With Their Own Blood: A Saga of Southwestern Pioneers

By Virginia Culin Roberts

Book Overview

His wife dead, Elisa Green Pennington gathered up his brood of twelve young children in 1857 and left Texas for California, the promised land. The Penningtons could not have imagined what the untamed frontier had in store for them. After a difficult trek across West Texas and New Mexico, they were forced by sicknesses and circumstances to settle in the newly claimed Gadsden Purchase - present-day southern Arizona - where members of the clan and their descendants would remain into Arizona's statehood years. At the heart of this saga is Larcena Pennington Page Scott, who is witness as her loved ones are killed and her family's livelihood and property stolen. Larcena lived well into the twentieth century to tell the story of her captivity by Apaches and her miraculous escape from the captors, of outlawry and murder along the Mexican border, of disease, hunger, and isolation, and of the unceasing depredations by hostile Apaches during the 1860s and '70s. Using family letters, papers, and primary documents from all over the Southwest, Virginia Culin Roberts traces the lives of Larcena and her family. Roberts presents a real-life story of the rigors of surviving in a hostile and unforgiving land, transcending family history to provide a framework for telling the tale of the western frontier in the bloody Civil War and antebellum years.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 087565228X
• ISBN13: 9780875652283
• Release Date: June 2000
• Publisher: Texas Christian University Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Great Aunt Beppie Culin

Found the author's book while searching for relatives of Beppie Leslie Culin Roskruge, who is likely the great aunt of Virginia Culin Roberts - because I found and am attempting to return what may be a sentimental heirloom of Beppie's to a living relative. Good book, good author - just like her famous great aunt was.

With Their Own Blood -

I found the book well written, with Ms Roberts' delivering a colorful portrayal of western history. As a resident of the Nogales - Patagonia - Sonoita area I found her work verifiable and acurate, providing myself and by family a valuable source of information on our local history.A side note: The Pennington family homestead was recently rediscovered and preservation efforts will hopefully save the remaining structure.

This was an excellent book!

This book was extremely excellent, and life-like. Ms. Virginia Culin Roberts did an excellent job writing this book. Way to go Virginia!