Live Arrival Guaranteed: A Sandhill Memoir

In 1932, Wallace Strange left a secure government job in Washington, D.C., to set up a commercial game farm in rural Wisconsin. Ambivalent about the project at first, his wife, Hazel, eventually became a full partner in the work. Her account of the period 1932-1946 is an engrossing story of the pursuit of a dream and a penetrating glimpse of rural life during the Depression. They were dirt-poor, struggling just to survive. On the first farm, in Door County, they raised pheasants and ducks to sell to state conservation departments and hunting clubs. To augment their meager income, they trapped, sold and shipped snowshoe hares by the thousands. The second farm, in Woods County, was in an isolated, marshy area; there they raised deer and wildfowl. Wallace was a pioneer in game management, a friend of Adolph and Olas Murie, Aldo Leopold and Sigurd Olsen. This is a rewarding story for readers interested in wildlife and the environment. (June)