Val Nerlin Hillers

Am I Not an Ordinary Woman?: the Life of Mary Nelson Nerlin Val Nerlin Hillers

The stories of many immigrant women have been lost in history. Only isolated notices of births, marriages, and deaths remain. Mary Nelson Nerlin, a Swedish-American immigrant, has been waiting for over a century for someone to reclaim her history. This is her story. Join Mary, who, in 1886, leaves her family and native land of Sweden behind, crossing the Atlantic Ocean with little more than the clothes on her back, in search of the American Dream. But the New World isn?t all she?s expected it to be. The devastating economic crash of 1893 leaves her out of work, marrying a man she hardly knows, and joining the homestead movement out west. The couple settles on land taken from the Crow reservation in southern Montana. Homesteading on Poverty Flat is tough even in a good year. From the threats of hunger, accidents and illness on the Montana frontier to raising four ?American? children, Mary faces her challenges with grit and determination. This is the extraordinary story of Mary, but also the story of so many immigrant women who came to America to build a better life for themselves and their children.