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.