Dear Home: The 1901 and 1902 Diaries of Mabel Lila Wait

These diaries reveal her internal strife as she endeavors to negotiate business matters. Wait records her anguished indecision about the choices facing her. The cumulative short entries that constitute this book become a powerful narrative that divulges a good deal about late nineteenth-century rural work patterns, family life, health, and reading and writing practices -- and courtship!

Mabel also became part of a romantic triangle during these years, as two young men, one from a neighboring city and one from the Midwest, vied for her attention