"I wish some great catastrophe would happen to somebody (not me, of course) so that I might have something of importance to set down in my journal. But, I suppose everyone's journal (who is foolish enough to keep one) is made up of everyday incidents, mixed up with a startling love adventure now and then." Phebe F. Beach July 1, 1857 In 1857, Phebe Beach, a young woman from Bridgton, Maine was coming of age, beset by the constraints of society that expected her to marry and become in her words "a stocking darner and a baby manufacturer." She shared her frustrations in a diary she began writing that year. Her lively, lighthearted descriptions of annoying suitors, girlish rivalries, and social gatherings soon gave way to other more tragic happenings as the nation hurtled into civil war.