Working herself to death had never been her goal in life. She’d only gone to school until sixth grade. Then she had to quit school to help run the farm, working sunup to sundown alongside her parents. The Ride of Her Life: the True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America by Elizabeth Letts is the feel-good travel/adventure story we all need now. Not only is this Annie’s story, it is Midcentury America’s — fueled by a spirit bursting with life after surviving the Depression and two world wars. Both tales woven deftly together by author Elizabeth Letts. Brava! They had to sell everything to pay for medical care. The cattle, the pigs, the hens. If that wasn’t bad enough, Uncle Waldo didn’t make it. He quietly slipped away while Annie was battling pneumonia.

Another thing that was wild to me is there were many occasions where Annie would spend the night in a small town jail. Not because she had broken any law, but because it was a place to be indoors and safe for the night. She might happen upon a police officer and ask to be escorted to the nearby jail. I hate camping, so I suppose a one-night stay in a cell might be better. But I’m not so sure. lol Throughout the next months, as I spun the results of my research into a story, my own vista grew smaller. But Annie’s world got bigger and bigger as she traveled from the wooded confines of New England to the wide-open spaces of the West. And it seemed that the longer I stayed in my own home, the better I understood Annie. She was a single woman, short and square, working class and proud of it, divorced and with no children at a time when women were judged mostly by their relation to others—mother, wife, widow. Annie Wilkins never went anywhere or did much of anything except work in the kinds of jobs available to a woman with a sixth grade education. She was trapped in a life that was pretty much inevitable for her. She had no means of escape. Knowing she was about to lose her family farm and with nowhere to turn for help, Annie Wilkins places an ad in the paper for a sturdy horse. After seeing a few, she knew she’d met the perfect match in an older Morgan she named Tarzan. Along with her spunky dog Depeche Toi, Annie hit the road.About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”: In 1954, sixty-three-year-old Maine farmer Annie Wilkins embarked on an impossible journey. She had no money and no family, she had just lost her farm, and her doctor had given her only two years to live. But Annie wanted to see the Pacific Ocean before she died. She ignored her doctor’s advice to move into the county charity home. Instead, she bought a cast-off brown gelding named Tarzan, donned men’s dungarees, and headed south in mid-November, hoping to beat the snow. Annie had little idea what to expect beyond her rural crossroads; she didn’t even have a map. But she did have her ex-racehorse, her faithful mutt, and her own unfailing belief that Americans would treat a stranger with kindness. Pillar of Salt: A Daughter’s Life in the Shadow of the Holocaust|Into the Forest: A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love

Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”I felt as if I were there, astride a horse by Annie’s side, experiencing her remarkable journey as it unspooled. Touched by the kindness of strangers all along the 4,000-mile, two-year trip, clopping on new highways, through streams and up mountains, in blizzards and scorching heat, through large cities and small, to fulfill a final wish. She was lying in bed, half-­delirious, when she heard shouting voices cut through the quiet. Depeche Toi sprang up and started wriggling in joyful anticipation. The French boys had snowshoed over to see how Annie and Waldo were holding up. After coming in long enough to recognize the dire conditions at Annie’s farm, one headed down to the main road to call an ambulance, while the other busied about doing farm chores. A few hours later, Annie heard the scrape of the plow. By the time the ambulance finally arrived, she was so weak they had to carry her out.

People were good to her. They offered her food and a place to sleep. Small towns let her sleep in the local jail. Hotels gave her a free room. Farm families opened their doors and gave her food and shelter and feed for the horse. Some people gave her money and some kind farmer even gave her a spare horse. Annie Wilkins was not a woman of the world. She lived her life quietly, working from dawn to dusk at her farm, but at age sixty-three, she made a decision that would impact her life and the lives of countless others. Annie decided to travel from her home in Maine cross country to California. I don’t want to re-tell too much of this story because you will delight in experiencing it firsthand when you read The Ride of Her Life. I’m just trying to set the scene for you.I loved this book! It’s a wonderful non-fiction account of Annie Wilkins and her late-in-life adventure across the United States in the mid 1950’s. Given her health situation, she considers her doctor’s advice to live restfully. But how? After a lifetime of hard work, she doesn’t have any savings. Nothing or no one to fall on. Her choices are very limited.