‘A Continuous Present’

Margaret L. Lundberg

A project submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies

University of Washington Tacoma

2014

Committee:

Chair – Michael Kula, MFA

Readers –

Nicole Blair, PhD.

Andrea Modarres, PhD.

Judy Nolte Temple, PhD.

Program Authorized to offer Degree:

Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences

© Copyright 2014

Margaret Lundberg

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………………………..3

Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………..6

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………....7

Background…………………………………………………………………………………....9

Literature Review……………………………………………………………………………..10

Research Question…………………………………………………………………………….22

Primary Research……………………………………………………………………………...22

Project Summary……………………………………………………………………………... 23

Methodology…………………………………………………………………………………. 24

Analysis………………………………………………………………………………………. 29

Writing Process……………………………………………………………………………….. 36

Reflection………………………………………………………………………………………37

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….. 39

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………………… 43

Excerpt from ‘A Continuous Present’………………………………………………………….48

2

Acknowledgements

In spite of all the hours spent alone, huddled over a

notebook or keyboard, no writer works in a vacuum—and believe me,

I am no different. There are so many people who had a hand (or at

least a finger or two) in the creation of this project, I’m not

sure where to begin to thank them all—but I’ll do my best.

My humblest and happiest thanks to—

My committee- Michael Kula, Judy Temple, Andrea Modarres,

and Nicole Blair. Michael, for gently pushing me to turn my story

from something only I could love into a book worth reading. Judy,

for sharing with me her love for Emily’s story, her knowledge of

Emily’s life and home, her original research, and her enthusiasm

for my project—I couldn’t have done any of this without you.

3

Andrea, for introducing me to Judy, for making me think hard

about the value of the everyday and ordinary, and the

significance of place in literature. I think of you every time I

write a landscape description. And Nicole, for sharing your love

of literature with me, being my friend, sounding board, and

cheerleader, and keeping me on track in ways you may never

understand. Thank you all—so very much!

My writing group—Kari, Tom and Peter. Thank you for reading

countless drafts, listening to me talk (and talk and talk…) about

diaries, stories, trips to Iowa—and Emily. You guys rock!

My “outside” readers- Patty, Sandi, Linda, Katy, and Cindy.

Thank you for the suggestions, corrections, finding all my typos

and inconsistencies—and the generous words of encouragement. You

truly gave me the inspiration to finish.

My little sister Kathie, who accompanied me on my trip to

Iowa. Thank you for playing research assistant and spending your

vacation pursuing my dreams—poring over Emily’s diaries, poetry,

and knick-knacks; tromping through fields and barns; chasing down

Amish buggies with a camera (ok, that was all you!); putting up

with mosquitos while we watched fireflies and visited Emily’s

4

grave, and showing an amazing amount of enthusiasm over my

project—so much that you even fell for Emily’s story for

yourself. I love you (and I’m still sorry we didn’t make it to

Wisconsin).

Wilbur Kehrli, for playing host at Emily’s farm—allowing me

to photograph nearly every inch of his home—showing us around

Manchester, and then becoming our tour guide through the better

part of NE Iowa, all the way to the Mississippi River. Wilbur,

you were an invaluable source of information and inspiration, a

charming host, and inspired a key player in the novel, helping

Lizzie find her story—and herself. Thank you!

The wonderful people at the State Historical Society of Iowa

Archives in Iowa City—Mary Bennett, Charles Scott, and Paula

Smith. They had boxes full of Emily’s papers waiting for me that

first morning I arrived, taught me to use a microfilm machine,

and allowed me to dig through anything with Emily’s name on it,

taking pictures to my heart’s content (wearing the appropriate

gloves, of course). Mary took me on a personal tour of the

“artifact attic” to excavate the items that had once belonged to

Emily and her family (which somehow found their way into the

5

novel, buried deep inside the trunk that Lizzie finds in her

uncle’s attic). You were all amazing, and I can never thank you

enough for your help and enthusiasm over my research.

The Golden Key International Honour Society for the generous

research grant. Without it, I would never have been able to make

the trip to Iowa—and my novel would be a much sadder thing. Thank

you!

My entire MAIS cohort here at UW Tacoma, who heard my

research presentation more times than anyone should have to; the

amazing faculty who cheered me on every step of the way—including

Alexis, who told me long ago she knew I’d write a book someday;

UW Tacoma’s amazing troupe of librarians; Amy and Kylie—“I count

myself in nothing else so happy…” as in your friendship (with

additional thanks to our old friend, Will S).

My wonderful and one-of-kind husband, Ralph, who took over

hearth and home (and laundry) for the last five plus years to

allow me to follow my dreams—wherever they led. You are my rock,

and a never-ending source of support and encouragement. I

literally could not have done any of this without you. I love

you, forever!

6

My sons, Eric and Ryan, and daughter-in-law, Naomi—who urged

me back to college, and are undoubtedly thrilled I actually

finished (and might now stop hijacking every conversation with

stories about Emily).

My grandchildren—who have been fascinated that I am writing

a book, but still want their gramma back.

My parents—who always cheered my successes. (I miss you

Mom!)

And last—but definitely not least—Emily herself, for

considering her life worth remembering; for being a cooperative

subject, just as I implored her to be, standing at her graveside;

for acting as my muse throughout the entire project.

To each and every one of you, I am eternally grateful!

Abstract

7

The readers of a text are—in many ways—also its authors,

with the act of reading creating a dialog between a text already

written and a text generated through reader response, creating a

community along the boundary between author and reader. To

illustrate that boundary, I situated myself—through my research

and writing—as a responding audience to nineteenth-century Iowa

farm wife Emily Hawley Gillespie, as she is revealed through the

pages of her thirty-year diary. Through a constructivist

paradigm, the methodology of philosophical hermeneutics, new

historicism, and the creative vehicle of fiction, I entered

Gillespie’s text to examine the themes which emerged within her

narrative, in the light of the imagined life and experiences of

my protagonist—a woman who finds the diary while cleaning out the

attic of her late uncle’s house. Examining the performances of

self-identity formed between author and reader and the sense of

community that develops sight unseen, I have crafted the story of

a woman who finds herself playing audience to a diarist, re-

envisioning the diarist’s identity (as well as her own) in

concurrence with other possible audiences she imagines through

the crafting of her own text. This paper explains the theoretical

8

and personal rationale behind my MA project—a novel, “A

Continuous Present.”

KEYWORDS: Diary, Identity creation, Story, Narrative, Audience,

Philosophical Hermeneutics, New Historicism, Fiction,

Metafiction,

Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can't remember

who we are or why we're here.

-Sue Monk Kidd

INTRODUCTION

In 2001, after celebrating her first Christmas enveloped in

the craziness that often defines my extended family, my about-to-

be daughter-in-law looked at me in the car on the way home, her

eyes alight with startled insight. With wonder in her voice, she

made an announcement that has stayed with me ever since. “I’ve

just figured out who you are…you are storytellers. Every last one

of you!”9

Of course, we all had a huge laugh over her earnest

declaration, but I also have to admit it is true. Our family

gatherings—whether the big inclusive ones, now bursting with so

many grandchildren that my sister-in-law swears every year that

she’ll never do it again (“there are just too many of us now. We

can’t all fit in the house anymore!”), or the simple ones with

one of our grandkids and me making breakfast—have always been

occasions to tell stories. We are all storytellers! My family

teases me that I can make a “short story long” better than anyone

they know—but I can’t help it. My heart beats to the rhythms of

story—and it has for as long as I can remember.

My self-identification as a storyteller forms the basis for

both the topic and the format of the project I chose as the

culmination of my MA research. Yet, in order to offer a truly

complete picture of just how this project came to be, there is

one more story I simply must tell…

It was a Friday evening—a scorching August afternoon just

over a year ago. I was standing barefoot in my University Place

10

kitchen, reveling in the coolness of the floor beneath my feet

and tossing a salad for dinner. Reaching into the cupboard for

some dried cranberries, I heard a beep from my phone—a text from

a friend on a study abroad trip to Vietnam. Having a late

Saturday brunch in Hanoi, she was texting to say hello and send

me pictures of her meal—some sort of strange fish-like creature

that she insisted was the best she’d ever tasted. For the next

several minutes, we marveled at the time difference (noting that

her today was my tomorrow), traded photos of food, and talked

about the happenings of our lives while she’d been gone—all

through a series of texts shared across space and time. A few

weeks later, not long after she’d returned home, I was rereading

the script of our conversation, and I began to wonder: if I could

speak to someone on the other side of the world, living a day

that I hadn’t yet lived—simply through the words on a page—why

couldn’t I converse, in the same way, with someone who died

before I was even born?

It was this tiny tale of alternating timelines and texts

that came to me as I considered the question of audience in diary

writing. If, as Margo Culley states, diaries are always written

11

to a disembodied someone whether “[f]riend, lover, mother, God,

future self—whatever role the audience assumes for the writer…”

(12), then why could I not become such an audience, entering a

written conversation with someone, not just out of  sight, but out

of time?

This query formed the heart of my project. Therefore, in

order to fully understand how a narrated self is created in the

space between a diarist and her audience, I decided to situate

myself, as it were, in this border space between reader and

writer. Mihkail Bakhtin, speaking of this border—or more

literally, this intersection of audience and self—states that “at

any given moment, [words] of various epochs and periods of socio-

ideological life cohabit with one another... Therefore [they] do

not exclude each other, but rather intersect with each other in

many different ways” (The Dialogic Imagination 291). It was Bahktin’s

notion of time-distant words “cohabit[ing]” and “intersecting”—

just as they did in my texted conversation across the

International Dateline—that led me to create this project that

would allow me to examine that dialogic space.

12

BACKGROUND

Philip Spalding, in his 1949 book Self-Harvest, A Study of Diaries and

Diarists, stated that, with the exception of those written by Sir

Walter Scott and Lord Byron, “there is hardly an example of a

diary written out of a first class creative mind” (Godwin 12)—and

it is this attitude toward diaries and diarists (most of whom

were female) which held sway among literary critics for

centuries. Historically seen as belonging to the private world

of women, and containing merely personal reflections of everyday

life for countless women over the centuries, diaries have

traditionally been ignored when it came to consideration as

important texts, never seen as measuring up in significance to

the autobiographical writings of men. The early American diary

writings of women have been described by Judy Nolte Lensink as

“written personal narrative[s] least colored by artifice, closest

to American life” (39). Yet, according to Suzanne Bunkers, they

have been disregarded as either cultural or autobiographical

documents, called instead the “private writings” of the “woman’s

sphere” (Diaries: Public and Private 17). In this review of

autobiography, women’s diaries and the creation of self in

13

collaboration with a diarist’s audience, I examine literature

that spans the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries, as well as

the progression of ideas behind the scholarship surrounding these

diaries, and the creation of a diarist’s self-identity in

relation to their chosen audience.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Margo Culley describes writing in a diary or journal as “an act

of language that, by speaking one’s self, sustains one’s sense of

being a self, with autonomous and significant identity” (5).

Although the history of journal writing can appear as if

dominated by females, the historical practice of writing in

journals has in reality not been gendered. While male journalists

often took their writings and published them as autobiographies

(after sometimes substantial revisions to their life stories),

female writers rarely had that luxury.

Are diaries autobiographies? Cinthia Gannet stated that female diaries

were historically characterized as “writing that has no audience”

(2), and therefore, non-literary. This type of writing,

14

including travel journals and personal letters, was dismissed for

centuries simply because it does not follow the same patterns as

traditional autobiography. In response, feminist critic, Susan

Stanford Friedman, proposed that western ideas of what

constitutes autobiography were inherently individualistic and

male-centered—invariably causing the writing of women,

minorities, or any non-Western author to be ignored (35-36).

Germaine Bree, in her article titled “Autogynography,” notes that

autobiographical scholar Georges Gusdorf offered a definition of

autobiography as “narrative…life as a story,” with Brée adding

that autobiography was a “retrospective reconstruction through

language of a developing sense of self” (173). According to

Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, Gusdorf calls autobiography

“’art’ and ‘representative’ of the best minds of its time because

it ‘recomposes and interprets a life in its totality’” (8).

However, in spite of this definition, Bree claims that “there is

no consensus of opinion as to what formally characterizes the

autobiographical work” (172). For centuries, however, literary

critics did agree on one thing: diaries kept by non-literary

15

women were not true autobiographies—and neither were those kept

even by most female writers (Temple 151).

A traditional image of “achievement and quest” controlled

the form and study of autobiography for centuries (Braham 56),

yet for many outside the identity paradigm of the individualistic

white male, the locus of identity formation is found within

relationship. Autobiography became a vehicle of expression

allowed almost exclusively to a single gender—male—and women’s

writings were relegated to family manuscripts, consigned to the

genre of “private writing.” Often buried in attics or passed down

to children or other family members, these writings fill

historical archives across the United States.

This genre of “private” texts, which includes letters,

diaries, and even travel journals written by both males and

females, offers a glimpse of history and the human psyche that

few other types of writing can. Marlene Schiwy writes about

reading the journal writings of others as “giv[ing] us the

writer’s life from her current perspective” (272), and allowing

the reader to “[discover] new stories of how to live, what to

aspire to, [and] what choices to explore” (267), rather than the

16

retrospective “telling the story with the end in mind, ” a format

that is typical of traditional autobiography. Through diaries we

can be introduced to first-hand, in-the-moment accounts of a life

lived during watershed moments in human history—such as Anne

Frank’s account of her life in hiding from the Nazis during World

War II. We can also discover what is hidden in the seemingly

mundane and ordinary words of Mary Vial Holyoke—a woman who lived

in the late eighteenth century. On the next page is the

restoration of two weeks from Holyoke’s journal, during which she

gave birth to a son who died four days later. Although the

details are spare, if we read between the lines just a bit, we

can start to uncover Holyoke’s pain at her son’s death—as well as

signs of the often heartbreaking uncertainties of a life lived

nearly 300 years ago.

[1770]May 14. Mrs. Mascarene here & Mrs. Crowninshield. Taken very ill. The Doctor bled me. Took and anodyne.15. Kept my bed all day.17. Brought to bed at 12 of a son.19. The baby taken with fits the same as ye others. Nurse came.Mrs. Vans Died.20. The Baby very ill. I first got up.

17

21. It Died at 11 o’clock A.M. Was opened. The Disorder was found to Be in the Bowels. Aunt Holyoke died.22. Training. Mother Pickman here. Mrs. Sarjant yesterday.23. My dear Baby buried.28. Mrs. Pickman, Miss Dowse Drank tea here. Mrs. Jones, Lowell, Brown, Cotnam, Miss Cotnam & Miss Gardner Called to seeme.29. Wrote to Boston and Cambridge. Mrs. Savage Brought to Bed. The widow Ward lost 2 children with ye Throat Distemper from May 25th to May 29th…

(Culley 33)

Holyoke’s entry on May 23—noting the death of her baby—is the

only one which offers an adjective (“my dear Baby”) to enlighten

her feelings about what was surely a personally agonizing day, in

the midst of two weeks that otherwise read like checking off

items on someone’s “to-do” list (including four other deaths).

What anguish must be contained within that one single word? By

studying a diary or journal like Holyoke’s, we discover that the

silences of a text can often speak louder than its words,

offering a way for those who would study such texts to see that

“diary or journal writings offer a sense of life unfolding”

(Schiwy 272).

Less than half a century ago, some feminist literary

scholars began to argue for a re-examination of texts such as

18

Holyoke’s. Scholars such as Friedman claim that discounting them

because of their differences from the white male-centric

“individualistic paradigms of self” overlooked the types of

identity that “signal” women and minorities, and ignored the

“collective and relational identities” that define such texts

(35). Relationships, argues Jeanne Braham, play a prominent role

in women’s culture, with female autobiography understood as a

“‘grounding of identity’ through ‘linking with another

consciousness’” (57). This relationship of one consciousness

with another, where the reader takes an “active role” along with

the writer, is a central feature of women’s writings,

“provid[ing] a script the reader enters, resignifies and in some

collaborative sense makes her own” (57). The writer’s audience

plays a part in her identity formation—and both are identified in

the process.

Diary narratives- female autobiography as “nothing in particular.” Amy Wink,

recounting a scene from Virginia Woolf’s semi-autobiographical

story “The Legacy,” tells the tale of a widower who, on reading

through his dead wife’s fifteen-volume diary, described her

written legacy as “nothing in particular” (xi), an attitude that

19

was unfortunately shared by many men—and literary critics—of his

day. Lensink points out that women’s writing in diaries, as

compared to what is considered traditional autobiography, was

perceived by many academics as “inherently less interesting”

(40), full of “pat imagery” using “literal and repetitive”

language (41), and therefore not worthy of study as literary

texts. She adds that although the language found in many diaries

is indeed “plain,” the metaphors that often fill “public literary

language” are a male construct, whereas the “private, plain-

speaking voice” of a diary is actually closer to a woman’s true

voice (41), and should be acknowledged as such by scholars. These

boundaries set for scholarly study, Lensink claims, have excluded

women’s voices for too long, and must be reconsidered.

Tethering this idea of women’s writings as previously

considered unworthy of attention (by male literary critics) to

her claim that the significance and power of diary writing comes

in relationship between writer and reader, Wink suggests that in

alienating women from the larger “literary” conversation through

ignoring the significance of both writer and audience, not only

have women’s voices been silenced, but their audiences

20

marginalized as well. By discounting their value to scholarly

investigation, she claims, the diary’s power of influence has

been discounted as well. Bunkers also spoke of the comparison of

diary to autobiography, claiming that a typical autobiography—

written by a man—is a “retrospective narrative” (Diaries: Public and

Private 18) which relates the writer’s experiences from a past

tense viewpoint. Therefore, men’s autobiographical writings,

typically written by “important people” in relation to historical

events, tend to create a consistent sense of self gained through

a life already lived. Diaries, on the other hand, may appear

“fragmented and circular” (Brée 172) due to their different mode

of construction—that of daily reflection on a life lived in the

present, the only format for self-remembrance left to a woman by

the times in which she lived. In discounting the diary format as

somehow less important or non-literary due to its form and

subject, we also decline acknowledgment of the only form of

control most women had over their lives—the freedom to interpret

them according to their own beliefs.

The diarists’ worldview. Bunkers describes the nineteenth-century

diarists she studied as primarily second or third generation 21

American women of European descent, with a certain level of

education and financial stability, and just a bit of time on

their hands. Many of these diaries are not discoverable under the

author’s name, but are listed instead according to the man whose

“mother, daughter, wife or sister she was” (18). Culley spoke of

these diarists as playing the role of “family and community

historians” (4), who at the same time recorded a sentimental

“inner life” of reflection as well. Their writings also offer an

honest, gendered view of historical American culture that we can

gain through no other avenue—even if we must read between the

lines and work through the “‘silences’ of the text” to find it

(22).

Diaries often acted as a bridge between the public and

private aspects of women’s lives. Sometimes kept as a sort of

family journal, a few of these diaries are described by Bunkers

as beginning with a couple’s marriage, added to over the years by

their children. In one particular case (Lucinda and Edward Holton

of Milwaukee, WI, married 1845), the couple’s oldest daughter

began adding her own commentary to the diary on her seventeenth

birthday, and ultimately took it over at her mother’s death.

22

Emily Hawley [Gillespie] began writing her diary shortly before

her twentieth birthday in 1858, and kept it faithfully until her

death thirty years later. But during those years, according to

Lensink, several entries were made in Emily’s diary by her

daughter, Sarah Gillespie Huftalen, including the last written

two weeks before Emily’s death. Both women spoke of their mutual

record of dysfunctional family experiences, the resultant

physical and verbal abuse in their shared diaries, and Bunkers

mentioned that each, on occasion, wrote entries in the other’s

diary. Sarah began keeping her own diary at age seven, and over

the years mother and daughter several times made entries in each

other’s diaries, with Emily once recording (in Sarah’s diary)

Sarah’s request: “Ma write in my journal. I can’t” (Diaries and

Dysfunctional Families 222). Emily used the opportunity to encourage

her daughter in her career as a schoolteacher and to offer a bit

of motherly advice on relationships, as well. Culley also pointed

out that women frequently used diaries not just to talk to each

other during their lives, but as a sort of “extended letter …

[often] actually sent to those left behind” at their deaths (4),

23

not just to be read by those within their own household. They

were only rarely considered private texts.

The diary and its audience. Culley claims that many diaries were written

as “semi-public documents intended to be read by an audience”

(3), proposing that whether or not the writer’s intent was to

share her diary, she still had an audience in mind as she wrote.

Sheadds that even if the diary had been written to contain

thoughts or events that might be considered best kept private,

the diarist—through the very act of writing—created a

conversation with an audience, and that audience, real or

imagined, helped to shape the author’s self in the writing.

Charlotte Linde agrees, stating that the “coherence” of a

narrative is a “cooperative achievement of the speaker and the

addressee;” it does not belong solely to a “disembodied,

unsituated text” (11-12). Monica Pasupathi explains that in

creating a narrative, a sense of self is built that is

“fundamentally collaborative,” in other words, meaning is created

between the storyteller and the audience (138). Mikhail Bakhtin,

in writing about discourse in the novel, claims that discourse

exists “on the boundary between its own context, and another,

24

alien, context” (Dialogic Imagination 284), repeated in the

assertions of Culley, Pasupathi and Linde, that a narrative is,

in essence, a conversation.

In what seems an acknowledgement of the dialog which

develops along this boundary between writer and audience, many

authors name their diaries or otherwise anthropomorphize them so

that the act of recording their lives becomes more like a

conversant act. Anne Frank’s first authorial act, writing her

diary during years spent in hiding, is to name her diary audience

“Kitty” (7), and in doing so, she began to shape her narrative,

just as Culley suggests, in the form of a conversation with a

friend. Gail Godwin speaks of an awareness of writing to her

future self—after keeping a diary for many years—in an effort to

“encourage, to scold, to correct, or to set things in

perspective” (13), thus constructing an audience of herself. Linde

proposes that stories shared in these diary conversations are not

“soliloqu[ies]; [they] are told to someone, and…must solicit some

response from [the] addressee” (102), an idea which echoes

Bakhtin’s assertion that “every word is directed toward an

[anticipated] answer” (Speech Genres 279).

25

As if in consideration of this sort of dialogic writing,

many nineteenth-century diarists shared their writings with

family and friends. Huff and Schiwy both emphasize that women’s

diaries and journals were not actually as private as previously

considered, but were passed among family and friends as a way to

share common experiences and create a space where beliefs and

concerns could be shared. In this sharing of the commonplace

among the women in both centuries, diaries offer not only access

to an audience in an “intermediate space [of] private and public”

(Schiwy 235), but allow the writer to create this space as a way

to explore the edges of social boundaries and lived experience.

Lynn Bloom asserts that writing a diary is an expression of the

desire to be discovered someday; a perceived audience “hover[s]

at the edge of the page… [and] facilitates the work’s ultimate

focus” (23)—the sharing of one self with another. Aimée Morrison

calls this intermediate space between writer and reader an

“intimate public,” offering a sense of familiarity between the

writer and her unseen audience (38). There is always someone on

the other side of the text.

26

Diaries and journals allow not only a glimpse of the

everyday thoughts, events and practices of a woman in nineteenth-

century society, but also the mores of motherhood, the everyday

effects of sexual or racial discrimination, and other aspects of

a patriarchal system that were part of most women’s mutual

experience. In this sharing of the commonplace, diaries offer not

only an awareness of audience but allow the writer to use this

space as an exploration of the edges of social boundaries and

lived experience. Yet most of this writing exists in the form of

“ordinary writing,” seen as conditioned and repetitious—“done

usual work,” “all will yet be well” (“Emily Hawley Gillespie

Diaries”)—and therefore long disregarded as having any value for

study.

Jennifer Sinor, in her discussion of this “ordinary

writing,”1 suggests that it created a sense of “safety and

familiarity” for a woman who might have no other form of

expression, in spite of what can be read as “rote…and mundane”

1 See Sinor’s discussion of “ordinary writing” in The Extraordinary Work of Ordinary Writing (with particular attention to pages 5-7), as she speaks of its definition and status in argument of the “literary vs. the non-literary” (6).

27

to today’s reader (20). Yet, she proposes that diary writing is

considered

…simple, disjointed, bare, and one-dimensional. Because

it lacks detail and does not present a linear, whole

text, it is overlooked or deemed unimportant. Writers

of ordinary writing are afforded the same uncomplicated

position as their texts—ironically affirming Thomas

Mallon’s decree that a diary is the flesh made word.

(Sinor 15)

For a woman who had few choices in her life, the decision to keep

a record of her days—to treat them as if they were something

worth remembering—may have been one of the few things actually

under her control. A diary may have represented her only

opportunity to create her identity on her own terms

Creating self-identity in a diary narrative. Narratives, claim Elinor Ochs and

Lisa Capps, contain the “ordinary exchanges” on which people

build stories of life experience, using them to “establish

coherence” between their past and present selves, as well as

forming expectations for a future self (2). While claiming that

28

diarists create their self-narrative unconsciously—for the most

part— Culley also suggests a diary as “a kind of mirror” that

allows the diarist to try on various personas as she creates her

life story. Howard Becker notes that “everyone writes as someone,

affects a character, adopts a persona who does the talking for

them” (33), a truth upheld in diary writing as much as it is in

creating a character for a novel. Bloom describes this self-

construction as an act in which the diary’s author writes her own

character, “becoming the principal actor in the drama of her own

story” (32). As the stories told grow out of everyday events,

they—and her recurrently re-imagined self—become part of the

diarist’s effort to construct sense and meaning, working to

create a long-term sense of self, “with a past that explains the

present, and projects into the future” (Fivush, Habermas, Waters

& Zaman 323). Fivush, et al. propose that who we are is defined

by the ways we communicate our past, and in recounting it we

“simultaneously create a narrative of our self” (324). Over time,

these various personas, constructed in the pages of a diary,

allow the reader a greater understanding of the woman behind the

writing.

29

Yet, according to Benstock, a diary is more than just the

formation of a character on a page. It is a “living presence”

(17), not simply a fictional construct of a life seen in

retrospect, but a place where the boundaries of a diarist’s life

could be examined by the writer. Fivush, et al. suggest that a

diary’s autobiographical narratives represent a crossroads

between self and culture, with Gannett adding an awareness of

history and gender to the construction of self-identity found

along this intersection with culture. Culture includes not just

the larger society of which the diarist is a part, but the

smaller confines of her family as well. Yet, the social

strictures of culture and family can be difficult to overcome

when one is trying to create or maintain a positive sense of

self, especially for a woman who feels she doesn’t quite measure

up to expectations—social or otherwise.

According to Pasupathi, McLean & Weeks, people are less

likely to disclose events that are inconsistent with upholding a

positive self-image. However, even those events that are not shared

with others can have an effect on “the narrated self” generated

through their writing (91). In Gillespie’s published diary A

30

Secret to be Burried (sic), she alludes several times to secrets she

refuses to tell—even within the pages of her own diary— and one

that she intends to take to her grave. In a time when women had

very little about their own lives that they could control,

Lensink demonstrates—through Emily’s words—that simply writing in

a diary helped many women to define and “empower” their lives

despite pre-scripted social roles, giving a voice to thoughts

that might be otherwise unacceptable (A Secret to be Burried xvi).

Fivush, et al. spoke of these rigid life scripts that determined

life choices for nineteenth-century women (whether to marry or

not, age at marriage, number of children, education, etc.), and

claimed that “if one deviates from these scripts in significant

ways…one is compelled to provide an explanatory narrative” (332).

If, as Pasupathi, et al., state “our sense of self is both

reflected in and constructed by the kinds of stories we tell

about our experiences” (90), what Gillespie told—and refused to

tell—worked together to create her sense of self, within her own

set of personally and culturally-constructed boundaries.

31

The autobiographical-self as a fictionalized creation. Shari Benstock speaks of

autobiography as the point where self and writing intersect,

defining it as both an act and a goal. But she also described it

as an unattainable goal, one which begins with “the assumption of

self-knowledge,” and ends in an act of creative fiction, where

the writer “covers the premises” of that creation (11), in

essence taking the real person and hiding him or her within a

constructed character—then concealing that construction behind

what has now become a subjective history. James Olney asserts

that “autobiography is not so much a mode of literature as

literature is a mode of autobiography”2 (qtd. in Smith 3).

Felicity Nussbaum indicates that “language constructs

subjectivity and in turn writes language” (161), presenting the

idea that in narrative, the “I” of the author becomes the “I” of

a narrated character who is now distinct from the narrator,

simply because of the choices made through language. As Nussbaum

applies this thought to diaries, she adds that diaries and

2 James Olney, in a proposal submitted to the National Endowment for the Humanities titled “Autobiography and the Humanities,” dated June 1, 1980 and delivered in a teachers’ seminar at the University of North Carolina at ChapelHill during the summer of 1981 (cited in Smith 177). As a writer, I would haveto agree with Olney—and all the rest of the scholars listed in this paragraph;all writing is, on some level, autobiographical.

32

journals—and by extension, autobiography— merely represent

reality; the diarist “pretends to simply transcribe the details

of experience” (165). Judy Simons notes that women frequently

used diaries to construct themselves as “subjects” rather than as

“object[s] in a male-dominated world” (254). Every time she sat

down to write, the diarist clearly made choices of what to

include based on events important to her narrated “I”—just as

does the traditional autobiographer.

In the same manner as the autobiographer, the diarist

“selects what to describe” and how to relate the story of her

day. Within the text she creates, she may reflect back on past

events—just as does the autobiographer—but it is all part of her

creation of meaning in the here and now—the continuous present of

the diary—creating “a coherent world” formed through her own

observations of it (“Expanding the Boundaries” 42). Wink claims

that “writing is not unadulterated thought”; a diarist takes

thoughts and spins them into threads to be woven into a certain

image of herself and her life (xv). In a mode of writing that is

distinct from traditional autobiography, there is also a sense

33

that diaries are “a series of surprises” to both reader and

writer; neither knows what will happen next (21).

However, not everything is a surprise to the diarist. Some

events recorded in a diary might be revisited even years later,

long after the author knows their result, often in an effort to

either find meaning in them or recreate them in a way she can

accept. Kagle and Gramegna speak of the fictionalizing power of

the diary to reduce tension as the diarist imaginatively revises

real world happenings of the past to “conform to her emotions” in

the present (52). Judy Nolte Temple, revisiting her earlier work

with Gillespie’s diary (writing as Judy Nolte Lensink), notes

that the diary underwent revisions more than once as the author

“wr[o]te off some of my old Diary” (A Secret to be Burried 202),

apparently attempting to recast her past self according to her

current concerns. Gillespie, in revisiting her girlhood entries

some fifteen years after they were originally written, in fact

amended many sections, adding details not previously included and

“editorializing” many of her past experiences and ideas3. In 3 In one particularly telling alteration to one of her original texts, Gillespie took an entry that discussed her attendance at a friend’s wedding, and in recopying it, not only increased the number of words written from about75 to 352, but put herself at the center of the groom’s unrequited affections (see A Secret to be Burried, pg. 12; entry dated October 12, 1858). Although some of

34

light of Temple’s later research, Culley’s suggestion of the

“text…reconstruct[ing] its past” (20) seems quite appropriate.

RESEARCH QUESTION

This idea of a writer’s self-creation within the pages of a text

is what drew me to studying diaries, and to nineteenth-century

women’s diaries, specifically. In a world where so much of a

woman’s life was prescriptive and ordered by culture, the diary

was one space where a woman held some control over her life. In

both the reading and writing involved in my project, I considered

this question the core of my research:

“If the self created in autobiography is a rhetorical

construct, with audience awareness playing a role in

its creation (see Sidonie Smith’s “fictive” reader4),

did a sense of audience awareness make Emily Hawley

Gillespie’s diary writing an “autobiographical act” as

well?”

the original writing (now existing on microfilm) is almost unreadable, there is enough to enable a basic content comparison and word count between the two texts.4 Smith asserts that a “fictive reader” is a “rhetorical construct…created by an autobiographer” in order to bring his or her imagined self into being within the pages of the text (A Poetics of Women’s Autobiography 6)

35

Within her diary’s pages, could Gillespie create—or even recreate

—a sense of herself that might possibly be allowed to exist

nowhere else? Did she create that self-identity in relationship

to an audience of some sort?

PRIMARY RESEARCH.

In July 2014 I traveled to the State Historical Society of

Iowa archives in Iowa City to study Gillespie’s original diaries

for myself, and was pleased to be able to view some of the

earlier versions of her diary writings on microfilm. After

spending the last year reading through Lensink’s edited version,

I have grown familiar with the major events in Gillespie’s diary,

and to see some of the differences between the versions written

in 1858 (there were two on the microfilm) and those which Emily’s

diary itself claims were “copied over” in either 1862 or 1873 was

a real treat—and strong evidence that a diary is not always an

in-the-moment, unadulterated version of events.

To say that a diary is nothing more than the plain thoughts

of a non-literary writer is to ignore the evidence that some

diarists chronicled their lives in the same way an author writes

a novel: through a series of drafts and revisions. Like Anne

36

Frank, who wrote, and then rewrote and edited her diary during

her years spent in hiding (Frank v)—a diary which was then

revised and edited once again by her father after her death—

Gillespie occasionally redrafted entire entries, adding details

to the 1873 revisions that did not exist in earlier versions

(viewable in the "Emily Hawley Gillespie Diaries," Sarah Gillespie

Huftalen Papers, 1836-1955, available on microfilm in the State

Historical Society of Iowa archives).

PROJECT SUMMARY

My project was inspired by and constructed around the nineteenth-

century diary of Emily Hawley Gillespie, coming into focus as I

asked myself, “How can I use narrative to demonstrate the answer

to my research question?” The diary covers a period of thirty

years, with the first entry made shortly before Gillespie’s

twentieth birthday, and the last entered in her daughter’s hand

about two weeks before Gillespie’s death. I first learned the

existence of this diary through my preliminary research into

women’s diaries, and after a bit of searching found it published

as an e-book, available through the University of Washington

library system. After reading just a few entries of the edited

37

diary (A Secret to be Burried, Judy Nolte Lensink), I knew I had found

the subject for my research; Emily’s diary presented me with a

fascinating “I” to whom I could become audience and respond in

kind. To be sure we were truly compatible, I did a series of

“test responses,” a succession of short pieces in which I replied

to her diary comments or offered a story of my own in reply. When

I had finished, I realized that even over the vast gulf of time,

culture and space, Gillespie and I had found a common space to

communicate.

Gillespie both created and revealed her identity through her

language choices within the pages of her diary. Reading the

diary, and writing responses to her text became a sort of

“conversation” with her, which eventually grew into my MA project

—a novel that documents a mutual journey of self-creation on the

parts of both Gillespie the diarist, and my fictional

protagonist, Lizzie, who is a writer herself.

METHODOLOGY

This performance of self-creation through the words on a page is

what drew me to the study of women’s diaries in general, and to

Gillespie’s diary in particular. Within her diary, Gillespie 38

created—or recreated—a sense of herself that might possibly be

allowed to exist nowhere else, and I believe she fashioned it in

relationship to an audience of some sort. The purpose behind each

of the methods chosen is to tease out exactly how she did this

While viewing Gillespie’s diary through a Constructivist

paradigm, which defines knowledge as socially constructed and

historically subjective (Pascale 50), I am using Philosophical

Hermeneutics and New Historicism as lenses of textual analysis.

The final lens is more subjective and inventive—I have chosen to

use fiction writing as a tool of analysis, as well.

Philosophical Hermeneutics. “Emphasiz[ing] neither the text nor the

reader,” Philosophical Hermeneutics focuses “on the event of

understanding or interpretation as it occurs in the encounter between

reader and text” (Freeman 926, emphasis mine). Hans-Georg Gadamer

calls this “grasping of meaning” by the reader an “independent

productive act” (24), one where meaning is not discovered within

the text, but produced as the reader makes sense of the writing

left behind. Gadamer explains Philosophical Hermeneutics as

“challenging the classic epistemology of the interpretivist

paradigm,” and argues that the understanding sought by

39

Hermeneutics is not the result of interpretation, it is

interpretation (194). In other words, interpretation is not a

process to follow in order to gain understanding; understanding

itself is interpretation.

The notion that Hermeneutics is a process of interpretation

by which one can reach understanding is generated from the

longstanding idea that there is a single objectively discoverable

meaning in any text. Richard Bernstein, summarizing Gadamer’s

ideas on the subject, notes his avowal of a discoverable meaning

within the text “that can be isolated from our own prejudgments”

(139), and held free from distortions and misinterpretations—but

asserts this is not so. He states that interpretation “can [only]

be construed as distorted…if we assume that a text possesses some

meaning in itself” (139). Instead, the claim of Philosophical

Hermeneutics is that meaning is “negotiated mutually in the act

of interpretation; it is not simply discovered” (Schwandt 195).

Meaning, Thomas Schwandt claims, is what happens between the reader

and the text, with the reader’s biases and lived experience

becoming part of that meaning. Knowing, he states, is an active

experience, with the knower playing as great a part as the

40

subject (125). For my work with Emily’s diary, Philosophical

Hermeneutics offers me a viewpoint best suited to the text.

New Historicism. With its emphasis on the social location of texts,

New Historicism crafts an anthropology-like “thick description”

which makes it possible to recreate Gillespie’s place in society

and history. Judith Lowder Newton states that “history is best

told as a story of power relations and struggle” through many

voices, particularly those considered “untraditional sources”—

diaries and letters, women’s magazines and novels (152). Through

the textual analysis of New Historicism, I hope to allow many of

those previously powerless voices surrounding and producing the

realities of Emily’s life to speak. By placing these sources

alongside traditionally studied historical texts, I have been

able to gain a greater understanding of “the social life to which

texts testify” (Fox-Genovese 215), making my work maintaining

Gillespie’s authentic voice and knowledge more comprehensive. I

have also examined several other texts covering nineteenth-

century history in Iowa, where Gillespie spent her adult life;

learning of the temperance movement, of which she frequently

wrote; the Universalist religion, in which she was an ardent

41

believer; and issues of women’s rights and social position, which

also had a great effect on the choices that Gillespie made

throughout her life. I have also read nineteenth-century novels

Gillespie mentioned in her diary (including Tempest and Sunshine

1854), plus several sections of the published diary of her

daughter, Sarah Gillespie Huftalen (All Will Yet be Well, Suzanne

Bunkers), in which Sarah remarks on many of the same events that

Emily discussed. All of these have worked together, giving me

insight into the woman behind the text and making the

interpretation of her character just that much more complex.

“Fiction as Analysis.” My third method for examining this topic of

identity creation through the language of a diary and seen

through the eyes of the author’s audience, is a more imaginative

one. I used the creative techniques of fiction to craft a novel

in which the persona of my fictional protagonist (a writer of

historical fiction who is currently suffering a bad case of

writer’s block)—becomes established as the diarist’s audience, in

spite of the boundaries of time and space. This character,

Lizzie, discovers Gillespie’s diary in the attic of her late

uncle’s home and begins to read it, eventually becoming a

42

responding audience to the diary and the identity that Gillespie

has created within its pages. Lizzie eventually takes Gillespie’s

narrative as her own (in a sense) and begins writing a book about

her life, eventually focused on the “relationship” crafted

between the two women, based on the identity that Gillespie left

behind.

John Dufresne claims that “[he] will believe anything [he]

read[s] except autobiography. A fiction writer has no reason to

lie. A memoirist has an illusion to protect” (49)—and I would

have to agree. Gillespie certainly worked hard to preserve her

illusions. Yet fiction allows the writer to tell a story in the

way it could have happened, enabling a “truth” to be shared

without risk to a person’s self-illusion. It can allow an author

a venue for honesty that memoir does not. Lisa Cron claimed that

a powerful story can “change the way people think simply by

giving them a glimpse of life through their character’s eyes”

(2), revealing truths that just might change our very perceptions

of our own realities. With the very act of writing a diary

already fashioning a “constructed self” (Benstock 11), what

better way to demonstrate this construction than through fiction?

43

In my writing, I also included a few of the signifiers of

metafiction, a style of writing that encompasses “a commentary on

its own narrative…[or] a fiction about fiction” (Hutcheon 1).

Patricia Waugh claimed that “the lowest common denominator of

metafiction” is the construction of a fictional tale while making

“a statement about the creation of that fiction” (6). In my

novel, which includes several layers of audience and identity

within a fictional conversation, this aspect of metafiction is

not only the perfect storytelling device, but came to be an

inevitable feature of the story itself.

Using fiction as a method of analysis allowed me the freedom

to interpret and imagine the “missing pieces” in the accounts

Gillespie left behind. “Recreating”—through close reading and

responding to passages that particularly “spoke” to me as

reader/responder—a sense of Gillespie’s consciousness, and

joining in conversation with her has helped me to construct the

sort of audience relationship that she may have had in mind as

she wrote, allowing me to become—in Buss’ words—an “accomplice”

to the text (86).

44

Yet in any attempt to recreate the life of another through

the words on a page, the reader runs the risk of “seeing” things

in the text that the author may never have intended—and that is a

hazard that I faced regularly throughout the writing of my novel

manuscript. Jennifer Sinor, in her work with the diary of her own

great-great-great-aunt, noted that a diary “bears the traces of

just enough recognizable features in combination with just enough

gaps, omissions and general disarray to make it highly vulnerable

to hyperperformative reading” (88), or an assumption on the

reader’s part that she knows what the text means in spite of what

it says. Having kept a diary on and off for much of my life, I

must admit there was something personally familiar about the

format of Gillespie’s diary—a familiarity that often made me feel

as if I knew what she was thinking simply because I knew what I

would have thought under what seemed to be similar circumstances.

Because this sense of familiarity was occasionally so strong, I

felt this issue of taking another’s words and bending them to fit

my own bias or imagination was an important one to address—and I

chose to do it within the story I created.

45

My protagonist takes several narrative threads that Emily

has woven within her diary and writes them as short stories. In

the writing process she gets a bit carried away by her

imagination, and adds fictional details that she believes will

make the tale more appealing to a contemporary audience. But,

when the hour grows late and she falls asleep over her writing,

she dreams about Emily’s reaction to what she’s done—and Emily is

not happy! Aside from giving me the opportunity to create an

interaction between two characters separated in time by over a

century, this little scene also allowed me to address the idea

that the meaning found in a text is, to a very great extent,

created by the reader (a risk every writer must accept). Although

Sinor warns that the reader of a diary must be careful in his or

her interpretation so as to avoid tainting it with the reader’s

own ideas, it would seem to me that such a thing is not only

difficult to avoid, but to a certain extent inevitable. Taking

into account the historical and social context of a diary is

often the best a reader can do. It only takes a conversation with

friends at a book club meeting to realize that reading any text

is always a work of interpretation. The baggage we carry as

46

readers—through life experiences both positive and negative—can’t

help but affect the ways we interpret any text.

ANALYZING GILLESPIE’S DIARY

In Reading Autobiography, Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson speak

of the means by which autobiographical writings present the

experiences of a self as they are “felt from the inside,” as well

as often alluding to the self that others see (and which the

writer is also aware of), noting that within an autobiography

there is a sense of “not one life but two” (6). They continue to

speak of what they call “autobiographical acts,” or rhetorical

moves which are always “addressed to an audience [and] engaged in

an argument about identity” (63). This argument over the writer’s

identity involves the presence of “multiple ‘I’s”—most

specifically, the “I” who speaks, and the “I” who is spoken of

(71), however Smith and Watson argue the existence of more than

just these two versions of the self.5

5 Defining autobiography as “a retrospective narrative about a …past that is fully past—a life story that is told from the end” (71), Smith and Watson claim that there are not merely two “I”s (the “I” of the present telling a tale of the “I” of the past, but four. The authors make note of four possible “I”s in autobiographical writing: the “Real” or Historical “I”; the Narrating“I”; the Narrated “I”; the Ideological “I.”

47

Taking Smith and Watson’s discussion of these multiple “I”s,

I applied it to Gillespie’s diary text, and discovered that in

many passages, all four of these possible “I”s appeared. Below is

a single entry from her diary, transcribed in its entirety:

March 27, 1883- I finish my nightgown & c. go to town with

James. he feels better natured—I am thankful he does. I sometimes

think it is a real disease that some people have to have a time every so often. they

seem to get so full of some undefinable thing they must explode

[emphasis Gillespie’s]. Henry & Sarah at home. they work and

study as usual. Snow.

Quite happy to nightEvery thing is all right.My prayer has been answeredFor it I am so thankful.May it ever be thus, tis well.My children. Light of my life.Through all pleasure and strife,May their pathway ever beFree from sin and sorrowMay they be guidedBy virtue. My best wishes for all.

(“Emily Hawley Gillespie Diaries”)

In this entry, dated nearly five years to the day before her

death on March 24, 1888, we can see Gillespie speaking as the

historical “I” in her notation of the weather (“Snow”), remarking48

on her daily activity of finishing the sewing on her nightgown,

and describing her children’s actions (“Henry & Sarah at home.

they study as usual.”), as well. Gillespie vacillates between

Narrator (“I finish…go to town with James.”) and Narrated (“I

sometimes think…”) as she describes both her day and her thought

processes. She also introduces the ideological “I” when she

discusses her thoughts about James “disease” from the more

distant perspective of “they” and “some people” rather than

expressing her opinions of his behavior specifically. She lapses

into the ideological once again as she writes a poem dealing with

her spiritual convictions and hopes for her children, which

follows the reporting part of the entry.

Obviously, Gillespie is not writing her story from the end.

There is no sense of a life being viewed in retrospect. She shows

no awareness of any significance of this day over any other, or

that on March 24, 1888 her life will end. Yet, this lack of a

retrospective sentience on her part for explaining her life from

“the end of the story” does not change the autobiographical

character of her writing. Several times over the thirty years she

kept the diary, Gillespie “copied over” her text, noting a sense

49

of “liv[ing her] life over again” through the writing (“Emily

Hawley Gillespie Diaries” May 6, 1873). In her 1873 “version” of

the diary (there were at least three others), the long-married

Gillespie even reinvents herself as the single and desirable

heroine of her story—in an opening banner to the text which

declares it the “reminiscences of the life…of Miss Emmie E.

Hawley” (Temple 155).

Although she may not have recorded her life story from a

retrospective view—but rather on the daily basis of “a continuous

present”—her revision process, narrative stance, and rhetorical

sense of audience, clearly demonstrate the “autobiographical

acts” she performed in its writing. Gillespie also used her diary

as a way to create an identity she could live with. Beyond simply

rewriting her past, she shaped her present as well. If, as Smith,

Watson, and Nussbaum claim, the “I” in a diary has become a

fictional character through the language choices made, then

Gillespie’s diary frequently took a turn toward the imaginative.

In a lengthy entry dated February 13, 1860, Emily recalls a

scene with the family doctor which happened months earlier, and

50

includes it here—complete with dialogue and her dramatic

commentary on the event

Ah, I can never forget how he looked at me when he went

away,--he only said ‘How do you do, Emmie’ and ‘good

bye.’ Yes, I am now in my room alone. All is still and

I am meditating on the past. Aye, that look of

disappointment reminds me of these words he uttered the

evening of our exhibition.—“My dear, dear girl, he said

“I do love you, I would not harm one hair of your head,

I have watched you when you were sick and waited until

you are old enough to answer for yourself to ask you to

be my wife…if you will only say yes it shall be

tonight, now, in less than two hours.” I told him I

couldn’t think of such a thing…

(A Secret to be Burried 30)

The passage continues as if taken from a novel, conveying her

refusal of his proposal, his tears at her reply, and her reasons

for turning him down (“he knows not but he may die at any time

from the effects of cutting his hand with a lance, and, too, he

is eighteen years my senior”), then ends with the final pious

51

remark “—His will not ours, be done. ‘tis about eleven. I must to

sleep. Raining” (30).

In Gillespie’s earlier mention of this same exhibition,

dated November 8, 1859—three months earlier—she writes “Dr.

Chappell was at the exhibition; he talked, Oh so much I will not

write it tonight. Perhaps never” (25). If this event had been so

emotionally fraught that she was still considering it three

months later, wouldn’t it have filled her diary on the night it

happened? Yet instead, it is barely mentioned, while she spends

several paragraphs in the November 8th entry discussing the play

she saw (“Romeo & Juliette was nice…”), a boy who wanted to spend

time with her (“I gave him his ring though he did not want it; I

told him he was only a boy, he would see someone to love better

suited to him than I…”) and noting an article read with a friend

(“Miss Jones and I read an excellent paper”). Was she keeping

secrets and covering them with unimportant details? Or was her

later entry an effort to dramatize a remembered event as she

“meditated” on her thoughts? (Either way, I find it remarkable

that her memory of a three-month-old conversation is so good.)

Even if Emily’s conversation with the Doctor did include a

52

marriage proposal, it took on a fictional quality as she became

the narrator of her own life.

Like Anne Frank, who named her diary ‘Kitty’ as a way to

designate it with the status of audience, Gillespie directly

addresses her diary on several occasions, calling it “my only

confident [sic]” (December 3, 1874), addressing it directly as

“the only confident I ever had,” yet also declaring that “thou

dear journal dost not know every secret” (August 20, 1874). But

as time goes on and her marriage is deteriorating, she sadly

notes “Dear old journal, none but you greet me welcome…” (January

17, 1884). She also more than once speaks openly to her audience,

in her worries over her husband’s behavior and state of mind,

saying, “Reader, do you not feel to sympathize with Emmie?”

(August 22, 1863). Similarly, Emily sometimes indulged in a bit

of self-talk, saying things like “keep up good courage Emmie!”

(April 25, 1882). In this instance she acknowledges herself as

audience, demonstrating a clear awareness of Smith’s “fictive”

reader.

Gillespie also uses her diary writings to portray an image

of herself as a God-fearing woman, dependent on Providence to

53

make things right—a very common image for a woman of her time.

According to Barbara Welter, a nineteenth-century woman “judged

herself and was judged by her husband, her neighbors and

society,” and whether or not she displayed the “four cardinal

virtues” of “True Womanhood—piety, purity, submission and

domesticity” (21). Emily’s diary is full of prayers (“May we put

our trust in Him who doeth all things well, to guide us aright,”

February 13, 1860); desires that she might always be pure (“…that

I may ever be true to my word in all that I say, and may I never

hurt or mar the feelings of anyone,” October 6, 1861); her desire

to be all she feels she should be to her husband, in spite of his

not coming home for dinner as he had promised (“James is too kind

to be spoken harshly to & God forbid that ever an unkind word or

thought from me again,” July 11, 1863); and comments on her own

domestic prowess ( “this forenoon I bake 1 loaf bread & crackers,

churn, do my mopping & ironing & other work. Cut & nearly made a

little sack of my blue dress sleeve this afternoon & usual work,”

August 22, 1863)—an entry that is repeated in some fashion nearly

every day of Gillespie’s life.

54

As Gillespie’s relationship with her husband begins to sour,

she demonstrates a drastic change from her earlier comments on

James’ behavior and consideration. She becomes much more focused

on explaining how put upon she is by his lack of concern for her

and the children. She emphasizes what she calls his bouts with

“the blues,” (“James has one of his fits again to night. He shook

his fist in my face… I lay awake most of the time every night

until after twelve. Why fear him,” February 6, 1886), his ill-

treatment of her and the children (“…James having grown so much

worse & having such fits of insanity. Three weeks ago he tried to

choke Henry to death and declared he would kill him,” August 28,

1886). Yet, after remarking that

The heart sometimes is broken by trouble & its posser

[sic] dies a martyr…suffered untold sorrow by hearing

his abusive language, yet I did not dare displease him.

I have written many things in my journal, but the worst

is a secret to be buried [sic] when I shall cease to

be. God alone knows I have prayed every day that I

might have Wisdom, that I might know the right way, &

55

do right in all my words and doings. I can say with all my

heart my conscience is clear. (October 25, 1886)

it is obvious that her audience is meant to see James as an

abuser. In a story like this one, we have only Gillespie’s words

to judge by. Her words make it clear (backed up in some accounts

by her own daughter’s diary) that James suffered from some sort

of mental illness. Yet at the same time, Gillespie’s narrative is

framed in such a way to make her out to be the blameless victim

of her husband’s instability6. She has used the diary’s language

to create an image of herself as a long-suffering saint, while

painting her husband a “raving Maniac” (August 28, 1886).

Nevertheless, something seems to have changed for Gillespie

so that her self-created diary identity moved from fashioning

herself as a bastion of nineteenth-century “True Womanhood,” to

framing herself as the innocent victim of a lunatic. She was

getting older and sicker, and James’ early bouts with “the blues”

had progressed into behavior that slipped from mere sadness to

volatility. Yet I believe there was more involved than just her

6 Lest it seem that I am excusing an abuser and blaming the victim, I have seen parts of Sarah’s diary that—while they do not absolve James—do occasionally offer another side to the story.

56

health and his mental health issues. I believe that Gillespie was

watching her daughter grow up, seeing Sarah as “much like myself

when I was her age” (November 15, 1885), and as “myself living

over again” (February 13, 1886), imagining herself living her

life over through her daughter. She even noted that one of

Sarah’s suitors was “too much like [James] in some things,”

adding that “had anyone brave advised me, to beware of where I

was going to seal my future life, before it was too late. All

those seemingly good excuses [offered] would be but idle talk”

(June 13, 1887). For a woman who is unhappy with the results of

her life choices, what would be more logical than to try to find

a way to somehow reimagine her life? In earlier years, she had

revised her diary story, re-visioning herself as a sought after

young woman. Feeling old and becoming sickly, she may have felt

that wasn’t enough anymore, so she recast herself as a different

sort of heroine—one who is “happy [to] leave this world with a

clear conscience, trusting to go into the future in immortal

glory all is well” (February 19, 1888). Both images left behind

in her diary, show us a woman who—unable to actually live her

57

life on her own terms—chose the image of identity she would leave

behind.

As I discussed in the introduction to this paper, my

research into diaries, journals and autobiography, and

Gillespie’s diary in particular, led me to the conclusion that if

Emily could rewrite her life, surely I—using the methodologies

laid out here—could on some level, do the same. Although I wanted

to be careful not to hijack Gillespie’s voice, using her diary as

the inspiration for my examination of the reading and writing

process—that space where writer and reader meet along the border

of a text—seemed to lend itself well to writing the novel

inspired by her story.

And with what I had discovered of Gillespie’s self-revision

process in the pages of her diary, I somehow felt she wouldn’t

really mind.

WRITING PROCESS

Writing this story of an imaginary meeting and developing

conversation between a “real-life” diarist and a fictional

character has been one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever

done—and one of the most all-consuming, as well. Except for a few

58

moments when my conscience was screaming “but that is not how it

happened,” writing this story was amazingly easy—so easy that I

often had to sit back and ask myself if I was sometimes

recreating Emily in my own image. I’d like to think I haven’t,

but in reading her diary, I came to see so many different sides

of her character (some I liked very much, and others?... not so

much) that I occasionally had to wonder just which view of her I

was portraying in any given scene.

Yet, can’t the same be said of any of us? I am a daughter,

wife, mother, grandmother, friend, artist, student—and writer. I

can be easy-going or argumentative, friendly or reserved,

idealistic or cynical, dubious or completely gullible—depending

on the situation. Why would I think Emily would not be equally

multi-faceted? Each of us is many different people, depending on

our audience of the moment.

With all these ideas in mind, I spent the summer reading a

multitude of books (novels, books on writing novels, books about

metafictional structure, and metafictional novels and short

stories), as well as collecting the quotes about reading,

writing, diaries, and other topics that I felt helped to convey

59

the theme of each chapter (or in some cases, sections of a

chapter).7 Not only has this reading given me the best sort of

education on how to write a novel, it has allowed me to “study”

with some of the best teachers who have ever written—the authors

who created these amazing works.

REFLECTION

The largest part of my project was the writing itself.

Before my July 2014 trip to Iowa, I had written two short stories

based on Emily’s diary (“Libbie’s Wedding” and “Stranger on a

Train”), both of which became chapters in the novel—although in

slightly edited form. I had also written a preliminary prologue

(since, greatly altered) and the first chapters leading up to

Lizzie’s decision to go to Iowa (now for the most part, excised

from the story). All the rest was written after I arrived back

home. But, since most of the novel takes place in Iowa, it was

the only way it could be done. I would never have been able to

7 With my project in many ways being an homage to reading and writing, as wellas diary and audience, the idea for using these quotes came to me very early in the planning process. My only disappointment with them is that I have collected so many good ones, I’ll never be able to use them all. I have also, as part of the same tribute to writers and novels, mentioned several of my personal favorites (including a few movies and television shows), and even referenced a few “fictional” novels written by my protagonist. Together, theseadd to the metafictional touches sprinkled throughout my novel.

60

write any of it (at least not convincingly) if I had not had the

chance to see the original diary “face-to-face”—reading certain

entries in their entirety—or actually stand in Emily’s home.

Although it had obviously been remodeled in the 140 years since

its original construction, there was something so “real” about

being in the same rooms that Emily had walked through, worked in,

and written her diary in, that in some small way it was like

gaining an introduction.

On that same trip, I also had the opportunity to visit

Emily’s grave—twice. Once with the gentleman8 who bought Emily’s

house from her daughter Sarah in 1954 when he was just a junior

in high school (he still lives there today), and once alone. It

was on that second visit that I took the time to talk with Emily

(and Sarah—buried right next to her—without whom the diary would

never have seen the light of day). Right there, under the white

oak tree that shaded their headstones—and battling several hungry

8 Wilbur Kehrli, the owner of Emily’s house (in Manchester, Iowa), appears several times in the novel as Lizzie’s neighbor, Alex. I offered Wilbur the chance to name “his” character at the end of our day-long visit, and he chose the name Alex to honor an old friend. He was a lovely and gracious gentleman, and I couldn’t let this opportunity pass without a mention of all the help andenthusiasm he offered over my project—even letting me tromp all over his home and property taking pictures of anything that garnered my attention. Thanks tohis grandson, too, for passing along my initial emailed attempt at tracking Wilbur down.

61

mosquitos—I promised the two of them that I would tell Emily’s

story to the best of my ability, asking Emily to please be a

cooperative subject. For the most part, she has been exactly

that.

On September 10, 2014 I finished the first draft of my

novel. Although, I have since added an epilogue and a few

additional scenes and chapters, offering a bit more of Emily’s

story, I considered the story “complete” on that day. I sent the

draft out to several friends who acted as “beta readers” in the

hope of getting some feedback from those who are most likely

among my “target” audience—and their comments have been

invaluable. As a matter of fact, one of those comments led me to

the realization that even as I was examining Emily’s diary for

evidence that she had made choices regarding both topics to write

about and the framing of those topics, in order to portray a

certain image of herself, I was doing exactly the same thing in

my own decisions of what to include.

One additional chapter, added after comments from a few of

my readers that they wanted “more Emily,” dealt with the history

of Emily’s possession of the deed to the family farm. Writing

62

this chapter after the rest of the story arc was complete—and my

portrayal of Emily as a character was fixed—made it imperative

that I choose only one aspect of the conflict the deed caused

between Emily and her husband. Although there were times in my

reading that I was in full support of Emily’s “side of the

story,” there were other times when I was very much aware that

she was fashioning an image of herself that she wanted anyone who

might one day read the diary to see. Because I had already cast

Emily’s character in a certain light, I had to make choices not

only regarding which of her comments to include, but about the

type of impression I was hoping to make with the information in

order to avoid appreciably altering the story as I had already

told it.

If I made these decisions in writing someone else’s life,

surely Emily—and every other diarist—did it while writing her

own.

CONCLUSION

As I studied her life, I was surprised to discover how much Emily

Gillespie and I had in common. Although she was a farm girl, and

I grew up mostly in the city, we were both born in Michigan—Emily

63

in 1838, and I, over a century later—and we both had familial

roots in Iowa. She greatly desired a higher education, although

she was never able to go to college as she wished. Her youthful

dreams of becoming a painter and writer never came to fruition,

but her diary (along with other family papers left to the State

Historical Society of Iowa by her daughter Sarah) overflows with

poems and short stories she wrote, and in her later life she even

attempted to get a few of them published.

Emily was reasonably well-read for a woman of her era and

interested in the ideas of the larger world. She wrote a great

deal about the suffrage and temperance movements. She hated

slavery, yet had some decidedly negative opinions of

abolitionists and the Civil War. She also had two children, kept

house and worked on her farm, earning nearly half of her family

farm’s income through raising turkeys, churning and selling

butter, and sewing for friends and neighbors. She was so

determined that her children would gain the kind of education

denied her that she paid their tuition with her farm earnings,

and went without things she needed just to be sure that they

could continue to attend school.

64

Like Emily, I also dreamed of completing my college

education. Yet, in spite of beginning my college career right out

of high school, thirty-nine years passed before I finally earned

my Bachelor’s degree. I married at 20, raised two children, and

ran a business out of my home, working to put my children into

private schools—just as Emily did. Also like Emily, I dreamed of

seeing my writing published someday—a goal which has in fact been

achieved several times already.

Sometimes I think we could have been friends.

However, in spite of the parallels between us, there are

many ways that our lives are not quite so similar. Although my

twenty-first century American culture has not yet afforded women

fully-equitable status—particularly women of color and those in

poverty—I am much more in control of my life and choices than

Emily ever was. Even in the late-1970s when I came of age, I was

able to work where I chose, marry as I wished (without pressure

from parents or society), own property separately from my

husband, have access to birth control, and vote. I have not had

to deal with serious personal illness or an abusive husband as

she did, and I have not lived a life of hard physical labor on a

65

farm. I may have moved 800 miles from my family when I was in my

early twenties—where Emily moved less than 200—but I was able to

see them at least twice a year, and we spoke regularly by

telephone. Emily did not have that luxury—exchanging visits with

her parents just three times between her move to Iowa and her

death 26 years later.

The opportunity to work with the writings of a nineteenth-

century diarist like Emily Hawley Gillespie, essentially

“collaborating” with her on a creative work, has been a dream-

come-true for me. From my first introduction—at not-quite-eleven—

to the genre of diary writing through Ann Frank’s, The Diary of a

Young Girl, along with my own experiences with diary and journal

writing throughout my teens and into adulthood, I have been

captivated by the notion of penning thoughts that might be read

by someone else one day, leaving behind a legacy of identity for

descendants and strangers alike. Yet, to take the writings left

behind by another—written with the same intent—and playing the role of

responding audience, takes the concept of leaving something of

one’s self behind just a bit further. The creative project that I

envisioned with Emily’s diary allowed me to reach back across the

66

gulf of time and space to connect with the consciousness of

another writer—and whether she knows it or not—enabling Emily’s

words to live once again through the “conversation.”

I envisioned this fictional conversation inspired by Emily’s

story as allowing for a greater consideration of the psyche of

the writer and her times, as well as a deeper understanding of

the role of audience and identity in diary writing. I know that

it has certainly done so for me.

Through the more creative medium of “fiction as analysis,” I have

taken an active role in Gillespie’s narrative, entering her story

and collaborating with her to envision a dialogue involving first

one writer, then another. Although not an exhaustive biography by

any means (how could anyone reduce thirty years of daily details

about someone’s life to a book of 250 pages?), I was able to take

her diary, set myself as a second—and, I hope, create a third—

audience for her story, in the process, fashioning from it

something utterly new.

In crafting this conversation between Emily the diarist, and

Lizzie the “writer’s-blocked” protagonist, I kept in mind a quote

from Mihkail Bakhtin which I discovered early in my research:

67

the unique speech experience of each individual is

shaped and developed in continuous and constant

interaction with others' individual utterances. Our

speech, all our utterances (including our creative

works), is filled with others’ words.... These words of

others carry with them their own expression, their own

evaluative tone, which we assimilate, rework, and re-

accentuate (Speech Genres 89).

The idea that Bakhtin expresses here, that our “speech

experiences” are shaped through collaboration with the speech of

others, and developed as we integrate the words of another person

into our own experience, formed the theoretical underpinnings of

my project. And it is to Bakhtin that I owe a large part of the

inspiration for the relationship which forms between Emily and

Lizzie in the novel, through the words they share with one

another, the identity each creates in intersection with their

audience, and for the knowledge I gained of the part that

audience plays in the identity which each of us creates for

ourselves through the words we speak—and write.

68

Works Cited

Bakhtin, Mihkail M., Michael Holquist, Vern McGee, and Caryl

Emerson. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Austin: University of

Texas Press, 1986. Print.

Bakhtin, Mikhail. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Trans. Vern W.

McGee. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986. Print.

Becker, Howard. Writing for Social Scientists: How to start and finish your Thesis,

Book, or Article. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Print.

Benstock, Shari. “Authorizing the Autobiographical.” The Private Self.

Ed. Shari Benstock. Chapel Hill: The University of North

Carolina Press, 1988. 10-33. Print.

Bernstein, Richard. Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics

and Praxis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,

1983. Print.

69

Bloom, Lynn. “’I Write for Myself and Strangers’: Private Diaries

as Public Documents.” Inscribing the Daily: Critical Essays on Women’s

Diaries. Ed. Suzanne Bunkers and Cynthia Huff. Amherst:

University of Massachusetts Press, 1996. 23-37. Print.

Braham, Jeanne. “A Lens of Empathy.” Inscribing the Daily: Critical Essays

on Women’s Diaries. Eds. Suzanne Bunkers & Cynthia Huff.

Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996. 56- 72.

Print.

Brée, Germaine. “Autogynography.” The Southern Review, 22.2 (1986):

223-230. Print.

Bunkers, Suzanne. “Diaries: Public and Private Records of Women’s

Lives.” Legacy, 7.2 (1990): 17–26. Print.

---.  “Diaries and Dysfunctional Families: The Case of Emily

Hawley Gillespie and Sarah Gillespie Huftalen.” Inscribing the

Daily: Critical Essays on Women’s Diaries. Ed. Suzanne Bunkers &

Cynthia Huff. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press,

1996. 220-235. Print.

70

Buss, Helen. “A Feminist Revision of New Historicism to Give

Fuller Readings of Women’s Private Writings.” Inscribing the

Daily: Critical Essays on Women’s Diaries. Eds. S. Bunkers & C. Huff.

Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996. 86-103.

Print.

Cron, Lisa. Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook

Readers from the very First Sentence. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press,

2012. Print.

Culley, Margo. Introduction. A Day at a Time: The Diary Literature of

American Women from 1764 to the Present. New York: The Feminist

Press at the City University of New York, 1985. Print.

Dufresne, John. The Lie that Tells a Truth: A Guide to Writing Fiction. New York:

W. W. Norton & Company, 2003. Print.

Fivush, Robyn, Tilmann Habermas, Theodore Waters & Widad Zaman.

“The Making of Autobiographical Memory: Intersections of

Culture, Narratives and Identity.” International Journal of

Psychology, 46.5 (2011): 321–345. Print.

Frank, Anne. The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition. Eds. Otto Frank

and Mirjam Pressler. Trans. Susan Massoty. New York: Anchor

Books, Doubleday, 1991. Print

71

Freeman, Melissa. “Performing the Event of Understanding in

Hermeneutic Conversations with Narrative Texts.” Qualitative

Inquiry, 13.1 (2007): 925-944. Print.

Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth. “Literary Criticism and the Politics of

New Historicism.” The New Historicism. Ed. H. Aram Veeser. New

York: Routledge, 1989. 213-224. Print.

Friedman, Susan S. “Women’s Autobiographical Selves: Theory and

Practice.” The Private Self. Ed. Shari Benstock. Chapel Hill:

The University of North Carolina Press, 1988. 34-62. Print.

Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Philosophical Hermeneutics. Trans. & Ed. David E.

Linge. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.

Print.

Gannett, Cinthia. Gender and the Journal: Diaries and Academic Discourse.

Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992. Print.

Gillespie, Emily H. "Emily Hawley Gillespie Diaries." Sarah

Gillespie Huftalen Papers, 1836-1952. (1858). Microfilm CT275.G36

D51

Godwin, Gail. “A Diarist on Diarists.” Antæus: Journals, Notebooks &

Diaries, 61.2 (1988): 9-15. Print.

72

Gusdorf, Georg. “Conditions and Limits of Autobiography.”

Autobiography, essays theoretical and critical. Ed. J. Olney.

Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. 1980. 28-48.

Print.

Huff, Cynthia. “Chronicles of confinement: Reactions to

childbirth in British women's diaries.” Women's Studies

International Forum, 10.1 (1987): 63-68. Print

Hutcheon, Linda. Narcissistic Narrative: The Metafictional Paradox. Waterloo,

Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1980. Print.

Kagle, Steven E and Lorenza Gramegna. “Rewriting Her Life:

Fictionalization and the Use of Fictional Models in Early

American Women’s Diaries.” Ed. Suzanne Bunkers & Cynthia

Huff. Inscribing the Daily: Critical Essays on Women’s Diaries. Amherst:

University of Massachusetts Press, 1996. 38- 55. Print.

Lensink, Judy Nolte. “Expanding the Boundaries of Criticism: The

Diary as Female Autobiography.” Women’s Studies, 14.1 (1987):

39-53. Print.

---. “A Secret to be Burried [sic]”: The Diary and Life of Emily Hawley Gillespie, 1858-

1888. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1989. Print.

73

Linde, Charlotte. Life Stories: The Creation of Coherence. New York: Oxford

University Press, 1993. Print.

Morrision, Aimée. “Suffused by Feeling and Affect”: The Intimate

Public of Personal Mommy Blogging. Biography, 34.1 (2011):

37-55. Print.

Newton, Judith L. “History as Usual? Feminism and the ‘New

Historicism.’” The New Historicism. Ed. H. A. Veeser. New York:

Routledge, 1989. 152-167. Print.

Nussbaum, Felicity A. “The Politics of Subjectivity and the

Ideology of Genre.” Women, Autobiography, Theory. Eds. Sidonie

Smith & Julia Watson. Madison: The University of Wisconsin

Press, 1998. 160-67. Print.

Ochs, Elinor and Lisa Capps. Living Narrative: Creating Lives in Everyday

Storytelling. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.

Print.

Pascale, Celine-Marie. Cartographies of Knowledge: Exploring

Qualitative Epistemologies. Los Angeles: Sage, 2011. Print.

Pasupathi, Monica, Kate McLean and Trisha Weeks. “To Tell or Not

to Tell: Disclosure and the Narrative Self.” Journal of

Personality, 77.1 (2009): 89-122. Print.

74

Pasupathi, Monica. “Silk from Sow’s Ears: Collaborative

Construction of Everyday Selves in Everyday Stories.” Identity

and Story: Creating Self in Narrative Eds. Dan McAdams, Ruthellen

Josselson & Amia Lieblich. Washington, D.C.: American

Psychological Association, 2006. 129-150. Print.

Schiwy, Marlene A. “Taking Things Personally: Women, Journal

Writing, and Self-creation.” NWSA Journal, 6. 2 (1994): 234–

254. Print.

Schwandt, Thomas A. “Three Epistemological Stances for

Qualitative Inquiry: Interpretivism, Hermeneutics, and

Social Constructivism.” Eds. Norman Denzin & Yvonna Lincoln.

Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd edition. Thousand Oaks: Sage

Publications, 1994. 189-213. Print.

Simons, Judy. “Invented Lives: Textuality and Power in Early

Women’s Diaries.” Eds. Suzanne Bunkers & Cynthia Huff.

Inscribing the Daily: Critical Essays on Women’s Diaries. Amherst:

University of Massachusetts Press, 1996. 252- 293. Print.

Sinor, Jennifer. The Extraordinary Work of Ordinary Writing:

Annie Ray’s Diary. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press,

2002. Print.

75

Smith, Sidonie. A Poetics of Women’s Autobiography: Marginality and the Fictions

of Self-Representation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,

1987. Print.

Smith, Sidonie and Julia Watson. Women, Autobiography, Theory: A Reader.

Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1998. Print.

Smith, Sidonie and Julia Watson. Reading Autobiography: A Guide for

Interpreting Life Narratives, 2nd Edition. Minneapolis: University of

Minnesota Press, 2010. Print.

Temple, Judy Nolte. “’They Shut Me Up in Prose’: A Cautionary

Tale of Two Emilys.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies, 22.1

(2001): 150-179. Print.

Waugh, Patricia. Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-

Conscious Fiction. London: Methuen, 1984. Print.

Welter, Barbara. Dimity Convictions: The American Woman in the

Nineteenth Century. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1976.

Print.

Wink, Amy. She Left Nothing in Particular: The Autobiographical Legacy of 19th

Century Women. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press,

2001. Print.

76

An excerpt from:

‘A Continuous

Present’

A Novel

77

Copyright © 2014

Margaret Lundberg

78

All diary entries described herein as written by Emily Hawley Gillespie are transcribed

from her actual diary, housed in the State Historical Society of Iowa archives, and

include her original and occasionally non-traditional spelling and punctuation.

A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts

imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear

the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of

years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently,

inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of

human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs,

79

who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof

that humans can work magic.

― Carl Sagan

Prologue

It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always.

All the time. That story makes you what you are.

We build ourselves out of that story.

― Patrick Rothfuss

80

Life changing moments seldom reveal themselves in advance—

they are usually understood only as we view our lives in

retrospect. You don’t wake up one morning, walk down the same-old

street, then suddenly turn a brand-new corner, without something,

some little thing—or a series of little things—

leading you to that morning…

that walk…

that corner.

It’s those little things, piling up grain by grain like

sand, until one day the direction of your life, like the course

of a river, is changed forever.

I know, because it happened to me.

When I was a child, my mother used to tell me the same

story, again and again, describing the chain of events that led

to the day she first met my dad. One late September afternoon—

after both had been students on the same college campus for two

years—they sat next to each other in a literature class, and were

nearly inseparable from that moment on. But before that meeting

could happen, my Iowa-born father and Connecticut-raised mother

had to move thousands of miles across the country to Washington

81

State. My mother broke up with her then-fiancé and made a last-

minute decision which landed her at a community college where she

took a 19th century British literature class, rather than

planning her wedding. She enjoyed the class so much she later

decided to transfer to the University of Washington, in hopes of

becoming a high school English teacher someday. My father,

likewise, chose a class in Shakespearean Tragedies rather than

the American Lit he preferred, simply because the class was full

and he needed to fill a humanities requirement. If all of those

little things had not happened, they would likely never have met.

Their story would not exist.

And neither would I.

It seemed that whenever I had a decision to make, my mother

would tell me that story. Over the years, I’ve thought of it

every time I came to a crossroads in my life. Moments matter, and

the ones we are least aware of can often matter the most. Those

unconscious moments are the building blocks of our lives—and our

stories.

My story.

82

In many ways, I believe this story has been waiting for me

all my life, but at the very least I know its origins lay well

before the day I discovered a dusty trunk in the corner of Uncle

Dean’s attic. It may have been born the day I got a call from my

accountant about a buyer for the farm or when my agent called for

an update on the book I’d promised to write, or even when my

uncle left his old Iowa farmhouse to me. It might have been

conceived the day I claimed my mother’s old steamer trunk from

the rafters of my grandparent’s garage, hoping to discover some

great treasure inside—yet finding it empty of all save the musty

tang of memory that left me with a longing to recover a past I

had never actually lived. Or it may have had its genesis the day

the daughter of a 19th century farmers placed her mother’s diary

in a wooden trunk shoved into the deepest recesses of what would

one day, not too many years later, become my uncle’s attic.

A hundred little moments, like grains of sand, piled up.

They all led to that trunk…

that diary…

and the book in your hands today.

83

Chapter One

84

If you’re always looking back at what you’ve lost, you’ll never discover the

treasure that lies just up ahead.

― J.E.B. Spredemann

The afternoon was blazing, but curiously for mid-June, not

particularly humid—an occurrence for which I was exceptionally

grateful. Anxious to begin my summer adventure, I left the Des

Moines airport behind me and—with the air conditioner blasting—

turned my rental car east onto the I-80, a freeway that spanned

the state from the Missouri River to the Mississippi. Driving

through a landscape so flat you could see for miles in every

direction, I couldn’t help but marvel at the contrast to the

hilly streets and Puget Sound view of my Seattle home. I felt a

little like I’d stepped off a NASA lunar lander onto the surface

of a green-cheese moon.

The panorama was nothing short of breathtaking.

I was a bit disconcerted, though, by the cadence of car

tires bumping over the concrete sections of the roadway, so I

flipped on the radio in search of a distraction. Pressing the

85

buttons one by one, I realized that every preset station played

nothing but country music. Iowans clearly love their Brooks &

Dunn.

Well, Liz, I guess you’ll have to adapt.

With the fiddle of “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” now fighting road

noise for my attention, I turned my focus toward the patchwork of

verdant farmland lining the highway. I’d visited Ireland several

years ago, a much-anticipated excursion on my way home from a

writer’s conference in London, and remember thinking that I’d

never seen a landscape so luxurious. The scenery that surrounded

me now, dotted with farms and carpeted by cornfields, was like a

fresh and dazzling younger sister to Ireland’s lush and nearly

primordial perspective. Neither more stunning than the other, the

difference between the two was simply a matter of time.

My father had often told me stories about Iowa, this flat

green land that had been his childhood home—on a farm with acres

of corn so tall you could lose yourself in it. As young boys, he

and my Uncle Dean spent late summer afternoons playing ‘hide &

seek’ in the fields, one trying to find the other with no hint of

their whereabouts but the sound of their own laughter amidst the

86

rustle of cornstalks. Growing a bit older, they spent their

summer days making hay and stacking the bales in the barn, then

jumping from the overhead beams into the deep piles yet

unbundled, over and over until their mother would call them in

for supper. He spoke of fireflies—lightning bugs, he’d called

them—dancing above the lawn like drunken fairies, and flickering

through the fields after dark as he and my uncle tried to catch

them up in jars. To me, the farm sounded like an idyllic place to

grow up. Although my own memories of the place were somewhat

hazy, I couldn’t wait to see it again.

Twenty miles to go…

Stopped at a railroad crossing just after the turn onto Hwy.

6, I waited as a freight train hurtled past, blasting its horn.

Memories of childhood vacations rose with the sound—my little

sister Charlie and I trying to count the cars as they rushed by,

our baby brother Will slumped over in his carseat, fast asleep.

Mom always made a game of guessing which states the train would

pass through before arriving at its destination, while we shouted

out their capitals. Dad, bored with the wait and anxious to get

87

moving, would sometimes claim, “This one is so long I’ll bet it’s

in two cities at once.”

I adored watching trains as a child, caught up with a

romantic longing to one day traverse the country on one. I had

dreamed of watching the world fly past my window as I sat curled

up in a private compartment, cheek pressed against the glass,

dreaming of adventure. But two and a half years ago, the crash of

a commuter train with my husband aboard had stolen all that away

from me. My life-long dream transformed into a nightmare of loss

from which I’d yet to fully awaken.

Aside from the heartbreaking separation from husband and

father, my grief lingered in a more tangible form, as well. I had

lost my ability to write. Since Jack’s death, I had been

incapable of committing to paper anything more complex than a

grocery list. As someone who had always sheltered my identity in

writing, there could be little more worrisome. In spite of my

intention of starting a new book this summer, I had no idea how

to actually begin.

At the direction of the digitized voice of the GPS, I turned

west off the highway and was nearly blinded by the gingered sun 88

hovering just above the tree line. Driving slowly in an effort to

avoid kicking up too much dust, I squinted at house numbers in an

effort to find the B&B I’d booked for the night, and wondered how

much farther I’d have to go down this long straight-as-an-arrow

road. Finally, just as I was starting to wonder if I’d been led

astray by a machine, “she” announced we were “arriving at

destination—on left.” About thirty feet ahead, I could see the

farmhouse from the website photo—as well as a plain black buggy,

its two-horse team clip-clopping down the road in my direction. A

grin began to spread across my face.

There are Amish here.

Grampy was full of stories about his Amish neighbors in

Manchester who still lived as if the Industrial Revolution never

happened, farming in little pockets around the state and driving

their horse-drawn buggies up and down the road, past automobiles

and tractors. Every Sunday morning they’d dress in their best and

drive their black buggies to the home of one of their neighbors.

Once there, they’d hold their weekly church services, share a

community meal, and then all drive home again as the sun was

89

beginning to set—only to repeat it again the next week at someone

else’s home.

“They were good farmers,” Grampy said, “and good neighbors—

always ready to lend a hand when needed.” I hoped I’d get a

chance be meet some of them while I was in Iowa.

But for the moment, gabbing my bags from the trunk of the

car, all I really wanted a hot bath and a bed.

As the last light of the day was fading, I took a walk just

to stretch my legs a bit. I headed down the dirt road in the

direction I’d come, crossing a bridge that spanned the creek

which ran next to the house. I could hear the croak of frogs in

the creek mingling with the laughter of my host’s children. The

boy was tossing a ball for their golden lab, while the youngest

girl chased fireflies with a mason jar. Hearing the crunch of

gravel on the road behind me, I turned to see a scruffy little

cairn terrier who looked just like Toto from the Wizard of Oz.

With his black-button eyes intent on me, clearly speculating

about the stranger who’d taken up residence in the neighborhood,

he was just about the cutest little dog I’ve ever seen.

90

“Well, hello there fella! Where did you come from?” A

giggle bubbled up as I leaned down and scratched behind his ears.

Looking him square in the eye, I couldn’t help but ask, “Hey, did

you know you’re not in Kansas anymore?”

I remember reading the Oz books with my Gramma Zizzie for

the first time, coming across Baum’s description of Toto as "a

little black dog, with long, silky hair and small black eyes that

twinkled merrily on either side of his funny, wee nose," and

being disappointed that the dog in the movie had looked so

different.

That night I’d written my first story, about how the

Scarecrow had dyed Toto’s hair so the wicked witch wouldn’t

recognize him. I recall little else about the story, but I do

remember Toto had not been happy with the results of the dye job.

I’d had such fun imagining the scene playing out inside my head,

then writing it out to read to my sister. From the moment I saw

the smile on her face as she, too, could see what I saw, I was

determined to become a writer.

With one last pat on his head, I stood and said, “So, little

guy, did you get a bad dye job, too?”

91

Since I was very young, I’ve lived my life mostly inside my

own head, imagining interactions and conversations with

characters I discovered in books. Gramma Zizzie often read to me,

her voice bringing the simplest stories to life. The tales she

read me before bed would fill my mind with images and keep me

awake for hours just imagining how I might go to the ball with

Cinderella, push through rows of coats in the wardrobe with Lucy—

or even explain away the wrong color dog.

When I began to write my own stories, those imaginings had

continued, but now with the characters I created. Sometimes I’d

argue with them over the things they’d say or do—things that I

never expected, in spite of the fact that I was the one telling

the story. It might have been silly, but those characters in my

books had always seemed so alive—even if it was only inside my

own head.

Yet since Jack died, the characters had stopped visiting.

There were no conversations, no arguments. What had replaced them

was worry. Fear over my daughters’ futures. Nameless anxieties

that haunted my nights and kept me almost frozen at times, unable

92

to act in all but the simplest ways. Making this trip across the

country was the gutsiest thing I’d done in over two years.

Yet somehow, I’d done it. If only I could find my way back

into writing...

Between the shift in time zones, busy thoughts that refused

to rest, and my usual discomfort in unfamiliar surroundings, I

woke for the day well before I wished to. Peeking out the window,

I could see the rapidly lightening sky and decided I might as

well greet the sun face-to-face. I threw on some sweats, grabbed

a notebook, and skipped quietly down a staircase lined with

cross-stitched samplers and out the door.

If I was going to start writing again this summer,

journaling about a sunrise seemed a good way to start. Tucking

sleep-crumpled hair behind my ears, I picked up the pen, took a

deep breath and said a little prayer that the words would come.

June 20th- Sunrise and sunset have always been

my favorite times of day—but I imagine that is true

of most people. Watching the colors shift the sky

so gracefully makes me wish I could splash the

93

vivid hues of dawn across a canvas and send them

out to reach another’s heart.

A soft breeze stirs the leaves above my head.

They quiver and then quiet—like a baby just

beginning to wake. I wonder—does the breeze always

arrive with the sun, or is it just here for the

day? The sound it makes is so familiar, like

uncooked pasta shells sheeting into a bowl… Not

exactly poetic, is it? Still, I am writing. A week

ago I wouldn’t have thought it possible…

I sat under that tree for nearly an hour, watching and listening

intently, writing every word that came into my head. Little of

what ended up on the page could be called art by any stretch of

the imagination, but I had done it. I had actually written

something!

I knew this trip would be good for me.

After an enormous breakfast—the omelet alone could have fed

a small army—I made a few phone calls to reassure my family I’d

arrived safely. Daisy was full of stories about all that she was

learning in her job, and the weekend trip she and her boyfriend

94

had made out to Martha’s Vineyard. Alice, on the other hand, was

in Oahu—five hours behind me. She and a friend had left for their

study abroad trip a week early in order to gather a little

sunshine before heading straight into an Australian winter. We’d

talked before she left and she assured me “You’ll find some cool

new story idea Mom, I know it. This trip is just what you need.”

She wished me luck and promised she’d call once she arrived in

Australia.

“Just text, honey. Let’s save the phone calls for once

you’re settled. And don’t forget— there’s a fifteen hour time

difference between Iowa and Canberra.”

“Don’t worry Mom, I’ll try not to wake you at the crack of

dawn.”

I think I’ll call Alice later.

My call to Charlie went straight to voicemail. No surprise

there. An associate editor for the same New York publishing house

where Daisy was interning, my little sister was one busy gal.

My brother Will—always the hardest to catch—actually

answered on the first ring. After exchanging the usual

pleasantries and assuring him that I was just fine, I mentioned 95

again my wish that he’d visit the farm, even if it was just for a

day or two.

“I know.” He said. “Me, too. But I’ve got that bookseller’s

convention coming up right after the 4th. Between that and my

manager’s maternity leave, I’m just swamped.”

I assured him I understood, and reminded him that Charlie

was planning to visit sometime next month. “I’ll be fine, Will.

You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Come on Lizzie J, you know I can’t help it. Jack would’ve

expected me to watch out for you.”

My old childhood nickname usually pried a feigned protest

out of me, but I could hear the regret in Will’s voice and I

didn’t want to go there. I promised to call again as soon as I

was settled on the farm, and to send pictures of the place

neither of us had seen in over thirty years. Tapping the “end”

button, I firmly turned my thoughts away from my constantly

lurking apprehension and toward the day ahead.

For the rest of the day, I played tourist around Kalona.

Driving down streets occupied by both cars and more of those

black buggies, I felt as if I’d traveled back in time—sort of.

96

The town itself was a peculiar mix of old and new. Sparkling new

sidewalks—inset with colored-concrete designs of quilt patterns—

vied with storefronts that screamed vintage 1940s, while the town

center was bordered by homes built near the turn of the last

century. It was nothing if not quaint, yet Kalona’s greatest

tourist appeal was surely the Amish presence. It certainly was

for me.

I paused several times to watch Amish families circulate

amongst the tourists and townspeople. Children walked single-

file, like ducklings following behind mother or father, as black

buggies drove the main streets and tethered alongside their

neighbors’ parked cars. I held a brief conversation with an Amish

woman who—as I walked by—commented aloud about the crumbling

chimney of the building across the street, wondering if it might

need rebuilding after being struck by lightning a few days

earlier. Although in many ways, the Amish held themselves apart

from the world around them, they were quick with a smile and

“good day” as they passed. I watched their faces and saw such a

sense of serenity there, I had to admit to a bit of envy—though I

wasn’t sure how I would handle the lack of 21st century technology

97

(I do love my iPhone). They, however, seemed to be doing just

fine without it. Something about what I saw as their desire to

linger within the security of a by-gone era echoed my own.

When I’d exhausted the supply of shops in town, I drove out

to The Cheese Factory to sample some of their celebrated cheese

curds and ponder the purchase of a handmade quilt. After months

spent trying to share the splendors of Shakespearean prose with

cynical high school students, it was the most relaxing day I’d

had in a long time.

On my way back to the B&B, I toyed with the idea of making

my next book about the Amish. Might there be some heroic Amish

woman I could write about? Someone who had assisted escaping

slaves during the Civil War, or offered some other daring story

to tell? A shopkeeper had spun a quite a resourceful yarn for me

about quilt patterns directing escaping slaves along the

underground railroad—assuring me of its veracity in spite of the

fact there were no…facts.

“Is that true?” I asked her. “I’ve never heard that story

before.”

98

With a conspiratorial smile, she leaned across the counter,

and in a whisper said “Well, there’s no proof, if that’s what you

mean. But there are stories—and those had to come from somewhere…

didn’t they?”

She looked so serious, I swallowed the laughter that

threatened to bubble up. I knew very little about the Amish apart

from my Grampy’s stories and what I’d seen today, but I loved

historical research and the Amish lifestyle certainly intrigued

me. Maybe there was a story to be discovered in their history.

At the very least, I was glad I bought the quilt.

By ten a.m. the next morning, I was on the last leg of my

journey to Manchester. Unlike the brilliant colors of yesterday’s

sunrise, today’s sky was veiled in a flutter of clouds,

alternately exposing and concealing the blue. I hadn’t heard the

overnight rain, but the grass glistened with it and several large

puddles dotted the still-wet road in front of the B&B. Though I’d

slept through today’s sunrise, the pleasure I’d felt in the small

amount of writing I’d done yesterday as I watched the birth of

the day still sang in my veins. Headed for the farm I remembered

99

with such pleasure from my childhood visits, I knew I had made

the right choice about coming here.

“As soon as the quarter is over, I’m going to Iowa.”

The moment those words had dropped from my startled lips

during a conversation with Amy, my literary agent, I knew it was

meant to be. My accountant had called earlier that morning with

an offer on the farm, but I didn’t feel ready to let it go—not

just yet. A visit to Manchester would be just the ticket to

decide whether or not to sell, and in at moment with Amy, I knew

it would also be a good place to start writing again.

I just wasn’t sure why I’d told her that.

“Iowa in the summer? Liz, are you sure? It’s hot and humid,

not to mention all the tornados—and the bugs! What about the

bugs?” At my lack of response, Amy hurried on. “And what on earth

will you do? There’s nothing there but corn and cattle.” She fell

silent for a moment, but I could feel her disapproval practically

radiating from the phone.

“But that’s why it’s so perfect,” I said, surging ahead

before she could come up with any more reasons why it was a bad

100

idea. “There won’t be anything to distract me. I haven’t been

there since I was ten, so it’s practically an unknown. The trip

will also give me a chance to reconnect with half my heritage.

Maybe I can even uncover a story about some amazing woman who

pioneered the Oregon Trail or something…something that I can base

the book on. I haven’t written an American story before.”

But I could tell she wasn’t keen on the idea. Kylie, the

publisher’s rep, had mentioned more than once that Avalon hoped

for another book like my last—The White Heart of the Rose—based on the

life of Elizabeth of York, wife of King Henry VII. British

historical fiction always sold like hotcakes, so Avalon was not

likely to be happy with an American story.

A story I hadn’t even written yet...

I could hardly believe how quickly I’d managed the

arrangements for this trip. Three weeks ago, I’d announced my

intentions of spending the summer in Iowa hoping to begin a new

book—a book I’d promised my publisher, but for which I had no

ideas. Yet in spite of any trepidation over the actual writing,

my eagerness to see the farm again was enough to carry me through

101

the last few days of the school year—impatiently grading essays

and final exams—and onto a plane bound for the Midwest.

Now that I was here…well, I was desperately hoping the muse

would follow.

Just north of Cedar Rapids on the I-380, a scan of my rear

view mirror revealed a rapidly darkening sky blowing my way. A

gusty wind had kicked up, and the earlier patches of blue began

to disappear. Along with the clouds, a sense of gloom began to

settle over me. My earlier delight in yesterday’s writing began

to give way to waves of a nameless anxiety. Peering up at the

now blackening sky, I considered the possibility of tornados.

What did they look like before they fell from the sky?

Had there been storm warnings in the weather report I’d

turned off earlier this morning?

I tried to push away the spiraling negativity that seemed to

drop out of nowhere, replacing my earlier optimistic outlook. I

forced my focus toward a strange thumping noise coming from

somewhere underneath my car. Sure—at first—what I heard was

nothing more than the tires thumping over the concrete roadway, I

102

ignored it for a few moments. Then I realized I was having

trouble steering.

A flat tire? Really?

I pulled off onto the shoulder, getting as far over as I

could, turned on the flashers and shut off the engine. I closed

my eyes for a moment and took a deep cleansing breath.

It’s fine Liz. Everything will be just fine.

I had my AAA card, but surely a breakdown was the rental car

company’s problem, not mine. I was sure there was nothing to

worry about. This would be taken care of with one phone call.

Still, I was the one stuck on the side of the freeway just before

noon on a hot and increasingly tempestuous day.

Opening the door, I got out to assess the situation. Moist

and heavy, a hot wind whipped my hair across my face, and my

uneasiness rose with every gust. Brushing it aside, I circled the

car to discover the source of the noise—a flat, right rear tire,

with a large nail visible in the tread. A few heavy raindrops

fell, almost sizzling as they hit the pavement. I popped the

trunk and rummaged around, only to discover that although there

was a spare tire, there was no jack.

103

No Jack…

Out of nowhere, a sob burst from my throat. Rapidly-

multiplying raindrops splashed hard against the concrete, and a

pop of lightning flashed the sky. As the rain began to fall in

earnest, the dam holding back all my fears suddenly gave way.

I began to weep uncontrollably. It didn’t matter that there

was no jack in the trunk—I had no idea how to change a tire

anyway. What was lacking in that moment was my Jack. Not just

because he would have handled the whole thing (although he would

definitely have been the first to point out that I really needed

to learn how to change my own tires), but because I missed his

companionship, his bad jokes … the sound of his voice. There on a

freeway in Iowa, I grieved—yet again—the loss of my husband and

the life I had so carefully built. A life now gone forever.

Somehow, I managed to drag myself back into the car.

While the storm raged outside, I wept as I hadn’t in months.

It was as if the accident that stole Jack away from me had

happened all over again. In the early days of my grief, I’d held

myself together during the day, allowing myself the luxury of

tears only at night, hoping my daughters wouldn’t hear me. But

104

there had been occasions when, without warning, anguish at my

loss would overwhelm me like waves of the sea—mourning that could

not be held back a single moment longer. As time went on, those

waves came less often and with less intensity, yet my emotions

would still arise at odd moments and would not be denied.

Today was clearly one of those days.

Finally, the tempest inside me began to calm. I dropped my

head onto the steering wheel, my hair sheeting around me, as if

veiling me from the world outside. Drawing shaky breaths in an

effort to regain control of my ragged emotions, I considered once

more the life left behind in the wake of Jack’s death. Once the

initial shock had passed, I pulled myself together enough to take

care of the details of our lives—my life—to be a passable mother,

and to do all the things that needed to be done. But without him,

I found myself unable to write. The one thing I had always

depended on, the foundation of my identity, the thing that had

always brought me so much joy seemed to have left me—just as he

had.

And now, here I was, wailing like an overwrought toddler on

the side of an Iowa freeway. The promise I’d made to write a new

105

book roared from my pocket, while the only writing I’d been able

to do in over two years was scribbled in a notebook now resting

uneasily in the back seat of the car. I had felt so hopeful

yesterday when I’d been able to feel the joy of the writing surge

through me. Yet a day later, I was terrified by the very

existence of those pages.

Fearful that I’d never be able to write another book, I was

also worried that even if I somehow did manage it, it would be

awful. That without Jack I’d never be able to stick to the work

long enough to accomplish my goal. But now I confronted another

fear—that I’d somehow be betraying Jack if I could find a way to

write without him. The force of that realization threatened

another round of tears.

“You won’t be, you know…betraying me.”

Jack.

I closed my eyes tight, and listened for his voice with

everything in me. It might only be inside my head, but if I

didn’t open my eyes, maybe—for just a little while—I could

believe he was actually there.

106

After a few moments, he spoke again, his voice raw with the

ache that I felt. “This kind of life isn’t what I wanted for you.

Fear of failing. Fear of succeeding. If I were here, I’d…

“But you’re not here, are you?” I interrupted. Drawing a

shuddering breath, I asked the question that it seemed I’d been

asking all my life.

“Why did you have to go?” My question hung in the air,

expanding into the space around me. Crying out from the very

depths of my being.

“You know the answer to that.”

I did know the answer—or at least, I thought I did. For over

two years it had haunted me. Was it my fault that he’d been

killed on that train? He might not have even been on that train

if it hadn’t been for me. If I had gotten a real job, rather than

holding tightly to a dream that required so much of my time yet

offered such capricious rewards, I might have helped more with

the family finances. Jack wouldn’t be dead if it wasn’t for my

dream.

Was that true? Or was I simply indulging a misguided sense

of guilt as an excuse to avoid living my life?

107

A professor of Asian history and culture, Jack had been in

great demand as a consultant for private corporations and

military contractors. With the girls on college, tuition was a

huge expense—even for an occasionally-successful author, and a

college professor. The honorarium from the conference that he’d

been attending when he died would almost cover a semester’s

tuition for one of the girls, allowing me to stay home and write,

thus perpetuating my image as “professional” writer as opposed to

a high school English teacher who wrote historical romance novels

in her spare time. I knew he took on the position because he

believed in me and my abilities, but occasionally I wondered if

my fierce determination to be a “real” writer had forced his

hand.

But a writer is all I had ever wanted to be. Crafting living

personas from the lifeless pages of history books—and my own

vivid imaginings. Through imaginings decanted into a draft, I

fashioned an identity for characters who never really existed

outside my own invention. I offered my readers a vision of

heroism and strength in women who simply lived their lives as the

rest of us wished we could, facing things as they came and trying

108

to make the best of the circumstances of their lives. Heroism is

often more accidental than anything, Jack had reminded me more

than once—sometimes it is simply being in the right place at the

right time. Although the strength of character I tried to depict

in each of my protagonists was lovely, it was all part of an

illusion—an identity fashioned with words.

Jack often asked me whether I tried to do the same, using my

words—even those spoken by the characters in my books—to create

an image of myself and my life, showing the world what I wanted

them to see. Rewriting history as I thought it should have been,

not necessarily what it really was.

“But isn’t that what writers do?” I had asked him. “Don’t we

create the worlds our characters live in? The worlds we want to

live in?”

But it’s not just writers. Every day, in every conversation,

we all create images of ourselves through the stories we tell.

So what story am I telling myself now? If it’s grounded on

guilt, then refusing to live my life is the punishment I deserve.

109

Pulled away from my internal interrogation, I could hear the

gentle irony in his voice as he spoke again, “I went because it

was time to go.”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

“You want to know why I died? You’re asking the wrong guy if

you want the answer to that one, love...but that isn’t really

your question, is it?”

No…the why was no longer my question. I had called it out

into the soundless void so many times before—beginning with my

mother’s death nearly thirty years ago and continuing on through

so many other family members I had loved and lost. With Jack’s

death, it was still a question I had no answer for—at least none

that satisfied me. But Jack was right. My question was no longer

why, but how.

How do I go on with my life without you? How do I act as if

your death hasn’t changed everything—including my own identity?

If I can live without you, what does that say about me—and our

relationship?

How do I escape my fears?

110

“You know how. You start by letting go of it—and me. Don’t

use me as an excuse anymore. Not for not writing. Not for not

living. The only way can you betray me is by refusing to move on.”

I sat for a moment considering his words, remembering lines

Joan Didion had penned in The Year of Magical Thinking, near the end of

her first year as a widow. Lines that tore at my heart when I

first read them nearly two years ago—“if we are to continue to

live ourselves, we must relinquish the dead, let them go, keep

them dead.” We must—I must—let them go.

Let you go.

She was—you were—right, I knew. I had been avoiding my own

life. Jack had been so much a part of me that just continuing to

exist without him seemed a betrayal of his importance to me.

For a split second, I could almost feel his fingers ruffling

the hair on the back of my neck, his breath tickling my ear, see

his dimpled grin. Sighing deeply, I reveled in the rush of memory

before it faded. Outside the car, the wind and rain began to

abate. The world around me hushed, allowing me time to reflect.

111

Jack was right. I had been using him as an excuse. Afraid to

let go, to move on, I had simply stood in place, stoic and

immoveable.

“Let me go, Lizzie, and pick up your pen. It’s time to

write for someone else... to find another audience.”

I had tried. At Charlie’s suggestion, I tried writing about

Jack, and our life together. I even tried writing poetry (really

bad poetry), attempting to give voice to my grief, but I couldn’t

write a thing worth reading. The harder I tried, the worse it

seemed. The words simply refused to come.

“I don’t think I can.”

“You can, love. I know you can. The story you’ve been

waiting for is just down the road…waiting for you. It’s time to

go and find it.”

It’s time.

I sat quietly for a few minutes, eyes still closed. Whether

they were the imaginings of my own mind or not, I knew Jack’s

words were true. It was time to find my own story. I lifted my

head from the steering wheel, peering through foggy windows to

see patches of blue starting to burn through the clouds. I rubbed

112

now-sticky tears from my cheeks, blew my nose, and reached for my

phone.

It’s time.

After speaking with roadside assistance, I was assured that

help was on the way. The car rental office promised there would

be a replacement spare and jack waiting for me—along with profuse

apologies—in Waterloo. Within what seemed mere minutes, a tow

truck had arrived, and the driver changed the tire quickly and

efficiently, and waved me off toward Waterloo, with the

directions to the rental office programmed into my GPS.

I could still make it to Manchester by three to pick up the

key.

There was still time.

Chapter Two

Memory is a living thing—it too is in transit. But during its moment all

that is remembered joins, and lives—the old and the young, the past and

the present,

113

the living and the dead.

-Eudora Welty

The farmhouse looked pretty much as I remembered it—double

hung windows and white clapboard siding. A widow’s walk circling

the roofline. Maybe a bit more rundown—I couldn’t help but wonder

if it was my imagination or was the front porch actually listing

a bit? But really, what could you expect from a house built

probably 150 years ago?

Climbing the front steps, I turned and surveyed the scene

around me. The sun shone hot—all hints of the earlier

thunderstorm were gone. There was truly not a cloud in the sky.

Just as I remembered them, the fields surrounding the house and

barn rippled with the verdant leaves of waist-high corn plants. I

could almost hear cattle mooing in the barn, my Grampy and Uncle

shouting at them to “git.”

Am I really here?

I’m not sure how long I stood there, sodden with memory,

before I heard a shout from the end of the driveway. I looked up

to see a red Dodge Durango, its gray-haired owner smiling and

114

shielding his eyes with one hand, leaning out his open window. He

looked to be about the age my dad would have been if…

“Hello there. You wouldn’t be Dean’s niece, would you? I

heard you’d be coming sometime soon.”

“I am.” I wasn’t really sure who he was or how he knew who I

was, but he seemed friendly enough. “I’m here for the summer.

Getting the place ready to sell, I think.”

“Now that’s too bad. Pattersons have owned this place for a

long time, ever since…” His voice dropped off and he seemed deep

in thought. “But I’m forgetting my manners. I’m Alex… Alex

Hikler. I live just up the road—next farm over.”

Walking toward the truck, I held out my hand.

“Nice to meet you, Alex. I’m Liz Benton.”

We spoke a few minutes, as he told me a bit about himself

and the neighbors around us, and shared a few stories about my

dad and uncle. I mentioned my tentative plans for the summer.

“That’s right, you’re a writer. Your uncle was pretty proud

of you, you know?” Squinting at me from under his hand, he asked,

“Are you going to write about someone from Iowa this time?”

115

I told him I was considering a story about the Amish, but

didn’t have anything definite yet.

“We’ve got a lot of Amish around here. Good woodworkers. A

couple of Amish boys helped me rebuild one of my barns last

summer. I’ll tell you some stories about them one of these days,

if you’re interested…”

I said I couldn’t wait to hear all about them, and told him

to drop by anytime. He promised to look in on me in a few days,

“just to see if you need anything,” offering me his phone number,

“just in case.” Thanking him for his thoughtfulness, I waved as

he drove off down the road. I stood a moment, just a bit

overwhelmed by how warm and welcoming everyone had been so far.

Alex had known my family since childhood, and was enthusiastic

about sharing what he knew of our history, as well as helping me

settle in any way he could.

I don’t think any of my neighbors at home would do that.

In that moment, I decided I liked Iowa. A lot.

Walking back up to the porch, I fished the key from my

pocket and pressed it into the lock, my heart beating wildly with

116

anticipation. I couldn’t wait to get inside the house and get

started on my great adventure.

I’m not sure what I expected when I opened the door, but

what faced me were spare furnishings, bare floors and white

walls. Yes, the layout of the front room was pretty much as I

remembered it, but all of my Great-Gramma’s homely touches— the

gleaming wood of the dining table and sideboard, the Victorian-

style sofa and chairs, and her prized mantle clock—had been

replaced by a few pieces of what looked like standard rental

furniture. I knew it was silly to expect it to look as it had

when I was eight, but I couldn’t help feeling just a bit

disappointed not to walk into the room I remembered.

Setting aside my disillusionment for the moment, I began to

take stock of the house. Aside from the sparse furnishings the

property manager said he’d left for me, the fragrance of still-

curing paint filled the air—mingled with the citrusy smell of

wood polish, and just a hint of bleach. Wood floors, though worn

in spots, gleamed in the sunlight pouring through the windows. It

was nearly as warm inside as outside, so I opened a few windows

117

to let in some fresh air. With a ceiling fan in the living room,

I figured it shouldn’t be too hard to get some air circulating.

I meandered the downstairs rooms, running my hand along

doorframes and the fireplace mantle before entering the kitchen.

(Had it always been this small?) It looked just as I remembered

it, though, right down to the dip in the ceiling where it met the

upper cabinets. In spite of the popcorn texture applied in the

years since, its waviness was still visible. Grampy assured me

such slopes in the ceiling were typical of old houses,

particularly after being fitted with new fixtures.

When my five-year-old self feared the ceiling might tumble

down, he’d told me, “Old houses were mostly built by hand, my

little Lizzie. By hand and by love. New ones are made with power

tools.” He’d smiled then, and told me not to worry. “The new ones

might be straighter, but the love in this old house is too strong

to let it fall.”

I hadn’t really understood his words, but I knew he meant

I’d be safe there. His love would always protect me.

Sometimes I can’t believe how much I still miss him.

118

Walking toward the window over the sink to distract myself

from the tears that threatened once again, I looked out across

the drive to the acres of corn beyond. Before I was born, that

field had belonged to my great-grandparents, but I had no idea

how long they had been here. I struggled to remember my family

history, the year when the Patterson family had come Manchester,

but I drew a blank. I knew that information lay buried somewhere

in a family genealogy chart—now in the care of my much-more-

orderly sister—but for the moment, I had no way of knowing. As a

child I believed this farm had always been ours, but now I wanted

to know the real story behind it.

Turning away, I made a quick tour through the rest of the

house. A long narrow room stretched behind the front room. It

looked like it might have once been two rooms, but I had no real

memory of that part of the house, aside from the big fireplace at

one end. It didn’t appear to have been added on; maybe it had

been used as an office, or storage? Walking back through the

living room, I climbed the sharply-curved stairs to the second

floor. I remembered playing dolls with Charlie right here on the

119

landing, hauling out the huge wooden doll house Great-gramma kept

for our visits.

Straight ahead was the door to the attic. I’d never been up

there as a child, but I had a feeling if any of the furnishings I

remembered still existed, that was where I’d find them. I’d have

to take a look soon—but not today.

The bedrooms looked just as I remembered—albeit much

smaller. The largest one boasted a view across the neighboring

cornfields, with a second window overlooking a large barn behind

the house. In the smallest room, where Charlie and I had slept, I

discovered a bird’s nest outside on the windowsill, entangled

with the trumpet vine growing up the side of the house. I stood

for a few moments, watching as a mother bird hopped into the nest

carrying an insect in her beak, obviously on her way to feed her

babies. The window itself looked original to the house—single-

paned, wood-framed, with the sill low to the floor—and I listened

hard, thinking I could hear the chirps of the baby birds inside.

Laughing a bit at my imaginings (it’s certainly my day for

hearing things), I realized that I still had groceries in the car

and I was ravenous. Aside from the iced mocha I’d grabbed in

120

Waterloo, I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, and I was more

than ready for some dinner. I trekked out to the car to fetch in

the groceries, and deposited the bags on the counter. To my great

relief, I discovered the refrigerator had been cleaned out, and

the rest of the appliances seemed functional, as well. I found

cookware, flatware, and dishes in the cupboards—and hallelujah,

even a dishwasher. If the water heater worked, I’d be a happy

camper.

I made a mental note to send the property manager a thank

you note.

Later that evening before setting on for the night, I sat

down with pen and paper once again—and wrote of my day

June 21st - I can hardly believe it, but I’m

actually here—sitting in the kitchen of Uncle

Dean’s farm. It feels like this whole trip to Iowa

happened so fast I never even had time to think

about it. That’s probably for the best, though. If

I’d taken the time to think, I probably wouldn’t be

here now--and I’m so glad I am.

121

I had a long talk with Jack today—on the side

of the freeway in the middle of a thunderstorm (I

don’t think I’ll mention that to the girls, though.

Daisy worries about me enough as it is. She doesn’t

need to wonder if Mom is losing her mind). He

assured me a new story is out there waiting for me—

I just need to hold on until I find it. Sitting

here in this house after so many years, I can

almost believe it might be true. It feels so close

I can almost touch it—maybe even right here within

these four walls.

It’s been a good day, but I’m exhausted.

Goodnight!

Coffee mug in hand, I opened the door in the laundry room

and stepped outside. The morning had awakened fresh and clear, a

breeze whispering through the corn even as it ruffled my hair.

Tucking curls behind my ears to keep them out of my eyes, I

looked up to admire the shimmering leaves of the surrounding

stand of oaks. Watching as they seemed to shiver in a draft, I

122

couldn’t help but wonder how long they’d stood here. Had they

been here when Gramma Zizzie came? A British War Bride from

Little Snoring, Norfolk, she’d followed Grampy home to Iowa, six

months pregnant with my dad when she’d arrived on the farm to

meet her in-laws for the very first time. Somewhere I have a

black and white picture of her, young and smiling, sitting with

Grampy under a tree, the tiny baby that was once my dad wrapped

in a blanket and sleeping in her arms, her blissful face dappled

with the sunlight that peeked through the leaves. Was it one of

these trees that shaded her that day?

There was something so steady and strong about trees. No

matter what Nature threw at them—wind, storms, even the annual

loss of their life-sustaining leaves—they stood in their places,

year after year. Tall and strong, they offered a silent testimony

to the continuity of life in spite of its trials.

Moving out from under the trees, I rounded the corner of the

house, coming across an old pump, its red paint worn in spots,

handle slightly rusted, bounded by a low fence. A mist of memory

began to bubble the surface of my thoughts. It felt like just

yesterday…123

Two little girls, barely more than a year apart—the younger

one, blonde; the older a brunette—arguing over who would get to

ride the tractor when Daddy and Uncle Dean returned from the feed

store.

“It’s my turn! You got a ride yesterday.” Charlie glowers at

me, arms crossed tightly across her chest. “You always get to

ride. It’s not fair…”

“Lizzie! Charlie! Can you come here, please? I need your

help. It’s very important.” Grandma Zizzie’s voice cuts through

the middle of our argument, just as I am about to deny Charlie’s

claim.

“Coming, Zizzie!” We hurry back toward the house, and I lean

over and hiss in Charlie’s ear, her wheat-color hair tickling my

nose.

“It is too, fair. No one got a ride yesterday—and it is my

turn!”

Normally, this would be where Charlie bursts into tears,

wailing “Nooo, it’s not fair!” But Zizzie intervenes quickly,

handing us a bucket, and assuring us “those poor thirsty cows by

the barn have been waiting all day for a drink.”

124

Though we immediately run for the pump, Charlie and I are

still squabbling over who will work the handle and who will hold

the bucket. Eventually, though, we decide that we can set the

bucket under the faucet so both of us can pump.

Our mother watches from the doorway, shielding her eyes in

the bright afternoon sun. Calling out as we make our way toward

the barn, she warns, “Be careful, girls! If you don’t slow down,

you’re going to spill it all before you get there.”

I can still see her smiling as we picked our way ever so

carefully over the gravel path and out toward the barn.

With the sloshing bucket held tightly between us, we are

quickly surrounded by black and white cows, crowding the trough

as we heft the bucket to pour out the water. I giggle with

Charlie as we gingerly touch the cows’ wet noses, wrinkling our

own over their “earthy” smell.

“Pee-yew! You stink,” Charlie shrieks, all the while patting

the nearest cow firmly on the head.

My heart squeezed a bit with the recollection. In that

moment, I realized that Zizzie had simply invented a chore to

pacify two bickering little girls. The house had long had running125

water and I was pretty sure there had been a spigot down by the

barn. We hadn’t needed to go to all that work to bring water to

the cattle—the few buckets we hauled couldn’t have made much

difference anyway—but it gave us something to do, making us feel

a valuable part of life on the farm. It had been such fun to work

the pump and watch the cows drink that we spent nearly every

afternoon hauling buckets of water down that same path. At the

end of our visit, when we were piling into the car to begin the

long drive back home, I remember Charlie crying, wondering who

would take care of the “poor thirsty cows” when we were gone.

I continued my exploration down by the barn, but there were

no longer any cows there. Most likely, there hadn’t been any

since my uncle died. Heaving open the big sliding door, I could

see a few hay bales piled inside and stacks of lumber leaning

against the wall near the back, as if someone had paused mid-

project, meaning to return to it later. Standing in the open

doorway, I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of the barn—

stale air mixed with the fragrance of hay.

It smells like … home?

126

I wished now I’d been able to spend more time here. Even

though we never came back after Mom died, Uncle Dean still came

to visit us once a year, staying with Zizzie and Grampy, and

spending time with my siblings and me. At the time, it had seemed

enough. Once I hit my teens, summers on a farm in Iowa—far from

my friends—seemed far less attractive than vacations to Oregon

beaches. Now, I wished things had been different.

I wish so much had been different.

Although my memories of this house were few, something about

being here made my past feel very close. I knew my father and

uncle had grown up here—my grandfather, too, if I remembered

right. Grampy, Zizzie and their sons had lived here among “the

cows and the corn” on my great-grandparents’ farm until a job at

the Collins Radio Company moved Grampy and his family away to

Cedar Rapids in 1960. Three years later, a new job at Boeing

brought them to Seattle. This final move made possible the

auspicious—for my siblings and me, anyway—meeting between my

mother and father at the University of Washington in 1967, and my

own birth at Swedish Hospital just two years later.

127

But there was more history for me here than just my father’s

childhood and the early years of my grandparents’ marriage, more

even than the few visits I’d made as a child. A larger history

existed within the walls of this house. My great-grandparents—

people I could barely remember—lived here, raising their family,

their crops, and their cattle. I wanted to know more about them,

about this house. Had they, or their parents—or their parents,

perhaps—been among Iowa’s early pioneers, maybe building a sod

house on this land before constructing the one where I now stood?

I wished that one of them was here with me now—my father, or

my grandfather—with ready answers to the questions about what

life was like in Iowa a half-century or more ago. I wondered if

there was anything left behind by one of my ancestors, something

that could tell me what I longed to know. There was no longer

anyone living who had the answers.

Gulping down breakfast, I hastily scratched out a shopping

list. I needed to pick up a few things before I could really

settle in, and now was as good a time as any. I grabbed my purse

off the living room chair, and folding the list into a back

128

pocket, heading out the door for the drive into town. Yesterday,

on my way here from the property manager’s office, I spotted a

place on Franklin Street that looked like a coffee shop.

Time to pay them a visit…

Chapter Three

As a historical novelist, there is very little I like more than spending time

sorting through boxes of old letters, diaries, maps, trinkets, and baubles.

― Sara Sheridan

Leaving The Coffee Den—a soy latte in one hand and a sack of

whole-wheat bagels in the other—I noticed Honey Creek Furniture and

Flooring about half a block down on the other side of the street. In

very short order, I’d bought a queen-size bed and a few small

tables, a really comfortable overstuffed couch with a couple of

chairs to match, several lamps, a small kitchen set with a couple

129

of chairs—and even a day bed where Charlie could sleep when she

came to visit. I also picked up a few rugs, just to make the

place a bit cozier. I told myself I’d just sell the furniture

with the house, so I probably bought more than I really needed--

but it would be nice to be comfortable while I was there.

After the salesman assured me that the furniture would be

delivered by the end of the week, I headed off to grab the rest

of the items on my list. Finishing quickly, I arrived back at

home by two—mission accomplished.

By 2:30, I was ready to explore.

Grabbing a flashlight from the laundry room shelf, I headed

up to change into the grubbiest clothes I’d brought with me, then

headed for the door at the base of the attic stairs. More than

anywhere else on the farm, the attic called to me. If anything

had been left behind after Uncle Dean’s death, this was where I

was going to find it.

With my hand now resting on the doorknob, I hesitated—just

for a moment. Was it my imagination or did the air seem charged

with anticipation, as if someone had been waiting for me to

finally open the door? Chuckling at such a ridiculous notion, I

130

shook my head as if it was an etch-a-sketch wiping away an image.

The only impatient person here was me.

At the top of the steps I saw a large dimly lit space full

of crates and boxes, and a few sheet-covered objects.

Great-gramma’s furniture, maybe?

I certainly hoped so, but it appeared to be mostly a whole

lot of clutter. My flashlight exposed a view of aging cobwebs

spanning corners of the levelled ceiling, and a thick layer of

dust covering everything in sight.

Clearly, no one had been up there in a very long time. There

were no windows, and the air was stifling. One solitary bulb

dangled overhead to light the space. A tiny thread of sunshine

rimmed what appeared to be a hatch of some kind, up where the

ceiling flattened out—likely offering access to the widow’s walk

that circled the roof. I wondered if the door would even open—but

if it did, it would give me some extra light and let in some

fresh air at the same time. I’d only just climbed the stairs, but

sweat beaded my forehead already.

Reaching the center of the room, I pulled the string on the

light fixture, washing a faint yellow glow across the room. I

131

needed something to clear those cobwebs before I would touch that

hatch, let alone spend the time searching out the treasures those

boxes might contain. I headed back down the stairs in search of

cleaning supplies.

In the kitchen, I grabbed the broom and dustpan, some rags

and a box of trash bags. Stopping on the upstairs landing, I tied

scarf over my head before continuing back up the attic stairs.

The last thing I wanted was spiders in my hair.

I really hate spiders.

A short time later, most of the cobwebs dealt with, I was

ready to tackle that roof hatch. Dragging over a large wooden

crate, I scrabbled to the top, reaching for the handle now right

above my head. After positioning the flashlight, I grabbed a

rag, scrubbing at the deadbolt, then gripped it tightly and

pulled. For a few moments it wouldn’t budge, then I felt it start

to give—just a little. I jimmied it back and forth a bit, then

finally felt it let go. I pushed against the door, and after yet

another moment of uncertainty, it flew open at last. Sunlight

flooded the room, and I could feel the attic heat rushing to

escape its prison. Rising on tiptoe, I could see just enough to

132

know the view of the countryside must be amazing. I made a mental

note to get the roof checked out. It might be a great place for

some nighttime star gazing. But in the meantime, I had work to

do.

Pulling my head—quite literally—back into the game, I

clambered down from the crate and turned to the boxes. There were

a few more wooden ones, but most were just cardboard, containing

little more than sold clothes and blankets. Others overflowed

with children’s toys. An old electric train and its track were

piled up next to several small boxes of paper-wrapped mercury

glass ornaments. Some of the boxes might have been left behind by

tenants who either forgot to check the attic, or just didn’t want

to make a trip to the dump.

Finally, I spotted—leaning against the wall opposite the

stairs, tucked behind a few boxes—an old iron bedstead I was

pretty sure came from Uncle Dean’s bedroom, a writing desk, and a

few much-worn, cane-seated chairs that looked like they might

have been part of the dining room set. Just what I was hoping

for.

Maybe the old mantle clock is up here, too.

133

After spending several hours digging through boxes and

trying to create some sort of order out of all the chaos, I was

hot, tired and filthy. I’d bagged up a lot of the trash,

separated out the things worth keeping—or at least worth looking

over one more time before making a final decision—shoved all the

furniture together closer to the stairs, and swept the floor

before getting ready to head back down. The clock I’d hoped to

find was unearthed from the depths of one of the crates, and sat

atop the writing desk awaiting its return to its former home on

the mantle. As soon as I had a few extra hands to help move them,

I wanted to bring the bed and desk down, too.

There was still plenty left to do, but my body insisted that

it had done enough for one day. But just as I’d laid down the

broom, picked up one of the now-filled garbage bags and turned

toward the steps, I spied a shadowy object tucked far back into

the darkest corner of the attic, right behind the chimney at the

verge of the roofline—as if it had been placed there on purpose,

then purposely forgotten. Only the light reflecting off the now-

cleared floor made it possible to see it at all.

How on earth had I missed that?

134

In spite of my exhaustion, something about this discovery

drew me in. Draped with a sheet and covered in soot and dust, it

was massive—standing about three feet high, at least four feet in

length and probably another three feet deep across the bottom. I

wondered how long it had been hidden away back there, just

waiting to be found. By me? Smiling a bit at my whimsy, I tested

its weight, tugging on the heavy iron handle on its side. If I

could just get it out into the middle of the room. The shadows

back there made it impossible to get a good look. Heavy cobwebs

in the corner made me nervous, but the broom took care of them in

short order. I took a few swipes at the floor around the piece,

too, just to be sure I wouldn’t be surprised by a nest of mice,

or some other disgusting creature entrenched in the corner behind

it.

Shouldering it—with more than a few grunts and groans—into

the puddle of light in the middle of the room, I finally had it

situated so I could look it over. Standing slowly, I brushed off

my filthy hands on the seat of my equally grubby jeans, wiping

beads of sweat from my forehead and arching my back and shoulders

in an attempt to relieve aching muscles. Chuckling a bit, I

135

wondered if I would ever remember that I’m not twenty-five

anymore...

Now that a more thorough investigation was possible, I

pulled off the sheet to see what I’d found. It appeared to be a

trunk of some sort, but like none I’d ever seen before. Though

showing its age around the edges, its finely-grained wood shone

in a golden glow. With dovetailed joints and cast iron hinges, it

almost looked more like an enormous desk than a trunk—its hinged

front panel resembling the writing shelf on a secretary desk. A

bit too low to actually write on, though. There were lightly-

carved letters on the front that looked as if they might have

been part of a name or address, but were now too worn to read.

The top and front sections looked like an animal of some sort had

been gnawing on along their shared edge, which allowed a bit of

light through to the inside. Hoping that whatever chewed on the

wood had departed long go, I peeked through the hole, hoping for

a glimpse of the treasures within. I could hardly wait to get it

opened.

The trunk itself brought back a flood of memory, of youthful

dreams of long-forgotten treasure when my fourteen-year-old self

136

rescued Mom’s old steamer trunk from a trip to the dump after

finding it in Gramma and Grampa Oliver’s garage. Although it had

been empty, rather than filled, as I’d hoped, with the artifacts

of some other era, it found a home in the corner of my bedroom,

and through the rest of my teen years, held close the relics of

my own life. When Mom died just two years later, its still-fusty

scent embodied, to me, her life now past—the trace of memories

not my own, but which I ached to hold onto nonetheless.

Surely this trunk isn’t empty, though; it’s just too heavy.

I reached for the latch, surprised to find it unlocked. I

worked at the rusty bolt, hearing it drop with a satisfying

metallic “thunk,” and then pulled at the bulky lid with both

hands. Rusty hinges seemed reluctant to let go for a breath or

two, but finally cracked open, releasing that wonderful musty

tang reminiscent of both the trunk of my youth and the antique

shops my mom had loved so much. For a moment, tears threatened,

but once my curiosity got the better of me I carefully lowered

the lid and peered inside.

Two drawers extended across the top. One opened easily,

revealing a few small books, an embroidery hoop with linen

137

stretched across it, and a still-threaded needle tucked into the

weave—as if the seamstress had laid it aside for just a moment,

but never returned. The second drawer was jammed shut. I tugged

at it for a moment, but it just wouldn’t budge. Anxious to

search through the rest, I decided I’d deal with it later.

Two open sections lay below the drawers. A patchwork quilt

with a lattice pattern lay folded atop the right side, stacks of

books and a mass of small objects wrapped in yellowing paper

filled the other. I didn’t know how long these things had been

there, but the quilt looked in surprisingly good shape—probably

due to the multiple mothballs that fell to the floor as I pulled

it from the trunk. Running my hand across the aged fabric, I

marveled at the pattern and intricate workmanship put into what

was likely just a good use for the remnants of someone’s

clothing. Carefully refolding the quilt before setting it aside,

I continued to unearth the trunk’s contents, one item at a time.

A couple of calico dresses, a flower-bedecked hat, and several

tiny shirts, all carefully folded and tied together with a

ribbon. My mind began to race. Who had these things belonged to?

The trunk looked too old to have belonged to Uncle Dean—and

138

somehow these things didn’t look like a man’s belongings anyway.

Could this trunk have belonged to my grandmother, my great-

grandmother—or some other, more distant, relative? Was it

possible these baby clothes had been worn by my father or

grandfather?

A bit more quickly now, I gathered everything I’d uncovered

so far and set them atop the quilt. A few loose papers covered

with spidery writing, a couple of account books full of what

looked like algebra problems, a pottery pitcher and several small

figurines, a few photographs, books, and a small, round cut glass

bud vase wrapped in yellowed newspaper surfaced next—all were

quickly set aside. There were wooden tools of some sort,

resembling nothing more than oversized sewing needles; framed

needlepoint pictures and bookmarks... Finally, I came to a large

paperboard box knotted with twine.

Had I finally found my treasure?

Deciding to open it in place rather than carrying it from

the trunk, I quickly untied the bow, and lifting the box lid—

carefully—I discovered inside a few more loose papers, a stack of

envelopes tied with ribbon, and several books.

139

Reaching for the one on top, I opened its cover and smoothed

the yellowed pages. The book was hand-written and dated on every

page, beginning at March 29, 1858. Turning to another volume,

then another, the dates began to diverge: August, 1861. January,

1882. May, 1868. But in spite of the assortment of dates, the

handwriting seemed the more or less the same.

Before I knew it, I had the books stacked on the floor,

organized by date. Ten volumes in various sizes, they covered

about thirty years’ time, and I was fairly certain they were all

written by the same person.

The first volume began with a name: Emily Elizabeth Hawley;

and a date—1858… more than a century before I was born. Wouldn’t

that make this woman too old to be even my great-great

grandmother? I didn’t remember any Hawleys on the Patterson

family tree, but I could certainly check with Charlie about that.

Just who was this woman?

I wanted to look the trunk and its contents over in better

light, but it was too heavy to get it down the stairs without

help, so for now it would have to wait. I’d call Alex tonight to

140

see if he and one or two of his sons might come over tomorrow to

help me wrestle it down the attic stairs. In the meantime, I

gathered up the quilt, the bundles of letters, and all the rest

of the items, and placed them securely back into the trunk.

Then, gently collecting what I’d decided were surely the volumes

of a diary, I carried them downstairs.

An hour later, well-fed and freshly showered—my grimy

clothes churning in the antiquated washing machine—I flung my

exhausted self onto the overstuffed couch, flipping on the lamp

so I could examine my treasures. Ten bound volumes lay on the

coffee table before me, just waiting for me to open them and

begin my investigation. A sense of expectancy tingled through me

as I ran my fingers over the books, marveling that they had been

hidden away up there for so long, but even more amazed that I had

found them. Having found the diary in this house, the writer must

surely be a relative, right?

Since I had already put them into chronological order, I was

able to grab the first of the series right off the top of the

pile. Opening it gingerly, I breathed in the musty trace of

ancient books, evoking the library in my grandparents’ house—141

books that had been stored in boxes in their basement until they

had gained a room of their own when Uncle Dean returned to the

Iowa farm, right around the time I was born. I grew to love that

fusty scent; it seemed to define those things I loved best. There

was something so settled and comfortable, and yet anticipatory

about the fragrance of old books—like the promise of discovery in

worlds yet unseen. My heart began to beat just a bit more swiftly

as I turned to the first page and read, written across the top of

the first page:

Diary—which may compose the reminiscences of the

life, from day to day, of

Miss Emmie E. Hawley

A.D. 1858

Medina, Lenawee County, Michigan

Monday, 29 March – Today I commence to keep a

diary…

Following that somewhat pretentious opening banner, Emmie

recorded her days in the usual diarist’s vein, listing events

(“went to Uncle Benjamin Osborns, make a head dress for Aunt

Mary…”) and noting the weather (“pleasant only the wind blows, &

142

is cold”). However, nearly three weeks later—she sets down words

that seem entirely different:

Tuesday, April 20th- Last Christmas & New Years I

attended Cotillion parties at Canandaigua with Sylvenus

Hamlin. Libbie wants him pretty badly, she can have him

if he will marry her. I do not want him for a

companion, no! no! not but that I like him. I do very

much as a friend…

I had to smile. For nine days Emmie had little to say aside from

recounting her daily activities and chores, when out of the blue

she began to tell a story.

I was enchanted.

For the next few hours, I skimmed through the first volume

of the diary, noting the things she thought worthy of discussion,

but especially her continued references to Sylvenus and Libbie.

Between the threads of that story, she included remarks about

other men who either expressed an interest in her (“Horace Jones

ask me to attend a party with him. I refuse him again,--tis at

least the 20th time.”), or declared their wish to marry her (“why

is it? I ask myself that every young man one meets with must

begin to talk of love & marriage first thing”). There were so

143

many. I couldn’t help but wonder, what was it about this woman

that made her so attractive?

Another thing I noticed was her industriousness—Emmie, just

twenty years old, was one busy woman! She made (and apparently,

remade) clothing for herself and her family, and acted as

seamstress for the entire neighborhood, as well. She “put up”

strawberries, crocheted lace collars for her dresses, made

something called hairflowers (I really need to find out what on

earth those are)—and taught school. All this was in addition to

her chores around the house, things like baking cakes and pies

several times a week and helping her mother in the garden. Emmie

wrote poetry, read novels, and acted as “Editress” of the local

literary society. She also complained a great deal about the

difficulties of poverty, but declared herself unwilling to be a

servant to anyone.

A rhythmic thumping from the out-of-balance washer dragged

my attention away from the seed of story entrenching deep within,

and returned my thoughts to the present. I set down the diary,

walked into the kitchen to adjust the load in the washer so the

cycle could complete. Through the window, I could see the last

144

golden rays of the sun reaching out from behind the barn,

enticing me to join them. Since my first morning in Iowa,

watching the sun set had become the perfect way end the day,

something I rarely took time for at home.

Miles of corn in the surrounding fields shushed and

whispered in the breeze, rippling beneath illuminated clouds,

gilt-edged and splashed with fuchsia, reflecting the last light

of the day. The barn nearly glowed with it, as trees cast

rhythmic shadows across its side. Although mostly hidden from

sight, birds chirped from within those trees as if singing

lullabies to their young, while a few stragglers flopped around

the driveway taking dirt baths like drowsy youngsters at the end

of the day, bathing under parents’ watchful eyes before being

bundled off to bed.

I’ve always loved this hour when it seemed like every

creature of the day prepares for sleep, just as those of the

nocturne awake to perform. Bats would soon begin their

summersaults through the air in search of supper (or is it

breakfast?), and fireflies to flitter, like Woodstock dizzily

circling Snoopy’s doghouse. Roving gangs of mosquitoes would soon

145

begin their nighttime barrage, whizzing past my ears. Twilight

always seemed like a changing of the guard—the sun replaced by

the moon and stars. One set of creatures for another. And

although one watch ended, another always began.

If I was patient, I’d see it.

Watching the colors slowly fade, I considered that maybe a

change was happening for me, too. Jack had always been my sun;

our life together the only story I knew—at least the only one

left to me after so many others had ended. Yet without my

happily ever after, I had no idea how to write anymore. But that

didn’t mean there were no more tales to tell.

He promised my story was waiting.

Then… so will I.

In the end, the moon, though not enlightened by the saga of

the sun, still rises—in its own time.

146

Chapter Four

Writers do not find subjects; subjects find them.”

― Elizabeth Bowen

I woke the next morning energized and eager to get back to

exploring the diary—at least until I tried to get out of bed.

Every muscle ached, and I had nearly decided I’d just stay put

for a few more hours when I looked at the clock and remembered

Alex would be over in an hour to help me haul that trunk down

from the attic.

So much for sleeping in…

I—quite literally—rolled off the bed, groaning as I hit the

ground feet first. Righting myself and grabbing a robe, I made a

few tentative stretches on my way into the kitchen to make

coffee. Those yoga classes I’d taken in Sedona came to mind as I

gingerly reached for the mugs in the cupboard; maybe I should

147

consider taking it up again? Meanwhile, a hot shower would

probably go a long way toward loosening up my stiff muscles.

An hour later, nursing both a second cup of coffee and

still-achy shoulder muscles, I headed to the door to answer the

bell. Alex and a tall young man stood on the front porch, right

on time, just as he had promised.

“Mornin’ ma’am! What’s this about you findin’ a treasure

chest in the attic?” Alex chuckled at his own joke, before

adding, “I brought these pirates here to help us move it. If it’s

heavy as you say, we’ll need them.”

“Alex, thank you so much! I did manage to shove it over a

few feet, but I’d never be able to get it down the stairs by

myself. And please, call me Liz.”

“Well Liz, I’d like to introduce you to my boys here. This

Matt, my oldest grandson.” Turning, as a third man—resembling

nothing more than an older version of Matt—walked up onto the

porch, Alex gestured in his direction and introduced him with,

“And this is his daddy… Liz, this is Dan, my oldest boy.”

As Dan stepped onto the porch, I held out my hand to greet

him, taken aback by his pleasantly weathered face, and a pair of

148

the brightest blue eyes I had ever seen—and, I must admit, felt

knocked a bit breathless for a moment. Pulling myself together

and hoping I wasn’t blushing, I shook hands all around, and

offered coffee. Alex and Dan were all business at this point,

though. “Let’s get that trunk moved and then we’ll see about the

coffee.”

Thanking them again for their willingness to help, I led the

way as we all trooped up the stairs. At the landing, I pointed to

the attic door—although Alex seemed to know it already.

With memory shining in his eyes, Alex told me the attic had been

among his favorite places as a child. “I haven’t been up here for

years. My brother and me…we used to play up here sometimes—mostly

on rainy days—with your dad and his brother. We’d bring over our

collection of toy soldiers and set up camps all over the attic.

Bobby—your dad—and Dean were a bit younger than we were, but we

all had fun. This attic was a great place to play.” He chuckled

to himself, remembering. “Your gramma was a real good sport about

all the noise we made, too. All that stomping around up there… my

momma would not have put up with it”

149

Intrigued at finding someone who might know something about

my family history, I wondered where to start with all my

questions. But before I had time to set them in any order, the

first burst out of my mouth. “I found an old diary last night. In

the trunk. But I have no idea who it might belong to. I don’t

remember any Hawleys in my family, do you?”

“A diary, huh? That might be interesting to see…” Alex

thought a minute, looked at Dan as if he might have an answer,

and then shook his head slowly. “Hawley? Noooo….doesn’t sound

familiar. Let me think on that a bit.”

By then, we’d all climbed the attic stairs, and were

standing in front of the trunk.

“Wow…I’ve never seen one like this before. It is big.” Dan

scanned the trunk, then looked back toward the stairs. I could

see him mentally measuring the space. Was it even going to fit

through the opening?

Alex, had also apparently assessed the situation and

assured me that they’d be able to get it down the stairs intact.

“It might take a bit of finagling, but we’ll manage it. After

all, someone got it up here.”

150

I offered to empty the contents, but after testing the

weight between the three of them, they assured me it wasn’t too

heavy. I did check it to be sure everything was secure though,

before they moved it, but Alex guaranteed the contents would be

just fine. I climbed back down the stairs, clearing the path so

they could set it into place without tripping over anything.

A considerable amount of grunting was heard over the next

twenty minutes or so, and more than a few heads were banged

against the sloping ceiling. There were also one or two flashes

of panic on my part that the trunk would plummet and splinter

into bits as they guided it down the steep attic stairs. But the

three of them moved slowly and carefully, and in the end the

trunk rested comfortably in the corner of the living room, right

next to the window. However, after watching them move it into

place, I was definitely glad the room had already been painted—I

certainly didn’t want to have to move it again anytime soon. A

few touch ups where the trunk had scraped the walls of the

stairwell and the room would be good as new.

I offered coffee once again as we stood admiring the trunk,

and this time they took me up on it. I gathered mugs, cream and

151

sugar for the coffee, placing the last of the cookies I’d brought

from the bakery in Kalona onto a large hand-painted tray I’d

found in the attic yesterday, while they returned to the attic

for the writing desk and chairs. By the time I had set the loaded

tray on the table, they were back in the kitchen, mopping sweaty

foreheads and gulping glasses of ice water.

Alex, clearly not one for small talk, got right to the

point. “So, tell me about this diary.”

“I was so surprised!” I said. “I found it in a box at the

bottom of the trunk. Ten volumes, covering about 30 years. But I

can’t figure out who the writer is…I don’t recognize her name.”

He thought for a moment. “What was it again?”

“She writes her name on the opening page as Emmie E. Hawley

from Michigan. When the diary begins she is almost twenty, and

obviously not married. As I skimmed through it, though, I found

places where she mentions her children so she must have gotten

married at some point.”

Listening intently, Dan asked, “Did she write about coming

to Manchester, or mention a married name?”

152

Alex looked a bit puzzled, like he was trying to remember a

detail he used to know, but it refused to be found. “… And there

are no Hawleys in your family?”

“No, at least not that I remember.” I paused a minute, then

asked, “Do you have any idea how long my family has lived here?”

He thought a moment. “I don’t. My parents probably would

have, but it’s too late now to ask them about it. But don’t

worry, Liz. It shouldn’t be too hard to find out. They have all

kinds of ways now to help find out about people. Did you find a

date on that diary?”

I assured him that I did, noting that the diary seemed to

run from 1858-1888.

“I should probably do a bit more reading, to see if I can

find a married name. That might be all I need to figure out if

she has any connection to my family—or even to this house. I

suppose the trunk could have been left behind by a tenant…”

Dan said that he doubted a tenant would have moved such a

heavy piece into the attic. “Too much work to haul it up there if

it’s not your house.” But about my mysterious diarist he added,

153

“I bet you’ll figure her out in the diary itself, or with some

help from the folks down at the County Courthouse.”

Alex agreed. “If she ever lived here in Delaware County,

they can help you find her.”

I had admit they were likely to be right; once the diary had

given me a more definitive name, county records would definitely

be a place to begin my search.

The three men left with my promise to share any discoveries

I made about the diarist’s identity—vowing they would ask around

and do the same—and I set about getting the house ready for

tomorrow’s furniture delivery. The sheets and towels I’d bought

yesterday still needed to be washed before I could put them to

use, and I wanted to get the curtains hung in the upstairs

bedroom as well. Once all that was accomplished, I planned to sit

down for a while with the diary while I waited for the cable guy

coming to link me up with the outside world. If I was going to

start doing research on the Amish, looking for a possible book

subject, it was essential that I had an internet connection. The

book on the history of the local Amish communities I’d picked up

154

in town yesterday was interesting, but it was too basic to give

me much of what I needed. I had a few hours before the

appointment time. Hopefully that would give me a chance to

discover a bit more about the diarist’s identity.

With the rental furniture moved out of the way, and the

sheets and towels tumbling in the dryer, I sat on the couch to

wait. The diary volumes were still stacked on the table in front

of me. I had planned to skim through them one at a time to

discover the writer’s connection to either Iowa or this house,

and possibly a married name I might use to look her up in the

record books. I had enough research experience to know that a

woman was rarely discovered in historical records without the

name of either a husband or father to identify her—particularly

before the twentieth century. So, for the moment, all I was

looking for was a name. The rest could wait.

But what actually happened was entirely different.

Once I’d opened the book and begun to read, Emmie’s story

sucked me right in. I can’t say that I was carried away by

amazing writing; most of her prose was commonplace at best. Yet,

her voice was so strong it was hard to resist. Just as I had

155

noticed the first time picked it up, her diary entries presented

an image of a romantic and idealistic young girl determined to

make something of herself. She was an industrious and talented

seamstress. She wanted to be a writer and seeded her diary with

poems she had written, as well as ink sketches and building plans

drafted in the margins. She talked about books she had read,

naming several novels, but none I’d ever heard of. At one point,

she even mentioned an opportunity offered her by a local

merchant, a chance to move to New York City to train as an artist

with his sponsorship. Her mother nixed the idea immediately,

leading Emmie to note with apparent resignation, “I will stay at

home a while yet,—though I am sure I will regret it.”

She spoke of young men (older ones, too!) who—on nearly

every page—professed their undying affection and desire to marry

her. Yet she seemed unmoved by it all, declaring time and again

that she would marry only for love. More than once I laughed out

loud, muttering to myself that she must have read just a few too

many novels. She just had to be making some of this stuff up—no

one is that irresistible. Yet, at the same time I felt sorry for

her; she was confined within a society that demanded things from

156

her that she had no desire to do. Actions that kept her from

doing what she wanted.

I certainly didn’t envy her lack of choice.

I picked up the second volume, dated June 1860, and

discovered that Emmie was still unmarried, but also still talking

about various men who wanted to marry her. She noted one in

particular—in an entry dated June 3rd—who she clearly liked,

calling him “a kind, intelligent and virtuous young man,” yet

she also claimed he possessed a trait she saw as his fatal flaw,

that “he likes and drinks intoxicating drink.” She had written

several times in the previous volume about her belief in the

Temperance movement, and clearly a man who drank was beyond

consideration as potential husband material. She went on to note

“I have vowed never to marry the best man that lives if he is

addicted to strong drink, & with the help of God may I keep that

promise.”

By my calculations, Emmie was now 22 years old, and from

what I knew of the traditions of her day, her “advancing” age

would have put her in danger of being considered a spinster if

she didn’t marry before too much more time passed. However, it

157

became obvious from her writings that she wasn’t willing to

settle for just any marriage partner. As long as the choice was

hers, she knew what she wanted. Emmie discussed pressures from

her family, though—from her mother’s comments about her unmarried

state, to an uncle who wanted her to come and work for his family

in November 1860, who “said so much, I cried.” Yet just six

months later, on June 26, 1861 she wrote that she was “at home

perhaps for the last time for I am (if no preventing providence)

going to start for Iowa…My folks feel bad to have me go.”

Now I knew that she’d left Michigan for Iowa in 1861. Was

this her Uncle’s house? Had she married once she’d come out here?

I skipped to the end of the volume in my hand and started to work

my way backward through it.

I didn’t have to read far before I found, in July 1862, a

reference to a man named James, along with a veiled hint that she

would have a new life and a new home as of October 1st.

Scrambling for the next volume, I opened it to October 1st and

discovered that Emily had already married by then, and on that

very date she was moving with her new husband, James Gillespie,

to her in-laws’ home.

158

With his name, I had a way to find her.

A few hours later, laundry done and folded, cable and

internet installed, and dinner in the oven, I opened my laptop

and started a search for Emily. Not really knowing who she was, I

thought I’d just google her name and see what turned up. Aside

from a few Emily Gillespie’s registered on Facebook or living in

Florida, there was little to find—until I’d scrolled to the

bottom of the page. There, on a website for Iowa cemeteries, I

found a link, leading to an Emily Gillespie in a list of people

buried in the Oakland Cemetery in Manchester, all of whose names

began with “G.”

My heart began to race as I clicked on the link and scrolled

down the list: Gale…Garlick…Gibbons…Gifford… until finally I

found Gillespies about halfway down the page. There were six

listed—one of whom was Emily E., recognized as “wife of James.”

Her birth was logged as 1838—the same year as the Emily of the

diary—and the date of her death as March 24, 1888. Reaching for

the final volume of the diary to corroborate whether I’d found

the “right” Emily Gillespie, I opened to the last pages, and

discovered an entry written in what appeared to be a labored hand

159

March 11th, 1888- …It seems sometimes unbearable to

endure such pain, that my work is nearly done, yet

there is a presentiment to stay yet longer.

Beneath this entry was another—clearly transcribed by someone

else— in a younger, stronger hand noting the date of Emilys’

death as March 24, 1888. Along with that notation, I found what

seemed to be a hand-written will, going on for several pages.

This document specified which of her possessions should go to her

son Henry and which to her daughter Sarah, before it became a

narrative telling a tale of her husband James’ deteriorating

mental state over the course of their marriage. Beginning with a

recitation regarding a bout with the “blues” James suffered less

than two weeks after their wedding, his “spells,” as she called

them, it laid out a story of increasing marital strife over the

years of their marriage, and a growing litany of verbal and

mental abuses for herself and her children, worsening until James

was threatening suicide, terrifying Emily, and trying to kill his

own son.

I sat back in my chair, overwhelmed with sadness that this

woman who died in such intense physical and emotional pain was

160

the same one who just thirty years earlier longed for a loving

marriage, happy home, and a life of personal fulfillment. Her

idealistic outlook that had come across so intensely through the

early pages of her diary had somehow been exchanged for a

situation that must have been seemed unendurable. I wanted to

cry.

While she poured out her heart over the sorrows that defined

her last days of life, contained within the final pages of her

own life story, I began to get an idea. Rather than spending my

summer scouring the internet hoping to stumble across a story

about some plucky Amish woman, why couldn’t I work with the woman

whose life story had practically fallen into my lap? Surely,

within this diary covering thirty years of a life, there would be

more than enough material for a book. Maybe she’d never been a

Tudor queen or done anything that most people would consider

heroic, but didn’t every life hold a story? If I set about a

systematic study of her own narrative, written by her own hand, I

was sure to find her story within. And even if it wasn’t a big

enough story for a book, it would be such great practice for me.

Besides, I’d written novels like this before—with much less

161

material to work with. This would be a great project to help me

find my way back into the world I’d left behind me when Jack

died.

Jack.

He’d told me my story lay just down the road, waiting for me

—I only needed to be patient and it would appear.

I think it just did.

162

Chapter Five

We're all made of stories. When they finally put us underground, the

stories are what will go on. Not forever, perhaps, but for a time. It's a kind

of immortality, I suppose, bounded by limits, it's true, but then so's

everything.”

― Charles de Lint

The property manager stopped by, right after the furniture

was delivered, to see how I was settling in and to ask whether I

had given any more thought to selling the farm. I told him I

hadn’t had much time to think about it, and turned the

conversation to the farm’s prior tenants, wondering whether that

trunk could have been left behind by any of them. After looking

over my find, now polished and gleaming in the corner of the

living room, he agreed with Alex and Dan.

“They’re absolutely right,” he said. “It’s just too big.

Anyone who wasn’t planning to stay here long term wouldn’t bother

163

to carry it up those stairs. Whoever left it up there planned to

be here a long time.”

As he headed back to his car, I told him I’d let him know my

decision about the farm as soon as I made up my mind—and thanked

him again for sending over furniture so the house wasn’t

completely empty when I’d arrived. He promised to send a van to

pick up whatever furniture I didn’t need within the next few

days.

I was again taken aback at how friendly and helpful my

neighbors had been; remembering that once or twice, on my way in

or out of the driveway, others had waved as they drove by on

their way up the road. Once things were feeling more settled

around here, I hoped to meet the rest of the neighborhood. If

they were even half as friendly as Alex, this would be a great

place to live.

Foremost on my mind, though, was my hope to discover more

about Emily and her connection to the farm. Alex, stopping by the

next day (“just to check up on you”), actually recognized the

name Gillespie. He told me that when he was a boy there had been

a local man—“a pretty eccentric old guy, as I remember”—named

164

Henry Gillespie. Alex knew that he was a local, having grown up

on a farm in the area, but that was the extent of his knowledge.

When he’d first met him, he was pretty sure he had lived in town

with his sister, “a schoolteacher, if I remember right.” Again,

he suggested I check out the name in county records if I wanted

to discover whether she had any connection to my farm.

Standing out by Alex’s truck as he was getting ready to

leave, I pushed my sunglasses up into my hair like a headband,

and swiped at the perspiration puddled on my cheeks. Remembering

my earlier discovery, I said, “I searched for Emily Gillespie’s

name on the internet the other day—and found her. She’s buried

right here in town. In the Oakland Cemetery.” Squinting up at

him, I asked, “Do you know it?”

“Oakland? I sure do. My folks are buried there.” He paused

for a moment, jingling the keys in his pocket. “Hey, have you got

a few minutes? I could take you out there right now. I know the

guy who works in the office. I’ll bet he could help us find the

gravesite.”

“Now?”

165

I’d been planning to head down to the County Courthouse, but

how could I pass up the chance to learn a bit more about Emily?

Maybe I could get Alex to drive by the building after we left the

cemetery, though, so I’d know where to find it.

“Give me a minute to grab my purse and my notebook, and I’ll

be ready.”

Already headed back to the house, I turned and smiled.

“Thanks Alex. I really appreciate all your help.”

Not five minutes later, we were headed toward town.

Alex assured me we’d be there in less than ten minutes, and

he’d even drive me by the county courthouse on Main Street on our

way. “It’s just a few blocks off Franklin on our way to the

cemetery. Practically on the way.”

As we drove through town, I was struck again by the vision

of small town Americana that practically oozed from Manchester’s

every pore. The Delaware County courthouse, its stone and brick

edifice and steeple-like clock tower, was surrounded by huge

purple-leafed shade trees, and looked more like a miniature

castle or Victorian hotel than a government building. Situated as

it was in a park-like setting on the edge of the mostly

166

Italianate architecture of the downtown area, the whole area gave

off more of a vibe of “theme park attraction” than it did a real-

live town. That feeling continued along the wide tree-lined

streets and sidewalks rolling through the residential areas,

presenting a welcoming atmosphere that made me wish I could just

stay here forever.

I could almost hear Jack’s voice asking if we’d landed on

the set of a Hallmark movie.

My reveries ended as we pulled up in front of the cemetery

office. Checking my notebook to be sure I had Emily’s death date,

I stepped out of the almost-glacial confines of Alex’s truck into

the sweltering parking lot and followed him quickly through the

office door, before I had a chance to melt.

A blast of cold air from the air conditioner hit me square

in the face, an icy gust strong enough to blow my hair straight

back from my forehead, but the minute I moved out of the way, the

temperature climbed about 10 degrees. Clamminess seemed to crowd

the rest of the room, so I moved back into the gale. It was

definitely a scorcher today.

167

The office was small and stark—a desk, two folding chairs

placed around a table in the middle of the room, dingy white

walls, and blinds at the only window. It reminded me more of the

office at an automotive garage than what I expected the office of

a cemetery would look like. After a moment, the manager—Steven,

according to a badge pinned to his shirt—came out of a back room,

smiling and greeting Alex with a handshake. After Alex introduced

me and I explained our purpose, Steven returned to the back room,

reappearing several minutes later with two large volumes.

“What’s that name again?” he asked as he flipped open the

first of the books.

“Gillespie. Emily Gillespie.

He searched through the book, explaining that names of the

deceased listed alphabetically, so she should be easy to find.

While he looked, I wandered toward what looked to be a floor plan

of the cemetery, with names written in small boxes, like states

on a map. But after several minutes of searching I still hadn’t

found any Gillespies there—and apparently neither had Steven.

“Nope, nothing here,” he said. “What year did she die?”

I checked my notebook to be sure. “1888. March 24th.”

168

“Hmm… that’d be in the older section of the cemetery. Let me

grab the other book.” Retreating again to the back room once

again, Steven returned with a slightly tattered volume, larger

and undeniably older than the other two. “This one should tell us

what we want to know.”

He leafed through the book, looking for the name and date

I’d supplied, finally turning to a page that listed several

Gillespies—“Hiram, Adaline, Lafayette, Lorindia, Clarra, Henry,

Sarah, James…and Emily.” He looked up and said, “That must be it.

1888, right?” When I nodded, he said, “Yep. That’s her then.”

Flipping open a second book, he searched out the the

location of all of the Gillespies (“Must be the whole family

there.”), before turning to the map. Ruffling through the pages,

he stopped at the third one. Running his fingers across it and

muttering “Gillespie” repeatedly under his breath, he finally

pointed out a row of plots—directly behind the mausoleum.

“They’re about two rows back. Should be easy enough to spot. Your

Emily is at the end of the line.”

Bracing myself for the furnace I knew waited outside the

door, I once again shook Steven’s hand, thanking him for his

169

help. Alex waved his goodbye, already headed toward the truck.

“Too hot to walk. Hop in. I can park right by the grave.”

He didn’t have to say it twice.

Parking alongside the imposing white building Steven had

called the mausoleum, we climbed out and began our search. The

older sections of the cemetery weren’t exactly laid out on a

grid, but it didn’t take too long to find the Gillespies. This

part of the cemetery was full of white oak trees, their silver-

backed leaves shading the ground all around, and thankfully,

lowering the temperature a bit, while unveiling a hint of

dappling sunlight. Heavy air, quiet and damp, enveloped me like a

blanket, its musty scent filling my nostrils as I searched for

the rows of Gillespies Steven had assured us was here.

Laid out in uneven rows, the headstones ran in a jagged line

from a couple of Platts on one end to a single Patterson memorial

on the other. Although the first names on the Patterson stone

weren’t familiar to me, my heart skipped a beat nonetheless; it

seemed like just one more connection between Emily and my family.

Pushing back the familiar sadness that curled around the edges of

my consciousness, considerations of all of the cemetery visits

170

I’d made over the years with my ever-shrinking family, I tried to

force my focus onto the headstones in front of me today. To

finding Emily’s name among this sea of those who had gone before.

Then abruptly, there she was—Emily Hawley Gillespie—just as

Steven had said. A large granite stone, etched with the names of

Emily and her husband James, stood at the end of the line of

Gillespies, all with death dates between 1854 and 1955. Except

for James, Henry and Sarah, all the rest had died in the 19th

century. Sarah, with the most recent date, must have arranged for

all of the headstones since they all had the same simple design—

name, birth and death dates, with a cross and crown motif. But,

looking up and down the nearby rows, I wondered what had happened

to Sarah’s husband. Her name was etched as Sarah Gillespie

Huftalen, so she had obviously married at some point, but there

were no Huftalens nearby that I could see. A mystery for another

day, I guess.

I walked slowly down the line, reading each of the markers,

wondering about their connection to Emily. In-laws? Cousins? Alex

stayed with me until we found Emily, but then left me alone with

171

my thoughts, telling me he was going to pay his respects to his

parents.

This section of the cemetery was full of tall granite

markers and white oak trees, their silver-backed leaves shading

the ground, and thankfully, lowering the temperature a bit. A

hint of dappling sunlight splashed the grass, filtered through

the branches canopied overhead. The air, thick and damp,

enveloped me like a blanket, its musty scent filling my nostrils,

just as memories of another cemetery filled my mind.

Instead of the clamminess of July, that late-January morning

was shrouded in an icy fog. Heavy and impenetrable, it hung like

a curtain so thick I could barely see a stand of trees less than

thirty feet away. Quiet as a tomb…the air so still it was as if

the rest of the world had ceased even to breathe. I could see the

people around me—my family and friends, Jacks’ colleagues—all of

them huddling together for warmth… for comfort. They had come to

honor Jack, to support me and the girls, to wrap us in their love

in the face of his choking absence. Yet I felt none of that. All

I felt was trapped. Caught like a fly in a web of confusion, yet

compressed to a crystalline clarity—this isolated moment burned 172

into my memory like ice. While the pastor spoke of eternity, I

wondered—oddly—which direction Jack’s headstone would face.

“If you need anything, call us,” they all said after the

service. Hugging me. Pleading with me. “Anything we can do. Any

time.”

It wasn’t that I didn’t believe them. Nevertheless, I had

never felt so utterly alone.

Pulling my thoughts back to the present, I sensed I was

somehow no longer alone. Stooping down, I picked up a branch of

silvered oak leaves from the ground at my feet, and held it tight

like a talisman. I gazed at the headstone there in front of me,

and marveled at the change that had come over me these last days.

Emily was a stranger to me, yet since the day I found her diary

she had become a significant presence in my life. For days I had

pored over her private thoughts, viewing the image of herself

she’d left behind. I still had no idea who she was, or whether

there was any connection between her and my family, but somehow I

felt, in some small way at least, that I knew her—or at least, I

was getting to know her. I had barely dented the thirty years of

her diary, but I’d certainly seen some of the stresses she’d 173

faced—the pressure to marry before she grew “too old,” the burden

of poverty and hard work. I’d seen the idealistic young woman

she’d been at twenty juxtaposed against the sad and pain-ridden

woman she’d become by the time of her death. In that moment,

standing there before her grave, I knew that more than anything I

wanted to discover who she’d been, what she wanted out of her

life—and what had kept her from getting it. She’d had a story to

tell, and she told it to the best of her ability for thirty

years.

Right there in front of her grave, I made a vow. “I’ll do my

best Emily. Just tell me what you want me to say…show me how you

want to be remembered.” Picking up a small branch that had fallen

from an overhanging oak, I laid it at the base of her tombstone,

whispering, “I won’t let you down … I promise,” before turning

back toward the truck.

Deep in thought about the commitment I’d just made to

someone I’d never even met, I heard the crunch of footsteps along

the gravel path and looked up to see Alex walking back toward me.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asked.

174

Did I? Well, I had found a story so compelling that I

promised a woman who’d been dead for over 125 years that I’d tell

it—and I did it standing at the grave of a stranger.

With a wry smile, I looked him in eye and said, “I think I

did—and so much more.” I paused for a moment, not used to sharing

my private thoughts with people I barely knew—at least not face

to face. “I can’t really explain why I needed to find her. I’m

not sure I understand it myself. But as soon as I found that

diary I knew my future was bound up with it somehow. And since I

can’t meet its author face-to-face, coming here seemed to be the

next best thing.”

I didn’t know how, but I felt that Alex understood that I

was working through something as I spoke. He listened intently,

encouraging me to keep talking without saying a word. Jack would

have done that, too—if only he’d been there.

I looked up from where I’d been scuffing at the gravel with

my toe, meeting Alex’ eyes again before I spoke. “My husband

died two and a half years ago…and ever since… I can’t write.” His

faded blue eyes seemed to brim with understanding, but he still

didn’t speak.

175

“Have you ever lost anyone?”

Somehow, as soon as I asked the question I knew the answer.

Not only were his parents buried here, I was sure there was

someone else. Someone he loved.

“My wife left when the boys were in high school, so I know

what it’s like to suddenly find yourself alone. But that’s a

different kind of pain.”

He paused as if gathering his courage to speak. “Five years

ago, Dan lost his wife to cancer. It was a long, slow death—the

end of a life not nearly long enough. Lindy was the love of his

life. The sweetest woman who ever lived—and he and the boys were

devastated by their loss. Me, too…I couldn’t have loved her more

if she’d been my own daughter.” He fell silent, as if anguish had

once more taken away the words.

But I understood that. That fathomless ache had stolen my

words away, too, and had yet to give them back. “I’m so sorry,

Alex. How awful that must have been for you all.” For all my

experience with my own personal agony, I was at a loss for how to

offer him comfort. To say I understood seemed so trite. Every

loss is unique, just as is every person. For over two years I had

176

mourned not only the loss of my husband, but the forfeit of those

last priceless moments of a shared life. When Jack died, he was

alone, a thousand miles from home—and he was gone forever before

I had the chance to say goodbye. Dan’s wife had lingered, dying

slowly and probably painfully. Likely, he’d had the chance to say

the goodbyes I longed for, but in the end death stole his love

away just as it had mine. Was his pain any less for having the

words? Somehow, I doubted it.

But words were my stock-in-trade, and to me they held such

importance. Was the fact that I’d never been able to share those

final words with Jack behind my writer’s block? I had no idea.

But the words had gone and I had no idea how to get them back.

We drove the few minutes back to the farm in silence. Just

as he turned the truck down my driveway, Alex spoke at last. “You

should talk to Dan. It’s been a rough road for him, but he’s

pulled through it. If anyone can understand what you’re going

through…well, he will.”

I thanked him for his concern—and for taking me out to the

cemetery to see Emily’s grave. “It’s given me a lot to think

177

about,” I said. “Finding her story is important for me. I don’t

know why—or how—but I know I need to tell it.

178