The vivid descriptions of place and incidents as well as characters make this novel quite memorable. This book was written in 1944 as a contemporary novel, although now, both the subject and the writing style give it the feel of an historical novel. Ellen begins to see her parents through yet another lens.Īlthough the novel twists and turns, there is a great deal of hope in this novel as Ellen sees that life doesn’t go as planned, but that persistence and enduring bring their own satisfactions. When events there also take unexpected turns. Mildred Walker was an American novelist who published 12 novels and was nominated for the National Book Award. She becomes a teacher in a one-room school for a year with pupils of all ages.

They had come to the isolated Montana farm when his family rejected their marriage.Įllen for the first time sees her life through another's eyes and begins to question the surroundings she grew up with: the isolated unpainted house and her parents' love – or lack thereof - for each other. Her fiancé, however visits her home and sees only the roughness and hardships of the farm and the somewhat incongruous marriage of her parents her father had been an educated man, who, wounded in WWI, had married the Russian peasant girl who nursed him.

There she falls madly in love with a boy from a totally different, more refined and educated background and the two are engaged to be married. We meet Ellen Webb, preparing to go to college in the fall. This is a coming of age story of a young girl living on a dryland Montana wheat farm just prior to WWII. Winter wheat, planted in the autumn endures through the winter to grow the next year. The fields have a tired peaceful look, the way I imagiine a mother feels when she's had her baby and is just lying there thinking about it and feeling pleased.” The harvesting is done and the wheat stored away and you're through worrying about hail or drought or grasshoppers. I mean real wind that blows dirt into your eyes and hair and between your teeth and roars in your ears after you've gone inside. ”September is like a quiet day after a whole week of wind.

Winter Wheat by Mildred Walker