No sooner than I had the thought, I heard the familiar soft plop in the water. I turned to look back. Ripples were forming on the surface of the pool, and the fish’s nose was just breaking the surface as it nibbled on a bit of Holena’s bread. Old Jan turned toward it, and I could see his lips move.
Smiling to myself, I turned and climbed the bank to join my family as we set out once again, chasing the dream that had brought us to America.
Author’s Note
WHILE I have not specified the coal camp in which this story takes place, I have tried to make the setting of this novel typical of the coal camps of southern Colorado around the year 1900. Though they were called “camps,” these were permanent communities where many mining families spent their entire lives. The coal companies owned all the houses, stores, saloons, and gathering places in the towns, and since they were somewhat isolated from other communities, there were few options for residents other than those the coal company provided.
The many nationalities of miners that I have presented are accurate to those found in turn-of-the-century coal camps. Prior to 1900, the Welsh and Scottish were recruited heavily, and they were established in some of the better-paying jobs by the time my story starts. After 1900, the mines recruited heavily from eastern and southern Europe. They believed that by maintaining a large population of diverse foreigners who spoke many different languages, they could keep their labor force from unionizing, since the immigrants could not communicate well.
Of course, the difficulties in communication also led to more accidents in the mines, which increased the distrust among ethnic groups. And mining accidents were common. In 1900, half of all workers’ deaths in the United States occurred in two industries: coal mining and railroading.
To create authentic details for the family life of miners, I relied heavily on the book Coal People: Life in Southern Colorado’s Company Towns 1890—1930 by Rick J. Clyne (Colorado Historical Society, 2000), which not only describes the social life of the camps but contains numerous firsthand accounts of what life was like. Many of the background details of my story are based on the anecdotes recorded in those accounts. I also drew upon visits to the area and historic photos in the Western History Archives of the Denver Public Library, which can be accessed by the general public online at photoswest.org. Prices for goods were taken from newspaper ads of the era, and inflated, as they would have been in the coal company stores.
The Eastern European fairy tales told by Old Jan are all traditional stories, although I allowed Old Jan to tell them in his own style, as all traditional storytellers do. Versions of some of the se stories can be found in the Favorite Fairy Tales series, retold by Virginia Haviland and published by Little, Brown and Company. For variety, other versions of the same or similar stories were found on the Internet.
Acknowledgments
I OWE heartfelt thanks to a number of people. My mother Betty and daughter Leah have always been my first and best readers. I have benefited from the advice, encouragement, and at times much needed nagging, from excellent critique partners: Mike, Megan, Kiersten, Jenn, Victoria, Lisa, and Rebecca. My son Greg has been my go-to idea man and keeps me laughing, and I suspect my husband Ken has stayed in bed longer than he really wanted to some Saturday mornings to give me quiet time to write. In addition, thank you to my young beta readers, Holland and Graham, who helped me see it through middle-grade eyes.
Once my little manuscript got past all of them, it benefited from the wisdom, insight, and professionalism of my brilliant agent, Erin Murphy, and my wonderful editor at McElderry, Karen Wojtyla. And to her patient assistant Emily Fabre and all the behind-the-scenes folks at Simon & Schuster who take a stack of pages and turn it into a beautiful book, thank you.
JEANNIE MOBLEY is a Colorado native, whose interest in colorful local history was forged through many summers hiking, camping, and exploring the state while growing up. She holds degrees in history and anthropology, and currently teaches anthropology in northern Colorado. Katerina’s Wish is her first novel. Visit her at jeanniemobley.com.
Jacket design by Debra Sfetsios-Conover
Jacket illustration copyright © 2012.
by Zohar Lazar
MARGARET K. MCELDERRY BOOKS
Simon & Schuster
New York
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places,
and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Jeannette Mobley-Tanaka
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Book design by Debra Sfetsios-Conover
The text for this book is set in Cochin LT Std.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mobley, Jeannie.
Katerina’s wish / Jeannie Mobley. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Thirteen-year-old Trina’s family left Bohemia for a Colorado coal town to earn money to buy a farm, but by 1901 she doubts that either hard work or hoping will be enough, even after a strange fish seems to grant her sisters’ wishes.
ISBN 978-1-4424-3343-4 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-4424-3345-8 (eBook)
[1. Family life — Colorado — Fiction. 2. Coal mines and mining — Fiction. 3. Immigrants — Fiction. 4. Czech Americans — Fiction. 5. Colorado — History—1876-1950 — Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M71275Kat 2012
[Fic]—dc23
2011044392
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