I admit I read too much random, eclectic fiction that I pick up as it crosses my path--little focus to my reading? So I'm trying to select more history, memoir etc.
First, to celebrate my own approaching "retirement", "Twilight at Monticello" by Alan Pell Crawford; should I find inspiration in the retirement years of a US Founder, I wondered?
It was a fascinating narrative of the final 17 years of the life of a principal crafter of the Declaration of Independence (though I learned from other reading that Benjamin Franklin guided his pen). Jefferson saw the wisdom and acted to acquire the territories west of the Mississippi River and commissioned the exploration.
In retirement, his major accomplishment was the nurture of the University of Virginia. On a personal level, he kept busy and physically active, up to the limits of his surprisingly frail health. He wrote extensively about the Bible. Sadly, he left his descendants in deep debt, due to very generous habits of spending, borrowing and lending to others. There is a 19th century photo of Monticello in ruins--sad. His grandson spent years working to pay his debts. A good book.
Second, James Alexander Thom's "Long Knife-The Story of a great American Hero, George Rogers Clark".
The book is actually a historic novel, but so loaded with factual, researched information that is has a solid bibliography included. George Rogers Clark was a friend of Thomas Jefferson; he was the older brother of William Clark, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Basically, GRC and a very small troop of mainly Kentucky settlers ran the British out of the West and back to Detroit during the American Revolution. He lost none of his men in combat. His actions freed the Mississippi River of British involvement; it curtailed the British practice of paying bounties for the scalps of Kentucky settlers: men, women, children and even unborn babies.
His contributions were made at his own expense; he was never repaid. And he develped a drinking habit the shocked people, even then. A sad life. An interesting book.
This author writes in similar style about other regional American subjects. I read "Follow the River" in recent years, the story of the escape from Tribal captivity by an American woman about 1755.
Why has there not been a movie about the life of Isabella L. Bird? A hundred years ago, she was famous and known everywhere as an explorer, humanitarian and writer. The book I read was published in 1960, reprinted in 1985. Has any one heard of her now?
"A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains":
In 1873 she was a fearless 40 year old single British lady who decided, on her way back to England from exploring Hawaii, that she would go ride a horse (usually alone) around the recently explored Rockies, principally Estes Park. She rides alone for long days, finds lodging a bug invested camps, maybe she has a romance(?) with a local badass who is killed soon after she leaves on her journey back to England; he helps her climb Longs Peak to the summit---all in autumn approaching winter. She wrote the book in the form of letters which she mailed back to her sister in England. Her works were published during her life to help finance further travel.
I wish she had realized she was writing for the ages; explained more about the people, way they lived, especially the women she encounters. She was infected by the prejudices of her time: she detests the Mormons, she dismisses the Tribes (she encounters only the remnants, homeless and destitute) and she is not too supportive of women who are mere wives and mothers (most women of her time).
It's amazing she survived the Rockies. She lived until just after the turn of the 20th century, even as she was planning another faraway adventure. She had traveled through Asia, India, Japan and other places in the her life.
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