Anna Long Hoard stood at Eberhard Cemetery, watching her husband's casket lowered into his grave. Kellis Hoard died by mistaking sulphuric acid for cider, a mystery never solved. Kellis was Anna's rock and the man who farmed Anna's legacy farm. She had no sons.

Could she keep the farm? Generations before her lived the every-man story of American settlers. Like thousands of pioneers who left the East Coast after the Revolutionary War in search of a better life, the Longs fought weather and wild country to move to a state in the Old Northwest Territory. Reuben Long, the patriarch, and his children and grandchildren fought to keep the Indiana farm in the family. If Mother Nature did her part, permanent land ownership meant economic security, a ready supply of food, and one of the few wealth-building opportunities in the country. Keeping the family farm meant survival and security. And their journey was anything but easy.