Author's Note

In the late 1960s, as the roots craze erupted, my late husband and I, both Jews and first-generation Westerners, discovered scraps of Western Jewish history and voraciously sought more. In 1979, I prepared a book proposal supported by my published articles and Fred’s period photographs. Two years later, Knapp Press in collaboration with Houghton Mifflin Company, contracted with us to create an illustrated social history on Jewish life in Spanish, Mexican, and American Far West. As we worked, we continued to collect materials and images from the Rockies to the Pacific.* By the time the book was completed, we were Jewish Westerners with spiritual antecedents of biblical breadth throughout the region.

* For information on our university-housed collections, see www.rochlin-roots-west.com/Collections.