Title Escape: Along the Oregon Trail Author F. Eugene Barber Synopsis This novel takes a snapshot of the decade before the Civil War describing some of the wagon train experiences along the Oregon Trail during the settlement of the western United States. It traces the adventures of a young emigrant girl that was captured by a Cheyenne along the Platt River in the Great American Desert — her life amongst them for ten years and her escape back to the white world she was deprived of. The dates are real as are some of the more famous military Generals of the day and the names of some of the major Indian Chiefs mentioned in the story. The landscape, plant life, and weather patterns of the various western areas were well researched. This is a must read for those readers of fictional history about the old west. Biography F. Eugene Barber has written several short stories, but this is his first novel. Mr. Barber has an A.S. in engineering, a B.A. in history, and an MBA. He was born on a small share crop farm in the Midwest at the start of the Great Depression and attended his first year of school in a rural school with eleven other students ranging from the first grade to the eighth. His early farm life was pot bellied stoves, coal oil lamps, chopping kindling wood, and chores around the barn and chicken yards. He lived for a short time in western Wyoming near the old Oregon Trail where his father worked on the Union Pacific Rail Road. He served in the Air Force during the Korean War and upon discharge worked in the California Aerospace industry for most of his career. He spent many weekends traipsing around the California Deserts with his wife, two daughters, and the family dog. Mr. Barber has traveled extensively all over the world, including South Africa and the Outback in Australia, and when in a conversation, he tends to compare his own ancestor's struggles in settling the West with their struggles to explore and populate those two faraway countries. His knowledge of early emigrant movements from the more settled parts of the United States to the Great American Desert and to the Oregon country far beyond the Shining Mountains has been accumulated over a period of forty years.

Book Details Price: $13.50 ISBN: 9781403377319 Dimensions: 5 x 8 Pages: 228 Quantity: