"Ellen Hartley, an aspiring writer, is desperate to find work, but the Great Depression makes is almost impossible until she stumbles into a job with the Federal Writers' Project. A New Deal program, it si hiring unemployed writers, librarians, and teachers to collect the reminiscences of pioneers who settles the Plains. Ellen soon finds herself in a small Kansas town where it is rumored that the pioneers' stories will be read by President Roosevelt. Ellen is slowly pulled into the lives of the people around her. A new friend takes her along on nighttime charity drops. Her boardinghouse roommate is independent and opinionated, and the local newspaper editor gives her a chance to be a reporter. Two of the women she interviews become her friends, but Ellen keeps another at a distance. As the three women tell their pioneer stories, friendships and old hatreds are revealed and then brought to a crisis point when a skeleton is unearthed at a construction site. Some believe the remains prove the legend of a nearby Indian village, but archaeologists disagree. A hunt begins to identify the human remains, and Ellen is in the thick of it. If she can unravel the mystery, there is promise of steady newspaper work, but she never imagines where the truth will lead or what it could mean for her future.
Description:
"Ellen Hartley, an aspiring writer, is desperate to find work, but the Great Depression makes is almost impossible until she stumbles into a job with the Federal Writers' Project. A New Deal program, it si hiring unemployed writers, librarians, and teachers to collect the reminiscences of pioneers who settles the Plains. Ellen soon finds herself in a small Kansas town where it is rumored that the pioneers' stories will be read by President Roosevelt. Ellen is slowly pulled into the lives of the people around her. A new friend takes her along on nighttime charity drops. Her boardinghouse roommate is independent and opinionated, and the local newspaper editor gives her a chance to be a reporter. Two of the women she interviews become her friends, but Ellen keeps another at a distance. As the three women tell their pioneer stories, friendships and old hatreds are revealed and then brought to a crisis point when a skeleton is unearthed at a construction site. Some believe the remains prove the legend of a nearby Indian village, but archaeologists disagree. A hunt begins to identify the human remains, and Ellen is in the thick of it. If she can unravel the mystery, there is promise of steady newspaper work, but she never imagines where the truth will lead or what it could mean for her future.
" --