Diary Discoveries

The 1859 gold rush to Colorado is on! "Pike's Peak or bust!" was the saying of many a fortune hunter who headed out west, but what about those left behind? In this episode, passages from a newly marr…

"Holy Jumpers", an Immigrant girl named Olga, and a shootout between a "revenue posse" and a moonshining family in the hills of Kentucky, all of which have a connection to Effie Waller Smith, the tea…

Two women born the same year-1879, both given the same first name, both poets, and living only 150 miles apart. One was a black woman, the other, a white woman. Both eventually were known as Effie Sm…

This is the amazing story of the most serendipitous experience Sally has had in her years of collecting and researching vintage diaries! It is an almost unbelievable occurance that began in 1938, ori…

In this episode, we share from a 1940's dream journal. The author kept a record of about a month's worth of her dreams. From strange creatures playing ball to an Italian hurdy gurdy man with an infla…

In this final part of Alexander's diary, he has arrived in Boston after his first voyage as a ship's surgeon. He is in America for the first time and has much to write about as he compares Boston to …

In this episode, Alexander is going to sea! Fifteen years following the "Fenwick Escapade" his boyhood wish is becoming a reality. His medical training and time at school has finished. You will hear …

In this episode, Alexander is writing down the current events in his life as a student at the University of Glasgow. He has a rich social life with many entries describing events at a country estate …

Alexander Watson Dunlop began writing his diary in 1881. He was studying to become a physician at the University of Glasgow but before writing the current events of his life, he recalls a story of ad…

This episode originates with a diary written in by three individuals and because they did, Sally was able to discover a wonderful story--The House of Seven Gables.
This house in West Plains, Missouri,…

This episode is from the oldest diary in Sally's collection. You will hear the story of a gifted, influential woman, Margaret Middleton, who behind the scenes, was instrumental in the abolishment of …

Two classic pin-up calendar pages with a hand written message on them are what Sally started with for this story. In this episode, we discuss a bit of pin-up art history and then get into the writing…

In this episode we read and discuss the letters between Charles and Dorothy as they start their life together in 1920 -1921. He has recently been divorced in the very public "Girl In Every Town" divo…

An antique tin containing 100 letters along with a 1919 newspaper article was the starting point for this episode. The article  titled "Girl In Every Town" described a divorce case in which 17 letter…

In 1903, Mary Louise Edgar traveled from her home in Wisconsin to visit Scotland. She wrote very detailed and descriptive entries in over 200 pages of her diary. In this episode we share some of Sall…

Union soldier Gillis J. McBane is captured and taken prisoner during the brutally fought battle at Stones River in Tennessee.

We will take you to the battlefield and follow his ordeal as he is moved t…

In this episode we present some of our listeners and their responses to our invitation to share how and why they journal.  We learned some fascinating things and were sincerely moved by what these in…

This is a wonderful Christmas story of a father's love. Go back to 1914 with us to Christmas Eve. A six year old boy is bedridden with illness, so his father, D.D. Sturgeon, a pioneer in the electric…

In this episode, as a way to remember those who have served our country, we tell a story taken from a letter written by a pilot to his family back home. He had survived a tour of combat in the Pacifi…

In this episode we discuss diary and journal keeping and some common concerns an author may have.  We read entries from two diaries; the first, from 1937, written by a woman losing her vision, and th…