Barbara Allbrandt Fleming

JOURNEYING, Barbara Fleming,GALE Cengage Learning, 8/10/09, $25.95, 262pp,978-1-59414-790-6.

Hannah Morris had fallen in love with Lucas Bowman, but their union would not be accepted in Ohio in 1872 due to his bi-racial heritage. She is in constant fear of her step-father, who raped her and dominates the household. She decides to escape with Lucas and join a wagon train to California, feeling the racial tension and prejudice will be less restrictive out West. Lucas, raised in France, trained as a physician, must travel along side Hannah as her slave. Before they reach the high mountains, they are forced to disengage from the train and continue on alone.

They stumble on an abandoned sod house in Colorado. They meet the neighbors who explain the process to become a homesteader/landowner. Hannah is so tired, she can’t imagine traveling on. Hannah and Lucas are married by the local minister but soon learn that life as a farmer on the plains of Colorado is anything but fun and racial equality is still a long way off. This is their story.

Using first person in journal format, Fleming narrates Hannah’s life, her dreams, disappointments, challenges and aspirations. Hannah’s dissolution with prairie life and her need for more in life than family and children lead her to town where she becomes involved in various social reform movements of the day. Fleming highlights the emotional struggles of Hannah who in a different century, still speaks to her sisters today when she writes in a letter to her mother, “Why should women be held back from accomplishing whatever we are capable in life.?” (182)

Journeying is a sensitive novel, interspersed with snippets of historical events, medical practices, states rights, women’s rights and more that shape the time period.

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