I started going through “A Midwife’s Tale” looking for pages that would be good to use in the quilt for my great-grandmother. As I suspected I got drawn in and started reading the book instead (this is why I ordered the extra copy!). As it turns out it was good timing because I have another migraine (thanks for those genes Grace) and wasn’t feeling up for a lot of art making (the meds I take for my migraines – which my poor great-grandmother had to do without – take care of the pain but leave me drugged up and without the fine motor skills to do much art-making).

So far it’s a good read, turns out Martha Ballard was Clara Barton’s (of Red Cross fame) great-aunt. Her simple, matter of fact entries about everyday life and death in Maine around the time of the Revolution are enlightening. The author, Laura Thatcher Ulrich, does a wonderful job of adding historical context.

I think one of the things that I have always admired about women like her and my great-grandmother and all of the women of that era is knowing that there is no way in heck that I could have done that, that I could have lived like that. I would have been one of those women who just snapped one day and ran off or took everybody out.