What would you do if a member of your family began to exhibit unusual or even dangerous behavior? What if they began to talk constantly, not making sense? What if they became obsessed about speaking with God? What if they ran naked in street traffic, or shut down and refused to do anything at all?

It is still difficult in 2022 to get the correct treatment for a family member who shows signs of mental illness. But when the family of Anna Ehli Lozing faced such an agonizing decision in the 1920s, mental health specialists were uncommon in the United States generally, and they were practically nonexistent in Montana, where Anna and her large family of German-Russian immigrants had settled in a small remote homestead.

Hannah Lozing, one of Anna’s eight children, asked the author to write about the difficult life her mother endured to pay homage to her mother’s strength and resilience. This book is a testament to one woman’s brave response to the overwhelming challenges in her life.