Marmee & Louisa by Eve LaPlante

Marmee & Louisa by Eve LaPlante
Little Women quilt by Nancy A. Bekofske
pattern by Marion Cheever Whiteside Newton

Marmee & Louisa by Eve LaPlante was the perfect book to read after reading the ARC Louisa on the Front Lines by Samantha Seiple and Meg Jo Beth Amy by Anne Boyd Rioux. LaPlante, who is a distant cousin to Louisa May Alcott, had access to family documents and letters. Her book concentrates on the relationship between mother Abigail May Alcott and daughter Louisa while also covering the entire family and Louisa's career.

I very much enjoyed the book, but I didn't always like all the characters...okay, one character...Bronson Alcott, the patriarch.

The March girls, Little Women quilt

Abigail May worked her entire life for women's rights and equality and abolition. Her brother was a leader in the Unitarian church, suffrage movement, and an ardent abolitionist.

Abigail was unable to have the formal education her brother  Samuel enjoyed, but read his books and educated herself with his help. She aspired to be a teacher, someone who contributed to the world.

Then she met the charismatic Bronson, a self-educated man with big ideas and a golden tongue. They fell in love and Abigail hitched her wagon to his star. Samuel was smitten, too, as eventually was all the Transcendentalists who later supported Bronson...even when they became weary of him.

That support was not just in philosophy and friendship but financial. Bronson was too radical to keep his teaching positions and too intent on "higher things" to worry about how to put food on the table or a roof over the heads of his growing family. And he traveled--a lot--leaving his family to fend for themselves.

Marmee learning her husband is in a prisoner of war camp
Little Women quilt

Abigail relied on the compassion of their friends and family but also found any work she could--sewing, teaching, social work, nursing. Young Louisa felt for her mother and pledged to aid the family. She took jobs she disliked but also as a teenager started to write stories for magazines. They were sensational, Gothic thrillers that brought in quick cash. She was particularly adept at imagining these tales.

Perhaps because she was so familiar with the powerlessness of women from watching her mother's toil, hardships, physical exhaustion and decline, mental anguish, while also indulging in acts of charity and working for abolition and women's right to vote.

Louisa was an active girl and young woman, wary of love and thirsting for the wider world, when at thirty she signed up to work as a nurse caring for the wounded men of the Civil War. Within six weeks she became ill and was near to death when Bronson came to take her home. Abigail nursed Louisa back to life, if not health; for the rest of Louisa's 56 years, she suffered from ill health, perhaps from Lupus.

Marmee and Louisa packing for Louisa's trip
Little Women quilt

Louisa kept writing and when Little Women was published became a sensation. She was able to finally support her family as she had always wanted, taking the burden off Abigail.

For the rest of her life, Louisa took care of her mother and family. She fulfilled her mother's dream by voting in an election.

The love and care between these women, Abigail and Louisa, is touching and inspiring, their strength of will humbling, their story timeless.

Learn more about the book and author and discover reading guides at
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Marmee-Louisa/Eve-LaPlante/9781451620672