Our female ancestors used letters and diaries to stay in touch with family and friends as well as express their most personal thoughts and memories. Find out how to find these records.

1. From their Hearts:
How Our Female Ancestors Told Their Stories in
Diaries and Letters
Kathy Petlewski
October 2014
kpetlewski@gmail.com

2. Circumstances Affecting Women
• Many moved far away from the rest of their
original families, whether from another country
or another state. Writing was the only way to
stay in touch.
• Important events caused women to share their
thoughts, if only in a diary – births, deaths, etc.
• Others wanted to leave a written record of their
experiences.

3. Why Write?
• Women were more likely to keep diaries during
periods of emotional stress - for example, during
times of war.
• Quaker women were encouraged to keep
spiritual journals which were then printed and
shared with other women. Over 3000 of these
were published prior to 1725.

4. Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas
• “…I wonder if we will ever live to know this
feeling of freedom [from debt]. I greatly fear
not. Mr. Thomas is too much embarrassed but I
have three boys to whom I leave this request, pay
your father’s debts. For myself I could be content
with very little…”
Monday, January 10, 1870
The Secret Eye; The Journal of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, 1848-1889
(Living in Augusta, Georgia during Reconstruction.)

5. Mary M. Colby
• “Dear Brother and Sister
It is a long time since we have seen each other, but I have
not forgotten you although many miles of land and
water separate us yet I often wish I could se you and
your family and many dear friends in Haverhill … I did
not like [it] very well, but after we had taken our claim
and become settled once more I began to like it much
better and the longer I live here the better I like [it]”
February 8, 1852
Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails,
1840 – 1890.
(Writing from her new home in Oregon Territory)

6. Mary Lyon
• ‘They devoured every green thing but the prairie
grass…They ate the leaves and young twigs off our
young fruit trees, and seemed to relish the green
peaches on the trees, but left the pit hanging. They
went from the corn fields as though they were in a
great hurry, and there was nothing left but the
…bare stalks.’
August 1, 1874
Pioneer Women; Voices from the Kansas Frontier, p. 103
(Writing about the grasshopper destruction)

7. Annie L. Burton
• One morning in April, 1865, my master got the news that the
Yankees had left Mobile Bay and crossed the Confederate lines, and
that the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed by President
Lincoln. Mistress suggested that the slaves should not be told of
their freedom; but master said he would tell them, because they
would soon find it out, even if he did not tell them. Mistress,
however, said she could keep my mother's three children, for my
mother had now been gone so long.
• All the slaves left the plantation upon the news of their
freedom, except those who were feeble or sickly. With the help of
these, the crops were gathered. My mistress and her daughters had
to go to the kitchen and to the washtub. My little half- brother,
Henry, and myself had to gather chips, and help all we could. My
sister, Caroline, who was twelve years old, could help in the kitchen.
Page 10 in Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days

8. Eliza McHatton-Ripley
• ”ONCE in Texas…the dear baby succumbed to the
first illness he ever had, and one beautiful April day
his little body was carried to the cemetery at Houston
and buried, as was our blessed Saviour, in a tomb
belonging to another. The cradle that had been kindly
loaned us by a neighbor, and the various little cups
and mugs, also borrowed, were returned, the
medicine- bottles put out of sight, and I sat down
desolate and lonely in the empty room, with no heart
to do any more, feeling that there was nothing now to
do but to lie down and die.”
p.77 From Flag to Flag; A Woman’s Adventures and
Experiences in the South during the War, In Mexico, and in Cuba

9. Jette Bruns (German)
• ‘My husband became sick and was very ill-humored. I
was with the child in the ladies’ cabin and could not
always be with him. And the food was bad…For the
first time I tried to express myself in English…I was able
to persuade the black cook to take me to the meat
storage room, where I looked for some meat for soup…’
November 1836
p.291, Foreign and Female; Immigrant Women in America 1840-1930

10. Hannah Collins
• ‘It was a lovely place the hills looked so nice and
green it reminded me of sweet Ballinlough hill
over the Lake where you & I spent many a
happy Sunday. I am lonesome for them happy
days many a time.’
• June 1, 1900 – writing to her friend, Nora, back in
Ireland.
• The Irish Bridget, p.32

11. Where Do You Locate These Writings?
Published books
• Start with your public
library.
• The expand your search
to regional or state
interloan services. In
Michigan, this is MeL.

12. Having Trouble Finding Titles?
https://www.worldcat.org
WorldCat includes over 10,000 libraries, public and academic.

13. Doing an Advanced Keyword Search

14. My Search Results

15. See if there is a library close by

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

17. We Locate the book

18. Request the book!

19. Using Google for Books
https://play.google.com

20. My Google Bookshelf

21. Results from searching for
“pioneer women diaries”

22. Digital Collections Online
http://docsouth.unc.edu

23. Moving Westward
http://www.over-land.com/diaries.html

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

25. Harvard University
http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ww/diaries.html

26. Manuscripts – Locate in WorldCat

27. The Making of Modern Michigan –
http://mmm.lib.msu.edu/
• Features recorded videos of oral histories,
including one with Mrs. Iris Page Butler, an
African-American known as "Hamtramck's
Angel of Mercy,” who was a resident in that
community since 1903 and worked as a public
health nurse. She recalled her meal with Teddy
Roosevelt in the White House in her filmed
interview
Early Hamtramck

28. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
“History is lived in the main by the unknown
and forgotten.”
from the Foreward of
Pioneer Women; Voices from the Kansas Frontier