331 Polishing the Gems: The Story of an Extraordinary Woman Living Through Hard Times

Josephine (Jo) Alexander (1909-1993) was Nancy Manahan’s dearest friend and Natalya Lukin’s beloved grandmother. The world knew Jo as a prize-winning journalist and photographer, social justice advocate, and author of America Through the Eye of My Needle (1981), a critical analysis of business conglomerates. But no one knew details about the fourteen years Jo spent as an impoverished Arizona homesteader and rancher during the Depression—-that is, until after Jo’s death, Natalya found Jo’s “messy” unpublished memoir among boxes of unpublished essays. Natalya and Nancy (also Jo’s literary executor)formed a bi-coastal collaboration to edit and publish Jo’s memoir: At Sea on the Range: From Berkeley Radical to Arizona Homesteader 1934-1948. Nancy “fell in love with the story of this extraordinary woman who was courageous, adaptable, self-confident, and capable of surmounting impossible barriers.” Natalya values her grandmother as a timeless role model for courageous, capable, and enterprising women. At Sea on the Range won Best Memoir in the 2025 Great Southwest Book Festival.

"We felt compelled to share the story of how a city girl with studies in literature and anthropology fell in love with an impoverished rancher in Arizona, adapted to grueling circumstances, and grew to appreciate the desert and its people."

Connect with Nancy and Natalya  

Email: [e-mail]

Book:  At Sea on the Range: From Berkeley Radical to Arizona Homesteader 1934-1948. (2024) by Josephine Alexander, Natalya Lukin, & Nancy Manahan. 

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