The Ride of Her Life by Elizabeth Letts
Do yourself a favor right now. Go buy a copy of this book and take this journey with Annie Wilkins. I’ll wait. What, you want to know more? You don’t trust me?
Annie Letts was in 1954 a 63 year old single woman, broke, homeless because she lost her Maine farm to $54 and change in a tax sale, sick and given maybe two to four years to live, and did I say she was 63? Annie did have a few choices. She could live with a relative or she could move into an old age home, she could wait to die or she could buy a horse and along with her dog, walk to California because she always wanted to see the Pacific Ocean. You can’t make this stuff up.
Annie took the $54 and change that she got for her farm and bought Tarzan, a Morgan horse, tied a string around her dog Depeche Toi’s neck and start walking. It didn’t take too long for Depeche Toi to figure out getting tangled in Tarzan’s legs was a hassle and it didn’t take long for Tarzan to adopt both Annie and Depeche Toi. One smart horse, he.
This journey wouldn’t make sense to anyone. She had what money was left from buying Tarzan and wore layers of clothes to stay warm and not have to carry them, a few blankets, some food and writing material in her saddle bags. Annie’s plan was to work along the way to pay for her room and board for Tarzan in stables. What she didn’t expect was the kindness of strangers.
This woman didn’t trot or gallop or canter her horse. They walked. Alone. A good day was maybe ten miles. Mostly they traveled along roadways that were for the most part rural or at least barely citified, the super highway system still in blueprints on desks. Still traffic and weather could cause Tarzan to be very skittish of fast cars and trucks and mishaps did occur. As truckers noticed her they would radio to each other and watch out for her, giving her advice on places to stop when she had to camp, advising her to stay close to the road so they could see her as they passed and sometimes rescued her when she needed help.
What Annie wasn’t planning on was the newspaper publicity that alerted towns along her route that she was on her way and the kindnesses granted to her when she arrived. This was during a time when people didn’t lock their doors and would invite a lone woman to come inside for the night, feed her and stable the horse. Her offers to pay were pushed aside. She was nursed to health more than once by giving doctors, her animals tended to by country vets, nourished with warm beds and full meals, she sold her note cards for 10 cents to make some money to continue her journey. She forded rivers, climbed mountains, walked through deserts, withstood snow storms and met countless giving, generous people. Could anyone ever make a journey like this now without sponsorship? Without a pace car, a bodyguard? Annie never considered this to be necessary. She was simply, very simply, walking to California so she could feel the warmth and see the Pacific Ocean.
We are along for the ride, taking this journey with her, seeing 1950’s America from the side of the road.
NOW, go ahead, go buy this book and relish every single page as I did.
