It was 1919, and the death of their infant son drove Ida Barnes nearly mad, resulting in an avalanche of events that she and her husband, Jim, were totally unprepared for. He had lived in Baltimore City all his life, and could not imagine moving to the "wilderness" of Appalachia as Ida's condition demanded. The Barnes Bridge, the second book in the Over the Barnes Bridge series, is a true story about the hardships Ida and Jim Barnes endured and how they created a new life for themselves and their five children in the mountains of Western Maryland. Danger and adventure were daily events; near-death experiences all too common. Jim became a coal miner and logger. Ida labored over a scrub board and wood cook stove, tended crops, kids, and chickens, and made a home for them.