Loneliness can be a powerful motivator. When the author of “MacCallister’s War” relocated to the far reaches of Iowa with her husband, she never dreamt it would take so long to make friends and to become part of the community. As a way to feel connected, she began researching local history and was surprised by what she uncovered.
It was 1863 and settlers had just begun making a life along the banks of Lake Okoboji. Life was made up of scrambling to build homes before winter set in, nursing sick children, and fighting off locusts. Maybe it was ignorance, but these settlers did not seem to notice the indigenous people they were forcing from the area. As a group of renegade Sioux plotted their revenge, the early pioneers focused on the task at hand – building a new life. They were sitting on a powder keg, with no idea how close they were to an explosion.
The author spent months, and then years, researching the individuals included in this based-on-a-true story novel. She pressed her nose against cabin windows, trying to imagine what life must have been like for the settlers. She poured through journals, government records, and first-hand accounts to learn more about the Sioux who had once roamed the area. She spoke with residents whose families had been in Northwest Iowa for generations, listening to the stories passed down by their grandfathers and great-grandfathers.
In the end, MacCallister’s War was born and the author’s friends became the people she wrote about. She finds herself thinking about them often, hoping that her story did them justice.