A Window into the Past: A Mother and Two Daughters' Letters from the Turn of the Century
The story is about women’s farm life in Union County, Ohio at the turn of the twentieth century. The mother, Samantha and her daughters Rosa and Mary exchange letters for fifteen years about a variety of topics of the daily life of living on the farm.
Rosa and Mary exchange vows with much older, highly successful and previously married men. They both are the quiet, pious homemaker as expected of them by their husbands. They are also the anchor of the home, business women of their own and valued contributors to their husband’s success. The women’s family story is also expanded to 100 years of family history in Union and Champaign Counties, Ohio.
Samantha McAdams, her family and her upbringing start the chapter of history of the women and their husbands. Samantha’s mother died and her dad went to fight in the Civil War. The children were separated and shipped off to relatives. Her father Gideon was a ne’er do well who following the war, spent thirty-fire years in the county but not in touch with Samantha or her family.
Samantha’s daughter Rosa, met and married Isaac Campbell, who was the same age as her father Wilmer McAdams. Isaac built the town of Grenola, Kansas which at the time was the main shipping stockyard for cattle. After a horrific accident in which he killed his wife, he fell on hard times. He left his children with relatives and moved to Union County, Ohio.
Samantha’s younger daughter Mary, married a successful farmer and politician named Lester Clark. His great-grandfather and grandfather were early settlers of North Lewisburg, Ohio. He was related to many of the town’s 800 residents.
A series of letters written from 1897 until 1913 between the three women. They reveal the individual personalities of Samantha, Rosa and Mary. Samantha, a bit of a hypochondriac, desires the closeness of her daughters. Rosa, independent by nature often writes of her husband’s frailties. Mary often has live-in help and explores music, as well as having two children which keep her life busy.
They all write of life and health of neighbors and themselves. Chronic illness and disease were prevalent and the ladies kept each other up to date on local happenings. They also wrote of the everyday duties of farm life…cooking, canning, butchering, and animal husbandry. Individuals of each family were always a topic of each letter.

Telephones became common in 1913 and the letters ceased. Mary and Lester moved back to their newly renovated North Lewisburg home. Rosa divorced Isaac Campbell due to his erratic and increasingly bizarre behavior. Rosa moved in with Samantha and Wilmer McAdams. For the first time in decades the ladies live close to each other. They now see each other daily. Samantha’s health waned through 1914 until her death of heart failure in the fall. Isaac’s mental health deteriorated to the extent where the local headlines were written in the fall of 1915, “Insane Man Arrested”. Isaac died the summer of 1916. Rosa paid for his body to be shipped back to Kansas.
During the summer of 1918 World War I was being fought in Europe. Food was rationed so it could be sent to the troops at war. Mary wasn’t feeling well. She spent a month in Grant Hospital, Columbus, Ohio, with Rosa and Nurse Anna Boyle at her side. Lester was concerned about the cost of the stay and did not visit until Mary demanded it. Mary’s children, Earl and Florence, toughed out the month and were glad to finally have Mary home. January 31, 1919 Anna Boyle compassionately wrote Mary a good-bye letter, “May God bless you and give you strength to do His will in all things.”