The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America

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Day after day she rode, through good weather and bad. Sometimes her doggie rode on her horse and other times he trotted beside on a leash that used to be her clothesline. Over mountains and through valleys. A man in Arkansas fell in love with her and proposed marriage. She kept going.

Given her health situation, she considers her doctor’s advice to live restfully. But how? After a lifetime of hard work, she doesn’t have any savings. Nothing or no one to fall on. Her choices are very limited. In one interview, she told the journalist her second husband left because she wouldn’t deed him the farm. Said she should have given him the damn thing and rode away years ago. Best thing she ever did. With her little dog, Depeche Toi and her horse Tarzan, they set off West with no map. Annie figured people along the journey would help them find their way west. The trio were able to spend the night in barns and homes of strangers, who often fed them and recommended other places to stay on their journey ahead. The reader isn’t the only one who feels nostalgic for Main Streets, “F. W. Woolworth’s five-and-dime” stores, drugstores equipped with soda fountains. “In the early part of the twentieth century, there was an upsurge in nostalgia about America’s pioneer past,” Letts affirms. “In 1955, her story ratcheted deep into the American psyche: her life alone on a small farm, her horse, her dog, her fearlessness and determination.” It’s uplifting when anyone discovers the freedom to choose their destiny.Letts has told an engaging story, but part of my mad respect for her has to do with her attention to detail. The very best historical fiction is essentially true, with dialogue added for interest, and Letts writes the best, no doubt about it. Her endnotes are impressive, and she tells us that she drove more than 10,000 miles while researching her book. Question: What’s on your reading list right now? Have you read The Ride of Her Life or any other Elizabeth Letts books? The last of the “saddle tramps”, sixty-three-year-old Mainer, Annie Wilkins, was in ill health, having been given only 2 years to live. She’s known only hard work and hardship her entire life, and is now completely broke after losing her family and farm. Her only option was to go into a care home. Now for the bad news! The second half of the book turned tedious and overdone. While I enjoyed the extensive tour through America, the details were often overemphasized and turned an amazing first half of the story into boredom. Knowing she was about to lose her family farm and with nowhere to turn for help, Annie Wilkins places an ad in the paper for a sturdy horse. After seeing a few, she knew she’d met the perfect match in an older Morgan she named Tarzan. Along with her spunky dog Depeche Toi, Annie hit the road.

Thanks to deeply sourced research and her own travels along Wilkins’ route, Letts vividly portrays an audacious woman whose optimism, courage, and good humor are to be marveled at and admired. Upbeat and touching, Wilkins’ story is the perfect pandemic escapist read.” — Booklist Elizabeth Letts’ new installment in history of the horse world book (look, I just made that up. It isn’t an official series, but it should be because she is one of the authors who writes it) is about Annie Wilkins’s trip. It isn’t a biography, more like a travel biography - a history of a trip. In Missouri, a school asked her to speak to the students about her journey and the newspapers came to cover it. She was an inspirational speaker. Her! Ultimately, this is an inspiring story. Both Annie and Tarzan were living on borrowed time, but they both ended up living a life more exciting than either could have imagined. This was a heartwarming story of all the human spirit can accomplish with determination and guts.

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism. It didn’t take long for news of this strikingly odd crew to spread, after a reporter discovered them. From local newspapers to the AP newswire, Annie and her animals gained notoriety. Annie, though, wasn’t the type to seek fame. Treating everyone the same is one reason we become so fond of her.