The year was 1928, and the iconic paddlewheel steamers that had once been the crown jewels of the Mississippi were in their twilight years. The era of rambling river travel and romantic overnight voyages was rapidly giving way to the accelerated pace of an automotive age. But for Astrid Hansen, the lumbering leviathans still held an irresistible allure.
Six years earlier, at the age of 37, Astrid had embarked upon what seemed like a fanciful dream - leaving behind her family's humble Minnesota farm to become the wife of Hans Towers, a venerated riverboat captain. In the intervening years, her metamorphosis from rural farmgirl to lady of the inland waters was nothing short of extraordinary.
Astrid has a petite frame and stands
around 5 feet 8 inches tall. Her hair color is a dark brown. She has an oval-shaped face with striking features, including full lips, high cheekbones, and expressive brown eyes.
Her husband Hans stands tall at 6 feet 2 inches, with a muscular and lean build.
He has a thick, bushy mustache, piercing blue eyes and a weathered face that adds to his rugged and rough-around-the-edges appeal.
His hair is often styled in a combed-back manner, accentuating his cowboy-like appearance.
Astrid took to her new seafaring lifestyle with unbridled passion, embracing each new port of call and reveling in the kaleidoscope of souls that made their way aboard her husband's vessel. Whether soaking in the splendors of nature's forever-changing riverscapes or entertaining passengers with riveting tales from the tattered bundle of family letters detailing her bucolic upbringing, she belonged on these murky, meandering rivers.
But the waterways that had been her home for over half a decade were rapidly shifting from romantic relics into commercial thoroughfares. The halcyon days of leisurely excursions were fading into the rearview mirror of American progress. Astrid could sense the hourglass counting down the grains of sand remaining on her singular odyssey.
As the paddles slowly began to churn, ushering Astrid's anointed paddle wheeler away from the dock and into the murky unknown of the Mississippi's northbound currents, she stood defiantly on the deck. Clutching the faded packet of family letters, she transformed from an aimless farm girl-turned-accidental aquatic aristocrat into the defiant master of her own destiny.
This was to be Astrid's defining odyssey - perhaps her last, whether she knew it or not. For the next seven years, she would chart an unparalleled course through uncharted waters of life itself. Armed with the wisdom and fortitude gleaned from humble country roots, she would brave heartache and hardship in pursuit of an all-too-fleeting American dream.
Yet through it all, that tattered bundle of letters remained her lodestar. The fading family scrawls spilled across their timeworn pages would prove equally essential to her survival as the river's eddies and currents. They connected Astrid's path, rooted in a simpler era of farmland traditions, to the modernizing world taking shape around her.
