Jane Kirkpatrick

Young Emma Wagner chafes at the constraints of Bethel colony, an 1850s religious community in Missouri that is determined to remain untainted by the concerns of the world. A passionate and independent thinker, she resents the limitations placed on women, who are expected to serve in quiet submission. In a community where dissent of any form is discouraged, Emma finds it difficult to rein in her tongue—and often doesn't even try to do so, fueling...

Based on the life of Marie Dorion, the first mother to cross the Rocky Mountains and remain in the Northwest, A Name of Her Own is the fictionalized adventure account of a real woman's fight to settle in a new landscape, survive in a nation at war, protect her sons and raise them well and, despite an abusive, alcoholic husband, keep her marriage together. With two rambunctious young sons to raise, Marie Dorion refuses to be left behind in St. Louis...

A story based on the life of German-American Emma Wagner Giesy, the only woman sent to the Oregon Territory in the 1850s to help found a communal society, shows how landscape, relationships, spirituality and artistry poignantly reflect a woman's desire to weave a unique and meaningful legacy from the threads of an ordinary life.