A Sense of Place
by Heidi M. Thomas
Montana is my
inspiration—for my books and many other things in my life. The “Big Sky”
stretches from horizon to horizon like a great blue dome. Its sunsets are
unequaled, with streaks of orange and gold painting the edges. In spring,
green-tinged hills roll through the landscape, buttered with bright yellow
wildflowers. White-faced reddish-brown calves frolic through the meadow
pastures, happy to be alive.
Spring in
Montana often comes late, after a long, snow-filled winter that seems to last
forever. After four or five months of isolation, cabin-fever, and bone-numbing
cold, spring is the new awakening, a new beginning, a season of hope.
As the saying
goes, “You can take the girl out of Montana, but you can’t take the Montana out
of the girl.”
Montana is the
setting for my “Dreams” trilogy based on my grandmother who rode in rodeos
during the 1920s: Cowgirl Dreams, Follow
the Dream, and the newest novel, Dare
to Dream.
When I began
researching the first book in 1999, I wanted to find the ranch where my
grandparents had lived when they were married in 1923. The only thing I knew
was that it was the "old Davis Place under the rims" near Sunburst.
After being referred from one “old-timer” to another, I finally located a cousin
who could tell me exactly where it was.
Imagine my
surprise and awe to find the house still standing, although in bad repair, and
being used as a cattle shelter. I spent about an hour there, taking pictures
and imagining what the newlyweds must have felt like, living in this beautiful
place "under the rims." This is the backdrop for Cowgirl Dreams,
where the dreams began.
Follow the Dream continues
with the rodeo and ranching dream, but as the terrible drought of the “dirty
thirties” progressed, Nettie and Jake (based on my grandparents) moved more
than 20 times and finally trailed
their herd of horses 400 miles from Cut Bank, Montana to Salmon, Idaho to find
grass.
Dare to Dream travels on to
the 1940s when Nettie, Jake, and Neil are settled on a ranch near Ingomar,
Montana. The town was established in 1908 as a station stop on the Chicago,
Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. Although the land around Ingomar
attracted numerous homesteaders during the decade following the railroad's
completion, the region proved to be far too arid and inhospitable for intensive
agricultural use, and the town declined. The railroad through the area was
abandoned in 1980, and only a handful of people remain in Ingomar today.
Book Synopsis: Nettie has recovered from the
loss of her friend Marie Gibson in a freak rodeo accident and is ready to ride
again. To her dismay, the male-dominated Rodeo Association of America enforces
its rule barring women from riding rough stock and denies her the chance to
ride. Her fury at the discrimination can’t change things for women—yet.
Dare to Dream is available
from the author’s website http://www.heidimthomas.com,
on Amazon, and from the publisher, Globe-Pequot/Twodot
Press http://www.globepequot.com/dare_to_dream-9780762797004,
along with her re-published first two novels,
Cowgirl Dreams and Follow the Dream.
Heidi M. Thomas grew up on
a ranch in eastern Montana, writing stories and riding horses. From one small
piece of information about her grandmother has come three novels and one
soon-to-be-released non-fiction book about old-time rodeo cowgirls, Cowgirl Up! Heidi’s first novel, Cowgirl Dreams, won an EPIC award and the sequel, Follow the Dream won the WILLA Literary Award. She is a
freelance editor, teaches community classes in memoir and beginning fiction
writing in north-central Arizona where she also enjoys hiking the Granite
Dells.
