Grandma Ann

About the Book

Brought by her parents, at age four, from a manor farm in Sheffield England where she was born in 1845, Ann Willden crossed the Atlantic, sailed up the Mississippi River and traveled by wagon train to the raw land of south Utah. There, with her family, she spent her childhood, helping to build homes and towns out of nothing except hard work and dreams. A child bride before her fifteenth birthday, she was a mother three times over, when she and her husband decided to flee the rigors of the Mormon Church and establish themselves in California. Ten years and three children later they acquired a homestead in the San Fernando Valley, where her last four children were born. From the writings of her daughter, Mary Proctor, and her own existing letters, her story is told of hardships, love and death, courage, fear and the deep pleasure of accomplishment. GRANDMA ANN will take you back in time to harsher times and gentler spirits.

About the Author

Born on April 23, 1920 to homesteading parents on the Mojave Desert, Mary received her early education in one roomed emergency schools. She went four years to San Fernando High School, living with her grandmother in that city. During World War Two she worked for Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. Widowed young, she remarried and raised six children. In high school she wrote for the school news and local papers. A writing career gave way to the needs of her family and invalid parents. Widowed twice, Mary lives with her daughter and son-in-law in the San Fernando Valley.