Portraits From The Prairies
by
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We had spent much of the morning in Edward Bjorkman’s alfalfa field, broiling under the hot sun, piling bales onto his hay rack. I can remember the heat. I can remember our sweat. And I can remember Clara Bjorkman walking across the road with a large basket crammed with sandwiches, cookies, cakes, apples, coffee and Kool-Aid, a lunch that would require a good half hour to finish. The Bjorkmans operated a small farm about six miles south of St. James, Minn. The two of them were a typical farm couple running a typical homestead. But they possessed something special. Much of the Bjorkmans’ lives revolved around their daughter, a spindly girl who rested in a wheelchair inside their white farm home; and in their unwavering devotion to her, they seemed to find a powerful strength.
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About the Book
I have always wanted to be a journalist.
Even as a boy, I would get my mother to drive me into town to pick up sheets of newsprint at the local weekly newspaper shop. Back home with these sheets, I would sit at the kitchen table or at the desk in my bedroom, creating newspapers and magazines. I wrote such scintillating prose as, “My grandpa tells me he can’t let his sheep get sick. My grandpa says a sick sheep is a dead sheep.” In some cases, I would make extra copies of my publications and send them to my aunts and uncles and suggest that they might want to subscribe – at a reasonable rate, of course.
About the Author
Michael Larson spent most of his life in Mankato, Minn., first as a newspaper editor and then as a professor of journalism. As a journalist, he received a number of awards for in-depth reporting and writing. Today he teaches journalism classes at Minnesota State University, Mankato