'Where Lilacs Still Bloom' by Jane Kirkpatrick, a fictionalized biography of Hulda Klager

Some books grab you by the throat and drain you. Jane Kirkpatrick’s newest won’t do that, I promise. In “Where Lilacs Still Bloom,” Kirkpatrick takes us on a 70-year long journey through the life of Hulda Klager, a farm wife with only an eighth-grade education who became an expert on the cultivation of lilacs and other flowering plants. Lest you dismiss this as mere fiction, be assured that Hulda Klager actually lived and achieved the amazing accomplishments recounted in this fictionalized biography.

Kirkpatrick introduces us to Klager in 1889. She lives with her husband and three of the four children they will eventually have on a farm in Washington. Their property, nestled between the Lewis and Columbia Rivers, holds a working dairy farm along with gardens and orchards. Klager holds a simple dream: a bigger, crisper apple that will be easier to peel so that she can make more apple pies. 

Learn more about Klager and her world here.