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We Took to the Woods
In her early thirties, Louise Dickinson Rich took to the woods of Maine with her husband. They found their livelihood and raised a family in the remote backcountry settlement of Middle Dam, in the Rangeley area. Rich made time after morning chores to write about their lives. We Took to the Woods is an adventure story, written with humor, but it also portrays a cherished dream awakened into full life. First published 1942.
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First published January 1, 1942
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About the author
Louise Dickinson Rich
40 books49 followersWriter known for fiction and non-fiction works about New England, particularly Massachusetts and Maine. Mrs. Rich grew up in Bridgewater where her father was the editor of a weekly newspaper. She met Ralph Eugene Rich, a Chicago businessman, on a Maine canoe trip in 1933 and they married a year later. Mr. Rich died in 1944. Her best-known work was her first book, the autobiographical We Took to the Woods, (1942) set in the 1930s when she and husband Ralph, and her friend and hired help Gerrish, lived in a remote cabin near Lake Umbagog. It was described as "a witty account of a Thoreau-like existence in a wilderness home
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 324 reviews
August 28, 2012
Favorite passage:
"At night, after being at Prospect, I lie in bed and see great clusters of berries slide by endlessly against my closed lids. They haunt me. There are so many of them yet unpicked, so many that will never be picked. The birds and bears and foxes will eat a few, but most of them will drop off at the first frost, to return to the sparse soil of Prospect whatever of value they borrowed from it. Nature is strictly moral. There is no attempt to cheat the earth by means of steel vault or bronze coffin. I hope that when I die I too may be permitted at once my oldest outstanding debt, to restore promptly the minerals and salts that have been lent to me for the little while that I have use for blood and bone and flesh."
"At night, after being at Prospect, I lie in bed and see great clusters of berries slide by endlessly against my closed lids. They haunt me. There are so many of them yet unpicked, so many that will never be picked. The birds and bears and foxes will eat a few, but most of them will drop off at the first frost, to return to the sparse soil of Prospect whatever of value they borrowed from it. Nature is strictly moral. There is no attempt to cheat the earth by means of steel vault or bronze coffin. I hope that when I die I too may be permitted at once my oldest outstanding debt, to restore promptly the minerals and salts that have been lent to me for the little while that I have use for blood and bone and flesh."
December 9, 2019
I'm a person who hated living at the end of a dirt road with other houses close enough to see and begged my husband to move because I felt "isolated", so why I love books about people living in the middle of nowhere is beyond me. This book was written in 1942 by a woman who lived in the woods of northern Maine with her husband and small son. Their nearest neighbor was 2 miles away. They dealt with snow and cold and wild animals and all sorts of other difficulties, but always with a lot of of common sense and fortitude. I have an elderly neighbor who lived in Maine years ago and loved it, so I'm passing this book on to her. Interesting sidenote: the author's father was a cousin of Emily Dickinson. This book also has interesting black and white photos of the area and people. Enjoyable read.
October 25, 2009
This book made me want to take to the woods, to wear my comfy clothes with no waistbands, to not fight the winter, to cook creatively, to enjoy my house and its surroundings, and to live simply. Though the story preserves some quaintness from a less modern time, Louise Rich still appeals to the modern reader.
October 23, 2014
Don't ask me how I happened to stumble upon this book published in 1942. Serendipity at work...and an on-going fascination with books set in Maine of late. There it was amongst the Dewey Decimal Code 917.4 books (geography of and travel in North America--New England). There I found a book to treasure.
Ralph Rich bought a piece of land in rural Maine for a summer camp, after having spent boyhood summers there and feeling a fierce desire to return. On his first day there, as fate would have it, along comes school-teacher-on-vacation Louise Dickinson, her sister, and some friends, hiking through the woods. They stop to chat and he invites them to stay for the rest of the week--to fish, sun-bathe, swim. He tells the girls of his dream to spend the rest of his life roughing it in the Maine woods. Louise is enchanted and voila! they are soon married.
In "We Took To The Woods," Louise chronicles eight years of their lives spent living that dream during the 1930s. Talk about roughing it! This was truly rustic country life--no electricity, no central heating, no indoor plumbing. Childbirth without benefit of midwife or doctor's care. Totally at the mercy of Mother Nature, snowbound for weeks at a time. And don't forget--this is a time before snow mobiles, internet connection, cell phones!!
Louise tells their story with great, laugh-out-loud humor and beautiful descriptive writing: "Nobody could be bored in autumn, when the air is like wine, and the hills are hazy tapestries with the red and gold thread of the frost-touched maple and birch embroidering a breath-taking design on the permanent dark fabric of the evergreens. The lakes then are unbelievably blue."
Each chapter starts with a question she has been asked by incredulous friends and curious visitors: 'Why don't you write a book?'; 'But how do you make a living?'; 'But you don't live here all the year 'round?'; 'Isn't housekeeping difficult?'; 'Aren't the children a problem?'; What do you do with all your spare time?'; 'Don't you ever get bored?'; Aren't you ever frightened?'; Don't you get awfully out of touch?'; 'Do you get out very often?'; 'Is it worth-while?'
To that last question, is it worth-while, Louise writes: "Discontent is only the fear of missing something. Content is the knowledge that you aren't missing a thing worth-while. I know that many people--perhaps most people--couldn't feel that, living here, they held within their grasp all the best of life. So for them it wouldn't be the best. For us, it is. And that's the final answer."
Postscript: People are still homesteading, of course, even in the twenty-first century. This morning I was looking through the latest Penzeys Spices catalog and read an article about a young couple who live in a little old fishing cabin in a very rural part of Ontario. No Internet access and no reliable cellphone reception--30 kilometers from the nearest regular store. They sold their vehicle a few years ago to save money and help the environment. The wife says, "It's a little like living in a time warp." Maybe I should send them a copy of Rich's book, eh?
Ralph Rich bought a piece of land in rural Maine for a summer camp, after having spent boyhood summers there and feeling a fierce desire to return. On his first day there, as fate would have it, along comes school-teacher-on-vacation Louise Dickinson, her sister, and some friends, hiking through the woods. They stop to chat and he invites them to stay for the rest of the week--to fish, sun-bathe, swim. He tells the girls of his dream to spend the rest of his life roughing it in the Maine woods. Louise is enchanted and voila! they are soon married.
In "We Took To The Woods," Louise chronicles eight years of their lives spent living that dream during the 1930s. Talk about roughing it! This was truly rustic country life--no electricity, no central heating, no indoor plumbing. Childbirth without benefit of midwife or doctor's care. Totally at the mercy of Mother Nature, snowbound for weeks at a time. And don't forget--this is a time before snow mobiles, internet connection, cell phones!!
Louise tells their story with great, laugh-out-loud humor and beautiful descriptive writing: "Nobody could be bored in autumn, when the air is like wine, and the hills are hazy tapestries with the red and gold thread of the frost-touched maple and birch embroidering a breath-taking design on the permanent dark fabric of the evergreens. The lakes then are unbelievably blue."
Each chapter starts with a question she has been asked by incredulous friends and curious visitors: 'Why don't you write a book?'; 'But how do you make a living?'; 'But you don't live here all the year 'round?'; 'Isn't housekeeping difficult?'; 'Aren't the children a problem?'; What do you do with all your spare time?'; 'Don't you ever get bored?'; Aren't you ever frightened?'; Don't you get awfully out of touch?'; 'Do you get out very often?'; 'Is it worth-while?'
To that last question, is it worth-while, Louise writes: "Discontent is only the fear of missing something. Content is the knowledge that you aren't missing a thing worth-while. I know that many people--perhaps most people--couldn't feel that, living here, they held within their grasp all the best of life. So for them it wouldn't be the best. For us, it is. And that's the final answer."
Postscript: People are still homesteading, of course, even in the twenty-first century. This morning I was looking through the latest Penzeys Spices catalog and read an article about a young couple who live in a little old fishing cabin in a very rural part of Ontario. No Internet access and no reliable cellphone reception--30 kilometers from the nearest regular store. They sold their vehicle a few years ago to save money and help the environment. The wife says, "It's a little like living in a time warp." Maybe I should send them a copy of Rich's book, eh?
January 7, 2023
First read this when I was 12. . .mom's copy of the book. Loved it! Will re-read!
June 13, 2018
I've read this book several times, and love it. When it was published in 1942, it became a best-seller. People identified with the simple life that the Riches created, far from a world at war. Her descriptions of the beat and rhythm of everyday life, a life immersed in the natural world, really resonated with people. Soldiers actually carried it in their kit to fuel their dreams of peace and solitude.
The book describes the Riches' life at Forrest Lodge, a house that is perched high above the Rapid River. The property also includes "the winter house" - a smaller house that was easier to heat than the lodge, but has more rustic amenities. Rich describes ordinary days - days filled with fishing, blueberrying, and snowshoeing - but also with car repair, stocking up food, cooking, and laundry. Somehow this all reads as super wonderful.
Rich is an excellent writer. Funny, kind, descriptive of the natural world in a way that can turn your heart over.
Louise Rich wrote many, many books and stories, and they are all good. "Happy the Land" is the companion to "We Took to the Woods". There has been a very good biography written by Alice Arlen, called "She Took to the Woods". In it are excerpts and examples of stories that Rich wrote, often for women's magazines such as Good Housekeeping and Family Circle.
I live in Maine and three years ago, I was able to visit Forrest Lodge. My friend and I rode on a boat from the South Arm of Richardson Lake. We went the length of this gorgeous, undeveloped lake to Middle Dam. We then clambered into an old Suburban and bounced over the Carry Road to Forrest Lodge. The property is relatively unchanged since the Rich's lived there. Louise's typewriter still sits on the desk in the living room, the kitchen that she had built under the camp looks untouched. We ate lunch on the porch and saw the winter camp (it's right next door) where Rufus was born with only his dad in attendance. We went down, down to the river's edge; its roar easily audible all over the property, inside and out.
This river is an important resource for brook trout - a wild, tumbling, crashing rush of 3 1/2 miles of river that drops 185 feet with NO waterfall.
The fate of Forrest Lodge is uncertain. Although listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it seems worthy of preservation in care of the State of Maine as an historic site - sort of like Eagle Island (Admiral Peary's summer place), but it is very remote.
The book describes the Riches' life at Forrest Lodge, a house that is perched high above the Rapid River. The property also includes "the winter house" - a smaller house that was easier to heat than the lodge, but has more rustic amenities. Rich describes ordinary days - days filled with fishing, blueberrying, and snowshoeing - but also with car repair, stocking up food, cooking, and laundry. Somehow this all reads as super wonderful.
Rich is an excellent writer. Funny, kind, descriptive of the natural world in a way that can turn your heart over.
Louise Rich wrote many, many books and stories, and they are all good. "Happy the Land" is the companion to "We Took to the Woods". There has been a very good biography written by Alice Arlen, called "She Took to the Woods". In it are excerpts and examples of stories that Rich wrote, often for women's magazines such as Good Housekeeping and Family Circle.
I live in Maine and three years ago, I was able to visit Forrest Lodge. My friend and I rode on a boat from the South Arm of Richardson Lake. We went the length of this gorgeous, undeveloped lake to Middle Dam. We then clambered into an old Suburban and bounced over the Carry Road to Forrest Lodge. The property is relatively unchanged since the Rich's lived there. Louise's typewriter still sits on the desk in the living room, the kitchen that she had built under the camp looks untouched. We ate lunch on the porch and saw the winter camp (it's right next door) where Rufus was born with only his dad in attendance. We went down, down to the river's edge; its roar easily audible all over the property, inside and out.
This river is an important resource for brook trout - a wild, tumbling, crashing rush of 3 1/2 miles of river that drops 185 feet with NO waterfall.
The fate of Forrest Lodge is uncertain. Although listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it seems worthy of preservation in care of the State of Maine as an historic site - sort of like Eagle Island (Admiral Peary's summer place), but it is very remote.
September 9, 2023
"Discontent is only the fear of missing something. Content is the knowledge that you aren't missing a thing worth-while." (p. 322) I guess that depends on how you've lived your life according to YOUR own standards.
This is my first read of 2019, and I can tell you now that it will be one of my top reads of the year. Louise Dickinson Rich is a very visual writer, and she can sure tell some stories. I love her sense of humor. Not once did I get bored, nor did I begin to count the pages.
On page 142, she wrote something here that caught my attention and just might explain the attitude of so many unhappy youths, even adults, of today, speaking of her son: "I want him to know what he's fighting for-and Freedom and Democracy won't mean a thing to him, unless they are all tied up with memories of things that he has loved..."
Today's youth do not have exciting, fond memories of adventure or memories of things that they loved. Their heads are down and distracted by rotten politics and electronics, meanwhile, the beautiful day outside is passing them by. I love how she describes all the distractions around us as "static". That was back in 1942. Today, with cell phones, Internet, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and electronic games, and even today's politics, all vying up most our time on this earth, we have created a level of "static" in our lives that is uncomprehensible, and it’s making people mentally unstable. This includes adults as well. I get it! I'm part of this group so distracted by all the "static" around.
Documenting every aspect of our lives, prevents our minds from taking in all the fine beautiful things taking place all around us, and just creates a sense of selfishness. We snap that picture so we can instantly share to everyone and to say, “Hey, look at me! Look what I am doing!” Our memories are now in the memory card of our cameras. They weren't captured fully with our minds and our soul because we had a motive for taking that picture...to show the world how important we are. No deep memorable moment to sustain us like Louise's memory and full description of that one beautiful morning seeing the sun behind a blackbird that lighted on the water just in front of her:
"We sat down on the shore to assemble our tackle, and a shelldrake came flying in from the east, not seeing us at all. The sun was behind it, and as it spread its wings and tail to break for a three point landing almost in our laps, the delicate rib of every feather was silhouetted black and single, and the down along the ribs was gold and translucent. We could see how wonderfully and intricately it was made. Spray flew up like a fountain of jewels as it plowed the water. It was a bird of fire, coming to rest among diamonds and emeralds." (p. 284)
That one day on B Pond was anything but miraculous. It was an experience that could only be captured in one’s own eyes and sealed in their soul, not in a camera. Sure, today, we would have snapped a picture of a black bird that landed in the water in front of us, but missing all the little fine details of that landing because we were busy snapping that picture to show everybody on Facebook.
There are a couple of recipes I am interested in trying, just to see how they really ate out there in the woods, and to get the full experience out of reading her story. Instructions for her Baked Beans are on page 113-4, which require all day, slow cooking in the oven, with water added about every 30 minutes. And her Raspberry Shortcake Recipe with full instructions can be found on page 162.
This is my first read of 2019, and I can tell you now that it will be one of my top reads of the year. Louise Dickinson Rich is a very visual writer, and she can sure tell some stories. I love her sense of humor. Not once did I get bored, nor did I begin to count the pages.
On page 142, she wrote something here that caught my attention and just might explain the attitude of so many unhappy youths, even adults, of today, speaking of her son: "I want him to know what he's fighting for-and Freedom and Democracy won't mean a thing to him, unless they are all tied up with memories of things that he has loved..."
Today's youth do not have exciting, fond memories of adventure or memories of things that they loved. Their heads are down and distracted by rotten politics and electronics, meanwhile, the beautiful day outside is passing them by. I love how she describes all the distractions around us as "static". That was back in 1942. Today, with cell phones, Internet, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and electronic games, and even today's politics, all vying up most our time on this earth, we have created a level of "static" in our lives that is uncomprehensible, and it’s making people mentally unstable. This includes adults as well. I get it! I'm part of this group so distracted by all the "static" around.
Documenting every aspect of our lives, prevents our minds from taking in all the fine beautiful things taking place all around us, and just creates a sense of selfishness. We snap that picture so we can instantly share to everyone and to say, “Hey, look at me! Look what I am doing!” Our memories are now in the memory card of our cameras. They weren't captured fully with our minds and our soul because we had a motive for taking that picture...to show the world how important we are. No deep memorable moment to sustain us like Louise's memory and full description of that one beautiful morning seeing the sun behind a blackbird that lighted on the water just in front of her:
"We sat down on the shore to assemble our tackle, and a shelldrake came flying in from the east, not seeing us at all. The sun was behind it, and as it spread its wings and tail to break for a three point landing almost in our laps, the delicate rib of every feather was silhouetted black and single, and the down along the ribs was gold and translucent. We could see how wonderfully and intricately it was made. Spray flew up like a fountain of jewels as it plowed the water. It was a bird of fire, coming to rest among diamonds and emeralds." (p. 284)
That one day on B Pond was anything but miraculous. It was an experience that could only be captured in one’s own eyes and sealed in their soul, not in a camera. Sure, today, we would have snapped a picture of a black bird that landed in the water in front of us, but missing all the little fine details of that landing because we were busy snapping that picture to show everybody on Facebook.
There are a couple of recipes I am interested in trying, just to see how they really ate out there in the woods, and to get the full experience out of reading her story. Instructions for her Baked Beans are on page 113-4, which require all day, slow cooking in the oven, with water added about every 30 minutes. And her Raspberry Shortcake Recipe with full instructions can be found on page 162.
January 20, 2015
My family has a summer house on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, and "We Took to the Woods" has been enjoyed by many of my relatives throughout the years (we often use the term "woods queer", which Rich coined, to describe the boredom and weird behavior that sets in after spending too long in the woods!). I finally got around to reading the novel, and I am very glad I did. Rich's memoirs of her time living with her family in the Maine woods are well-written, funny, and meaningful. Several people had recommended Rich's novel to me because I am also a big fan of Thoreau's writing, and indeed, found many similarities here. Rich did live a Thoreau-like existence, and in some ways her novel is a more modern "Walden". Rich, however, was even more removed from society than Thoreau, and, unlike him, she had a family to support. Both writers have the ability describe those moments of nature's beauty that often evade words. Rich, like Thoreau, makes her tale of living in the woods something more profound than mere personal accounts. She includes thoughts about judging people by how they treat each other, rather than by their class or education, as well as meditations on the world as a whole. Rich alludes occasionally to World War II, which was rapidly changing her society, and wonders also about whether, in the future, people will still value undeveloped spaces and natural beauty. Like "Walden", "We Took to the Woods" is timeless, relevant, and makes me evaluate what really matters in life.
June 1, 2020
At the time I discovered this book, I expected it to be a sort of city folk moving to the country tale. Like The Egg and I or the TV series Green Acres, it would be a bit of a lark. Having read the book, I can now say it is something much different - and much better. Louise Dickinson longed for adventure even as a girl (she wanted to be a brakeman on a freight train when she grew up). After finally deciding on a career as an English teacher, she told friends her ultimate goal was to move to the Maine woods to be a writer. She went on a vacation there and met Ralph Rich, who had moved to the North Woods after living in Chicago. Finding herself smitten, she gave up a settled life in Boston to marry him and live her dream.
Rich organizes her book as a series of anecdotes. Each chapter asks one of the questions she hears often about her life: What do you do with all your spare time? Aren't you ever frightened? Each one shows what life is like, a 20th century Eastern existence that had much in common with the 19th-century West. She portrays a life built on the barter system and seasonal work, one in which there is always work to be done. In the final chapter, Is it worth-while?, she talks about what her life means to her. In doing so, she goes beyond the stories to consider what truly matters in her life. This is a well-written, wonderful book.
Rich organizes her book as a series of anecdotes. Each chapter asks one of the questions she hears often about her life: What do you do with all your spare time? Aren't you ever frightened? Each one shows what life is like, a 20th century Eastern existence that had much in common with the 19th-century West. She portrays a life built on the barter system and seasonal work, one in which there is always work to be done. In the final chapter, Is it worth-while?, she talks about what her life means to her. In doing so, she goes beyond the stories to consider what truly matters in her life. This is a well-written, wonderful book.
December 26, 2015
I found the first half of the book interesting, but the later chapters seemed to be more of the same. It was a nice winter read, and my copy is an old one with a picture of snowy woods on the dust jacket, so it was visually appealing as well.
June 18, 2017
Just a wonderful, delightful book about a life well lived. Something to take lots of inspiration from.
January 14, 2014
1/11/14 update: reread this book in three days flat. Quite the difference from last reading although I think my change in circumstances has made me feel even more like the author than ever before. To explain, Rich wrote this book in 1940s backwoods Maine. Most of the book is written from the "winter" perspective. Below freezing temps, snow, wood stoves heating spaces, wool clothes, limited access because of snow, ice, blizzards. When I first read this book I lived in moderate climate Pacific Northwest and could not imagine daily life in that setting. Now I live in Green Bay Wisconsin where we just finished a -45 degree cold snap and ice blankets my driveway and roads. I have two feet of snow that my dogs have to trek through to get to their potty place. I dress my children in multiple wool and nylon layers just to send them off to school. I FEEL Louise Rich these days over 75 years later. I even began to use her baked bean recipe and the concept of "desperation" meals. Louise, oh how I wish I could have met you - a young, vibrant, witty writer in the country woods of Maine. I, too, would rather fish for two hours than wash my kitchen floor and I, too, have had to love the rug from the front of the fireplace if not for the flying embers.
First review:
Took me forever to finish this book - well past two months which is very rare for me. I think I wanted to savor this book in small bites, like a big 16 oz. steak, instead of binging on it and reading it too quickly. This book is an absolute gem to anyone who loves reading about simple life - returning to the land - living off the land. Now, here's the big twist of which I was totally unaware - the book was written in the 1930's and published in the early 40's! But yu would never guess as her writing translates as extremely modern. If you put it next to any homesteading book written in the past 20 years, it matches surprisingly well. But what distinguishes Rich's writing from any other is her elegance in describing her life. She takes her life of living in the Maine backwoods and MAKES you want to put on a backpack and hike in to visit her. Some chapter titles deal with issues we face today, "how do you keep a clean house?" Or "how do you keep your child entertained?" Or "how do you earn money?" (I'm paraphrasing as I don't have the book right next to me). Her answers to these issues denotes a woman who is humble and doesn't take herself too seriously (my kind of woman), yet brick strong and sturdy. I found myself relating to her more and more. How can she and I live similar lives 80 years apart?
Overall, probably one of my most favorite books I've read. I ended up hunting down an original copy of the book (published 1942) and plan on stocking it up on my library bookshelf. I may lend it to a chosen few, and unlike other books in my collection, I would be devastated if it gets lost or damaged - that's how much I like this book.
First review:
Took me forever to finish this book - well past two months which is very rare for me. I think I wanted to savor this book in small bites, like a big 16 oz. steak, instead of binging on it and reading it too quickly. This book is an absolute gem to anyone who loves reading about simple life - returning to the land - living off the land. Now, here's the big twist of which I was totally unaware - the book was written in the 1930's and published in the early 40's! But yu would never guess as her writing translates as extremely modern. If you put it next to any homesteading book written in the past 20 years, it matches surprisingly well. But what distinguishes Rich's writing from any other is her elegance in describing her life. She takes her life of living in the Maine backwoods and MAKES you want to put on a backpack and hike in to visit her. Some chapter titles deal with issues we face today, "how do you keep a clean house?" Or "how do you keep your child entertained?" Or "how do you earn money?" (I'm paraphrasing as I don't have the book right next to me). Her answers to these issues denotes a woman who is humble and doesn't take herself too seriously (my kind of woman), yet brick strong and sturdy. I found myself relating to her more and more. How can she and I live similar lives 80 years apart?
Overall, probably one of my most favorite books I've read. I ended up hunting down an original copy of the book (published 1942) and plan on stocking it up on my library bookshelf. I may lend it to a chosen few, and unlike other books in my collection, I would be devastated if it gets lost or damaged - that's how much I like this book.
April 14, 2012
Loved and just reread for a tenth time: memoir of making a home in the wild with respect, wonder, and good humor during the Depression. Enchanting. Inspiring. Funny. One of my favorite stories is of the time Louise is asked to cook for a logging crew at the dam. She has potatoes, coffee, a salmon, and not much more, but goes at it like Christ with the loaves and fishes. The hungry foreman tells her the time the crew will break for lunch and Louise sets a timer. The hungry foreman keeps sneaking up and moving ahead the hands on the clock. Louise, sly to his hovering, moves the hands back, only even further in time. She brews coffee and bakes the salmon in butter over a campfire of birch bark that she's made herself; boils the potatoes, makes quick bread and goes about setting all on a plank table she's fashioned. Meanwhile her toddler son is eating leaves off the trees ("which may or may not be edible"), and the foreman keeps sneaking up to move ahead the timer. There are more shenanigans, a scene right out of *I Love Lucy* before there was Lucy, till lunch is ready ("whatever that may mean when time has been shoved around so"). It's hilarious and told straight, like the whole book--one of the best finds ever made at a used bookstore, complete with the dust jacket illustration of Rich's main cabin (different from the paperback cover pictured here), deckled edges, an illustrated map of the Maine forestland on the end pages, and a series of black and white photos at signature breaks showing the Rich's cabins in the woods.
August 1, 2011
I read on an Amazon review that We Took to the Woods was the real deal compared to Anne LaBastille's "Barbie-doll-like" accounts of living in the wild. I have to agree, though I like Anne.
Louise Dickinson Rich wasn't wealthy. She wasn't connected. Her husband was working class. And Louise Dickinson Rich was a writer by trade, naturalist by passion.
So of course you're going to get better prose than Anne LaBastille (sorry, Anne) and less soap-boxing.
Killer Quote:
"Happy people aren't given to soul searching."
You said it, sista. Louise is grounded in healthy optimism, highly intelligent, well-read and educated. In fact, she left a career as an English teacher. With that quote, she gives a thumb to the nose to the whining, depressive, narcissistic-culture she left behind (which is only worse today).
All counts are described of her life in 11 chapters that answer questions the common person might have from "But How Do You Make a Living?" to "Don't You Get Awfully Out of Touch?" The stove, cooking, maintaining roads, first thaw, first freeze, health and safety are all covered.
And she gives little slices of her marriage and how grounded it was, that give women hope. Sadly, Ralph died fairly young by today's standards. STILL, she kept his passion alive for the great outdoors, as well as her own, and went to write many more books, which I cannot wait to devour.
Louise Dickinson Rich wasn't wealthy. She wasn't connected. Her husband was working class. And Louise Dickinson Rich was a writer by trade, naturalist by passion.
So of course you're going to get better prose than Anne LaBastille (sorry, Anne) and less soap-boxing.
Killer Quote:
"Happy people aren't given to soul searching."
You said it, sista. Louise is grounded in healthy optimism, highly intelligent, well-read and educated. In fact, she left a career as an English teacher. With that quote, she gives a thumb to the nose to the whining, depressive, narcissistic-culture she left behind (which is only worse today).
All counts are described of her life in 11 chapters that answer questions the common person might have from "But How Do You Make a Living?" to "Don't You Get Awfully Out of Touch?" The stove, cooking, maintaining roads, first thaw, first freeze, health and safety are all covered.
And she gives little slices of her marriage and how grounded it was, that give women hope. Sadly, Ralph died fairly young by today's standards. STILL, she kept his passion alive for the great outdoors, as well as her own, and went to write many more books, which I cannot wait to devour.
January 4, 2010
A really good read that satisfied the armchair hermit that lurks very close to the surface of my life. Louise Rich's account of her life in backwoods Maine during the 1930's and 40's was filled with insightful, witty and meaningful observations of what it takes to live this kind of life and how much she really loved it. I enjoyed all 11 chapters with their cute, questioning titles such as:
Chapter IV: Isn't Housekeeping Difficult (Louise says: NO, as she's no housekeeper).
Chapter V: Aren't the Children a Problem (to which Louise quips: Aren't children always a problem, no matter where you live?)
Chapter VIII: Aren't You Ever Frightened? (sage Louise says: There's nothing to be afraid of in the woods -- except yourself).
Rich's folksy, honest and sometimes acerbic New Englander writing style is refreshing and engaging and you take away alot of deeper truths that are just as applicable to living in 2010 as in 1940.
Chapter IV: Isn't Housekeeping Difficult (Louise says: NO, as she's no housekeeper).
Chapter V: Aren't the Children a Problem (to which Louise quips: Aren't children always a problem, no matter where you live?)
Chapter VIII: Aren't You Ever Frightened? (sage Louise says: There's nothing to be afraid of in the woods -- except yourself).
Rich's folksy, honest and sometimes acerbic New Englander writing style is refreshing and engaging and you take away alot of deeper truths that are just as applicable to living in 2010 as in 1940.
June 5, 2018
Louise Dickinson Rich was an incredibly practical woman, and I mean that as a compliment of the highest order. I admired the life that she and her husband built in the woods, but what I enjoyed the most about this book was her narrative voice. Honest about her own shortcomings, fair to those she disagreed with, and generous to all, Louise herself won me over easily. I deeply wish that I could hear her tell one of the folksy backwoods anecdotes she relates in the book in person, preferably in her summerhouse, with the roar of the river surrounding us and one of those cups of hot coffee she was forever making in my hand. When I finished the book, I felt like a good friend was leaving after a nice long visit.
February 17, 2015
This book is delightful. It chronicles six years in the remote Maine woods in the 1930s. Rich has a wry sense of humor and insight into people. I also loved the classic Maine terms (which I had never heard until I moved to Maine 32 years ago) like "jeezly" and "culch." I highly recommend this book.
June 14, 2023
We Took to the Woods, by Louise Dickinson Rich
This is the story of a young couple making a home deep in the Maine woods nearly a century ago. It is humorous and engaging, a wonderful account of life in the wilderness. I need to read books like this to help me realize how spoiled most of us are in our everyday lives, where every need, and most of our wants, are immediately met without much effort. We live cheek-by-jowl with thousands of other folks and can hardly imagine being alone with only one or two other people for most of a year. We can hardly imagine how it is to meet your own needs by hard, heavy work – both the exhaustion and the exhilaration of it.
When someone asks her whether it is worthwhile to live as she does, she answers, “[That] is not a question that I think to ask myself when I am out in the middle of B Pond, watching the gulls inscribe their white scrolls against the sky. I don't ask it when I see a deer drinking at Long Pool, or hear a loon laugh, or when I compare [my son] Rufus with other children of his age and discover that he is two inches taller and five pounds heavier than most of them... (edit to add that Rufus left the woods and first went to “town” at the age of three!) I don't ask it when friends have such a good time with us that they hate to leave as much as we hate to see them go; or when we all sit on the porch in the evening with our feet on the rail, and watch the tide of the dusk rise from the valleys up the hills and across the sky. The stars come out one by one, and the moon swings up above Pondy Dam, changing the river to a road of restless gold. It isn't a moment to be asking yourself questions. It's a moment to enjoy...Looking back through the telescope of the last six years, I can see myself as I was and realize how living here has changed me...Certainly I am happier than I was then. Certainly I am more at home in this world that we have created than ever I was in that vast and confusing maelstrom that we call civilization.
Here I dare to be myself. I don't see why it should ever again be important to me what I wear, or whether I have read the latest book or seen the latest play or know the newest catch word. I don't see why I should ever care again what people think of me. It seems silly now, but those things were once important...All ordinary people like us, everywhere are trying to find the same things...They all want to be left alone to conduct their own private search for a personal peace, a reasonable security, a little love, a chance to attain happiness through achievement. It isn't much to want; but I never came anywhere near to getting most of those things until we took to the woods.”
Highly recommended reading!
This is the story of a young couple making a home deep in the Maine woods nearly a century ago. It is humorous and engaging, a wonderful account of life in the wilderness. I need to read books like this to help me realize how spoiled most of us are in our everyday lives, where every need, and most of our wants, are immediately met without much effort. We live cheek-by-jowl with thousands of other folks and can hardly imagine being alone with only one or two other people for most of a year. We can hardly imagine how it is to meet your own needs by hard, heavy work – both the exhaustion and the exhilaration of it.
When someone asks her whether it is worthwhile to live as she does, she answers, “[That] is not a question that I think to ask myself when I am out in the middle of B Pond, watching the gulls inscribe their white scrolls against the sky. I don't ask it when I see a deer drinking at Long Pool, or hear a loon laugh, or when I compare [my son] Rufus with other children of his age and discover that he is two inches taller and five pounds heavier than most of them... (edit to add that Rufus left the woods and first went to “town” at the age of three!) I don't ask it when friends have such a good time with us that they hate to leave as much as we hate to see them go; or when we all sit on the porch in the evening with our feet on the rail, and watch the tide of the dusk rise from the valleys up the hills and across the sky. The stars come out one by one, and the moon swings up above Pondy Dam, changing the river to a road of restless gold. It isn't a moment to be asking yourself questions. It's a moment to enjoy...Looking back through the telescope of the last six years, I can see myself as I was and realize how living here has changed me...Certainly I am happier than I was then. Certainly I am more at home in this world that we have created than ever I was in that vast and confusing maelstrom that we call civilization.
Here I dare to be myself. I don't see why it should ever again be important to me what I wear, or whether I have read the latest book or seen the latest play or know the newest catch word. I don't see why I should ever care again what people think of me. It seems silly now, but those things were once important...All ordinary people like us, everywhere are trying to find the same things...They all want to be left alone to conduct their own private search for a personal peace, a reasonable security, a little love, a chance to attain happiness through achievement. It isn't much to want; but I never came anywhere near to getting most of those things until we took to the woods.”
Highly recommended reading!
August 16, 2009
She Took to the Woods
A review of Louise Dickenson Rich’s tale of family life in the great northern forest of Maine, ‘We Took to the Woods.’
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
The Road Less Traveled- Robert Frost
“For there are some people who can live without wild things about them and the earth beneath their feet, and some who cannot. To those of us who, in a city, are always aware of the abused and abased earth below the pavement, walking on the grass, watching the flight of birds, or finding the first spring dandelion are the rights as old and unalienable as the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We belong to no cult. We are not Nature Lovers. We don't love nature any more than we love breathing. Nature is simply something indispensable, like air and light and water, that we accept as necessary to living, and the nearer we can get to it the happier we are.”
So says Louise Dickenson Rich in her 1942 account of life in the forests of northern Maine. Rich, a city woman born in Huntington, Massachusetts, in the early 1900's was a tomboy growing up and learned to ride a bike, play ball and swim as a matter of survival in a neighborhood populated by mostly boys. Her love of the outdoors grew as she grew older as did her love of reading and exploits. Mrs. Rich became an English teacher by trade but still kept her summers for travel and adventure. On her one trip to Europe she went student steerage on a shoestring with one suitcase and “washed out her stockings at night.” It imbued her with a desire to always have one place to hang up her clothes from that point on.
It was on such an adventure, a summer vacation with her sister Alice to the still wild and unspoiled Parmacheenee and Rangley regions of the state of Maine, that she met her husband Ralph. He a displaced Chicagoan, who had boughtForest Lodge, a summer place in the woods during the boom years before the crash and had only just moved in the very day Louise and her sister came strolling down the “Carry Road” along the Rapid River. Knowing a good thing when he saw it Ralph Rich invited the girls to stay and have a meal with him which they promptly accepted. Little did Louise know that Forest Lodge was the place she would spend much of the rest of her life and the beginning of the rest of her fascinating tale.
We Took to the Woods is the true story of that meeting and the subsequent life that Ralph and Louise made together there in the deep woods, far from “civilization” and the many so-called comforts of the modern world. It is a love story but more importantly it is the day to day exploits of Louise, and Ralph, their son Rufus, Kyak the reluctant sled dog, and Gerrish the hired man who was more like an honest and plainspoken brother than the hired help.
How would one care for a growing family in a house heated only by wood burning stoves and fireplaces and lit by lantern and kerosene lamps. How would one make a living? Is housekeeping difficult? What does one do with the only Doctor more than a days journey away? Aren’t the children a problem? What does a spring log run look like? Are the Lumberjacks any trouble? How’s the fishing? These and many other questions arise and are delightfully answered by a charming author.
Mrs. Rich at several times in her text minimizes and downplays her skills as a writer, but it is this reviewer’s opinion that she has been much too hard on herself. Her light narrative style and gentle humor make for a very pleasing read. Mrs. Rich has the writer’s eye and sees many interesting and delightful things in her verdant kingdom that would be missed by lesser folk on they’re brief walk through the woods. Her quiet reverence for, as Longfellow puts it “the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks that ...stand like Druids of old” is expressed in every word of prose. Like some Dryad of old she sings her song of the forest and lends an enchantment to a simple tale that is hard if not impossible to resist.
American Writer and Naturalist Henry David Thoreau states in his seminal work Walden “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Deliberate living is certainly one of Mrs. Rich’s qualities for everything she does has its reason and purpose. Although life is spare at Forest Lodge out amongst the Bear and Deer and Wildcat, it is also good and clean and full of surprises.
Although published at the start of the Second World War the reader has the feeling of stepping even further back through time to a far simpler age. There is almost a horse and buggy quality to the story that that makes the reader reluctant to put it down.
I highly recommend We Took to the Woods to all readers who wonder what life would be like living in a wilderness without all the trappings of the modern world. Author Rachel Carson tells us in Silent Spring , “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.” For Mrs. Rich this reserve lasted for more than eight decades and she passed away in 1991 after a full life but she left us with a fine legacy in this book and others of what life was like at Forest Lodge in the heart of the deep woods. Forest Lodge still stands today much the same way it was when the Rich’s lived there. It can be visited by those who are curious about it.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a woods, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost (American poet), The Road Not Taken
A review of Louise Dickenson Rich’s tale of family life in the great northern forest of Maine, ‘We Took to the Woods.’
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
The Road Less Traveled- Robert Frost
“For there are some people who can live without wild things about them and the earth beneath their feet, and some who cannot. To those of us who, in a city, are always aware of the abused and abased earth below the pavement, walking on the grass, watching the flight of birds, or finding the first spring dandelion are the rights as old and unalienable as the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We belong to no cult. We are not Nature Lovers. We don't love nature any more than we love breathing. Nature is simply something indispensable, like air and light and water, that we accept as necessary to living, and the nearer we can get to it the happier we are.”
So says Louise Dickenson Rich in her 1942 account of life in the forests of northern Maine. Rich, a city woman born in Huntington, Massachusetts, in the early 1900's was a tomboy growing up and learned to ride a bike, play ball and swim as a matter of survival in a neighborhood populated by mostly boys. Her love of the outdoors grew as she grew older as did her love of reading and exploits. Mrs. Rich became an English teacher by trade but still kept her summers for travel and adventure. On her one trip to Europe she went student steerage on a shoestring with one suitcase and “washed out her stockings at night.” It imbued her with a desire to always have one place to hang up her clothes from that point on.
It was on such an adventure, a summer vacation with her sister Alice to the still wild and unspoiled Parmacheenee and Rangley regions of the state of Maine, that she met her husband Ralph. He a displaced Chicagoan, who had boughtForest Lodge, a summer place in the woods during the boom years before the crash and had only just moved in the very day Louise and her sister came strolling down the “Carry Road” along the Rapid River. Knowing a good thing when he saw it Ralph Rich invited the girls to stay and have a meal with him which they promptly accepted. Little did Louise know that Forest Lodge was the place she would spend much of the rest of her life and the beginning of the rest of her fascinating tale.
We Took to the Woods is the true story of that meeting and the subsequent life that Ralph and Louise made together there in the deep woods, far from “civilization” and the many so-called comforts of the modern world. It is a love story but more importantly it is the day to day exploits of Louise, and Ralph, their son Rufus, Kyak the reluctant sled dog, and Gerrish the hired man who was more like an honest and plainspoken brother than the hired help.
How would one care for a growing family in a house heated only by wood burning stoves and fireplaces and lit by lantern and kerosene lamps. How would one make a living? Is housekeeping difficult? What does one do with the only Doctor more than a days journey away? Aren’t the children a problem? What does a spring log run look like? Are the Lumberjacks any trouble? How’s the fishing? These and many other questions arise and are delightfully answered by a charming author.
Mrs. Rich at several times in her text minimizes and downplays her skills as a writer, but it is this reviewer’s opinion that she has been much too hard on herself. Her light narrative style and gentle humor make for a very pleasing read. Mrs. Rich has the writer’s eye and sees many interesting and delightful things in her verdant kingdom that would be missed by lesser folk on they’re brief walk through the woods. Her quiet reverence for, as Longfellow puts it “the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks that ...stand like Druids of old” is expressed in every word of prose. Like some Dryad of old she sings her song of the forest and lends an enchantment to a simple tale that is hard if not impossible to resist.
American Writer and Naturalist Henry David Thoreau states in his seminal work Walden “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Deliberate living is certainly one of Mrs. Rich’s qualities for everything she does has its reason and purpose. Although life is spare at Forest Lodge out amongst the Bear and Deer and Wildcat, it is also good and clean and full of surprises.
Although published at the start of the Second World War the reader has the feeling of stepping even further back through time to a far simpler age. There is almost a horse and buggy quality to the story that that makes the reader reluctant to put it down.
I highly recommend We Took to the Woods to all readers who wonder what life would be like living in a wilderness without all the trappings of the modern world. Author Rachel Carson tells us in Silent Spring , “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.” For Mrs. Rich this reserve lasted for more than eight decades and she passed away in 1991 after a full life but she left us with a fine legacy in this book and others of what life was like at Forest Lodge in the heart of the deep woods. Forest Lodge still stands today much the same way it was when the Rich’s lived there. It can be visited by those who are curious about it.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a woods, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost (American poet), The Road Not Taken
December 21, 2022
1944 erschienen, thematisch und stilistisch ähnlich wie "Die Farm in den grünen Bergen" (1949) von Alice Herdan-Zuckmayer. Es war mir stellenweise ein bisschen zu schmunzelig, aber mindestens die Hälfte (verteilt über das ganze Buch) ist schön und interessant.
March 7, 2021
This was Maine. Perhaps this is a generous five stars but I loved this book. Funny and educational, I felt transported to 1942 Maine and also as if Louise was one of my gal pals. Wonderful!
April 19, 2017
If anyone else had written this book, it'd probably have been out of print many years now. Louise Dickinson Rich manages to do what few people can do: write about the mundane in a way that interests even urban folk who know next to nothing about country living. We Took to the Woods is Rich's first autobiographical book about living in the woods of Maine in the 1930's. It's full of adventure, humor, candor and fun. I did get a little lost with all the jargon pertaining to boats and lakes, 'sluicing" and fishing; but the daily life descriptions were intriguing and inspiring. Rich talks of 'making do' with what she has, since she lived in the wilderness without easy access to stores and supplies. When things broke, she and her husband and helpers had to fix, mend, rig up makeshift repairs with whatever supplies they had on hand. Living in subzero temperatures during the winter, they wrapped themselves in woolen layers of clothes, and went about their daily business just as always; digging, shoveling, cutting wood for the fire. Their resourcefulness and strong work ethic were enviable, though I was not tempted to pack up my things and take on a woodsy life.
I loved her tone and anecdotes. Of her son, husband and stepdaughter. Of the animals, of nature in its raw beauty, of her many visitors, 'sports', lumberjacks, and neighbors, though there were not as many as one would consider nowadays.
I look forward to reading more of her books. 5+ stars !
I loved her tone and anecdotes. Of her son, husband and stepdaughter. Of the animals, of nature in its raw beauty, of her many visitors, 'sports', lumberjacks, and neighbors, though there were not as many as one would consider nowadays.
I look forward to reading more of her books. 5+ stars !
February 5, 2015
This book is lovely! Rich's voice is warm, matter-of-fact, and entertaining, and her word usage is delightful. I love needing to get out a dictionary for good reason and not because it seems like the author is being pushy about their verbiage. True, Rich has only been living out in the woods for 6 years, so there's something of the Walden in this one, but her stories ring true and I think her relative inexperience gives her a perspective those of us who dream of such things can relate to. She has a good amount of thoughtfulness mixed in to fact-telling, and with little gems such as this:
"So we have our fifteen minute dose of everythings-going-to-hell each evening, and the rest of the day we try to forget about it. There's not very much tranquility left in the world today. It may be that in striving to preserve a little of it we are making the best contributions within our powers. Or it may be that this is pure rationalizing, and we are guilty of the most abysmal selfishness."
she manages to cross the decades and remain relevant even as she tells of calling people on a hand-crank telephone.
I think I'll probably be buying a copy of this to own and re-read when I want a peaceful, comfortable telling of a person who is fully content to be doing what they're doing, and that so happens to be living in the Maine woods - a place I wouldn't mind being myself.
"So we have our fifteen minute dose of everythings-going-to-hell each evening, and the rest of the day we try to forget about it. There's not very much tranquility left in the world today. It may be that in striving to preserve a little of it we are making the best contributions within our powers. Or it may be that this is pure rationalizing, and we are guilty of the most abysmal selfishness."
she manages to cross the decades and remain relevant even as she tells of calling people on a hand-crank telephone.
I think I'll probably be buying a copy of this to own and re-read when I want a peaceful, comfortable telling of a person who is fully content to be doing what they're doing, and that so happens to be living in the Maine woods - a place I wouldn't mind being myself.
April 20, 2019
2019 bk 55 This is one of those books that have followed me for years. I've seen it on countless shelves of different house libraries and wondered about it, picked it up, but the original did not have a well thought out on the desciption or the jacket. Then someone on Goodreads wrote a review that re-awakened by interest and I purchased the copy with an afterward by Louise Dickinson Rich's biographer. It took two days to read this, admittedly because of Holy Week activities, otherwise I would have sat and read it straight through. It is the story of a young college graduate on a trip into the Maine backwoods who meets and then marries one of the men of that area. Her life may be considered spare and difficult to us in th 2019, but she found it full of richness (sorry for the pun on her name). Each chapter addresses a question or thought posed by her former friends about what she does with her day and each answer is written with such in-depth love of her life in the woods and lakes of Maine that I long to visit that interior. I loved the town hall scene and know that it would have only errupted in violence if it had been repeated in my home town. Now I need to find other things she has written.
July 5, 2014
I first discovered this book years ago when I was in jr. high school and my mother handed me a copy of Yankee magazine. In this now forgotten issue of that regional magazine, was a story about a woman who lived in a remote area of Maine with her husband and small son. Liking as I do, even at 12, stories about remote cabins and rural living, I sought out the book itself. I read it, of course, and then years later, found my own copy in a used bookstore in Oyster Bay. Louise Rich wrote in a familiar, clever way that makes you feel you are right there with her. I can smell the river and the wood smoke, feel the mosquitoes and the cool air. Her writing evokes a sense of place and roots and pleasant isolation from the outside world. Because of this, We Took to The Woods ought to be read by those who take to the woods for their own amusement and education. They will not be disappointed.
March 1, 2015
Gosh, I loved this book by clever, articulate and witty Louise Dickinson Rich. She and her husband were original back-to-the-landers, although they didn't think of themselves as such. They just liked living in a wild, natural place -- in this case, the backwoods of Maine -- and were perfectly content to enjoy each other's company, along with their hired hand and their two children.
Louise writes entertainingly about the other backwoods folks in their community, plus the "sports" who came to visit -- their name for the city slickers who came in the summer to hunt and fish. And her descriptions of the natural beauty and wildlife all around them are inspiring. The book was written in 1942, and I felt so sad when I learned her husband had died suddenly just three years later. Louise went on to a long and successful career as a writer, but this was her first book.
Louise writes entertainingly about the other backwoods folks in their community, plus the "sports" who came to visit -- their name for the city slickers who came in the summer to hunt and fish. And her descriptions of the natural beauty and wildlife all around them are inspiring. The book was written in 1942, and I felt so sad when I learned her husband had died suddenly just three years later. Louise went on to a long and successful career as a writer, but this was her first book.
April 16, 2018
I bought this last year at the AAUW book sale in State College, PA. I am only sorry it took me nearly a year to begin to read it. Louise provides a vivid and entertaining narrative of backwoods living in rural 1930's Maine. The reader marvels over the rustic nature of life of a bygone era, but that is not all to marvel over. Louise has a distinct voice, one of humor and good naturedness, but opinionated. And those opinions are relative as much today as they were 80 years ago. I was fascinated by the glimpses of the logging life of the surrounding camps and the glimpses of daily living on a shoe string budget... but mostly I was in awe of how well Louise and her husband adapted to life in the woods cut off from the modern world for entire winters. I highly recommend finding a copy of this book somewhere and enjoy yourself!
September 21, 2009
I liked this. Yes, it is a tad dated and sometimes the narrative seems a little childish but overall it was a wonderful story. Part of what was rewarding is that I'm very familiar with the area in which it takes place, adding to my positive experience. I also gravitate to tales about people living in extraordinary situations. And, I love tales about nature. The only negative comment I would have is that while it did have a beginning and a middle it really didn't really seem to have a finish. The information at the end wraps up the story of this family but it was a 3rd party and wasn't completely satisfying. Of course, Louise Rich wrote many books so it's possible that there is one that is a quasi-sequel to this.
July 2, 2013
I stumbled across this book during a sleepless night while staying at my parent's house in Maine last week. I am wary of homesteading books that write from a sentimental, self righteous perspective, and was thrilled to find this book to be the polar opposite. Louise Dickinson Rich is funny, practical, often self effacing (but not in a weird insecure way) and just plain downright real! My family roots are in Northern Maine, so perhaps that helps to explain the connection I felt with this memoir. Whatever the reason, now that the book is finished I am mourning the loss of a old friend and am left wondering how I will fill the hole (which to me is the absolute best kind of book!). So satisfying!
June 8, 2012
There's not much more that can be said about this book, probably up there with the top 10 memoirs of the 20th century. It's never, ever been out of print, which says a lot! If you read it, you'll feel like it was written yesterday and not in the 30's, such is Rich's tone---clear and humorous and ageless. For anyone who has dreamt of living it all behind and living in the woods, this is a book not to be missed.
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