Stitch of Courage — Linda K. Hubalek

Feel the uncertainty, doubt, and danger faced by the pioneer women of Kansas as they defend their homes and pray for their men during the Civil War. We think the Civil War took place in the South, but the plains state endured their share of battles and tragedy. Not only did Kansas and Missouri experience a resurgence in the terrorist raids that had plagued them in the years before the war, but the Confederate Army tried several times to sweep across the Great Plains and capture the West. Stitch of Courage, the third book in the Trail of Thread series, tells the story of the orphaned Maggie Kennedy, who followed her brothers to Kansas in the late 1850s. The niece of Margaret Ralston Kennedy, the main character in Hubalek s Thimble of Soil book, Maggie married the son of Deborah Pieratt, whose story was told in the Hubalek s Trial of Thread book. In letters to her sister in Ohio, Maggie describes how the women of Kansas faced the demons of the Civil War, fighting bravely to protect their homes and families while never knowing from one day to the next whether their men were alive or dead on the faraway battlefield. Twelve quilt patterns are stitched into this story.