The Desert and the Sown

Western novel, first published in 1902. According to Wikipedia: "Mary Hallock was born November 9, 1847, in Milton, New York, of English Quaker ancestry. A singular girl and youth, she attended the Female Collegiate Seminary in Poughkeepsie, New York, then studied art in New York City at the new Cooper Institute School of Design for Women. By her early twenties she had become established in New York City as an accomplished artist-illustrator for notable publishers there. In 1876 Hallock married a young mining engineer, Arthur De Wint Foote, then moved cross-continent to live with him at the New Almaden mine near San Jose, California. Subsequently, as Arthur pursued his engineering career, she followed him throughout the West; to Leadville, Colorado, to Deadwood, South Dakota, then to Boise, Idaho, where Arthur originated a major irrigation project on the Boise River; then to Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico, and finally to Grass Valley, California, where Arthur advanced to managing the North Star mine, and retired there...Wallace Stegner's novel Angle of Repose (Pulitzer Prize, 1971) is based directly upon Mary Hallock Foote's extensive personal correspondence.'