Walk Tall in the Wind

Alone in the Michigan wilderness with only the Pottawatomie Indians for neighbors, Olive and Simon Chatfield, educated Quakers from New York state, start a two-room log cabin and trading post on the banks of the Grand River, a place the Natives call the Forks. When Olive goes into early labor for her ninth child, her two younger boys bring Cloud, the Pottawatomie medicine woman, to help, and a life-long friendship is forged. As the white man's civilization takes hold and turns the pristine virgin forests of the Michigan territory into farms and businesses, the Natives try to adopt the ways of the white man by learning their language, farming and attending their schools and churches. Glyn, Simon and Olive's son, knew only pain and sorrow until he fell in love with Gray Dove, a Pottawatomie maiden who lost most of her family to smallpox. As the government and everyone around them turns hostile towards the Natives, Glyn struggles desperately to find a way to keep Gray Dove from being removed when President Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act.The author has put to pen the vibrant tales told by his ancestors about the early settlement of the Michigan territory. He has woven these stories together with historical fact, to bring to life the adventures of the Chatfields in the 1830s as they struggled to help build up a town now known as The Only Eaton Rapids on Earth.