"The Homeplace' by Gilbert Morris

How do I describe this first book in ‘the Singing River’ series, THE HOMEPLACE, by Gilbert Morris? 

It is a bit Laura Ingalls Wilder’s LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE.  There’s something of Gertrude Chandler Warner’s THE BOXCAR CHILDREN within its tale.  A significant element of Catherine Marshall’s CHRISTY resonates within its pages.  One might even say it resembles pieces of Thornton Wilder’s classic play, OUR TOWN with its familiarity to small town life. 

Quite frankly, to me, a product of that small town life, it is a suspense tale of survival.  That is how I would personally describe what I read.

Everything begins prior to the onset of the Depression in the small Arkansas community of Fairhope.  Lanie Belle Freeman is the fourteen-year-old eldest child of Forest and Elizabeth Freeman.  She is a poet and the smartest student in her freshman class.  Everyone in Fairhope believes she is a shoe-in for the freshman award given out for the best student -- and many even view her chances of winning the overall best student award as excellent.  She, however, remains demure over the whole matter, responsibly taking whatever rewards, or lack thereof, may happen her way.

In addition to her mother, her father, and herself, Lanie enjoys the company of four siblings.  Davis, the eldest boy, is the athlete.  Tall and quiet, he acts as the responsible one, the one with a conscience, which keeps his younger sister and brother in line and out of trouble.  His sister Maeva is the tomboy.  She dreams of true romance, while taking on ANY challenge, proper or improper, full steam ahead.  Cody is the inventive, creative mind, shirking his menial chores in favor of discovering a better way to expedite the tasks he sees as a waste of time.

His talents prove extraordinarily valuable when the Freeman children require a new way to make some money, so they can save the family home.

There in lies the thrust of the story.  The responsibility of not only their own welfare, but particularly the retention of the family home, is set upon the children’s shoulders.  Their father mortgaged the home to expand his lumber business, eyeing the ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ opportunity he could not pass; but when Forest Freeman is no longer free to work it, and the Depression of that era strikes, causing the man who had been purchasing the lumber – town banker Otis Langley (richest man in Fairhope and the ideal villain) – to cease his call for any further orders, the Freeman kids are in a fix.

If they fail to keep up payments on the bank note, the bank forecloses and those five acres from the plantation started by their father’s great-grandfather, the only home any of them have ever known, will be no more.

How can five kids – and one, Corliss, being a mere infant – stand fast against Fairhope’s most powerful and greedy soul, (Otis Langley), coupled with a government monolith causing more problems by its encroachment than creating solutions?

Simple.  They work hard.  (Lanie drops out of school to manage things.)  They foster friendship with everyone in town.  (Every citizen knows of the Freeman children’s plight.)  And they pray.  They pray for every need.  They pray at every crisis.  They pray and trust God in everyway and for everything.

While I would prefer to say THE HOMEPLACE was an extraordinary read,  I cannot.  Various elements lacked the emotional appeal I sought to feel towards the injustices happening to the Freeman children.  Pieces of the story were a bit too matter-of-fact for me.  I can say, though, that the Freemans were one extraordinary family.  Lanie was the daughter every father should pray to have under his roof.  She was simply an amazing character around which to revolve any tale of struggle against the odds.

My fears of this book becoming a pat answer Christian novel with simplistic answers to life’s harsh realities proved grossly unfounded.  THE HOMEPLACE is soaked in real life.  The moral injustice thrown at the Freeman children during the start of the Depression is reminiscent of any Depression-era tale.  The difference found here is the hope one can read suffused through every line and upon every page.

I relish those stories that tell people not to give up.

The week I spent reading THE HOMEPLACE was also the week I spent fearing my sister succumbed to the dreaded ravages of cancer.  With every insurmountable obstacle Lanie and her siblings struggled to overcome, I felt myself emboldened with the same hope they showed in their fight.  To me, that is what made this book a treasure.  Though the hopelessness of the Depression is evident, the hope of the Freeman children was never quenched.