Our featured story this week is “Root Beer Lady,” the story of Dorothy Molter, written and illustrated by Bob Cary.  

The Foreword in the book reads “From 1930 to 1986, a period of fifty-six years, the Isle of Pines at Knife Lake, along the Minnesota-Ontario border, provided the setting for a drama that the wilderness had never seen before and will never see again. The star was Dorothy Molter, a young Chicago nurse who opted for a life on the northern frontier, thirty miles from Ely, the nearest city.  This book tells of that life as fully as the facts could be assembled.”

Born May 6, 1907, in a quaint town near Pittsburgh, Penn., along the Allegheny River, Dorothy Louise Molter was the 3rd of six children. Her father was part of the Railroad Police. When Dorothy was just a second grader, her mother died after a short illness and this left her father a widower, to raise six children alone. Because of his job with the railroad, Dorothy’s dad was unable to keep the children at home so he placed them in an orphanage where he was able to have visitation and support when he was not working.  After her father remarried, the family came back together again and soon moved to Chicago.  

Dorothy was an excellent athlete and a skilled marksman. She went on to become a nurse. Her last year of school she visited Knife Lake and this visit would completely change her life.  In this book you will learn how she became known for her root beer and all the means she used to survive remotely in Minnesota. I hope you will take the chance to read this story of a talented, gracious, kind and courageous woman.  

Come on up to the Henning Library and find yourself a book that will keep your interest over the next several weeks of winter.  We will have the tea hot and the information to help you find just the right book.