The setting is 1936, towards the end of the Great Depression. Hennie Comfort has lived for more than seventy years in a gold mining town in Colorado. She has come to the sad conclusion that she will need to move to her daughter's home in her old age and is standing at the window of her home watching the snow fall when a newcomer to town, just a young girl, pauses at Hennie's gate. She has seen the sign posted there, "Prayer's for Sale," and stops to buy a prayer to ease the hurting in her heart for the stillborn baby left behind in Kentucky. Hennie doesn't really sell prayers, but long ago she had told her husband that she was so happy there was nothing left to pray for and she had 'prayers for sale,' so he carved a sign for her and hung it on the fence for her.
As Hennie gets to know her new friend, Nit, she discovers they have a mutual love of quilting and through the shared work, Hennie's life story is told in all it's tragedy and wonder.
Hennie Comfort lives up to her name, sharing bits of her personal story with Nit as the girl needs it. Stories of her own baby who drowned, of her first husband who was killed at the end of the Civil War, of her long trek west to marry a man whom she had never met and of the stillborn babies she lost as she and her new husband attempted to raise a family of their own.
The stories aren't all heartbreaking. There is much to learn about the early days of Colorado here and the writer uses some lovely old-timey phrases that you might hear your own grandparent's say. Go blackberry picking, taste the mountain water, help birth a new baby, attend the funeral of a young miner, walk above the timeberline with Hennie and Nit.
Read Prayers for Sale. You'll be so glad you did!
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2 comments:
I love Sandra Dallas. Love her. And loved this book. Have you read Tall Grass yet? It's fantastic. It think it's her best. Also, did you know she had a new one out? I just started it. Happy reading.
I have read it ans loved it. I had not been reading and when this was given to me, I was glad that it was such a wonderful story and made me want to read another. Why have I been too busy to read????
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