Sage & Sierra - by Carol Dedecker Wiens & Joan Dedecker Busby (Paperback)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>In a desert valley surrounded by mountains, two young girls explore the natural world on foot, bicycle, and horseback. Their uncommon childhood and connection with nature give them a unique and lasting perspective on life. This opportunity is rapidly being lost as children grow up in urban areas and become addicted to digital gadgets.<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><p><em>Sage & Sierra</em><strong> </strong>is the story of an uncommon childhood. Two spirited sisters grew up during the depths of the Great Depression and--although the family couldn't have known it ahead of time--moving to a small town in a remote part of eastern California indelibly changed their lives.</p><p>In a desert valley, surrounded by sagebrush and high mountains, the young girls explored on foot, bicycle, and horseback. Their active outdoor childhood and connection with the natural world gave them a unique and lasting perspective on life: "Home extended from the valley floor to the snow-capped peaks of the Sierra and to the crest of the Inyo Mountains. Home was the morning sun on Mt. Williamson, the smell of rain on sagebrush, and the murmur of Independence Creek as it flowed through our back yard."</p><p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br><p>"The small town of Independence, where authors Joan DeDecker Busby and Carol DeDecker Wiens were growing up between 1935 and 1951, lies about midway along the narrow Owens Valley of Eastern California. From high above, on the Sierra Nevada's sheer eastern flank, the town appears, as it did to a young Joan DeDecker in the late 1930s, as a 'postage stamp' of green in the vast sagebrush expanse of the valley below.</p><p>Such observations fill the pages of this thoughtfully crafted and engaging memoir of the authors' 'uncommon' childhood. Individual vignettes, based on their own recollections and the diaries of their remarkable mother, Mary DeDecker, are arranged as alternating voices to reflect each sister's emerging sense of place in the Owens Valley. Gradually widening circles of discovery and self-reliance take the girls, guided by uncommonly wise parents, beyond home to community, across the sagebrush valley, and into the Sierra wilderness they grow to love.</p><p>These are stories to savor. With clarity and immediacy they bring to life the ordinary and the unusual of the sisters' small-town upbringing--their mother's laundry day, the Depression-era hobo at the back door, playing the tuba at graduation, guard towers at nearby Manzanar War Relocation Center, encounters with mountaineer Norman Clyde in the Sierra backcountry.</p><p>The book's finely-etched details will be familiar to those who know the Owens Valley or have lived there--these were the teenage 'DeDecker Girls' of my own Independence childhood. But more broadly, as the authors convey their maturing connection to the natural world, they remind us of the countless and unexpected ways this time of discovery we call childhood can shape the values and passions that define us as adults."</p><p>--Jane Wehrey, historian and author<strong> </strong>of<strong> </strong><em>Voices From This Long Brown Land: Oral Recollections of Owens Valley Lives and Manzanar Pasts</em>; <em>Manzanar</em>; and<strong> </strong><em>The Owens Valley</em></p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"<em>Sage & Sierra</em> is more than a charming memoir--it is a spot-on picture of small town life in rural California set in the 1940s and 1950s, as seen through the eyes of two young sisters. Interesting, funny, insightful and nostalgic, it is filled with colorful characters and engaging stories of family, friends, and community, as well as paying tribute to and honoring the natural environment. While reading, I was reminded of my own cherished memories of growing up in a small town during the 1950s . . . Sunday drives with my family, walking to school with neighborhood friends, baseball in our vacant lot, summer vacations into the High Sierra.</p><p>As a Museum Curator and Public Historian, the narratives are priceless gems, weaving together the history, politics, and sociocultural climate of the times, preserving the rich heritage of the Owens Valley and Eastern Sierra for generations to come. It is a pleasure to read!"</p><p>--Roberta Harlan, Curator of Collections & Exhibits, Eastern California Museum</p><br>
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