Introduction

For the last several years, times have been tough for Scotland natives James and Charlotte Mathieson Hector and their four children. They live in fear of being remanded to the Indebtedness Court and placed in bondage as indentured slaves. They crave freedom and have learned it exists in America. Determined their descendants will have a better life in America, James takes the long voyage to the New World, arriving in the New York harbor on March 31, 1820. The rest of the family joins him several months later, and they soon settle in Virginia.

Story Overview

Told in two parts, Unmarked Trail first narrates the heart-wrenching story of one family's struggles to stay alive and their subsequent immigration to America, where they build a family in Virginia. It then follows the life of a poor farm boy whose odyssey begins in the cotton fields of Oklahoma. His poverty-stricken pioneer family survives the Great Depression by hard work, sheer luck, and ingenuity. His path leads him through more than twenty foreign countries, World War II, and the Korean conflict.

Genre and Themes

A work of historical fiction, this novel tells two stories of families overcoming hardships to forge a new life.