Follow the story of the fictional Beck family as they move from Cincinnati, Ohio to the new western frontier town of New Ulm, Minnesota in 1857. As they  learn to live in a new place that the indigenous Dakota also call home, they experience the challenges of building a house, growing a garden, hunting and fishing for food, and surviving sickness, prairie fires,  weather extremes, and mosquitoes. They also repulse an attack by starving Dakota who were frustrated by U.S. government policies and treaties that stole their land, tried to assimilate them into European farming methods and culture and left them dependent on yearly payments of food, supplies and money that always seemed to be late.

Based on memoirs, documents and historical records, only the Beck family members are made up.  People they interact with and the experiences they have are true and based on real events.

Read excerpts from A Place Called Home in the BOOKS menu.