Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1988
Abstract
Diaries are among the most unpredictable of literary genres: they can be fascinating, vivid renderings of what life was truly like during key periods in history, or they can be oddly flat, even tedious affairs-especially when they deal with the daily routines of obscure lives. Some diaries, such as Emily: The Diary of a Hard-Worked Woman, manage somehow to be both. Emily Louisa Rood, born in Michigan in 1843, was raised in middle-class surroundings and thus accustomed to some of the finer things in western life, including her own home and her own horse and buggy. But after bearing a number of children to the alcoholic Marsena French, a clothing store clerk turned doctor, Emily suddenly found herself divorced after thirty-one years of marriage and stranded in her adoptive state of Colorado with no alimony, no child support, and no marketable skills beyond housewifery and a little practical nursing.
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly SPRING 1988. Copyright 1988 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska—Lincoln.