Rusty

About the Book

The story of Lela McGuire’s teenage years in Idaho during the 1890’s continues in Rusty. In the first book, Cart-Wheels, Lela moves with her family from their comfortable, established ranch in Oregon to the raw frontier of Idaho’s high Camas Prairie. Having left behind not only her home but also her first sweetheart, she has to adapt to her new life in the town of Cottonwood, where she finishes the highest class in the local school. In Rusty, Lela gets to further her education. Her uncle, recently elected sheriff, has moved to the county seat and has invited her to stay with his family there, so that she can attend high school. Her memorable year in the sheriff’s household brings lots of hard studying, punctuated by sometimes violent incidents of law and order. When it is over, she returns to Cottonwood and meets handsome young “Rusty,” just back from the Spanish-American War . . . Lela’s true story, originally written in her own words in the early 1970’s, is the basis for both books. Collaborating with her at that time, her daughter did much to shape the memories into fiction for young readers. The books in their present form are the result of editing and re-working by Lela’s granddaughter, Susan Quainton

About the Author

Susan Quainton is a retired English teacher living in Washington, D.C. After gaining degrees from Mount Holyoke College and Oxford University, she spent nearly forty years as a Foreign Service spouse, during which time she also taught in high schools, elementary schools, and adult English language institutes both at home and abroad. She has lived in countries on five continents, where her husband served in U.S. Embassies, becoming Ambassador to the Central African Republic, Nicaragua, Kuwait, and Peru. The Quaintons have three children and seven grandchildren, who are among Lela’s great-great-grandchildren—the generation for whom these books have been prepared.