The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

by Colleen Oakley

Abraham Lincoln grew his infamous beard based on the advice of an eleven-year-old letter writer, Grace Bedell, who stated directly and to Louise’s delight, “You would look a great deal better for your face is too thin.”

Tennessee House of Representatives member Harry Thomas Burn cast the deciding vote for women’s suffrage thanks to a letter from his mother, Febb Ensminger Burn, admonishing him, “Don’t forget to be a good boy.”

But growing old, Louise found, was just one indignity after another.

“I’m sorry?” The girl tilted her head like a cocker spaniel. Good grief, were they still teaching girls to apologize for nothing?

She had forgotten the freedom that came with being alone.

It was exhausting, parenting.

THE BRAINCHILD OF Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, was a 630-foot stainless steel monument—the tallest in North America—and cost $13 million to build in the early 1960s.

“Nothing in life goes according to plan. Nothing. And the sooner you accept that, the better off you’ll be.”

When it came to grief, words, she found, were always lacking.

She knew kids, daughters especially, took all the anger, frustration, world-weariness out on their mothers because they could. Because mothers would always love them—even at their worst. But even the best mothers had a breaking point.

Sybil Ludington, the daughter of Colonel Henry Ludington, who got on her horse to warn colonial forces of British advancement—riding twice the distance of her male counterpart Paul Revere, and getting none of the renown.

“Sometimes it just feels like we still spend so much time trying to teach the house not to catch on fire, instead of teaching the arsonist not to light it.”