the Folks Woods in Bloomington, MN

The Folks in the Woods focuses on Mary Ann Ackerson, 1904-91, in an isolated French village located in southeast Missouri. When she was seven years old, her parents—Daly and Sarah Ackeson—died of typhoid fever on successive days in 1911. Because Missouri was not yet a state, there were no adoption procedures for Mary Ann and her two brothers and one sister. The author's maternal great-grandfather and great-grandmother, Zeno and Sarah Osia, took Mary Ann to live with them. She grew up with their son—Joseph, who died at the age of seventeen two years later—and their daughter, Margaret—the author's maternal grandmother—who was a few years older than Mary Ann. Mary Ann became a feminist before feminism was invented. At her time in history, she entered a man's world and adopted it instead of maintaining the customs of a woman's world. This is her story and the stories of other folks who lived near her in the woods.