The Doctor’s Wife offers a search for meaning in the midst of crushing circumstances and reminds us today that when truth is hidden, suffering does not disappear. It festers in secret places.

Amelia Anton leaves Germany in 1845 on an immigrant ship bound for Texas. After the death at sea of the child she is hired to tutor, her employer abandons her in Galveston. Reduced to emptying hotel chamber pots, Amelia quickly accepts the marriage proposal of the highly regarded ship physician, Joseph Stein. The couple sail down the coast to a barren camp of German families dying of diseases while they wait for transport inland.

While her husband is absorbed in healing the sick, Amelia grapples with what may be causing her failed marriage. As the community grows, Amelia finds satisfaction operating Doctor Stein’s mercantile business, translating newspapers for Germans who can’t read English, and nurturing a boy who arrives in port as a stowaway.

It is a buying trip to New Orleans that leads Amelia in a new direction and eventual understanding of her own strength.