Going Home

This fictional narrative recounts the adventures and experiences of the author's grandfather's pioneer life with ranchers and sheepmen in early Denver and Leadville, Colorado, from the turn of the century through World War II

At 58, mining tycoon George Roche returns to Buena Vista, the small Colorado town in which he spent the first 40 years of this century. In the mountains, he rebuilds an old shanty and, having found heart's ease and a nearness to God, determines to stay on. Over the next 20 years he composes this picaresque memoir about a rugged but honest demi-paradise and the hardworking settlers who populated it. He recalls the time after his Navy service in World War I, when he and his grandfather turned the Mary Murphy mine into a good thing, but the death of his bride drove him from Colorado to New York and Washington. President of Michigan's Hillsdale College and former head of the National Institute of Education, Roche has written six previous books. In fictionalizing the story of his family, he has produced a sensitive and poignant account about the West whose virtues, despite industrial progress and technology, still survive. Drawings.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.