"Memory of Trees" is a multigenerational story of Gayla Marty's
family farm near Rush City, Minnesota. Cleared from woodlands by
her great-grandfather Jacob in the 1880s, the farm passed to her
father, Gordon, and his brother, Gaylon. Hewing to a conservative
Swedish Baptist faith, the two brothers worked the farm, raising
their families in side-by-side houses.
As the years go by, the families grow--and slowly grow apart.
Uncle Gaylon, more doctrinaire in his faith, rails against the
permissiveness of Gayla's parents. Financial tensions arise as well
when the farm economy weakens and none of the children is willing
or able to take over. Gayla is encouraged to leave for college,
international travel, and city life, but the farm remains essential
to her sense of self, even after the family decides to sell the
land.
When Gaylon has an accident on a tractor, Gayla becomes driven
to reconnect with him and to find out why she and her uncle--once
so close but now estranged--were the only two members of the family
who had resisted selling the land. Guided by vivid images of the
farm's many beautiful trees, she pores over sacred and classical
works as well as layers of her own memory to understand the forces
that have transformed the American landscape and culture in the
last half of the twentieth century. Beneath the belief in land as a
giver of life and blessing, she discovers a powerful anxiety born
of human uprootedness and loss. Movingly written, "Memory of Trees"
will resonate for many with attachments to small towns or farms,
whether they continue to work the land or, like so many, have left
for a different life.
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