A Mending at the Edge

A Mending at the Edge is the third and final novel in Jane Kirkpatrick’s Change and Cherish series of historical novels. The books are based on the life of Emma Wagner Giesy, a German-American woman raised in a religious communal society. The author weaves the myriad details gleaned from extensive research with a fruitful imagination and presents the readers with a captivating tale of life in the 1850’s.

For background: as a young woman Emma questions, rather than accepts, the Bethel colony’s communal life; the intent that everything done is for the sake of the colony as a whole, not the inhabitants as individuals. Emma is not one to listen quietly but instead speaks her mind. She wants others to recognize and value that women can think, too. She is skeptical as to motives behind actions that others seem to accept like obedient sheep. She tires of the refrain “for the good of the colony.”

When her husband becomes the trusted leader of a scouting party to begin a new settlement in the western territories that will become Oregon and Washington, Emma convinces the community leader to let her go too. Wilhelm is hesitant yet determines it might be a chance for her to know “all that a woman’s lot entails,” perhaps settling for once and for all her issue with conformity.

Throughout the series, we feel Emma’s struggles as she wrestles with the yearning for independence and recognition. The pinnacle of this wrestling comes to a head in A Mending at the Edge when tragedy strikes. Emma is devastated and angry with God. Even more reluctant to yield to any community help, she makes poor decisions. As a last resort, she finds herself fleeing to the new western settlement and becoming once again a part of the communal society she tried so hard to flee.

Emma’s husband and other community members always attributed circumstances to God’s goodness and direction, whereas Emma was so blinded by an independent spirit and pride she could not or was not willing to do the same. She wanted purpose, but did not seek God’s direction. She exemplified Phil 2:21 rather than Matt 6:33. At the conclusion of A Mending at the Edge we find Emma content in her relationships in the community. Did she reach that same relationship with God? I hope so.

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