True Women-A Novel of Texas by Janice Woods Windle

The title says it all--this is the story of some of the brave women of Texas who held civilization and family together, working alongside their husbands and carrying on while their men were away fighting to defend their land. The basis for the stories is the family lore of the author's maternal and paternal female ancestors, the King family of Seguin and the Wood family of San Marcos.

The first section tells the story of Euphemia Texas Ashby King (the author's maternal great-great grandmother) and of her sister Sarah, beginning when Euphemia is five years old. Left alone when her husband departs to fight in the Texas War for Independence, a pregnant Sarah has to flee with her little sister Euphemia and her own toddler son from the approach of Santa Anna in the infamous Runaway Scrape. This is the most riveting part of the novel, recounting in some details the ordeals of cold, torrential rains, swollen rivers, and disease as the groups of mainly women and children flee the wrath and "no quarter" policy of the Mexican army. Euphemia's life also includes encounters with the dreaded Comanches, who kidnap her best friend, Matilda Lockhart; and the travail of the Civil War, when her own husband, William King, goes off to war, leaving her to fend for the family.

The second section concerns the author's paternal great grandmother, Georgia Lawshe Woods, beginning when she is nine years old and the family leaves their Georgia home because of the persecution and resettlement of Indians, her mother Cherokee being rumored to be half Creek Indian. After settling in Missippi, Georgia, at fifteen, marries an older man, Dr. Peter Kavanaugh Woods, who takes her to Texas. The biggest challenges of her life are the Civil War, when her husband is away fighting, and Reconstruction, when her husband is away participating in state politics, and a corrupt Yankee officer takes over her house and threatens her family. Let's just say she does what has to be done.

The third section switches back to the maternal side of the author's family, to her other great grandmother, Bettie Moss King, the daughter-in-law of Euphemia Texas King. Her life is less eventful, because the time and circumstances are less precarious, but she, too faces challenges--the loss of loved ones in World War I and in the influenza epidemic of 1918, the shame of the Ku Klux Klan, and the loss of grandchildren in World War II.

The writing in this novel is very uneven, sometimes poetic and assured and sometimes trite. The historic details are fascinating, but sometimes the history is too detailed to maintain interest, and sometimes it is telescoped, leaving important pieces out or glossing over them.

Nevertheless, this partly-fictional account of Texas women is well worth reading. It emphasizes the fact that while men go off to fight and perhaps obtain glory and medals and recognition, their no-less-courageous women are left alone. As one character says, "Why is it men always have to go off to war?...They go off and we stay here where the hard part is."