Charlotte Renner Locklear

Greener Pastures Charlotte Renner Locklear

Greener Pastures, Charlotte Renner Locklear's story of her paternal and maternal origins, fits into the larger American migration story. Her relatives, the Renners and Kopps, claim membership in the subset of European immigrants known as Germans from Russia. These pioneers, first from Germany to Russia, then from Russia to North America, helped to settle the western United States and Canadian provinces. The historical narrative of this book follows the Renner and Kopp families on their journeys from Germany to southwestern Russia and then across the Atlantic Ocean to a "better life." The author also includes an account of what it was like to grow up in the 1950s on a farm five miles north of a small North Dakota prairie town where life was dominated by two things: farming and the Catholic Church as represented by Assumption Abbey, a Benedictine abbey whose twin spires can be seen for miles.