Woman of the Plains: The Journals and Stories of Nellie M. Perry (Volume 5) (West Texas A&m University)

The art of writing can re-create historical times and places in ways that breathe life back into them. From her first journal entry in 1888 to her last in 1925, Nellie M. Perry provided a unique glimpse into life on the Texas frontier.Miss Nellie, as she was known, first visited her brother, George Morgan Perry, in the Panhandle in 1888 and eventually came to live in Ochiltree County in 1916. During those years and afterward, she kept journals of her life in the Panhandle. During that time she also wrote stories and essays about the people and things she encountered in that new, wild region.For Miss Nellie her journals and pen were a tool, a way to share a story with another person and pass on her heritage for future understanding. Perhaps, though, the journals were foremost a means for Miss Nellie to maintain an illusion of control in the lonesome life on the High Plains, for her journal writings are devoid of self-reflection, moments of abandon, and digressions that might expose herself to risk and uncertainty. It is not surprising that she ultimately wrote short stories, a medium in which she could freely explore character, identity, dreams, reality, temperament, and situations within the safety of fiction.In Woman of the Plains, Sandra Gail Teichmann presents Miss Nellie’s never-before-published accounts. In all cases, Miss Nellie loved to travel, and her interest in a world even wider than the distant horizons of the Panhandle creates a unique angle from which to view the High Plains people.