Very Good Book

I am almost finished with this book.  It is the best one I have read all summer.  Emma Gatewood walked the entire Appalachian Trail in 1955.  She was 67 years old (year older than Sister Fleta).  She wore simple little ked like shoes and carried what little she took along in a sack she sewed up. It weighed 12 pounds.  It took from June to September for her to walk from the start in Oglethorpe, GA to Maine.  Ben Montgomery wrote the book and he had heard about Grandma Gatewood all his life from his mother.  Grandma kept a diary in a little notebook as she walked so he had that reference.  

The book moves back and forth from the walk in 1955 to other periods in Emma's life.  She lived in Ohio and was married to P. C. Gatewood.  She bore 11 children and P. C. beat her almost to death 100s of times.  P. C. was once a school teacher and well respected man, but he was mean to Emma.  She had no where to go and she had 11 kids.  Her father died when she was young and her mother had a houseful of her own to raise.  Once Emma did "run off" and leave the kids and P. C.  She went to California and stayed over a year, but she missed her kids and came home.  Soon she was beaten again and again.  P. C. Gatewood did not break Emma's spirit.   He knocked her teeth out, broke ribs, did damage in her gut, but her spirit beat his.

I loved the book and you should read it.  You are only down and out when you quit.  Emma never quit in life.  She did not quit on the 2050 mile walk.  She slept by the trail, in camp cabins, asked for hand-outs to eat, but she made it.  She did not even tell her 11 kids where she was going. Later she sent a post card telling them she was on a walk.