'AMERICAN GRIT' | A review Area history comes to life in newly released book

'American Grit' is a collection of letters written by a woman who moved to Columbiana County in 1862.
By THERESA M. HEGEL
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
"American Grit: A Woman's Letters from the Ohio Frontier" edited by Emily Foster (The University Press of Kentucky, $45).
"American Grit," edited by Emily Foster, is a collection of the letters Anna Briggs Bentley, a pioneer and a Quaker, sent to the relatives she left behind in Maryland. The book is part of the Ohio River Valley Series.
Foster is the director of research and writing services at an Ohio company specializing in public affairs communications. Other positions she has held include senior editor of Columbus Monthly magazine and editor of Cincinnati Magazine.
In 1826, Bentley, along with her husband and children, moved to Columbiana County, which was then a "sparsely populated frontier," a bountiful landscape of untold opportunities.
Despite her relocation, Bentley never lost touch with the rest of her family, corresponding chiefly to her mother and sister. She wrote home on a regular basis in the years to come, and in her letters, she often chided her family for not maintaining the same frequency of correspondence. She would ask her mother and sister to emulate her example and give detailed accounts of their everyday tasks.
The letters that Foster transcribed and compiled in "American Grit" were housed in the archives of the Maryland Historical Society. In her introduction, Foster notes that the letters appealed to her because "Anna Bentley had a rare knack for making her daily routine compelling. She extended an invitation back through history into her family circle."
It is interesting to have a window into the minutiae of Bentley's life and to read about her interactions with her children and her friends. The letters provide a glimpse into being a Quaker, at the chores and trials of frontier life and at the medical practices of the time.
Foster adds a historical context to the letters, giving biographical information on Bentley and her extensive family as well as summarizing significant historical events and trends mentioned in Bentley's letters.
Some flaws
Foster begins each chapter with an overview of the letters to follow -- the chapters are broken into blocks of years. However, she also includes editorial inserts at key points in the chapters. The inserts elaborate on and break up the string of correspondence, but because the inserts come without warning and are in the same font as the letters, they are sometimes difficult to distinguish from the bulk of the text.
The strength of Bentley's letters at times also is their weakness -- her detailing of every event, however minor, becomes a bit excessive. Though these details most-likely were prized by her family, they very well could bore the modern reader.
Another difficulty for modern readers is keeping track of the many branches on Bentley's family tree. Her letters can be quite confusing because she often refers to relatives by nicknames or their initials, and several relatives share first names.
Foster acknowledges this confusion and tries to untangle the lines of kinship in her footnotes, but she adds in her defense that "even Anna got confused" about her extended family. "When a family named Farquhar bought property near her in Ohio, she wrote home asking if they were related to her or not," she explains.
Despite these hindrances, "American Grit" is a useful and enlightening resource for those interested in area history.
hegel@vindy.com