Sit Tight and Pray a Lot: Lessons from the Prairie: The Depression Years

by Solveig Marie Norstog

The prairie sun has set on our trials and triumphs during the Great Depression. Yet our memories and the wisdom we gained live on. I do need to tell these stories. My parents, my siblings and I lived them. There are many more, but these few give a brief, surface look into the courage and perseverance it took to get through the unimaginable hardships experienced by early settlers to western North Dakota during the Great Depression. They are stories that need to be told because the memories of that reality will soon be gone unless they are passed down. These stories don’t appear in the history books that focus on the robber barons, the railroad moguls, and the violent destruction of Native American values. Rather these stories glimpse into the lives of quiet, unassuming pioneers who exhibited day after day the physical, emotional, and moral strength that has become the cultural heritage of this area of our country. They are our backbone.

254 pages, Paperback

Published May 6, 2014