David Delbert Kruger

A Fleeting Glimpse of Martha Varney David Delbert Kruger

In April of 1910, a destitute widow from Wisconsin took her nine surviving children all the way out to the wide open prairies of southwestern North Dakota. As a female homesteader in Bowman County, Martha Ellen Varney (1864-1944) subsequently transformed 320 acres of untamed hillside into a productive sheep, cattle, and strawberry farm. By 1915, she had "proven up" the property and owned it outright. The single mother additionally oversaw the construction of a livestock barn and two-story house that transformed her crude homestead into an impressive prairie farm, while midwifing no fewer than nine of her own grandchildren on the premises. Martha Varney would never marry again, and eventually all but two of her children would leave North Dakota and the farmstead she had built. Yet she continued to oversee her agricultural endeavors and reside there until her death at the age of 80. "A Fleeting Glimpse of Martha Varney" offers contemporary readers an unusual look at one woman's attempt to salvage her life and survive on what was still an American frontier in the early twentieth century. Beyond her biography, the paperback version is augmented by 150 historic family photos. The fate of Martha's descendants and the homestead she left behind is also explored.