Women's history day by day

The Boston Herald

If you're feeling a little overwhelmed because Christmas is four days away and you've been shopping and wrapping and writing cards forever and you still have more to do - stockings to stuff, cookies to bake, more gifts to buy, plus a dinner to plan and cook - take a break. Head to your nearest bookstore and grab a copy of Lois Edgerly's "Women's Words, Women's Stories." You won't have time to read it until after the holiday, of course, but that's OK. It's meant to be read then.

This is a daybook. It tells the stories of 366 women, one for every day of the year, all born in the 19th century, all struggling to juggle their compound, complex crazy, confusing supposedly simpler-than-we-live-now lives. Some of the names you'll recognize - Grandma Moses, Annie Sullivan, Annie Oakley - but most are unfamiliar. And yet their stories are not.

Using their words plus a few of her own, Edgerly showcases one life a day, one woman to visit, to listen to, to get to know. You have the feeling as you read that you already know many of these women. They're no different from you and me. Time separates us, and cosmetic things. We wear different clothes, drive cars, ride in planes, work with computers, celebrate Christmas far more lavishly.

But the problems that women confronted 100 years ago, the fears they had are fears we still have today.

Annie Lowry (Nov. 13) whose mother was a Paiute Indian and whose father was a white man felt as if she didn't fit in either society. "I am a half-breed. That means I live on the fringe of two races. My white friends think I am just a plain old Paiute, while the Indians say I think I am better than they because my father was a white man."

Myra Fairbanks Eells (May 26) felt her heart break when she went west with her new husband: "Left home, father, mother, brothers, and sisters, and all near and dear by the ties of nature and affection, with the expectation of never seeing them again." Ellen Glasgow (April 22) was devastated when a publisher told her to "stop writing and go back to the South and have some babies." She destroyed her first two books. But she continued to write and in 1942 won a Pulitzer Prize for "In This Our Life."

History books never tell of these things. They pigeonhole people: Grandma Moses was an artist, Annie Oakley a sharpshooter, Annie Sullivan a teacher. But you read just one page in "Women's Words, Women's Stories" and you learn that Grandma Moses (Sept. 7) was more than a painter. Born just before the Civil War to a large, poor family in New York, she left home when she was 12 to work as a domestic servant and didn't marry until 15 years later. She had 10 children, five of whom died as infants. She was known for her fine handwork until arthritis prevented her from doing this detailed work. It was only then that she took up painting. She was a daughter, wife, mother, a woman who always loved to create.

We think life is difficult today, juggling family, work and friends. And it is. But what we are reminded of as we read "Women's Words, Women's Stories" is that life has always been difficult. Women have always had to wear many hats.

Nineteenth century women lost husbands, children, parents. They left home and family knowing they would never see either again. They crossed plains and oceans. They were rejected because of gender, color and creed. But they kept right on living because in the end it was the only thing they could do.

There are a lot of daybooks for sale. A word a day, a quote a day, a meditation a day. "Women's Words, Women's Stories" is a friend a day, a bit of history a day, some needed perspective a day, a reminder that everyone's life, past and present, is complex and exceptional and important.