Hardin Farm by Jean Kipfer In 1921 Hardin Farm is a prosperous but unhappy place. Paul and Anna Hardin are uniquely attached, as only those siblings can be who are raised without their mothers. Sam Hardin’s three wives are buried side by side in the cemetery by the lake, and he sees no reason to find another. Anna keeps the house clean and is a good cook, and since she’d gotten older, he’s thought of even more things she can do for him. Strangely, Sam Hardin disappears never to be found and Anna falls into a strange sleep from which she cannot be awaken. The Church folk put Anna in the care of two doctors in Chicago, practitioners of the new science of psychiatry. But Paul is left to wallow in the mystery of their father’s disappearance until many years later when the two siblings meet again on Hardin Farm.

Hardin Hammond was just an infant in his mother's arms when the family was thrown out of their home by Federal soldiers in August of 1862, the beginning of the Civil War. Hardin's parents, John Robert and Mary Owen Hammond, moved their family deeper into the Missouri countryside to escape the war. By following his father's sage advice, Hardin grew to be a hardworking and honest man. He faced many challenges in his forty-six years of life. He outwitted would-be thieves and murderers at age fifteen while traveling alone to attend business school in Quincy, Illinois. He mourned the loss of nine of his thirteen siblings and that of his beloved wife, Lillie, when she was only thirty-eight-years-old. Because of his vow to "do the right thing," Hardin experienced many successes. His ranch, Pleasant Valley Stock Farm, flourished, and he was recognized in his community for his service to humanity and his upright moral and ethical values. Based upon the Hammond family history preserved throughout the years, Hardin's Legacy is one man's story of success, compassion, love, and tragedy. His values and philosophy were embodied in his life's motto, "endeavor to do right."