Mari Sandoz

Mari Susette Sandoz was a Nebraska novelist, biographer, lecturer, and teacher. She became one of the Wests foremost writers, and wrote extensively about pioneer life and the Plains Indians.

Sandoz was born near Hay Springs, Nebraska, the eldest of six children born to Swiss immigrants, Jules and Mary Elizabeth Sandoz. Her father was said to be a violent and domineering man, who disapproved of her writing and reading. Her childhood was spent in hard labor on the home farm, and she developed snow blindness in one eye after a day spent digging the familys cattle out of a snowdrift.

Source: Wikipedia