Today we’d like to introduce you to Barbara Marshak.
Hi Barbara, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Life. It’s what happens along the way. Like when you fall off the teeter-totter as a kid and need stitches in your forehead. Or when you’re running late for work and don’t quite stop at the stop sign—and yup, broadside a police car in your hometown where everybody knows your name.
The last of seven kids, I was the surprise, born when my parents were ages 49 and 51. Dad was a third-generation dairy farmer on the Veden farm west of Wadena in north central Minnesota. Already grandparents to three, Mom and Dad were convinced without a shadow of a doubt they were done raising kids. Still, they welcomed me into the old farmhouse, placing the well-worn crib in the kitchen where Mom spent her days. When I was two, the folks handed over the family farm to my brother and we “moved to town”.
Truth was, I didn’t realize how old my parents were until I started kindergarten and saw how young the other mothers were. One day I asked Mom, “Will you still be alive when I get home?”
I can’t imagine how that made her feel.
In junior high school the boys teased me about my “grandma” coming to school events. By high school I didn’t care. Dad was Swedish, tall and very good looking. He was also very private and hardly said a word. Even though I had six older siblings, I grew up like an only child. The only sound in our living room each evening was the tick-tock, tick-tock of the wall clock. Out of pure boredom, I began to make up stories.
We spent every Saturday and Sunday at the farm, a pretty parcel of prairie and woodlands homesteaded by Dad’s grandparents in 1883. The farm was where my imagination came to life, wondering what it must have been like for my great-grandparents as settlers a century earlier. What brought them here from halfway around the world? The farm provided an endless number of places for my imagined dramas to play out: the red dairy barn, the corn crib, the granary, and the thick grove of trees beside the farmhouse.
I married young, barely nineteen, with romantic notions of having babies and raising my own family. As it turned out, I loved being a mom to my two little girls. The marriage, however, had some rough spots. Ten years later I found myself back in my hometown as a single mom. I bought a house one block over from my parents and enrolled the girls in my old elementary school. The quiet, tree-lined streets of Wadena offered a sense of security, familiarity, and time for me to get back on solid ground.
A few years later came second chances, a second marriage. Transition from our little family of three to a blended family with six kids. Small town to big city. Establishing our own family traditions with ‘yours, mine, and ours’. Handling the busy school years and running every which way while working a day job and trying to keep ahead of the game. All the while wondering what ever happened to that little eight-year-old who wrote her first novel in third grade; or the teenager who charted out novels with complete lists of characters and plot lines, or the young mother who had signed up for a creative writing class at the community college with no way to get there.
Life. A lot had happened along the way.
I had an empty space inside needing to be filled. It was time to rediscover that little girl who believed in herself and had a passion to write. I stayed up late each night, after the family was in bed. Soon the stories, memories, ideas trickled to the surface. From there came the beginnings of a freelance career, published pieces, and the first novel. Threads from my life, woven into the fabric of my writing, giving time and place and meaning.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
a) Loss of a dream b) Autoimmune diagnosis that took away my health
I sat with my back against the bark of a Ponderosa Pine, the warm October sun beating down. Journal in hand, the view in front of me was like none other in the entire world—Devils Tower National Monument. In 2008 I was the recipient of a writer’s residency with eight glorious days to work on my novel, Seeds of Salton. Living in the suburb of Minneapolis, this gift of time was a treasure. Writing was my passion and I’d come to realize that I felt closest to God when I was writing or spending time in the West. That week, I had both.
A few years later I was invited to be a presenter at the South Dakota Festival of Books. During our stay in the historic town of Deadwood, my husband and I happened upon a guest ranch for sale. From our very first visit, something stirred in our hearts. We had vacationed in the Black Hills numerous times and we had connections with a Native American band through my first book, Hidden Heritage. Our concept was to build an outdoor theater to showcase the American Indian culture through music and dance in Paha Sapa, sacred land of the Lakota.
Throughout the next fifteen months, all the ‘signs’ pointed to God leading us to the ranch. We were sure, beyond sure even, that the move was right. Answer the call, our devotions often said. Dream big. Pray boldly. We cashed in our retirement and savings and partnered with an investment firm who believed in our mission.
My husband’s entrepreneurial spirit gave him great vision. In time John turned the 17-acre property into a vacation destination. For several summers we hosted nightly concerts with the popular Native American music group. The next season we booked a band from Nashville and at various times held worship services. We partnered with the local arts community and held events year-round. Wherever John saw an opportunity for growth, he accepted the challenge. With all the expansions and improvements, we needed additional funds from the main investor periodically, which ultimately reduced our percent of ownership.
Time and again, our guests told us they sensed something special about the ranch, something spiritual. And it was true. We felt it from the beginning. We told everyone that we called the ranch kingdom land and were there as caretakers for however long God had ordained.
My soul thrived in the hills, but the stresses of the business overwhelmed me. Daily hikes in the surrounding hillsides were like balm to my spirit. The crunch of grass beneath my boots, eyes on alert for the next bald eagle sighting. Each hike meant more rocks for my landscape projects. The whispers of the Ponderosa pines spoke to me like an intimate friend. The hills were my place and space to talk to God.
Six years into our adventure John traveled out of town one weekend while I stayed home to work on a collection of my short stories and essays. I planned to publish them in a compilation titled Landscapes of Life. As I read through the manuscript for the umpteenth time, a chill formed. The dominant factor emanating from each piece was that same sense of belonging I had experienced at Devils Tower. And it hit me—this was my destiny. This intersection between writing and living in the West.
I rushed to my computer and wrote the copy for the back cover:
“Life has many landscapes, from the foundations of our beginning, to the horizons of our future. Along the way, choices and chance encounters play a pivotal role. On a parallel course, however, is one’s destiny. The path set in motion long ago; the longings imbedded deep within, the undeniable pull. It is only through this simultaneous journey, side by side between the known and unknown, the aware and unaware, where one’s true purpose is fulfilled. In this collection of short stories and essays, award-winning author Barbara Marshak weaves the parallels together in a blend of prose and rhythmic writing style. It’s a journey that unfolds in stages over time, a journey of heart and soul.”
Joy filled my heart. That kind of joy that comes from God and God alone. As soon as the proof copy arrived, I sketched out plans for a grandiose book release with our local arts community. And then, to my shock, our dream came to a crashing end. Business dealings far too complex to share erupted in a bad way. As minority owners, we were done. Out. We lost our investment, our retirement, and our life savings. Beyond that my aching heart wondered how I could ‘discover’ my destiny…only to lose it within a matter of weeks.
I cancelled the book’s publication. Not ready to give up on the West, the thought came that maybe we could move farther west. John had had a promising interview with a regional corporation and was pretty much guaranteed the job. Days passed and we clung to the hope that Montana was our next destination. Old Man Winter blew in from the west, but there was no word from the HR director. Every day brought a constant battle of faith versus fear. Trust versus panic. One minute I’d feel safe and secure, wrapped in the comforting words of scripture that I’d read. In the next, drop-kicked to my knees, a constant seesaw of panicked ups and downs. The devil hurled accusations of FAILURE and SHAME at us like water out of a firehose, causing us to isolate.
Did we fail? Or were we betrayed? Either way, our time as caretakers of our beloved kingdom land had expired. On a bitter cold February day, we loaded everything we still had into U-Haul trucks, and from there, into storage units. My beloved quartz rocks were frozen to the ground and I had to leave them behind. Along with the Art-Shack and the horses and the view of those gorgeous hills. It broke my heart.
Desperate for income, John took a position at a resort in northern Minnesota even though it wasn’t a good fit. Here we were, in our mid-60s, starting over like a couple of broke college kids. We spent the summer in our camper, more confused than ever. Through a friend John got word of a job opportunity south of the Cities, not far from the suburb where we had lived for 24 years. Meanwhile I applied at any administrative jobs close to John’s new job. While packing up the camper, I interviewed via Google Meet at a college and was later offered the position. We moved in with our daughter and her family, assuming we might be there a few weeks at most. My first day at work was the first time I had seen the campus. My new supervisor asked me to meet her to go through the paperwork with Human Resources. I sat on a bench in the hallway, looking down at the lower floor where people worked in a windowless maze of typical office cubes. Depression consumed my thoughts. <i>I’ll be stuck in a basement cube for eight hours a day!</i>
As soon as HR completed the paperwork, my supervisor said, “Okay, let me show you where you’ll be working.” I followed her out the door to another building. Built in 1924, the six-story building looked like a European castle. We walked down a wide hallway—and then I saw it. A name plate with my name next to an office door.
“I have my own office?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said without question.
It wasn’t your ordinary office either. Large windows overlooked the manicured campus grounds. There were bookshelves and a beautiful desk and credenza. And so began my nearly six years as an administrative assistant to the History and Environmental Studies departments. Since all my dress clothes were packed away in storage units, I tried to piece together decent outfits until I could afford a few new things. The two weeks with our daughter and her family stretched into ten months. They were gracious and kind, yet we felt guilty for ‘intruding’ in their home.
I cried a lot back then.
The embarrassment and failure of our loss hit us both hard. Crippled us to the point where John and I hid from the world. People wanted to know ‘what happened’ … and we didn’t have a good answer. Unlike a tragic event that happens to someone, like a tornado or fire, I wondered if we had done this to ourselves. Trusted someone we shouldn’t have. Missed the Red Flags. Even though those thoughts nagged at the back of my mind, we both had to get up, get dressed, and go to work. Start paying down our debt. Keep on, keepin’ on.
Since then, I have known people close to me who have lost their home in a fire or lost a spouse unexpectedly. Their pain is far greater, I get it. Yet my pain was my pain. Sure enough, the combined stresses caught up to me, and I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR), a debilitating illness that attacks the muscles. The doctor’s prescription took away the pain but brought unwelcome side effects that changed my physical appearance. I no longer recognized myself in the mirror.
Looking back, as much as I longed for our own home during that stressful period, I knew our time together was a gift. The oldest granddaughter couldn’t contain her excitement whenever John came home from work. “Papa, are you home?” she’d exclaim (when she was supposed to be in bed). “Papa, is that you?” she’d ask, loud enough to wake up her baby sister. When we finally did find a home, she asked her mom when Papa and Nana were coming back to her house, because, as she declared, “they can’t stay here forever!” Such a sweetheart.
God has gifted us with many blessings. John is doing well in his new career and recognizes God’s favors as he learned the business. Provision.
I started writing again. Presence.
Together, we found joy again. Peace.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
“Life has many landscapes, from the foundations of our beginning to the horizons of our future. Along the way, choices and chance encounters play a pivotal role. On a parallel course, however, is one’s destiny. The path set in motion long ago; the longings imbedded deep within, the undeniable pull. It is only through this simultaneous journey, side by side between the known and unknown; the aware and unaware, where one’s true purpose is fulfilled.”
Those are the thoughts that prompted Barbara to publish a collection of her award-winning essays and short stories in a book titled: Landscapes of Life (2025). It’s a journey of the heart that unfolds over time.
a) best known for my writing (5 published books & over 100 essays, articles & stories)
b) most proud: that I didn’t give up on writing, despite life’s ups and downs
c) individual style of writing & creative ways to showcase my amateur landscape photography
What was your favorite childhood memory?
Spending Saturdays and Sundays on the family farm. I had the best of “both worlds”, growing up in the quiet & safe streets of small-town America, yet experiencing the important lessons of life on the farm (without having to do chores). One of those experiences led to a favorite essay of many called “The Cows”.
Pricing:
- $18
Contact Info:
- Website: www.BarbaraMarshak.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barbaramarshak/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/barbara.marshak
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbara-marshak-22b1841a/
- Other: https://www.amazon.com/Landscapes-Life-Collection-Stories-Essays/dp/1730703933/
