This book is hard to categorize. It is a memoir by Margaret Duncan Brown, and was published in 1982 by Golden Bell Press of Denver, Colorado.

I will quote from the preface.

During the 47 years that Margaret Duncan Brown lived alone on her Colorado sheep ranch, she kept a diary of her thoughts and exceptional life. She had never submitted anything for publication, except a short piece to The Reader’s digest, that received the First Person Award, September, q958, entitled, “A Little Bunch of Sheep.”

Mrs. Brown died Julyl 30, 1965. As attorney for her estate, my wife being her niece and Executrix of her will, I found her writings stored around the ranch house, mostly on small tablets that she carried in her pockets while tending sheep. I had the enriching experience of organizing the writings into the form here presented.

The writings trace margaret Duncan, an extremely attractive but pensive young girl, of gentle Southern parentage, to marriage, at age of 18 , in 1900 to Thornton Brown, then a mining clerk in Cripple Creek, Colorado. By 1915, her husband had become cashier and resident manager of a bank in Cripple Creek, and the couple were quite active in business and social circles. They decided to become ranchers, and in late 1915, they made a small down payment and moved on 160 acres on Elk River, Routt County, in northwestern Colorado. In 1918 her husband died. She stayed on, and after the hardest of struggles, solely on her own, she paid out the ranch and expanded. When she died, she had a beautiful, improved ranch of 713 acres, debt free. The richest heritage is, of course, her indomitable spirit, her great sensitiveness, perception and philosophy of life, which live in these writings.

Signed, Paul E. Daugherty

I obtained my copy of this unforgettable book through the Bas Bleu Society, in fact, it is “A Bas Bleu Edition.” Whatever it takes to get a copy, read it!