Evelyn's Anxious Bench — Allison Kohn

This is the first book in the Baker family saga about a family that left Maryland in the early 1840s and traveled west to the Willamette Valley where they became the nucleus for the town of Ferndale, Oregon. This book is concentrated on Johnathan Baker's oldest daughter, Evelyn and her struggles and triumphs. Johnathan and Margaret Baker's family consists of their three sons with the wives, two daughters with their husbands, and their seven grandchildren. The family was well equipped to start a new town but they had to learn - through the trials of the trail - to live before they could take new life to the west coast. Evelyn loses the love of her life and finds a greater love and new life in the God she never believed was anything but an idea. When they arrive at their destination she discovers love extended in her new life. The young preacher who helped her find everlasting love in her Creator is an answer in more than one way to her dying husband's prayer.