Sign-In
Cart
2 Sisters 2 Stories
Paperback
Publisher: Russell Beck
Published: Jan 12 2026
Pages: 100
Weight: 0.28
Height: 0.24 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
In the harsh world of the early 1900s, two sisters navigate poverty, family violence, and limited opportunities with remarkable determination and spirit in the small town of Rushville, Indiana. As their family of nine struggled through hardships, empty stomachs, and misfortune, they coped with life as best they could.
Zelah Hardin dreams of escaping her circumstances through education. Born with a speech impediment that makes her family laugh, she finds teachers who believe in her potential.
Despite working as a hired girl from age thirteen and wearing the same dress to school each day, Zelah makes her way forward in the world.
But when high school administrators accuse her of cheating-simply because no one believed a poor girl could achieve a perfect score-her path takes an unexpected turn.
Zelah's photographic memory and fierce determination earn her a scholarship to prestigious Earlham College.
Her younger sister Edna grows up scrappy and defiant, delivering laundry through town, fighting neighborhood children, and learning early that survival means standing your ground.
At seventeen, she teaches a one-room schoolhouse while still completing her own high school education. But falling in love with the wrong man leads to decades of hardship that test every ounce of her resilience.
Set against the backdrop of smallpox epidemics, the women's suffrage movement, and the Great Flood of 1913, these parallel memoirs reveal what life was truly like for working-class women in an era when a girl's worth was measured by her ability to keep house and bear children.
Through Zelah's eloquent prose and Edna's raw honesty, we witness the daily struggles, small victories, and unbreakable spirit of two remarkable women who refused to be defeated by their circumstances.
Based on actual family memoirs, this is a powerful testament to the strength of women who built America from the ground up.
Also from
Beck, Russell
The World of Work to 2030: A Practical Guide to Future-Proofing Your Business and Your Career
Beck, Russell
Hardcover
Time and Chance: A Young Man's Voyage of Discovery--When Love First Felt Real
Beck, Russell
Paperback
The World of Work to 2030: A Practical Guide to Future-Proofing Your Business and Your Career
Beck, Russell
Paperback
Also in
Biographies General
Bluesland: Portraits of Thirteen Major American Blues Masters
Toby Byron (ED.)
Pete Welding (ED.)
Hardcover
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
The Children of Athena: Greek Intellectuals in the Age of Rome: 150 Bc0-400 AD
Freeman, Charles
Hardcover
Make It a Double: From Wretched to Wondrous: Tales of One Woman's Lifelong Discovery of Whisky
Sackier, Shelley
Hardcover
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Isaacson, Walter
Hardcover
An Enemy Such as This: Larry Casuse and the Fight for Native Liberation in One Family on Two Continents Over Three Centuries
Correia, David
Hardcover
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
Cooper, Christian
Hardcover
The Secret Life of the Savoy: Glamour and Intrigue at the World's Most Famous Hotel
Williams, Olivia
Paperback
The Badger: The Life of Bernard Hinault and the Legacy of French Cycling
Fotheringham, William
Paperback
The Devil's Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
Wittman, Robert K.
Kinney, David
Paperback
Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Womens Political Culture, 1830-1900
Sklar, Kathryn Kish
Paperback
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
Purnell, Sonia
Hardcover
Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
Ehrenreich, Barbara
Paperback
Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives
Cordingly, David
Paperback
The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy: A Family Memoir of Scandal and Greed in the Meat Industry
Cherington, Gretchen
Paperback
Gift of Power: The Life and Teachings of a Lakota Medicine Man
Lame Deer, Chief Archie Fire
Erdoes, Richard
Paperback
My Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love
Dessa Wander
Hardcover
Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
Giuffre, Virginia Roberts
Hardcover
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself
Lawson, Jenny
Hardcover
Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor
Kuehn, Christine
Hardcover
Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground
Dohrn, Zayd Ayers
Hardcover
Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
Colloff, Pamela
Hardcover
A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon
Fedarko, Kevin
Paperback