Far from Home

by Lillian Schlissel, Byrd Gibbens, Elizabeth Hampsten, et al.

Book Overview

Lillian Schlissel is a professor emerita of English and American Studies at Brooklyn CollegeCUNY. She is the author of numerous books, including The Western Women's Reader (with Catherine Lavender) and Black Frontiers: A History of African American Heroes in the Old West. Byrd Gibbens is a professor of English at the University of New Mexico, Valencia campus, and the author of This Is a Strange Country: Letters of a Western Family 1880-1906.Elizabeth...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805240527
• ISBN13: 9780805240528
• Release Date: March 1989
• Publisher: Schocken Books Inc
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 2.55 lbs.

Customer Reviews

One of my favorite books ever

Loved each and every family’s story. We all think of the past as better but boy did these immigrant families have to go through a lot of hardships and losses. It reminds me to be humble and grateful for the life I have had.

True tales of survival

Far From Home: Families Of The Westward Journey consists of four essays by Lillian Schlissel (Professor Emerita of English and American Studies, Brooklyn College, CUNY), Byrd Gibbens (Professor of English, University of New Mexico, Valencia Campus), and Elizabeth Hampsten (Professor of English, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks) about the troubles and difficulties of individual frontier families in the latter half of the 1800s. Hardships, conflicts, and true tales of survival and what life on the fringe could cost fill the pages of these candid, insightful, scholarly, informative accounts into what it really was like to pack up and move West. Far From Home is a highly recommended addition to academic American Western Frontier Studies reference collections and reading lists.

HISTORY COMES ALIVE IN THIS BOOK!

YOU'LL LAUGH, CRY AND FIND YOURSELF IN THE PAGES OF THIS HUMAN HISTORY ABOUT THREE FAMILIES SEEKING A BETTER LIFE IN "WEST" OF THE 1840'S-EARLY 1900'S. YOU WILL SHARE THEIR HARDSHIPS, DISCOURAGEMENT AND TRIUMPHS, BUT MOST OF ALL, YOU'LL FIND OUT WHAT DREAMS, HOME AND FAMILY ARE REALLY ABOUT.MY FAVORITE FAMILY, THE MALICKS IN OREGON TERRITORY IN 1840'S, COULD HAVE BEEN RELATED TO ANYONE OF US. I WATCHED AS THEY SUFFERED UNEXPECTED DEATHS AND HARDSHIPS. I SHARED THEIR MOMENTS OF JOY WHEN LAND AND LABORS PROVIDED THEM WITH ABUNDANCE, AND FAMILY TIES MATTERED MOST.I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK FOR A "GOOD READ" IN HUMAN HISTORY AT ITS BEST. I LIKED IT SO MUCH THAT I MAY READ IT AGAIN.