Ck Van Dam

Like many Americans, Civil War widow Katie Rose Kelly was determined to build a new life for herself after the devastation of war. She was drawn to the Dakota frontier, where she claimed 160 acres and became a sheepherder.But that was just the beginning...

The Civil War created countless spinsters and widows. Anna Olson was one of them.With no prospects for marriage and family, Anna pins her future on the frontier and heads west to stake a claim on the wide-open prairies. "Most women go from their father's...

Shining Water's world was changing.When the Lakota girl was just a baby, her mother died from a disease brought by white settlers. Now, her father, the son of a Lakota medicine woman and a Scots fur trapper, has married a homesteader. And he expects...