2018
Willa Knox has inherited her aunt’s house in Vineyard, New Jersey just when her husband has found a teaching job nearby, so she thinks her luck has changed for the better. She’d built a career in the magazine industry as a journalist but the magazines, like all print media, are going under. With her career ended she moves with her husband, his disabled father, and her daughter into the old house and begins repairs. But the contractor who shows up to give her an estimate has bad news, the house’s foundation can’t be fixed. With this bad news comes more, her son Zeke’s wife has taken her own life shortly after giving birth to a baby boy. Willa brings the baby back to her crumbling house and finds herself caring for a grumpy, elderly father-in-law and a new baby who has lost his mother. Quite a career change.
Over a hundred years ago, another family lived on the same corner, maybe even the same house. Thatcher Greenwood has taken a position as a teacher at the local school in the town of Vineyard. The house is falling down around him and his wife Rose, her younger sister Polly, and the girls’ mother. Thatcher is excited about teaching his science classes about the new theories of Charles Darwin. As it happens his neighbor, Mary Treat is in correspondence with Darwin regarding rare species of plants and animals she finds in the countryside nearby. Mary’s husband has deserted her and Thatcher finds in her a reasoning mind similar to his own, a vivid contrast between her and the females of his household. At this time, the city is ruled by a man named Landis, who built the town promising heaven on earth. He has control of most aspects of the city including the school where Thatcher teaches. The schoolmaster demands that Thatcher debate him in front of the community with Landis officiating. Thatcher does very well, having been coached by young Polly and Mary Treat, but there’s really no winning against a man like Landis, whose authority could be threatened by reasoning minds.
Meanwhile, in the current century Willa is trying to find out if Mary Treat lived in her house, hoping that if she did, she can get funding from a historical society to restore it. Mary has gone on to become a noted naturalist after Thatcher Greenwood leaves the area. Willa’s daughter begins to show a very mature interest in her nephew, and the boy’s father has moved to the big city to try to move on past the death of his beloved wife.
Unsheltered reminds us of the value of what we call home, how sometimes the roof over our heads is not where home is, that it may have more to do with the people we are with than any man made structure.