“I want my children to know who I am.”

This great-grandmother realized that her grown children knew very little about the tale of her family and her life’s journey, and they knew nothing about her brother who died tragically when he was seventeen years old. So she wrote a book. Ruth captures a simpler time of life of growing up on a small farm in Randolph, Vermont in the 1940s and ‘50s. Her father harvested ice during the winter and sold it during the summer, and she recalls fond memories in “Riding on the Ice Truck” and “Going After the Cows” that left her with a need to hang onto her roots. She goes on to write “On Becoming a Nurse,” “Learning to Work the Defibrillator,” “Ward A at Gifford” (Gifford Memorial Hospital), “My In-Laws” and more.

The Iceman’s Daughter beautifully weaves together the family stories with her cherished recipes for bread, apple pie and shortcake, her journey back to nursing and adds bits of wisdom she has gleaned while coping with life’s problems.

The overwhelming theme throughout this audiobook is love, love for each other, love for the land and love for the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and those great-grandchildren yet to be born. Ruth Hill Small has written a heartwarming audiobook that the listener will find hard to forget.