The Macalister Family was a family of seven. Parents, Seth and Astrid and their five adult children all still living at home. Home was a small farm just outside Independence, Missouri. But not for long, one day Seth got the urge for a better if not easier life for him and his family.

He told his wife, Astrid, he planned to take her and the kids as he called them on to California to settle in the so-called land of plenty, where they could likely get good paying jobs, entertaining folks, as a family band performing at civic events, weddings, and parties. Like their mother, the girls all possessed musical ability, singing and dancing. While youngest son, Josh, had an interest in of all things magic? Stranger yet, their oldest son, Matt, who had read countless dime store novels of the untamed west and from that, he yearned to carry a gun and become a lawman.

On a warm spring day in 1879, they joined their two wagons to a large contingent of Christians headed west by wagon train. The group were seeking a better life and religious freedom on the western frontier. In their perilous six-month journey west, they had encountered hostile Indians, inclement weather, treacherous terrain, and river crossings to get to the new land full of promise in Utah and beyond to California.

In time, the Macalister Family broke off from the Christian wagon train and went their separate way, performing in small towns whenever they could, until they would reach their destination in California. In time, they would learn, things did not go quite as planned, as they continued their perilous journey toward California.