This is a unique tale of struggle, triumph, life and death in an era that is now long in the distant past of 1850's Texas and Maine. It is not a book of fiction that depends on the imagination of a present author, but is the actual letters of a highly educated daughter, Lucy Parker Shaw, to her mother far removed. Though it is augmented by notes that will aid the reader to understand the political, and  social  elements she mentions, and documents the important and not so famous people she meets, it is the letters themselves that  carry you into her world. You will marvel at her curiosity, resilience, and strength in a land of danger, change, and constant challenges.