It's a story of hardship, suffering, tragedy and loss, love and forgiveness. And, despite the tragedy, Sandra Dallas' Prayers for Sale is a story told with joy.
As in earlier books, such as The Persian Pickle Club
It's a story of hardship, suffering, tragedy and loss, love and forgiveness. And, despite the tragedy, Sandra Dallas' Prayers for Sale is a story told with joy.
As in earlier books, such as The Persian Pickle Club, Dallas takes readers back to the Depression, this time to 1936 in Middle Swan, Colorado. Middle Swan is a mining community high in the mountains. It's been home to Hennie Comfort for seventy of her eighty-six years, although her daughter, Mae, is now insisting she spend winters with her in Iowa. So, Hennie is not looking forward to her future when she meets Nit Spindle.
When Hennie first sees Nit, she's standing in the snow at Hennie's gate, eyeing the sign that says "Prayers for Sale". Nit begs the older woman for a prayer for a baby. Nit quickly left, but her southern accent and her request tugged on Hennie's heart. Nit, a seventeen year old from Kentucky, married just two years, reminded Hennie of her own stories, since she married young in Tennessee, and watched her young husband disappear as a Confederate soldier. Hennie told of her youth, and, then, as she learned Nit's background, she slowly revealed the stories of her life, as the two women quilted together. It wasn't an easy life, but Hennie was a strong woman who overcame tragedy, and she hopes her life stories will help Nit overcome the bad times in her own life.
Sandra Dallas' books are not appreciated as they should be. Perhaps it's because they are books about the lives of women. But, they are not as simple as they appear. Prayers for Sale looks to b