Clara Tyler loved being a nurse in rural Ohio, assisting the local doctor by visiting patients in their homes. When her older brother Samuel sent a telegram to the family, her life changed dramatically. Samuel, a railroad engineer, had left four months earlier to work on the Panama Canal construction. He was now very ill and urgently requested Clara to come and accompany him home. When Clara reached the Panama Canal Zone, she was shocked by the appalling conditions. Soon, she was faced with many difficult circumstances, both in providing medical care to the many men affected by disease and by some personal challenges. The historical fictional work, Clara’s Way, written by Roberta Carr, is an enlightening perspective on the building of this famous waterway.

There is a great deal of information about the hazardous obstacles facing the managers and laborers. The author also skillfully blends a cast of interesting characters; some are real people who had a major role in the construction and others are fictional characters. The character of Clara is especially intriguing, as she struggles with her commitments to family and an engagement against the demands of caring for men afflicted by tropical diseases. In 1904, the lack of choices for an independent woman is clearly described. Additionally, her use of prayer and spiritual guidance for decision-making is also appropriate to the era. Author Roberta Carr has brought the historical event of the building of the Panama Canal to life in her novel, Clara’s Way. It is compelling and informative, a not-to-be-missed book!

The setting for Roberta R Carr’s book, Clara’s Way, is unusual – the building of the Panama Canal. It is 1905 and Clara leaves her home farm in Ohio and takes the hazardous sea voyage to Panama to bring her sick brother back to the family. His condition is far worse than she expected and then she herself falls ill with yellow fever, further delaying her return. Fate takes a hand and Clara, a qualified nurse, stays on to work at Ancon hospital. Her previous experience acting as a district nurse in rural Ohio has not prepared her for the tropical diseases, the appalling conditions, and the lack of supplies and the mounting deaths. She meets friends and foes, many based on real historical people, and finds love in the most unlikely place. She is caught between doing what she loves, tending the sick, and her duty to her family and her fiancé who keep urging her to return home.

The character of Clara in Clara’s Way by Roberta R Carr is so well drawn I felt as if I had met her in real life. I was impressed too with the description of the Panama region and the conditions suffered by those who labored to cut a path through the ten miles between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to build the canal. The reader is drawn into an era, only a little over a hundred years ago, in the days before antibiotics and the accepted belief in the transmission of disease through mosquito bites. We bond with Clara as she and the doctors fight to save lives, working twelve-hour shifts, and longer. The book also highlights the attitude towards women, basically the property of their husbands, with limited chance of careers, and the expected filial duty to their patriarchal-led families. It reminds the reader of how much has changed in a century. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend this as an excellent mirror of a time in history.