The Farm on Badger Creek

The family supplemented their subsistence herd of dairy cows by hunting, fishing, and selling timber and maple syrup. For many years, her home, like those of her neighbors, lacked indoor plumbing, electricity, and a telephone. As a young child, Peggy attended a one-room schoolhouse and walked, biked, or sledded the three miles to school and back, no matter the weather.

With a lyrical style that mixes nostalgia with humorous anecdotes, Marxen traces her family’s story through the best and worst of times. The Farm on Badger Creek is a fitting tribute to her settler ancestors and a way of life now gone—and a celebration of the hardy people who carve out a life in our nation’s rural communities.