Overmountain Press

0-932807-20-8
$16.95
Hardcover

This novel relates the dreams. heartaches, and romance revealed in a young girl’s diary. It is a fascinating true story about Nannie Kinkead Etter, the author’s grandmother, who lived those tender years during the Civil War era. The book details her life at home in Hawkins County, Tennessee, and at school in Asheville. North Carolina. Through Nan’s writings the reader is shown the friendships. education, courtship, and marriage of a young woman reaching maturity during the Civil War years Intense emotional feelings are shared as she experiences the anguish and frustration of a spirited, compassionate woman, whose gender has forced her to accept a passive role in the war while watching her family and friends leave to join the fight. The war brings many hardships and losses to Nan, including the death of her first love. She struggles poignantly to accept great personal tragedies and, ultimately, the fall of the Confederacy. Various diaries, letters, and newspaper articles form the framework of the narrative, and the reproduction of these personal writings is a strong point of the novel.

Margaret Lyons Smith graduated in speech and drama from King’s School, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1920. Later she taught these arts at the high schools of Hawkins County in Tennessee. She was also a proofreader at the Kingsport Press, Inc. in Kingsport, Tennessee for many years.

TAGS: Miss Nan, Civil War, Tennessee, Margaret Lyons Smith, Nannie Etter