Adam Trask Timeline and Summary

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• Adam is born while his dad is away fighting. His mom commits suicide while he's still really young.
• Adam really likes Alice, Cyrus's second wife, but she is emotionally elusive.
• Cyrus decides that Adam is his favorite son, and it leads to (1) Cyrus forcing him to enlist in the cavalry and (2) Charles beating the living tar out of him out of jealousy.
• Adam fights in the campaigns against the Indians (read: massacres them), and then after his time is served he re-enlists.
• Adam takes his sweet time coming back home. It takes him years, in fact (partially because he does two stints on a chain gang, and then bolts early).
• Adam goes back to the farm in Connecticut before he decides that living with Charles is intolerable, then it's adios for another few years. He does this a lot.
• Adam and Charles find a badly beaten Cathy on their porch, and Adam falls in love with her as he nurses her back to health. He marries her and takes her out to California.
• Using the dough that his dad left him, Adam buys the sweetest piece of land and plans to make it even more awesome.
• After Cathy has her babies, she shoots Adam in the shoulder when he tries to prevent her from leaving.
• Adam is like a zombie for a year, until Samuel Hamilton snaps him out of it and makes him name the boys.
• After Samuel's funeral, Adam goes to see Cathy (now Kate) in Salinas.
• Adam moves the family into town when the boys are about ten.
• Then we have Adam's failed refrigerated lettuce venture. It loses him most of his money.
• As the boys grow older Adam is super proud of Aron, but he seems perpetually disappointed in Cal.
• Adam is elected to the draft board, which means that he has to decide which young men are going to be sent off to fight in WWI.
• When Cal shows Adam the money he made, Adam tells Cal to give it back.
• After learning that Aron has joined the army, Adam has a minor stroke. When he learns that Aron has been killed, he has a major one that leaves him paralyzed.
• Adam gives Cal his blessing. His last word is "Timshel!"