Hill Country [Hardcover]

Janie Woods Windle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1998

From the bestselling author of True Women. A sweeping historical novel based on the life of the author's remarkable grandmother.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The author of True Women uses her grandmother's unfinished autobiography to depict the resilience and gritty determination of a Texas prairie woman. In the late 1870s, when Laura Woods is seven, her mother fights off a marauding Apache party and Laura gets her first, intriguing glimpse of "white Indian" Herman Lehmann, who was kidnapped and raised in the tribe. When Laura is a teenager, she falls in love with Herman, but the affair is secret and fleeting, and Laura takes a place in society by marrying Peter Woods, the scion of a prominent family. Laura hopes that Peter will make a career in government, an ambition that she craves herself. But it is her friend Rebekah Baines Johnson who will become the wife of a congressman and mother of a president, and Laura realizes she must work behind the scenes if she is ever to put her family on the map. While raising her brood of seven children, she campaigns for Teddy Roosevelt, lobbies for the suffragette cause and seemingly touches nearly every event in Texas history. Though the dramatic events of Laura's life are more colorful than many a made-up saga, the narrative, while brisk and interesting, lacks the vitality of well-wrought fiction. Yet Laura Woods's story is a reminder that, regardless of their absence from ballots and voting booths, women played an essential part in shaping the country's history. 100,000 first printing; $250,000 ad/promo; author tour. (Oct.).
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Windle's involving new novel, the sequel to the exceedingly popular True Women (1994), is a fictionalization of her exceptional grandmother's exceptional life. Laura Hoge Woods, who lived from 1870 to 1966, survived an Indian attack, experienced the diminishment of the Texas frontier, witnessed the advent of the automobile, and celebrated women finally winning the right to vote. In her youth, she loved a half-wild Indian captive and later grew to love Peter Woods, an older rancher whose horses she helped train. Throughout all her personal triumphs and disappointments--seven children, the death of a sister, a daughter whose dementia led to violent outbursts and eventual institutionalization--Laura kept her eye on the big picture: politics. The work she and Peter did with horses brought them to the attention of such luminaries as Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Lyndon B. Johnson, and Laura became a confidante of presidents, governors, senators, and local politicians and was elected to political office herself at age 87. This phenomenal woman bent without breaking to achieve the most she could at a time when women were just beginning to emerge as a major political force. She wrote her thoughts and ideas down on scraps of paper, napkins, and the corners of newspapers, hoping to one day write a book called "Hill Country." What Laura Hoge Woods was unable to finish, her loving granddaughter has crafted into a compelling tale of a woman who refused to let anything, especially gender, stand in the way of her dreams. Melanie Duncan

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 474 pages
• Publisher: Taylor Trade Publishing (January 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1563525224
• ISBN-13: 978-1563525223
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #223,637 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ALL THE MORE REMARKABLE BECAUSE IT'S TRUE!, January 26, 2001

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hill Country: A Novel (Paperback)

Janice Woods Windle proves that lightning can strike twice.. Following her highly successful debut novel, True Women, which was made into a 1997 television mini series, the Texas author has penned Hill Country, a sweeping historical drama fraught with danger, excitement, and love - all the more fascinating because it's true.

Drawing from an unfinished autobiography plus a trove of letters and notes, the author has revitalized the indefatigable spirit of her pioneering grandmother, Laura Hoge Woods, an amazing woman who fought marauders, scratched a living from unfriendly soil, raised seven children, counted presidents as friends, and flew with Charles Lindbergh.

Much of Laura's grit came from her mother, "Little Mattie," who once pulled down Old Boomer, an "ancient, ten-gauge, double-barreled, shotgun" to protect 7-year-old Laura and her two brothers from hostile Indians. Herman Lehmann, who had been kidnaped by Apaches as a child, was among the intruders. To Laura, he was beautiful, "His hair was golden and long....his body seemed carved from ivory."

As a teenager Laura met Herman again, at Eager Mule Creek, her wilderness hide-away. They fell in love, but the gap between Indian life and the white world proved too wide for him to bridge. Wealthy Peter Woods, owner of a large horse ranch and chairman of the Blanco County Democratic Party, became Laura's husband. Through him, she hoped to satisfy her political aspirations - if she couldn't run for office because she was a woman, she decided to be a candidate's wife.

When government railroad land was offered for a dollar an acre, Laura and Peter bought. There was one qualifier: a buyer had to build on the land and remain there for six months. Agreeing to live in this new territory while Peter tended their present ranch, she "moved to the last place on Earth....the wild empty lands of Central Texas," where she felt her life was "sliding backwards."

In 1894, a violent storm arose isolating Laura and two young sons at the distant ranch. Days of incessant rain made puddles in the cabin, brought creek water to the horse pens, and serious illness to her youngest boy. Despite the blinding torrent, Laura managed to hitch a buggy, cradle the paroxysm seized baby in one arm, hold the other child on the floorboards between her knees, ford a wild river, and drive ten miles for help.

After the rigors of wilderness life, she was delighted to move to Blanco, into a stone bungalow overlooking the river. This home, known as "Hanging Tree Ranch" because of its proximity to a lynching she witnessed as a girl, was where Laura lived her glory years.

She gave birth to their first daughter, Winifred, and met the young woman who became her lifelong friend, Rebekah Baines Johnson.

It was also at "Hanging Tree Ranch" that Peter and Laura entertained Teddy Roosevelt who bought horses for his Rough Riders. Despite initial misgivings about Roosevelt's Republicanism, Laura was won over.

Later, in 1911, Laura again doubted a political hopeful; she was dissuaded by his scholarly mein. But when Woodrow Wilson came to Texas and advocated women's suffrage, Laura enlisted in his cause.

As the United States teetered on the brink of World War I, some suspected an alliance between Mexico and Germany. Asked to provide horses for an assault on Pancho Villa, Peter mortgaged his land to buy the animals.

An attempt to transport the Spanish cow ponies by train proved disastrous - a derailment injured the horses so severely that Peter was forced to shoot them. Laura wrote, "It was like something in Peter died that night, as well."

Always troubled by Winifred, who seemed uncommonly distant, Laura was pleased when her daughter married. But Winifred's first child was stillborn, a loss that pushed the fragile girl beyond reason, and eventually warranted her institutionalization.

As Peter faded to a shadow of his former self, Laura realized that she would have to support them. The family moved to San Marcos where she opened a rooming house. Of this journey she wrote: "The road from Blanco to San Marcos, Texas, is only 45 miles as the snake slithers.....Every mile of that road is littered with little pieces of my soul, with discarded notions of right and wrong, love and duty, and all the dreams and easy pleasures youth sheds on its way toward the setting sun."

In 1924, a young Charles Lindbergh barnstormed through Texas selling plane rides. Laura flew with him twice, finding "It was like riding on a beam of sunlight and being in absolute control." That evening she pretended not to hear when Peter asked her where she had been.

Outliving her husband and her close friend, Laura saw Rebekah's son elected to the presidency. She waltzed with Lyndon Johnson at his Inaugural Ball.

At over 90 years of age, plagued by failing eyesight and osteoporosis, Laura became the unwilling resident of a nursing home where she was repeatedly told to lay "back and rest." Valiant in her obstinacy, she would have none of it. After escaping her confines, Laura thought, "Maybe if I was old like these others I'd lie back and rest. But I've got things to do." One can scarcely imagine what it was that this remarkable woman had not already done.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WOW! What a story, what a life!, February 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Hill Country (Hardcover)

Janice Woods Windle has done it again! True Women held me spell-bound, and this book is even better! I was so sorry when it was over. What a life Laura Hogg Woods had. Imagine being born in a time when Indian attacks were common, horses were vital means of transportation and cooking was done on a wood stove. Imagine dying at a time when man is about to go up in space, a beloved president is shot while in his car and your best friend's son becomes the president as a result of the tragedy. This author tells the story so vividly and beautifully, she has an amazing gift. I can't begin to praise this story enough---a great read!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gasp! Gasp! I'm still breathless after reading it!, December 28, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Hill Country (Hardcover)

An inner core of steel helps Laura Hoge Wood overcome a childhood fraught with great hardship and danger and takes her to the very portals of history and the U.S. presidency. A woman as uniquely Texan as her environment, Laura has to make an early decision between following her heart or her head in matters of love. That decision shows the mettle which serves Laura well for the rest of her long life. Her pioneer spirit brings her through adventures not for the faint of heart. This book has everything- suspense, romance, mystery, history- that will satisfy even the tastes of a picky reader.