Ann Kotz Lunch and Learn

On October 16th, please join us for a Lunch and Learn at 11:30 AM with Iowa author Ann Kotz on “The Journey of Karoline Olsen”.
When her husband, Kristoffer, dies from a burst appendix in Iowa in 1902, middle-aged Karoline Olsen, mother of 6, must make the 145 mile trip from Cedar Falls to Soldier by horse-drawn wagon across the rolling prairie during the exceptionally hot summer, recalling the story of their rocky marriage that brought them from Norway to the New World. The your couple, ambitious and naïve, arrive in the United States in 1884 with hopes of establishing a farm among other Norwegian immigrants, but are met instead with a constant battle against disease, famine, and poverty. A chronicle of the Olsens’ fight to survive in the undeveloped Midwest, to preserve tradition in a new context, and to protect their family from ravages of pioneer living. The Journey of Karoline Olsen is the tale of a woman and a wife building the American Dream out of nothing but the dirt on which she stands.