Nothing Daunted is historical nonfiction at its best—a story absorbing enough to read like a novel, peopled with varied and engaging characters and packed with historical detail. In 1916, Dorothy Woodruff (the author’s grandmother) and her best friend Rosamond “Ros” Underwood, daughters of well-to-do families in Auburn, New York, were in their late twenties—they had graduated from college, had been on the Grand Tour of Europe, and had not yet met anyone they wished to marry, and they were looking for something to do with themselves when they heard of a school district in rural Colorado that was looking for two well-educated young women to serve as teachers. Neither Dorothy nor Ros had any experience with teaching, but they wanted something interesting to do and were willing to try.
In 1916 the Old West was still blending with the new—automobiles and indoor plumbing alongside horses and spring wagons and two-room homestead cabins. The young teachers and their students saw cowboys driving cattle from the windows of their mountaintop schoolhouse that had electric lights and a telephone, but no road leading up to it. They rode to school every day on horseback, sometimes in the thick of a blizzard, attended square dances and toured a coal mine. Working from a wealth of family letters and papers, oral histories, interviews, autobiographies and memoirs, author Dorothy Wickenden brings their story to vivid life, from their childhood in Auburn, their time at college and in Europe, to their adventurous journey west and what came of it. The book also tells the story of Ferry Carpenter, the enterprising young lawyer and rancher who was instrumental in the building of the school in Elkhead, Colorado and importing teachers from the East—hoping, incidentally, to help provide prospective brides for a county short on young women—and fills in the history of the area, from the gold strikes that led to the founding of Denver, early homesteading and Indian troubles, and the building of the Moffat Road railway over the Rockies.
The only thing that I felt could have made it better would be more photos—aside from the cover, the only pictures are the tiny black-and-white ones at the beginning of each chapter. But it was a fascinating, entertaining read, the kind that makes you feel as if you’ve stepped back into the past. I have a feeling this one is going to end up in my personal library!
Linda says
Thanks. That sounds like the kind of book I'd thoroughly enjoy! It would make a good Christmas gift, too.
Linda
jtwebster books says
It sounds like an interesting read. Thanks for the review.