Mail-order bride Maddie

Before Internet matchmaking and dating services there was the mail-order bride. These women were the backbone of the old West. Back in the 19^th Century when the Westward expansion was in high gear, men far outnumbered the fairer sex. For families to thrive and farms and towns to bustle women were needed from the East. Many young women facing poverty, loneliness, or the social stigma of spinsterhood answered the call. Hannah: Bride of Iowa relates the story of Maddie Peters.

Maddie grew up in the arms of a loving family in Little Valley, New York. Her family’s fortunes radically changed when her pa was struck down in the prime of life by a heart attack. In an effort to keep the family farm operating Emma Peters, Maddie’s ma, agreed to marry Jeb Sleuter. Unfortunately, Jeb turned out to be a low-life wife-beating skunk of a drunk.

After Emma’s passing, Maddie had no place to turn but to distant relatives in Pennsylvania. While trying to come up with enough money to book passage on a train to meet her cousins, Maddy bumped into Hannah Brown, a mail-order bride headed for Iowa to marry farmer Samuel Morrison.

It seems Hannah had met an attractive man on the train from Boston to New York City who convinced her to travel to New Orleans with him for a more exciting life than as a farmer’s wife. She accepted and turned her train ticket to Iowa City over to Maddie.

Thus P.A. Estelle begins her compelling historical novel, Hannah: Bride of Iowa. Estelle does a wonderful job in character development and setting. Though the plot seemed a bit predictable at times, the author’s demonstrative sense of timing kept this reader riveted to Maddie’s story and the surprise ending.

The American Mail-Order Bride series consists of 50 historical novels set in each one of our 50 states. Hannah: Bride of Iowa represents the Hawkeye state admirably.