Encountering God: Reflections on the Courtship Letters of My Religious Parents

Walter, a struggling farmer, met Margaret, a salaried teacher, at a church outing at summer’s end when she was visiting her sister in Greeley, Colorado. Aside from two brief visits, their courtship unfolds entirely in these letters after her return to Washburn, North Dakota. Sabers are rattling and the economy is tanking when the letters begin in August, 1937. Both struggle with the issues of their day as they share their keys to joy in life and in each other. The letters are a look into the cultural and political concerns of the time as seen through the eyes of two spiritual soulmates spiced by the reflections and anecdotal recollections of Walter’s grateful son who, as a struggling teenager, asked him, Why are you a Christian?