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134 reviews for:
Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West
Dorothy Wickenden
3.38 AVERAGE
134 reviews for:
Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West
Dorothy Wickenden
3.38 AVERAGE
Story of two women who teach in Colorado mountain "town" in 1916. I liked the description/history, but the author seemed to go off numerous tangents. She obviously did a huge amount of research, but including it all made the book choppy & dry in spots. Good character development.
Very interesting story. Obviously well researched. I would have liked more info at the end, but that is where the letters stopped. I also wanted to more after their teaching year.
An interesting history of the author's grandmother, and her best friend, who go to rural Colorado to teach during 1916-1917.
i enjoyed this book. It was a light, easy read and brought me out of my terrible reading slump, in which I must have started and abandoned at least 5 books.
What a fantastic book! Put together into story fashion from several letters sent to and from her grandmother, the author created a fascinating book. I really enjoyed reading about the history of the area in which I live, and the girls' gumption was incredible. I'll be giving this book to my husband's grandfather, who grew up in the area described.
While the author's storytelling could be richer or could simply be replaced by a collection of the primary sources (the letters her text is based upon), I still enjoyed this glimpse into a not-so-distant history enough that my kids were thoroughly ignored in the hours I read. The pluck and drive of Ros and Dorothy, the social and economic forces of the time and place, and, yes, even the rabbit trails of history and back stories of minor characters were moving and interesting to me. I'm all ready to take a road trip to see the area for myself (the kids can come, too).
This was a labor of love on the part of the author. Her grandmother, Dorothy Woodruff, was one of the two intrepid high society East Coast young ladies who set off for Colorado in 1916 to spend a year teaching in a rural school. A lot of research went into the preparation of this book, and there are certainly some interesting bits of history sprinkled throughout. Unfortunately, it's just one big bundle of digressions, which made it a torture for me to get through. I did finish it, but I cannot recommend it with enthusiasm.
I won't write a long review dwelling on the book's flaws, but the constant digressions are the most frustrating thing about it. Every time you think the story's going to pick up steam and start living up to the title, it veers off onto some new historical path. For example, when Dorothy and Ros are riding the train from Denver up into the mountains, Wickenden takes off on a long boring narrative about the building of the Moffat Tunnel and the railroad they're riding on.
I really did like Dorothy and Ros, and I admired their adventuresome spirit and willingness to roll with the punches when they encountered situations so different from their sheltered, affluent upbringing. I think their experiences deserve a more focused and colorful presentation than is given in this book.
I won't write a long review dwelling on the book's flaws, but the constant digressions are the most frustrating thing about it. Every time you think the story's going to pick up steam and start living up to the title, it veers off onto some new historical path. For example, when Dorothy and Ros are riding the train from Denver up into the mountains, Wickenden takes off on a long boring narrative about the building of the Moffat Tunnel and the railroad they're riding on.
I really did like Dorothy and Ros, and I admired their adventuresome spirit and willingness to roll with the punches when they encountered situations so different from their sheltered, affluent upbringing. I think their experiences deserve a more focused and colorful presentation than is given in this book.
This is the story of two women of privilege who live in Auburn, NY. They graduate from college, spend a year traveling in Europe, and then decide to work in rural Colorado as teachers for a year.
Pieced together from the letters the women wrote to their families while they were in Colorado, we see insights into their daily lives and their attitudes about what they were doing.
The author also adds in lost of commentary about the political climate, both of the area and the world.
Pieced together from the letters the women wrote to their families while they were in Colorado, we see insights into their daily lives and their attitudes about what they were doing.
The author also adds in lost of commentary about the political climate, both of the area and the world.
I stand by my statement that this is a charming book. The two young women went from one world to another, and not only coped but flourished. It was fascinating reading about the histories of the people and places involved. Dorothy and Rosamond are vivid correspondents, and I got a real sense of the culture shock they experienced going from a prosperous upper New York state life to a bare-necessities Colorado homesteading one. It was nifty to me that this all happened in the twentieth century, so I'd be reading about them taking sponge baths in the freezing cold every morning, and then about them getting a ride somewhere in someone's car, or calling someone on the phone. It was a mixture of historical and modern that I found appealing.
I enjoyed reading about the growth of Colorado, the hardships and difficulties people had, even in 1916, which is not what I would consider "frontier" times... Colorado at that time was apparently still very much like the "old west", and it was fascinating learning about that time from letters of these two very unique women. These two would definitely have been women I would have wanted to hang around with!