The Pioneer Woman (Pioneering Women)

The Pioneer Woman is about a Swedish immigrant named Kristina. After eight years of hard work making bricks for new buildings in Utopia, a religious colony, Kristina is expelled for immoral behavior, while her lover goes unpunished. She is shunned, shamed, and avoids everyone who knows about her past. She enters a marriage of convenience to a widowed farmer with an infant son. Her husband enlists in the Northern Army, leaving Kristina to care for his son and manage the farm. When her husband comes home on furlough, he has nightmares about the war and hits Kristina in his sleep. During the day, she hides her bruises. She can’t help feeling relieved when her husband returns to his regiment. If the child she carries will live, it will be the first of the four children she has birthed. She has never loved her husband, but her stepson loves him, and she loves David. It is her responsibility to manage the farm, but economic depressions and crop failures will mean a struggle for survival.