Friday, March 01, 2013

The Log Cabin Church






Howard, Ellen; ill. by Ronald Himler. The Log Cabin Church. New York: Holiday House, 2002.

Elvirey moved to the Michigan frontier from the Carolinas with her father and grandmother after the death of her mother. The women of the community all want a church. Elvirey doesn't really remember church. The Carolinas to Michigan is not a migration pattern one would typically anticipate; however, I checked the 1850 census for Michigan via Ancestry.com and found 808 persons born in North Carolina residing in Michigan and 188 persons born in South Carolina there. While the numbers aren't great, they do support some migration from that part of the South to the upper midwest. The story line did not grab me like I thought it might, and the illustrations fell a little flat. The book, however, does illustrate the fact that churches usually came along after a group of settlers arrived and banded together to have one established.

This is part of the Friday series on children's literature and genealogy.

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