When the Cherokee Outlet was opened to homesteaders in the great Land Run of 1893, Wilbert Bruner and his wife Eliza lived in Kansas with two very young sons. Avoiding the mayhem of the land rush, Wilbert staked a claim in the Cherokee Outlet in spring 1894. He slept on the ground and lived alone in a crude sod house until he could build a small frame house for his wife and sons. The book includes stories of the extended family's 250-year migration across America to Oklahoma, stories adventure, success, poverty, heartbreak, and joy.

Nyle Kardatzke lives and writes in Indianapolis, Indiana. His mother grew up in Oklahoma, and her father was the first human to plow the soil on his homestead there. The author was a member of the Future Farmers of America in Ohio. As a teenager, he plowed his grandfather's Oklahoma farm and began to learn about his ancestors' westward migrations from the East Coast. Unable to make it in farming, the author has lived by his wits in cities most of his life. He plans to be buried in a rural cemetery near Dacoma.