From their Hearts: How Our Female Ancestors Told Their Stories in

Diaries and Letters

Kathy PetlewskiOctober 2014

kpetlewski@gmail.com

Circumstances Affecting Women

• Many moved far away from the rest of their original families, whether from another country or another state. Writing was the only way to stay in touch.

• Important events caused women to share their thoughts, if only in a diary – births, deaths, etc.

• Others wanted to leave a written record of their experiences.

Why Write?

• Women were more likely to keep diaries during periods of emotional stress - for example, during times of war.

• Quaker women were encouraged to keep spiritual journals which were then printed and shared with other women. Over 3000 of these were published prior to 1725.

Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas

• “…I wonder if we will ever live to know this feeling of freedom [from debt]. I greatly fear not. Mr. Thomas is too much embarrassed but I have three boys to whom I leave this request, pay your father’s debts. For myself I could be content with very little…”

Monday, January 10, 1870

The Secret Eye; The Journal of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, 1848-1889(Living in Augusta, Georgia during Reconstruction.)

Mary M. Colby

• “Dear Brother and SisterIt is a long time since we have seen each other, but I have not forgotten you although many miles of land and water separate us yet I often wish I could se you and your family and many dear friends in Haverhill … I did not like [it] very well, but after we had taken our claim and become settled once more I began to like it much better and the longer I live here the better I like [it]”

February 8, 1852

Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840 – 1890.

(Writing from her new home in Oregon Territory)

Mary Lyon

• ‘They devoured every green thing but the prairie grass…They ate the leaves and young twigs off our young fruit trees, and seemed to relish the green peaches on the trees, but left the pit hanging. They went from the corn fields as though they were in a great hurry, and there was nothing left but the …bare stalks.’

August 1, 1874

Pioneer Women; Voices from the Kansas Frontier, p. 103

(Writing about the grasshopper destruction)

Annie L. Burton

• One morning in April, 1865, my master got the news that the Yankees had left Mobile Bay and crossed the Confederate lines, and that the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed by President Lincoln. Mistress suggested that the slaves should not be told of their freedom; but master said he would tell them, because they would soon find it out, even if he did not tell them. Mistress, however, said she could keep my mother's three children, for my mother had now been gone so long.

• All the slaves left the plantation upon the news of their freedom, except those who were feeble or sickly. With the help of these, the crops were gathered. My mistress and her daughters had to go to the kitchen and to the washtub. My little half- brother, Henry, and myself had to gather chips, and help all we could. My sister, Caroline, who was twelve years old, could help in the kitchen.

Page 10 in Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days

Eliza McHatton-Ripley

• ”ONCE in Texas…the dear baby succumbed to the first illness he ever had, and one beautiful April day his little body was carried to the cemetery at Houston and buried, as was our blessed Saviour, in a tomb belonging to another. The cradle that had been kindly loaned us by a neighbor, and the various little cups and mugs, also borrowed, were returned, the medicine- bottles put out of sight, and I sat down desolate and lonely in the empty room, with no heart to do any more, feeling that there was nothing now to do but to lie down and die.”

p.77 From Flag to Flag; A Woman’s Adventures and Experiences in the South during the War, In Mexico, and in Cuba

Jette Bruns (German)

• ‘My husband became sick and was very ill-humored. I was with the child in the ladies’ cabin and could not always be with him. And the food was bad…For the first time I tried to express myself in English…I was able to persuade the black cook to take me to the meat storage room, where I looked for some meat for soup…’

November 1836

p.291, Foreign and Female; Immigrant Women in America 1840-1930

Hannah Collins

• ‘It was a lovely place the hills looked so nice and green it reminded me of sweet Ballinlough hill over the Lake where you & I spent many a happy Sunday. I am lonesome for them happy days many a time.’

• June 1, 1900 – writing to her friend, Nora, back in Ireland.

• The Irish Bridget, p.32

Where Do You Locate These Writings?

Published books

• Start with your public library.

• The expand your search to regional or state interloan services. In Michigan, this is MeL.

Having Trouble Finding Titles?https://www.worldcat.org

WorldCat includes over 10,000 libraries, public and academic.

Doing an Advanced Keyword Search

My Search Results

See if there is a library close by

Turn to MeL – http://mel.org(Interloan in Michigan)

We Locate the book

Request the book!

Using Google for Bookshttps://play.google.com

My Google Bookshelf

Results from searching for“pioneer women diaries”

Digital Collections Onlinehttp://docsouth.unc.edu

Moving Westwardhttp://www.over-land.com/diaries.html

Library of Congress Digital Collections http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/nbhihtml/pshome.html

Harvard Universityhttp://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ww/diaries.html

Manuscripts – Locate in WorldCat

The Making of Modern Michigan –http://mmm.lib.msu.edu/

• Features recorded videos of oral histories, including one with Mrs. Iris Page Butler, an African-American known as "Hamtramck's Angel of Mercy,” who was a resident in that community since 1903 and worked as a public health nurse. She recalled her meal with Teddy Roosevelt in the White House in her filmed interview

Early Hamtramck

“History is lived in the main by the unknown and forgotten.”

from the Foreward of

Pioneer Women; Voices from the Kansas Frontier

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.