About the Author

Cindy is passionate about history and enchanted by the prairie landscape, and when not meticulously poring over newspaper archives, she enjoys traveling, delving into architecture (she leads tours at a Frank Lloyd Wright designed home in Iowa), creating art quilts, reading, hiking, biking, or going out to watch storms as a trained weather spotter for the National Weather Service. Her response to the pandemic was to learn to play the cello. She especially treasures time with her daughter Laura, who at any given moment is living in some far-off corner of the globe (currently London but has included Germany, Senegal, China, Washington D.C., and Alaska), exploring other cultures and histories.

While Cindy’s soul is most refreshed in South Dakota, she lives in southern Minnesota. And while she spent two years immersed in the Hard Winter of 1880–81, her ideal day is actually eighty degrees with a smidge of humidity.

Cindy is a recipient of the Ella Dickey Literacy Award, which will be awarded in April 2023. The awards are presented to six national authors who have contributed to the preservation of history.