Prairie Lotus

Hanna faces racism and intolerance from many in LaForge. From the moment she walks into the hotel room on her arrival to the town, she takes care based on past experiences to hide who she is: “With her bonnet tied on firmly and the load piled high in her arms, her face was mostly hidden from view” (14). She keeps away from the windows of the rented rooms as well, lest someone see her before Papa has a chance to make a few acquaintances and to share the promise of a new business for the town. Hanna finds only a few allies initially, such as Miss Walters, who shows the school children with a simple activity that in fact everyone in LaForge is from someplace else. Mr. Harris supports Hanna and Papa as well, promoting their moral characteristics to the crowd at the school board meeting. Hanna thinks fellow student Sam might be on her side as well, but most of the rest of the students begin to ostracize and harass her on her second day. Soon, parents in the town pull their children from the school because she attends. As LaForge is quite small, soon only three students remain, Hanna being one of them.

The way others treat Hanna as she becomes known in town juxtaposes an opening scene in the book in which she welcomes several strangers to her campsite. Indigenous Ihanktonwan women, whom Hanna thinks of as Sioux, approach Hanna out of curiosity, and she welcomes them to eat soup with her. Later, Hanna realizes the oldest of the group, Wichapiwin, wanted to see that Hanna was well and safe, intuiting that Hanna had no mother. The natural acceptance between Hanna and Wichapiwin continues in the second half of the novel when they harvest timpsina together under the prairie sun—away from the town. Their relationship contrasts all relationships Hanna makes in LaForge: even allies like Bess and Miss Walters cannot fully empathize with Hanna the way Wichapiwin can.

Hanna wants badly to earn success as a dressmaker; she believes initially that her creations will charm the townspeople into accepting her. While the shop’s opening is a nice success, and she succeeds in proving her worth as a dressmaker to all including Papa, she realizes that “[s]he had been wrong earlier, when she thought that her work as a seamstress would endear her to all of LaForge. There would always be those she would never win over, no matter how many fine dresses she made” (242)—and no matter the smallness of the town. Accepting the truth of this idea is a significant part of Hanna’s coming-of-age. That she completes her character arc as a fulfilled and forward-looking young woman speaks to the strength of her convictions and her duty to “kindness to others first” learned from Mama.