Farewell the Stranger — Saliee O'Brien

Story of a pioneer bride and how she overcomes the crippling memory of her husband's first marriage to win his love and admiration.

A stranger came to St. Louis on a lovely windblown day in 1808. He passed tall, grey-eyed Devora Griggs on the street and stared at her intently.

Later, when he came knocking at her door, Devora remembered the first haunting moment and -- wondering at herself -- let him in. He told her that he was Jerd Warner, a widower with two small children; that he lived back in the wilderness; and that he had come to town to get himself a wife.

At twenty-eight, Devora was the prettiest woman in all St. Louis…but she was still single. Some longing for true romance had kept her from a conventional marriage and Jared Warner was what she had been waiting for all along. Against the shocked protests of her family, they married and left at dawn.

But nothing was right. When they reached Jerd's cabin, Devora's greatest hardship was not new people, dangerous country, Indian raids. It turned out to be the one thing she could not have dreamed of, for Jerd of obsessed with the memory of his dead wife and, to Devora's bewilderment, he was not only indifferent to his own children, but neither nor friend to her.

Even after desperate days and with a tentative start of love, things went wrong. For the ravishing Sudie appeared and, with her coming, all the anguished memories were revived. For Sudie looked just like her sister -- and her sister had been Jerd's first wift.