The Journals of Martha E. McMillan

lengthly passage discussing leaving her home, the farm. However, when she went to Kenton, she did not bemoan leaving the farm, and instead chose to focus on the excitement of traveling to a new place, and on her family, who visited her often. It is impossible to know if she knew she was going to die, and was anticipating being reunited with her loved ones, or if she believed the treatment would cure her cancer and give her more time with her living family. Whichever scenario, it is clear that she showed considerable strength through an ordeal that weakened her considerably, even preventing her from writing near the end. Through this we can more completely understand the difficulties she went through and empathize with her situation. Martha McMillan was a woman of strength and character and chose during the final days of her life to focus on her family and friends. Through the historical detail of these treatments a reader appreciate her situation, one in which illness and death were common. She dealt with this illness and the illnesses of many of her loved ones who did not recover. Living during the turn of the century was difficult, and it is through these journals that a deeper understanding of that hardship, and her strength of character, can be grasped. 219