neighboring couple. They witness a murder and a lynching. Her infant daughter nearly dies of an unnamed disease. She loses a child in childbirth. Their livelihood and safety are threatened by a transplanted Southerner who is still fighting the Civil War.

Then Lucas is shot and says the shooter is the angry Southerner. Although Lucas recovers, he becomes severely depressed and finally orders Hannah to take the children and leave the farm. She moves to town and in time fashions a new life, teaching piano and helping to start a lending library.

When the renegade Southerner is fatally shot, he accuses Lucas of the act as he is dying. The sheriff arrests Lucas; Hannah tries to prevent a mob from lynching him. Friends come to her rescue to insure his safety until the trial.

Then Lucas is released from prison because the real murderer has confessed. They sell the farm and settle in the town. Hannah does not reveal in her journal the identity of the murderer. More than a century later, her great-granddaughter comes to the town and discovers the answers to several questions, including who committed the murder and why.

Journeying

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