When Florence Walrath was 75, perhaps at the urging of friends planning a birthday celebration, she recorded the story of her life, as she saw it. The work is remarkable, clear and poignant and simply written. Florence was a doer, not a brooder or deep thinker. She lived as full a life as it is possible to imagine – gardens, canning, riding in the summer, sledding and riding on frozen ground in the winter, friends, family, her beloved husband Harold.  Her story evokes Willa Cather, Flannery O’Connor, House On The Prairie, another world, rich and enduring values of work and love and loyalty.

Florence’s voice is strong, certain, there was no trouble she ran from, not even at age 75. “The summer of 83 has been a busy one,” she wrote. “The garden was not good. I shot five rabbits and three woodchucks and still no garden. The raspberries were not many, no apples, a dry summer. The fall, lots of leaves had a boy to help two days. In Sept. I went on bus trip to Nashville to the Ole Opera, gone six days and had a wonderful time.”

There were many wonderful times and many tragic and painful ones in Florence’s life. I was up half the night reading the story, it never falters or quits, she never complains or reflects much, even when she and her family and neighbors and friends were hit with one tragedy and loss after another. Friends got sick, were killed in accidents, died of appendicitis. Her grandfather, she said, lost both eyes due to his “temper” when he whacked a cow so hard splinters flew into his eyes. The most emotion Florence showed was over the sudden death of her husband Harold, and although she never said one word in self-pity or complaint, it is clear she missed him deeply. He was always willing to share in her crazy adventures, she said. There were many of those.

Maria and I read the journals together in her living room, perhaps in the very spot where she wrote them. For a writer, this is a powerful experience and I want to do her justice. She is a colleague, it turns out, a fellow writer. Hers is not my story to tell, not my book to write, that is for her family. But I will share entries from the journal as I read them and digest them.

Florence’s matter-of-fact acceptance of life reminds me of the farm journals I read that inspired this blog. People toss the term “feminist” around,  but for Florence it was not a political ideal but a way of life. She bowed to no one and nothing, was brave and indomitable.  Her life was as fully lived as any life I am familiar with. One feels lazy just taking the time to read it. This life was filled with family, adventure, life to the limits. She was nearly killed a dozen times by her undramatic but simple accounts, thought nothing of riding horses through the snow in blizzards, shoveling her own walk at age 100, swimming in freezing water, sledding down hills too steep for cars. Her love of horses permeates the journals, they were always a part of her life.

Of our farmhouse, she wrote, “this home seems to be a place for accidents. A girl was killed in field north of house, car hit a pole. When we were trying to turn in our driveway when Carleen Granger on motorcycle hit us while trying to pass us. She hit pole and was killed. A new Dodge turned over in the yard, no one hurt and this winter a girl rolled her car into the horse pasture and thru rail fence landing upside down in the South yard. She was lucky not hurt, broke all windows, took out windshield and tore one door off. Took me over an hour to fix fence so horses would not get out. Eight below zero, out of a warm bed I caught a nice cold.”

Florence’s writings are a trove – her amazing dog Bob, who moved cattle and horses through Salem, a mare that saved her parents life,  banging her head on things, her life in a one-room schoolhouse, the hard early years with Harold. I’ll recount these anecdotes one at a time in the coming weeks and months, and perhaps Connie will led me do a reading from the journals at Battenkill Books. This is such a rich story, it brings the lost world of rural life so richly to life. I am honored and proud to tell her story here on this blog.

I met Florence when she was 101, and the steel was very present in her gaze.  She inspired us to buy her farm and move there. And her spirit is present in every inch of the house. How lucky I am to be able to share her remarkable story.