Hi! I’m Nelda Liebig. I love to write. My five juvenile novels include the Carrie Heidenworth books, a four-book series about a young girl who survived the Peshtigo Wisconsin fire of 1871. This was the worst forest fire in the history of our country. More lives were lost (than in the Great Chicago Fire that happened the same day!) and vast acres of forests destroyed.
I look for little-known facts in history and travel books. From these I glean a storyline. I was reading Fire at Peshtigo by Robert Wells, a historian. He wrote how people survived the worst firestorm in the history of our nation. He told how a girl, struggling to stay afloat in the river as the fire roared overhead, grabbed hold of a cow’s horn.
I researched this, then wrote a fictionalized version in my first book, Carrie and the Crazy Quilt. To my surprise, the book won an award given by the Wisconsin State Historical Society, for “distinguished service to history.”
The book ends with Carrie and her little brother, Fritz, surviving, but discovering that their parents were missing and presumed lost in the fire.
As part of my research, I also learned that surviving children were taken to nearby towns and adopted. That is the idea that led to the second book, Carrie and the Apple Pie. Carrie does not want to be adopted. Her goal is to return to her homestead, but her trials have just begun, and for the time being, it is impossible for her to return to the burnt-out farm. She has to learn to make new friends and adapt to a new life.
At the end of this story, Carrie knows she will return one day to the homestead. This fall, readers can finally see this dream come true, in Carrie and the Homestead.
Although my books are for ages 9–12, readers of all ages enjoy Carrie’s saga, from surviving a holocaust to rebuilding her life on the homestead she dearly loves.
You might be interested to know that there was a real person named Carrie Heidenworth, and I had the privilege of visiting her grave in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and meeting two of her great nieces.
I have been writing since childhood and never know from where my next story idea will appear! At the present, I am researching my ancestor, Rosebud, daughter of Bear Hunter, born in the 1740s in Cherokee, Tennessee. Perhaps she – my grandmother, eight generations ago – will be the heroine in my next historical fiction novel!
For now, I pursue my favorite activities including biking the state trail that passes through my town of Trempealeau, Wisconsin, and backpacking in my favorite national park, the setting for my other novel, Jordyn Backpacks Isle Royale National Park. I will continue to travel to new places with my husband who is a tour director.
Wherever I go, my notebook of writing ideas goes with me!
