THE YEAR WE WERE FAMOUS is based on the true story of Clara and her suffragist mother, Helga Estby, who walked 4,000 miles from their farm in Mica Creek Washington, to New York City in 1896 in a heroic attempt to win $10,000 that would save the family's farm and prove women could do it.
Equipped only with satchels containing compass and maps, first-aid supplies, journals, pistol, and a curling iron, they headed east along the railroad tracks. In two hundred thirty-two days, they wore out thirty-two pairs of shoes, crossed mountains, deserts, and plains, and survived a highwayman attack, flash flood, blizzards, and days without food and water. For a year, they were famous as they met governors and mayors, camped with Indians, and visited the new president-elect, William McKinley.
They intended to write a book about their adventures, but because of the way their trip ended, their journals were burned. Fortunately, newspapers across the country reported on their travels, and THE YEAR WE WERE FAMOUS is based on those articles, with imagination filling the gaps between known facts.
THE YEAR WE WERE FAMOUS won the Will Rogers Medallion, the Willa award from Women Writing the West, was selected by the American Library Association for its 2012 Amelia Bloomer List of Best Feminist Fiction, and won the Sue Alexander Award from the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.
For more background on THE YEAR WE WERE FAMOUS, book trailer, and discussion guide, visit the author's website at www.caroleestbydagg.com.