Smoke

From the cultural advantages by proximity to New York City in the 1920s to the harsh realities of life in the mountains and deserts of Colorado, Utah and Nevada, follow Belle, a World War II bride, in a series of true-life adventures in this gracefully written memoir of high stakes mining claims and spirit crushing loss. Within these pages is the stuff that makes up our history: a childhood of privilege during the Depression years marred only by her mother's death from tuberculosis in 1936, marriage to a serviceman during the war, life on a university campus on the GI bill interspersed by periods of hardrock mining jobs in the field to maintain cash flow, six pregnancies and the death of an infant son, hears of privation due to her husband's gambling instinct that kept life on the edge, and his eventual emergence in the uranium boom of the 50s as a major holder of some of the richest ore ever mined on the Colorado Plateau. With unbridled optimism and faith, Belle embraces all the turns of her life in this compelling testament to the strength and resiliency of the human spirit.