"Many words are needed to describe my mother: small, pert, vivacious, talkative, fun-loving, excitable, easily fatigued, depressed, discouraged, determined. Her best features were her brown eyes; her shining black hair, which grew to a widow's peak on her forehead; her even white teeth; and her erect carriage. She had a round nose and a sallow complexion, both distressing to her, but she made up for these shortcomings with her sense of style.

"Mother was born Mable Atlee in Dowagiac, Michigan, and became a classic figure of the westward emigration movement, the little schoolmarm from the East who stepped off a train in the West to teach school.

"From this period of her life [she saved] a copy of The Biography of a Grizzly, by Ernest Thompson Seton, which had been sent by friends in Michigan. She told me that after she read the book aloud in Waterville, her...