A FAR PLACE, the sequel to GERMAN YANKEE takes the reader on an emotional account of another generation making unthinkable sacrifices to find a better life. Schutte is a master at pulling the reader into the lives of her characters and compels you to turn the page. John and Mary Wamhoff have a good life in rural Germantown, Nebraska in the late 1800s, it is all Mary ever wanted-a lovely Victorian home with two children and a successful, ambitious husband. However, John Wamhoff grew up with nothing but abuse and degradation-he has dreams of overcoming it all, but he will need his wife by his side. This is a family saga, a true story taken from the author’s family treasure of stories.
‘Deep are these roots, inescapable, restorative. I thought about how life had gone on, generation after generation. Perhaps the past is really never gone, but always a part of the present. Lingering there in the quietness, I gathered up the people, the places, the little fragments of another time.’ Courtesy: Helen Raley
1894: Germantown, Nebraska: John and Mary Westerhoff Wamhoff elope and begin their married life in this small town where her parents live and her father is idolized. John Westerhoff wants what his father-in-law has-something he has never had. He has a chance meeting with a Lutheran missionary, a visionary who is organizing a Lutheran colony in the far reaches of Wyoming-a final opportunity to homestead and build a new life. John knows in an instant this is what he wants, what he needs, and he is determined to have it all. It is with trepidation that Mary finally agrees to leave a life she loves, to follow her husband on what she sees as folly. Traveling overland into the wilds of Northwest Wyoming in a covered wagon with two small children, Mary realizes her worst dream. Every hill they climb, every barren sagebrush-covered prairie they cross, brings them closer to John’s dream of the future and further from her own. What will it take for John to convince Mary, this is where they belong? The hard life takes its toll on their marriage even though they flourish in the community and build a life together. They make it through WWI, the Spanish Flu, the Great Depression, and just when the clouds begin to part, fate deals the family, an unthinkable blow, one they never saw coming.
Circa l’autore
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:Karen Wamhoff Schutte is the first-born daughter of Beata and the late Arnold Wamhoff of Emblem, Wyoming. She was born and raised in a German Lutheran farming community in the Big Horn Basin of Wyoming. She attended the first eight grades in a two-room school house, later graduating from Greybull High School and earning a bachelor’s degree in Design Marketing at the University of Wyoming.
Karen and Mike Schutte were married in 1962 and are the parents of four grown sons and have nine grandchildren and one great granddaughter. After raising her family, Karen owned and operated her own interior design firm as an ASID professional designer for the next twenty-five years. She is a former Soroptimist and participated in numerous community groups.
Upon retirement in 2000, Karen began to think about simply documenting her knowledge of her family’s immigration and all the stories she heard at the feet of her grandparents. As a first born grand-daughter and great grand-daughter she felt compelled to create a record of these family stories, not realizing she had just opened Pandora’s Box. Documenting, the historical research, and the family stories consumed her as she began to write. She has 5 published novels, The Ticket, Seed of the Volga, Flesh on the Bone, Tank Commander and German Yankee. All have won national and/or regional and state awards.
‘When I write a book, a story of life, I am there, it is happening to me as I visualize the entire scene, the dialogue, the drama and conflict. I feel like I am leaving a legacy through my books as well as loving the journey of this new purpose in life. Before I begin a new novel, I go through my files and organize everything I have collected about the subject. I make a mental chronological path for the story as I immerse myself in other books of the same genre. This prepares me-gets me in the mood of the time and the scenarios about which I am about to craft. It was never my dream to become a writer, or to write a novel. The first 4 were about my mother’s side of the family. German Yankee, which was released in September 2018 was the first book on my father’s side. A Far Place is the 2nd. I have one more on the back burner-just simmering. Becoming a writer means being creative enough to find time in your life for writing. It’s become my passion, my purpose!
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