Ilsa Rohe: Parsing Vengeance

by Stephenson Ross

The tale of ILSA ROHE is told from the perspective of two young women, one age twenty-seven and the other age thirteen. It is a story of love and of tragedy. The book is based on a true event in Ohio's history. Its drama unfolds as it describes how a murderous passion brought unwanted notoriety to a peaceful farming township.

246 pages, Paperback

First published September 13, 2014

Reviews

[Lianne]

This historical novel is based on a murder that took place in Ohio, in 1844. It is the family story of a friend from my former writing group in the Central Valley. When her grandfather was just two years old, his stepmother killed her father and nine year old brother with an axe, and also wounded hissister. The novel depicts the pressure cooker atmosphere of German immigrant farming life of the era. Ilsa, whose name gives the novel its title, is the stepmother. How such a competent and attractive woman could be driven to commit so horrendous an act is the major question posed by the plot. Ilse is a widow, and marries Ainslie, a widower. Both of them have children and individual properties. Ilsa's son is severely handicapped and she is singleminded in her devotion to his care. The book explores the issue of how women in the nineteenth century had no financial rights. She did not control the farm that had belonged to her husband outright but was forced to endure its control by a male relative. She worked very hard to improve the farm and make it productive but could see in this blended family situation that her own children could be denied their legacy. Among with a certain narcissism because she was her father's darling, Ilse was eventually driven to madness over the fear of eventually losing the property to her new husband and his children. We often romanticize pioneer family life but the realities of so many children dying before the age of 5, women often dying in childbirth, and unforgiving social mores made family life much less idyllic than we'ed like to think. This novel captures the stresses in a masterful and convincing way.

[Gurpreet K. Cheema]

wonderfully tragic story based on truth

The story is tragic because the wife of the man who she loved killed him in a insanity because she believed he betrayed her and her children when he promised to protect them. He didn't betray her but in he mind he did and she was so angry from that betrayal that she went insane and killed him and one his children. Read on for more.