The History Behind Never Too Far

Have you read my short story Never Too Far? This story is a prequel to my upcoming Home To Osceola series and is available to anyone who signs up for my newsletter.

As a prequel, Never Too Far takes place before any of the other books in the series. The story takes place in 1870 while my next book is going to be set in 1878. Needless to say, that time gap between the stories means that there are some developments to the area that are never touched on in the series.

I plotted my story so that the Mayfield family were among the earliest people to settle in the county. They came in the year of 1869; historically, the first white settlers arrived in 1867.

In truth, the 1860s would have been a difficult time to settle in what is now Polk County. Very few people lived in the area, and most of the people who did arrive brought little with them. I’ve read story after story of families who faced sickness and near starvation, and their strength leaves me in awe. It took powerful resolve to stay, and even more importantly, faith that God would provide for their needs. And He did. Although there were times when crops failed and a few pitiful bags of wheat had to be divided between several families to see them through winter, I have yet to find a story where a family starved to death.

In Never Too Far, Ephraim writes a letter to Sadie telling her about the potential for county lines to plotted over the summer. And sure enough, in reality the lines were plotted in the summer of 1870, and come August, Polk County was founded. Towns were also plotted at the same time, but thankfully Sadie didn’t wait to visit Ephraim because Osceola’s first building wasn’t erected until 1872, a full two years after this story takes place. Until then, the hopes for a town were merely that–hopes. Certainly not something you’d want to put your future on hold for.

The Union Pacific Railroad reached Columbus in 1866, so it was well established by the time that Sadie needed to use it to get to Ephraim. But for the last twenty miles, it was all overland by wagon. Whenever the Osceola settlers needed supplies, it was to Columbus that they went. The journey was long, and before entering Columbus, they had to ford the Platte River. The journey just one way would have eaten up an entire day and could explain why Mr. Lindstrom was in a grumpy mood with Sadie–maybe.

One of the hardest things for me to keep in mind as I write this series is that the Osceola I grew up around looked different to my story characters. When I look around, I see field after field, all of them edged by towering trees. Some of my favorite memories from when I was younger are building stick forts and running through through cluttered forests with my siblings while my dad cut wood to feed our woodstove.

But that wasn’t what my characters saw. For them, trees were spindly sticks watered in front of sod houses, treasures to be coaxed to life with the hope that someday, somehow they would grow to maturity and break the monotony of the landscape. The only people who had wood to burn were those who lived along either the Platte or the Blue Rivers; everyone else was relegated to scrambling to find any kind of fuel that would burn. There were still wide stretches of unclaimed prairie, still land that hadn’t been touched by a plow. It’s difficult for me to even wrap my mind around it, and often as I’m writing, I catch myself and have to erase a couple sentences about trees. Nope. No picnics under the shade of a towering tree unless the characters trekked to the river.

Never Too Far took place in a different time, but it’s been my pleasure to be able to write about it. Watch for the first book in the Home To Osceola series either at the end of 2022 or beginning of 2023!