Yes, our book club is basically defunct, but if any of you would like to share your best reads with us.......we'd all appreciate it!
Grandma Mary, Aunt Peachy, and I have recently read/or reread "These Is My Words The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1991 Arizona Territories" by Nancy E. Turner.
The following is taken from the back cover:
"Sarah Prine, a woman of spirit and fire who forges a full and remarkable existence in a harsh, unfamiliar frontier. Scrupulously recording her steps down the path Providence has set her upon – from child to determined young adult to loving mother – she shares the turbulent events, both joyous and tragic that molded her, and recalls the enduring love with cavalry officer Captain jack Elliot that gave her strength and purpose.
"Rich in authentic everyday details and alive with truly unforgettable characters, These Is My Words brilliantly brings a vanished world to breathtaking life again."
Below are my favorite quotes from the book:
...I might like to have someone courting me. But it would have to be someone who is a square shooter and who has a train load of courage. And it would have to be someone who doesn’t have to talk down to folks to feel good, or to tell a person they are worthless if they just made a mistake. And he’d have to be not too thin.......I want a man who can hold me down in a wind. Maybe he’d have to be pretty stubborn. I don’t have any use for a man that isn’t stubborn. Likely a stubborn fellow will stay with you through thick and thin, and a spineless one will take off, or let his heart wander.
Children are a burden to a mother, but not the way a heavy box is to a mule. Our children weigh hard on my heart, and thinking about them growing up honest and healthy, or just living to grow up at all, makes a load in my chest that is bigger than the safe at the bank, and more valuable to me than all the gold inside it.
Sometimes I feel like a tree on a hill, at the place where all the wind blows and the hail hits the hardest. All the people I love are down the side a ways, sheltered under a great rock, and I am out of the fold, standing alone in the sun and the snow. I feel like I am not part of the rest somehow, although they welcome me and are kind. I see my family as they sit together and it is like they have a certain way between them that is beyond me. I wonder if other folks ever feel included yet alone.
Mama told me to make a special point to remember the best times of my life. There are so many hard things to live through, and latching on to the good things will give you strength to endure, she says. So I must remember this day. It is beautiful and this seems like the best time to live and the best place.
It seems there is always a road with bends and forks to choose and taking one path means you can never take another one. There’s no starting over nor undoing the steps I’ve taken.
I used to complain to myself that life was so boring, that there was too much laundry to do, too many noses to wipe. Now there are not enough noses to wipe.
I highly recommend this book and look forward to reading its two sequels.
