Keepsake Legacies #2 Karyn’s Memory Box Stephanie Grace Whitson Ex Libris Used Books

April 1, 1880
My name is Karyn Ensinger Ritter. I am twenty-one, and I have just come to Custer Country, Nebraska, from Brandenburg, Germany. I begin this diary as a way of sharing my heart when I cannot speak it. My husband is Mikal Ritter, and he seems to be a kind man. He is handsome in a wild way that is sometimes almost frightening. The “house” is a pile of earth, and the “farm” is nothing but a few scratches in the earth made with something called a “breaking plow.” But I have determined to do something with the house, and although I may be only a woman, I have no less resolve than Herr Ritter displays in his struggle to transform a barren land into a farm.

Dirt. He expected her to look at dirt and call it home. Karyn Ensinger Ritter’s introduction to the prairie soddy that was the “house” on Mikal Ritter’s prairie homestead offers an unpromising start to her new life in America. But she is determined to build a good life in Nebraska–in spite of mud, heat, hailstorms, rattlesnakes, prairie fires–and dirt.

As time goes on, Karyn finds that the wilderness can blossom. She discovers the beauty of the prairie, the helpfulness of neighbors, and the satisfaction of a hard day’s work. She also discovers that a marriage of convenience has the potential to turn to love–until the life she worked so hard to build is threatened with destruction. Will Karyn choose to trust God with the desires of her heart, no matter how bleak things look?

Karyn’s Memory Box is the second book in the Keepsake Legacies Series, and a heartwarming story of one young woman’s courage and faith during pioneer days in Nebraska.