Daisy: Pieces of a Life

by Daisy Whalen Bazzett, Timothy James Bazzett (Editor)

The Great Depression was a time of extreme deprivation for many. Widespread unemployment, hunger and poverty were the norm. But not everyone was so desperately poor in those dark days. Daisy Whalen was one of the lucky ones, just starting college in 1932. Only sixteen and fiercely intelligent, she’d earned a scholarship to Central State Teachers College in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Unsophisticated and innocent, she floundered socially at first, but then, in the summer of ‘33, she caught the eye of a new man in town. Ellis Bazzett was the young manager of the bean and grain elevator in her hometown of Oakley. Despite a six-year age difference, Ellis and Daisy were soon a couple; and a correspondence – and courtship – that would cover four eventful, turbulent years began. Ellis took a new job as a traveling salesman for General Mills, so it was a largely long-distance romance, but they got together as often as they could, and wrote each other faithfully and frequently. Only Daisy’s letters survive, but they provide a vivid portrait of college and small-town life in the 1930s, as well as an intimate look into the ups and downs of their ever-deepening relationship. Excerpts from her diaries and journals over the years that followed, and an unfinished memoir she wrote in her nineties, offer further insights into a love story that endured for more than fifty years, and the life and family that grew out of it. Filled with the joys and sorrows of the daily life of an extraordinary woman who all her life treasured books and learning and loved to read, here, finally, is Daisy’s book.

278 pages, Paperback

Published October 6, 2021