Edith's Hope ReStarts with Structure

For the past six decades (and longer in some respects), I have been exposed to and collected a literal trunk-full of stories and research about an intrepid adventurer and courageous soul who defied the women's suffrage movement here in the US at the turn of the 18th century,  and set off on her own to the other side of the world to make her mark on civilization by caring for the destitute and lost. 

My grandmother, Edith Jane Willobee, in her elderly years, hammocked me as a babe in arms, prayed for me daily, and left behind—a thousand pages of diaries, hundreds of photographs, a few Hindu clay idols, a dozen brass pots and other mementos, a string of amber beads, and most importantly ... stories that Hollywood would need to water down to make them believable. 

The story (and the diary) that stands out chronicles her journey as a recent widow from the middle of British India in 1926, with her 12- and 15-year-old daughters, as she tries to bring them to America and introduce them to Western civilization. It's an audacious trek that, at every turn, forces her to battle men of various sizes, shapes, and cultures to get her girls safely to America. 

The story was first outlined 25 years ago; today, September 13, 2026, marks the start of manuscript development as I build a structural outline based on everything I've been teaching, workshopping, and writing about since 1998.

My next task is to re-read every one of the hundreds of documents in my research folder, make at least one lengthy research trip to collect more information (on the scandals), and fill in that black space with the salient content. It's going to take a while, but it'll be enjoyable.