The Farside of the Moon

Along a winding road in the hills of Northern California rush the waters of the American River, icy with snowmelt from the Sierra Nevadas. Near the settlement once known as Gold Hill is the bit of land next to the river where Captain John Sutter built a sawmill. And next to the sawmill is the place where James Marshall saw the bright glitter of gold among pebbles in a clear calm backwater of the river. Word of that discovery brought hundreds of thousands of fortune seekers from all over the world. Later, others came, seeking different fortunes or escaping lives ruined in other lands. Among the later arrivals were the 77 men, women, and children of the Aizu Wakamatsu Colony, escapees from a civil war in Japan. This is a story of one of the members of that group: Kei-remembered now in history as Okei- and her brief life in America.