Among Wolves - Volume One

Growing Up in the Shadow of the Ku Klux Klan and Tribal Lands

By: Berna Bolyn

Narrated by: Susanna Burney

Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

In 1947, one-year-old Berna Bolyn’s family moved to the highest, most remote mountaintop in northeastern Oklahoma on the border with Arkansas. The family of eight had 400,000 acres of Ozark National Forest at their backs and a cluster of Klan families within a 10-mile radius of their property. Two Cherokee land grant families lived four miles away. Berna’s family befriended Chief John Fog and his widowed sister, Grandma Ross. John was a medicine man who cared for people and animals. He and his sister held traditional knowledge of the healing herbs, edible plants, and mushrooms that grew on the edge of the mountain’s natural springs.

Berna’s parents had moved the family to the mountains to help her older brothers, Roy and John, who had returned from World War II and the Korean War with battle fatigue—PTSD. While Berna’s parents worked to build their strawberry farm, Berna’s sisters became her caregivers. By age three, Berna was riding the family’s horse. She rode Bonny near the house and in the family’s strawberry fields. At night, the howls of the timber wolves rose at the edge of the forest. By day, she watched from the safety of their fenced yard as wolf shadows darted around the trees. Sometimes she encountered the pack while riding in the woods. The wolves and she built a kinship as she became part of the wilderness.

The summer before Berna started first grade in the newly built, all-white Klan school, her brothers left the farm with their new wives. Two sisters also married and left as well. One sister, still in high school, stayed away as much as she could. At age five, Berna was left to care for her elderly parents. It was the summer she learned to survive. It was the summer she ran with the wolves and witnessed a terrifying ceremony in the valley far below, where, first, a string of burning torches formed a large circle. Then, huge flames rose in the shape of a cross.

©2022 Bolyntine Books LLC (P)2022 Bolyntine Books LLC

A Beautiful Tale, Exceptionally Well Told

It may be a measure of how backwards my tiny Oklahoma community was when I was a boy, but I recognized so much of what the author describes, even though it took place a little before my time. The characters felt familiar to me, like people I knew when I was growing up. The places, like Muskogee and Tahlequah (where I did my first professional stage audition), and the peoples, Cherokee and Osage (whose land my parents and I lived on), all came flooding back to me in a cascade of memories - happy, sad, wistful - that ran the gamut.
Ms. Burney's voice is perfectly suited to that time and place. She sounds warm and sincere, but with the emotional evenness that I associate with those people of the plains, of which time and distance tend to make me forget I am one. Kudos to author and narrator for this lovely piece of storytelling.

Family Saga And Wilderness Survival Among KKK

An interesting family saga and history of a little known or written of White Supremacy, KKK. Authors personal experience of living among wolves and surviving the wilderness.

Great Listening and interesting true story, Family Saga and wilderness adventures of survival not expected to find in America

I liked the historical aspects of this extraordinary memoir that isn’t always found in memoirs, social studies, civics and history books. I would recommend to anybody that is interested in real life stories love and loyalty to family. The history of the region and the original KKK organization and meeting places, life-threatening danger in the wilderness environment. And her lifetime interest in modern-day spinoff groups of white supremacy, modern day hate groups and gun violence. It's an education and political awareness for prevention and future of America.