Lesley Poling-Kempes

"Ladies of the Canyons is the true story of a group of remarkable women whose lives were transformed by the people and landscape of the American Southwest in the first decades of the twentieth century"--Provided by publisher.Prologue : ladies of the canyons -- Imperfectly independent -- Land of ineffable light and sudden shadow -- Capturing the wind -- The Indians' book -- Time and the world -- Secrets and dualities -- Creating a brave new world --...

"From the 1880s to the 1950s, the Harvey Girls went West to work in Fred Harvey's restaurants along the Santa Fe railway. At a time when there were "no ladies west of Dodge City and no women west of Albuquerque," they came as waitresses, but many stayed and settled, founding the struggling cattle and mining towns that dotted the region. Interviews, historical research, and photographs help re-create the Harvey Girl experience. The accounts are personal,...

Reading almost like a novel, this book, says writer Marc Simmons, "gives the reader not only the history but the feel of this unusual place." Georgie O'Keeffe captured on canvas as the valley's cliffs, canyons, and turquoise sides, but her life and death here are only a small part of the centuries-long saga. Here, too, are Pueblo Indians, Utes, Navajos, Jicarilla Apaches, Hispanos, and Anglos - many lives tangled together, yet also separate and distinct....