There Were Always Walls: Part One: Kansas Child (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798273564008)

Nona wasn't one to back down. Raised on the Kansas prairie in 1879, her young life was defined by the relentless struggle for survival and the omnipresent "walls" she vowed to tear down.

In this vivid, unflinching memoir, originally penned in the 1930s, Nona chronicles her extraordinary girlhood in late 19th-century Kansas, where a dirt-floor home and the constant winds were daily realities. She narrates the sorrow of losing her mother early and the pain of life under a stern father and a judgmental family. Yet, Nona's innate fierceness, cunning, and passion for justice shine through every page, whether she's arguing theology with her Primitive Baptist grandmother, escaping abuse, or learning to ride and run a hay rake with the skill of any man.

Her chronicle sweeps across the American heartland: from childhood innocence finding first love while fishing on Salt Creek, to the struggles in a one-room schoolhouse learning multiplication tables (the hard way), and finally, to her resilient decision to homestead in Idaho in pursuit of a better life. It captures a defining era of early American tenacity and gumption.

There Were Always Walls, Part One: Kansas Child is more than a family saga; it is the raw and powerful testament of one fiercely independent woman who was determined to live life on her own terms ... a legacy that continues to inspire four generations later.