Wind’s Trail: The Early Life of Mary Austin

Peggy Pond Church; edited by Shelley Armitage

(Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, l990)

Mary Hunter Austin (l868-l934), folklorist, feminist, poet, novelist, champion of Native American and

Hispanic causes and one of history’s most eloquent voices in defense of the land, was among the literary

lights of her time. Peggy Pond Church, one of New Mexico’s native voices, knew Austin passingly

between l921 and Austin’s death, and shared a passion for the ancient history, lives, and landscape of

the Southwest. Her biographic manuscript of Austin sought to explain not just one life but two, working

out in another’s story the corresponding issues of her own. Posthumously published, due to the editing

and scholarly essays of her literary editor, Shelley Armitage, this work survives as a labor of artistic love

shared by the three women.