Overview

It's early morning two days before Christmas of 1937 and ten year old Ralph has just finished gathering eggs. He sees black smoke rising up by the highway a half mile north of their farm in north central Kansas, where he lives with his mother and step-father. The smoke is from a terrible traffic accident and fire. Ralph finds the lone survivor, a Samoyed dog, that was thrown clear, but injured. The collar tag identifies the dog as Snow. Ralph cares for him. The extended family gathers for Christmas Dinner at Grandma's house in town and it is learned that Uncle Ike has been taken to the hospital with a heart seizure, leaving Aunt Lulu to tend the sixty steers and other livestock on their hill ranch north of town alone. Ralph and his disreputable cousin Harold are selected to help Lulu. Snow is a valuable stud show dog, and the estate of the accident victims wanted him. Ralph is appointed guardian of Snow until the kennel master came to claim him. Snow goes to Lulu's ranch with Ralph. Cousin Howard goes to town and is stranded by the big blizzard. Ralph and Lulu must fend for themselves and the livestock. Ralph and Snow find the lone stray trapped by a snowdrift in a tree well. On a return trip with hay for the stray, Ralph and Snow and the stray are attacked by a pack of vicious hungry wild dogs. Exhausted, Ralph collapses in the driving snow just yards from Lulu's cabin door...

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9781530397983

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Ralph Neighbor was bred in Kansas, born across the state line in Missouri but raised back in Kansas, in greater Kansas City, which would seem to make him a city boy. However, the old saw 'you can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy' rings true. Rural family ties had a strong pull. He spent as much of his formative years as parents would allow in the maternal family's home province of Downs, Kansas in the north central part of the State. There he took in the culture, attended local celebrations, contributed to local mischief, listened to stories from aunts and uncles and cousins, grandfather and great grandfather. With adolescence annual autumn pheasant hunts become part of the picture. A little later came extended drives with Grandpa Floyd all over the countryside and through nearby communities, Floyd supplying colorful nonstop monologue regarding who used to live here and who used to live there, and what they did and what happened to whom and when, and what those so-and-sos from the government had done to mess up the country in general and farming in particular. Ralph has always been a good listener. Ralph did his college at Kansas State University and medical doctor training at Kansas University. He trained in Obstetrics at the hospital where he was born. He delivered many babies over the next four decades, first in Kansas, then in Washington State. Ralph and partner Pam raised four children and enjoy seven grandchildren. In addition to writing Ralph has passion for music, fly fishing, trains and worship.

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