Where Lilacs Still Bloom by Jane Kirkpatrick

**This book was part of the Amazon Vine program**

I am so glad that this book is based off of a real live person. She just seems too wonderful to be left as fiction. Hulda Klager and her lilacs are a definite inspiration, and I'm glad I got a chance to learn about her in this book.

Hulda is a farmer's wife in early nineteen-hundreds Washington State. But she has a passion most farm wives of the time don't; she likes cultivating plants for a specific purpose. And she teachers herself how to make new varieties, all without benefit of a higher education. What starts with an easier peeling apple variety, develops into a love of lilacs and a goal for a creamy white lilac with twelve petals. An impossible seeming task at the time, but a goal to work for all her life. And slowly her garden becomes something else, something that people from all over want to see and bring home with them. And Hulda is more than willing to give them the chance to start their own garden of lilacs.

Their is probably not a more wonderful person than Hulda with her lilacs. The fact that she wants to share them and wants to bring joy to people with flowers, is just beautiful. She's a very creative person too, with the ideas for her lilac hybrids and she helps a lot of people even if she doesn't see it in herself. Her husband seemed like a wonderful man as well and very supportive of Hulda and her dream. He seemed content to sit back and watch her shine and was truly an important part in her work in his own way. Likewise for her children, who maybe didn't understand their mother's passion, but still believed in her dream too.

Although this book had it's sad moments, Hulda had a lot of tragedy in her life, it is also an inspiring read. Hulda accomplished a lot despite setbacks and sorrow and it was neat to see her go from the very beginning of her experiments in this book to the end of her life and seeing what she had accomplished. It actually made me want to go out to Washington state and bring back a lilac for myself, even though I have nowhere to plant it currently. But maybe one day. A love of gardening isn't really even a requirement for this book either. If you like a good, inspirational story about a strong real life woman, this is a great read for that too. Hulda shows us that we can achieve our dreams, even as unlikely as they seem. And I do have to say that even though this is a fictionalized telling of Hulda's stories (not all of the people in it actually existed), they felt real.

A fantastic book, I will definitely check out more of Kirkpatrick's works if they are written in the same tone as this one.

Where Lilacs Still Bloom
Copyright 2012
329 pages

Homestead by Jane Kirkpatrick

Recently moved to the land, I was very curious to read Kirkpatrick's move to her own plot of land. I always like these type of stories and seeing how the people who choose this way of life fare or even if they enjoy their choice to move back to the country.

Jane and her husband decide to pursue a dream of moving back to the land and doing a bit of farming. They find a good portion of land in the wilderness and even though its hard to get to and not really built up any way, they decide to move to it. This is a gradual process first seeing them go out to visit and work, then move to a trailer on the property, until finally building their house. They also have to decide how they are going to improve upon the land and what they are going to farm, not to mention secure the funds to do it. They have a lot of setbacks though and homesteading life proves to be very difficult for the Kirkpatricks. More than once they question their decision and whether to stick with it.

Jane is a very good narrator, she tells of people without fogging the opinion of them too much. For instance, her step son and his wife really aren't the greatest of people, but she describes their good aspects as well and her hopes for them. That part of the book is actually very positive despite the subject matter. What did surprise me is that she didn't really mention her husband as much as I expected. He was there doing things, and they had talks at times, but he wasn't a main focus of the book.

I really wish Kirkpatrick had put more positives in this book. There were some parts of the novel where I just kind of set it down and wondered why on earth they strove with it after reading disaster upon disaster with no good instances to be found for several chapters. A more positive outlook would have helped and while I appreciate the reality of struggle, it can't have been all struggle or they wouldn't have stayed. Another note on the writing is that this book could be considered Christian Fiction. Those familiar with Kirkpatrick's fiction work would probably already have known this was her genre, but as a new reader, I did not. It didn't really distract in any way, but since this is her narrative about her life, adds to her belief system and explains her motivations.

It was an interesting tale, harrowing at times and if I wasn't already on the land it would probably make me think twice about getting back to it. However, there are many other books out there that tell the good of such an endeavor so I suppose there must be a book with all the warnings.

Homestead
Copyright 2005
374 pages