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Dorthea the Bountiful
By Ruth Vallery Young

HER life defined the borders of unselfed sufficiency and spanned an era of the Middle West. Wife, mother, pioneer immigrant, she brought multiple gifts to the valley of her adoption. The valley never really knew her, and has long since forgot; but for forty years she loved and labored, and a valley homestead bloomed.

For two decades the cradle handcarved by Hans, her husband, and brought with them from the "Old Country," was seldom empty. Dorthea bore six sons, and then two daughters. The boys grew to be young giants, head and shoulders above their father. The daughters, fair and slender, had lovely hands like Dorthea's but not quite so skillful. Hans was never known to praise her for her motherhood; but he looked a proud man as he stood among his children in the later days.

The sweep of rolling prairie before their home, broken only by scattered cottonwoods along cut banks bordering the river, was a symbol of loneliness to Dorthea. She craved the snugness of walls, trim buildings, and an orchard with neat, ordered garden beds. The ceaseless westerlies, that swept the roadway clean and wailed about the corners of their little, first home, cried defiance to Dorthea's dreams of flowers, fruit, and vines. She knew the ways of plenty, and the rebellious earth was never idle within the radius of her hands and hoe. The deep, rich soil gave forth abundantly, but the ruthlessness of early blizzards and the never-ending summer winds claimed a cruel portion of her hard-won vegetables, and beat to ribbons her tenderly cherished flowers. Nevertheless, her passion for abundance was not easily stilled. Long before the winter snows could melt and set her garden free, Dorthea had made her lists and plans complete for another year. Hans seldom went to town without her careful instructions to buy seeds of this or that. When he could satisfy her desires, they became realities. Soon a smoke-house, root cellar, and summer kitchen flanked their earth-banked house, and about these Dorthea grouped her gardens.

Once a plaintive letter to her mother in the "Old Country" brought her seeds of small fruits she had been unable to get in the new land. She planted them in the house and cared for them as tenderly as she did for the baby. They grew. In the spring she transplanted them outside and watched them through their first summer with endless patience. But the following winter played havoc with her crop of seedlings, and many bitter disappointments forced her to be content with the wild things of her valley. Failure taught her cunning. She learned to transplant the hardy wild plum and cherry into hedges to protect her flowers. She found that small willow shoots could be rooted and made a quick and supple wind-break against the west winds. She taught the sand cherry to grow in rows along the garden paths and yield larger fruit than ever before. These were not her dream gardens, but they were a bright spot to birds and bees, and many a happy hour was Dorthea's reward for her toil.