This was a gutsy thing for a new mother to do. The White River Badlands of South Dakota were part of the treeless Great Plains known as the Great American Desert. Taken from the Rosebud Indian Reservation, the land had little rain, poor soil and harsh weather.
Anna Louise Langhorne Waltz homesteaded alone with her baby on this prairie in a shelter that was nothing more than sod walls and a roof. With the nearest neighbor two miles away, the only communication was by signal flag, and all the necessities of life, including water, had to be brought in. Summer temperatures reached over 100 degrees and winters dipped to well below zero.
Yet in spite of loneliness, snakes, coyotes, a prairie fire, a blizzard, and a stampede of wild horses, she stayed the required 14 months in order to gain possession of the land. She also learned about the strength of the human spirit and the community that forms when people need each other for both physical and emotional survival.