Elizabeth Letts, author of “The Ride of Her Life,” was warmly welcomed by Estes Park readers at the Estes Valley Library on Friday evening, Jan. 31.
Her book is the One Book One Valley choice for 2025.
A few facts about Letts: she was born in Southern California, she is 63, she now lives in Maryland (having recently moved from Wyoming), she was a history major at Yale University, she went to Morrocco when she served in the Peace Corps, she is married and raised four children. She loves dogs and horses. Oh, and she was a nurse midwife.
She also is a New York Times best-selling author.
“I get to be curious for a living,” she told the audience. Letts said she was researching something else entirely when she ran across a photo in a 1954 newspaper. The photo, of a woman on horseback named Annie Wilkins, intrigued her.
Why was this poor, ill woman from Maine going to California on horseback? Did she make it?
Who was Annie Wilkins?
“That was my first problem,” said Letts. “She did one thing but the rest of her life was not captured in the same way.
“How do you document the life of a rural woman who only went through the sixth grade?”
Wilkins, who wanted to see the Pacific Ocean before she died, bought a cast-off brown gelding named Tarzan, donned men’s dungarees, and headed south in mid-November, hoping to beat the snow. She had little idea what to expect beyond her rural crossroads; she didn’t even have a map. She did have her ex-racehorse, her faithful dog, and her own unfailing belief that Americans would treat a stranger with kindness.
She was a novelty. Thanks to the hundreds of small-town newspapers that dotted the country at that time, her journey was well-documented.
She did not, however, realize that she would have to share a quickly changing world with roads full of cars and trucks. Yet, she persisted.
Wilkins completed 7,000 miles at 3 mph.
“She was a simple, strong, confident person of faith,” said Letts. “People liked her.”
Letts followed in her footsteps, somewhat. Part of her journey following Wilkins was aided by her youngest son and a 2003 Honda Odyssey minivan.
“The past is still there if you look closely,” she said.
Wilkins’ life after her journey was not well documented.
“She did go back to Maine, but she also lived in Harlem for a while. She lived in a nursing home in Maine for her last years.”
Letts said that the cross-country horseback journey could be repeated today.
“But it would be very, very different.”
Letts said some places along the way seem to be unchanged while other places are unrecognizable.
Wilkins ended up in Hollywood and appeared on television at the end of her ride. She saw the Pacific Ocean.
“The Ride of Her Life” has been optioned for a movie deal. Letts is not waiting for that, however, and has – she hopes – a new book coming out next year, a work of historical fiction set during World War I.