The Rolling Years

The Rolling Years

First edition
Author	Agnes Sligh Turnbull
Language	English
Publisher	The Macmillan Company
Publication date	1936
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (hardback)
Pages	436
OCLC	17316163
Followed by	Remember the End

The Rolling Years is the first novel by the American writer Agnes Sligh Turnbull (1888–1982) and it is set in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, just east of Pittsburgh.

It is a family chronicle (1852–1910) of three generations of Scottish-American Presbyterians in rural Western Pennsylvania and their struggles to maintain their strict faith. The first generation is Daniel and Sarah McDowell, a farm couple. Sarah bears 12 children (of whom five survive) to her dour Calvinistic husband; her bitterness about her repeated, difficult confinements is effectively shown. The second generation is about their children, David and Jeannie. David moves to Pittsburgh where he becomes a judge. Jeannie marries a minister who has been serving as the local school teacher to earn money to complete his education. Jeannie's daughter, Constance, represents the third generation. She becomes a school teacher and struggles to find her place in a changing world. The novel dramatizes the gradual weakening of the strict Calvinism of the Scottish immigrants in an increasingly secular society.

References

• Turnbull, Agnes Sligh (1936). The Rolling Years. New York: The Macmillan Company.
• Demarest, David P. (1976). From These Hills, From These Valleys: Selected Fiction about Western Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 0-8229-1123-X.