Victorian lady on the Texas frontier

A thoroughly interesting, inspirational, and sometimes heartbreaking first hand account of life on the Texas frontier. A spirited woman survives two husbands, a war for independence, a civil war, and the death of all but one of her children. Her journals reports all events from the perspective of a mid-late eighteenth century woman's concerns. For instance Ann Raney Coleman complains mightily about the poor financial decisions of her both her husbands, which rendered her penniless in her old age. But she never once questions the principle of coverture that placed her inherited property beyond her control and into the hands of her husbands, in the first place.

The story of a difficult and remarkable life illustrating the difficulties faced by women in the Victorian era and the dramatic hardships faced by all on the Texas frontier. Being taken from journals the style is idiosyncratic and sometimes frustrating. Whole paragraphs spent on the dress worn to a ball and barely a line on important events. Some slight inaccuracies on her early life in Whitehaven being taken from memory. On the whole an interesting read and quite uplifting despite being ultimately a tale of tragedy.