I was speaking with a lady the other day who was reading the new Mitch Albom book. If you have been following this blog through the years you will recall that I am a huge lover of books so anytime someone is reading a book, it always catches my eye to see what the title is. She and I really got into a conversation about authors we like and topics we like to read about. It was a nice talk for sure. She recommended this book to me and I went home and downloaded it onto my kindle app. It was every bit as good as she explained. The reviewers loved it also and said they could not put it down from the first page. I got it on Friday and finished it on Saturday afternoon. It is a true, historical story of the pioneers and the Indians. It is the story of Mary Ingeles who was a young 23 year old with a husband and 2 young sons and she was nine months pregnant. Their peaceful village was raided by Shawnee Indians and she was captured along with her two sons and sister in law. Her mother had been scalped and many others were killed. Her husband and brother had been working in the fields and missed the raid but they did see the smoke from the burning of the cabins and got there in time to see his wife and sons being taken away. The year was 1755 and the place was Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. That is where their captivity started and they were following the rivers up to the Ohio River and ended up at Big Bone Salt Lick in Kentucky. Mary gave birth on the trail, set her sister in laws broken arm and soon after giving birth of a little baby girl had to get back on a horse to move on, all the while bleeding profusely. She had the where with all to try to observe landmarks for her journey back when she would plan to escape to go back to her husband. Because she seemed like such a strong woman the chieftain started admiring her and that gained her preferential treatment. She kept track of the days by tying knots in a belt and it was a long hard journey until they reached the Shawnee camp. The chieftain wanted to take her as his own but she refused this and eventually he took her two sons away and sold her to French Traders to work for them and sew shirts for trading. A German woman had also been captured in Pennsylvania and brought to the Shawnee camp which in present day would be at the influx of the Ohio River and the Scioto River in southern Ohio, near Portsmouth. Since winter was coming the French traders decided that they needed salt to cure the food for the coming winter. They took the women and other indians to go to the salt lick, this is where Mary and the German women were able to leave and start their 1000 mile journey along the river back to their civilization. Like I mentioned before, this is a true story and is documented to have happened. You will be thankful for your warm bed and abundant food after you finish this book. I highly recommend it. Please let me know what you think after you read it. Thanks for stopping!