Carolyn’s Story

Companion book to the Trails series, it is a story complete in itself. Carolyn Smyth-Johnson bid her best friend, Rachel Nathan, farewell when the Nathans left their grand mansion in Boston for the Oregon Trail in the mid 1850s. Carolyn’s snobbishness had alienated her to the point of having driven everyone away, except for Rachel, who was now gone. Out of boredom and loneliness, Carolyn began attending church and soon learned to know Jesus as her Savior. The story opens with her family learning about her faith and becoming outraged, insisting that she recant her faith or be disinherited. Choosing disinheritance, Carolyn now finds herself thrust out of the family, and out of Boston, being given a one-way ticket to Virginia with only what treasures she can carry in her trunk. Not having been prepared for anything but a life of ease, Carolyn is now faced with having to make a living for herself. Can she make it on her own? “Help me, Lord,” she prays. “I have no idea what to do now.”