Palace Wagon Family : A True Story of the Donner Party
by Margaret Sutton
Category: History

The Donner party is the name given to a group of emigrants, including the families of George Donner and his brother Jacob, who became trapped in the Sierra Nevada mountains during the winter of 1846-1847. Nearly half of the party died, and some resorted to eating their dead in an effort to survive. The experience has become legendary as the most spectacular episode in the record of Western migration. This is a story about the ordeal that the Donner Party faced on their trek to California. This story is told from Virginia Reed’s (Patty’s older sister) point of view, and is a tale of indomitable courage on the American frontier. The book portrays the theme of how families had to work together to overcome the many struggles of day to day life on the wagon trail.