The Checkered Years: A Bonanza Farm Diary, 1884-88

By Mary D. Woodward, Mary Boynton Cowdrey, Mary Dodge; Cowdrey Woodward

Book Overview

Mary Dodge Woodward, a fifty-six-year-old widow, moved from Wisconsin with her two grown sons and a daughter to a 1,500-acre bonanza wheat farm in Dakota Territory's Red River valley in 1882. For five years she recorded the yearly farm cycle of plowing and harvesting as well as the frustrations of gardening and raising chickens, the phenomenon of mirages on the plains, the awesome blizzard of 1888, her reliance on her family, and her close relationship with her daughter. She noted "blots, mistakes, joys, and sorrows" in her "olf friend." This Borealis edition brings back to print a valuable record of a frontier woman's life.

"Mary Dodge Woodward's personal record of her life on a Dakota Territory 'bonanza farm' adds new detail and texture to the histories of both women and the West. . . . She] wrote about what she saw: The epic procession of reapers and threshing crews, the wildflowers and birds, the stupendous mirages that could make the wintry prairie an optical wonderland." --Elizabeth Jameson, from the Introduction

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0873512375
• ISBN13: 9780873512374
• Release Date: May 1989
• Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press
• Length: 302 Pages
• Weight: 0.94 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

One of my favorite books

I first read the diary of Mary Dodge Woodward several years ago. Because I love the sound of Mary's written voice, I've reread it several times. It never fails to enchant. Reading this book is almost like time traveling back to the Bonanza Farm days. I found this story so compelling that I actually searched out the site of this old farm and visited with it's current residents. The site of the old Dodge farm is just west of Sheyenne Road, a half mile west of the Garrison Diversion substation. I stood in the remains of Mary's old cellar, and showed my children the location of the old barn that had the skull and crossbones sign painted on it. The location of the machine shop continues to hold so much old oil from Mary's time that grass does not grow on the site. This is a wonderful book for anyone that likes to read about the early days of Dakota territory.