Nancy Johnston HallNANCY JOHNSTON HALL, a medical journalist with a special interest in the history of medicine, was inspired to write a fictionalized version of her own ancestors' stories who were among the first settlers in the Blackhawk Territory of (now) southeasten lowa. She carefully researched period customs, language, medicine and culture to ensure historical authenticity, drawing from women's journals, original documents, lowa frontier records, and an evocative letter from her great-great-grandmother, passed down through the generations. She lives with her husband, deep in a woods near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Read More Read Less