More Than Gold

More Than Gold

FROM THE AUTHOR OF FIGHTING BACK A fast-paced, intelligent Western that captures the historical diversity and dynamics that made the American West such a crucible of dreams and heroes, MORE THAN GOLD tells the story of old Bodie, where people are driven by their passionsboth good and evilwilling to risk everything to gain their desires. Goodbye God, Im Going to Bodie Bodie had earned its reputation as the meanest, deadliest gold town in California, but that didnt stop people from flocking there with big dreams of wealth and freedom. When Jacob Lawton sold his Kansas farm and followed his vision to Bodie, Rachel and her two children went with him, hitched to Jacobs ambitions. But Rachel had secret desires of her own. As their dreams descend into nightmare, Rachel and Jacob are drawn into Bodies dark world finding treachery and danger in the dreams of others. Meanwhile, Bodie and its canyons hold many surprises . . . more than Rachel ever imagined . . . and she discovers there something far more valuable than gold. Today Bodie is a ghost town preserved as a California State Park. In December of 1879, Bodie was booming and thousands of people with gold fever swept into the small mining town, some full of hopes and ambitions for more than gold.

More Than Gold

More than Gold in California

Mary Bennett Ritter was a farmer’s daughter who in the 1880s defied all conventions to pursue her passion: to receive medical training and become a physician. Ritter’s memoir is a riveting account of her accomplishments and a revealing peek into an earlier era through her keen sense of observation, humor, savvy, and her courage to challenge gender norms. It is filled with adventures— house calls via horse and buggy rides through the dark streets of Berkeley; a spurned lover’s suicide; a near drowning at Pacific Grove Beach; one of the first automobile rides across rugged California dirt roads; intercontinental rail travel; and voyages to the Far East. As the story unfolds, readers encounter the movers and shakers of their times—University of California presidents and families of wealth and influence, including the Scrippses, and the Hearsts, and the Rockefellers.