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Trials of the Earth: The Autobiography of Mary Hamilton
This wrenching memoir of love, courage, and survival was waiting to he told. Withheld for almost a lifetime, it is a tragic story of a woman's trial of surviving against brutal odds. Near the end of her life Mary Hamilton (1866-c.1936) was urged to record this astonishing narrative. It is the only known first-hand account by an ordinary woman depicting the extraordinary ro...more
Paperback, 286 pages
Published
January 7th 1993
by University Press of Mississippi
(first published October 1992)
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Trials of the Earth is a true account of one of the first settlers of the Mississippi Delta. Mary Hamilton says she thinks she is the first white woman to cross the Sunflower River. Her recollections of this difficult yet fascinating period of history are as detailed as they are honest. If you enjoyed These Is My Words, you will love a nonfiction version of that book.
I grew up in the Delta and often played along the banks of the Sunflower River even though I was forbidden to do so. Reading Hami...more
I grew up in the Delta and often played along the banks of the Sunflower River even though I was forbidden to do so. Reading Hami...more
Trials of the Earth is an autobiography that recalls the life of Mary Hamilton, which began in Illinois in 1866 and ended in the Mississippi Delta in 1936. Around 1883, her family moves from Missouri to Arkansas where she meets Frank Hamilton, an Englishman with a mysterious past. Although at first she wants nothing to do with him, they eventually get married and are devoted to each other until they are separated by death. During their marriage, they live in Arkansas and parts of the Mississippi...more
Absorbing account of pioneering by the 'first white woman to cross the Sunflower River,' as she and her family headed east into the real Mississippi Delta, the geological alluvial fan on either side of the Mississippi River.
Hamilton's endurance put me to shame, and that alone made me endure her long autobiography. I love the spare way she writes, and there is enough detailed description to break up the bleak narrative.
The land was wild and raw and unforgiving in all seasons; Hamilton brings it t...more
Hamilton's endurance put me to shame, and that alone made me endure her long autobiography. I love the spare way she writes, and there is enough detailed description to break up the bleak narrative.
The land was wild and raw and unforgiving in all seasons; Hamilton brings it t...more
Thank you Aunt Bec. This is not a well polished novel, but an account of the first women pioneers in the Mississippi frontier. I found the account of daily life and hardship truly amazing! The read was even more compelling as the Author was a neighbor and acquaintance of my Grandmother in Yazoo City MS.
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What a great frontier book. Makes you appreciate all we have today, as well as, all that the "pioneers" endured. Scary & facinating at the same time. Very much worth the read. The Mississippi flood depiction made me take in a huge, terrified breath and hold it, just from the enormous expanse of putting myself there!! It still does when I think of it.
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