Rarely do we have a chance to read a diary kept by a working woman
of a bygone era and written is so revealing a manner. The entries
cover the year 1890, in which a divorced woman on her own with two
children struggled for survival. Working as a cook, maid,
laundress, she eked out a bare existence. Yet she persevered with a
remarkable faith and strength. Life in Colorado, as seen through
the eyes of this unique witness, is hard and without frills. The
diarist started life in the Midwest and came west with a husband
who left her after 31 years of marriage and many children. When the
diary begins, she has taken the two youngest children - really
kidnapped them - and is trying to support them on her meager
earnings. Her husband has remarried and two of the children live
with him in comfort. The harshness of Emily's life seems
unremitting except for church services, an occasional sympathetic
friend and quiet moments with her children when they are all
healthy and fed. Her demands of life were not unreasonable - a warm
home, her children's happiness and perhaps a kind man to love and
be loved by. To accomplish this, she was not afraid to work long
hours and often endure considerable humiliations. She was in her
late 40s when she began the diary, and though bent by work, needing
false teeth, she still was attractive enough to interest suitors.
The editors know that sometime after the diary ended, Emily did
marry, but what more happened to her is apparently lost to us. We
have diaries of 19th-century women of leisure, but not so life from
the bottom up. In French, we find the quiet courage and toughness
of those hardy women who pioneered the West. (Kirkus Reviews)
"Oh how I do wish I could have a little help in maintaining my
home. I shall dread the cold winter so much. I don't have very good
success getting employment," wrote Emily French in her diary in
1890. Emily was recently divorced but received no alimony or child
support. She worked as a laundress, cleaning woman, and nurse,
first in the farming community of Elbert, Colorado, then in the
growing city of Denver, the mining town of Dake, and back into
Denver.
Emily's diary discloses an example of the desperate lives lived
by many. Having enough money and food is a source of constant
anxiety, but her deepest fears center on the loss of family and of
home. She becomes discouraged but never gives up, recognizes others
less fortunate than herself, and always believes things will
change. This is a moving work that provides an unusual look into
the life of the working poor in the late-nineteenth-century
West.
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