This is where we meet Bessie. She, along with her husband, James, and their two young children lived on the northwest corner of Livingston Ave. and George streets in St Paul in 1886. Bessie is at home with the children and James works in a saloon. He is gone constantly and she remarks on his absence constantly, recording when he leaves, when (and if) he returns, when he wakes up in the morning, and when he leaves her again. She doesn’t do this out of spite, she does it out of desperation and loneliness. She does have her children, family, and neighbors that sometimes keep her company, and she lives in a growing and vibrant city, but frankly, her world is small. Despite James’ drinking, being out seemingly every night until the wee hours, and god knows whatever else, she loves him and pines for him (and sometimes has some understandably bitter and sarcastic things to say about him). She even resorts to creating a code to write in, when she has particularly personal or James-centric things to say, and the only explanation for that is that she fears he will read it. Fortunately, she provided the code in the diary.

I am now going to do something that, if this were a movie, I wouldn't do… I’m going to spoil the ending of Bessie’s story. I think that you will get more out of reading about her life and her diary if you know her fate. I knew her fate before I even received the diary because I had already found her in the historical record and put the pieces together based on the little details I had. Finding out what happened was rather difficult because it is undocumented; I put the pieces together myself. While I don’t have direct evidence in the form of a death certificate or State records, I am sure I’m right, and I will explain the evidence to you after we learn about the diary. On February 20th, 1887, just short of two months after the diary ended, Bessie died in childbirth. 

Still with me? It’s hard and tragic and your heart will break from reading the diary entries, but maybe that is part of what makes this important? Bessie was lonely when she wrote her diary, during which she went from fearing she was pregnant and then knowing it, and having to write it all in code. She suffered alone a lot. I don’t want to leave her alone in her suffering any longer.

OK, what do you need to know at the start… Bessie was born on March 5th, 1862, in Pierce County, Wisconsin. She was the fifth child of nine. In 1882, Bessie married James Madison Dunklee (1861-1943) in Pierce, Wisconsin. She was just 20 years old and he was 21. Then, in her 21st year, she had their first child, Harley Leroy (“Roy,” 1883-1954), also in Wisconsin. Many members of the family then move to St. Paul and Minneapolis, including Bessie and her family. In February of 1885, Bessie had their second child, Pearle Ethel (1885-1979) in St. Paul. That brings us right up to when the diary begins in 1886. 

For a description of the rest of her family as well as some of the other people in her diary, see her “The People” page. As I’ve noted other places, it is difficult to track down all the people that Bessie references. Often, she only provides a last name, but even when I have a full name, I often fail. There are two reasons for this and they seem counter to each other: (1) St Paul and Minneapolis are big cities with lots of people. If all I have is a name, it is hard to be sure who they are because there might be quite a few people with that name in the same area of the same age and (2) St Paul and Minneapolis are brand new cities, and it doesn’t seem like they captured much data about their citizens. I had trouble finding big things like census data, etc. for many people.

She does write in the pages before that day, so those entries must have been written later. Actually, Bessie sometimes jumps around in her diary. She will make note of how she is writing under different dates sometimes, but sometimes not. After all, she wouldn’t have thought that she should explain the writing to an outside audience. She also uses different writing utensils and changes her handwriting, even within the same day’s entries. This makes me think that she opens her diary multiple times in the day to write, often noting the weather in the morning and again in the evening. She uses the diary as a companion, visiting it often throughout the day. For some stretches of time, she doesn’t write, but then always comes back to fill it in.

Bessie spends a large part of everyday washing and ironing clothes; she gets up almost everyday, gets the water ready to wash, and washes and irons into the afternoon. I have often wondered if she is taking in outside clothes to make money as a washerwoman. I just can’t imagine that one family with two very small children could create so much laundry everyday, but I guess I don’t actually have any idea how long this might take. She also makes most of the family’s clothes, including her own dresses, clothes for the children, and James’ nightshirts. She spends the rest of her days cooking, baking, tending to the animals including a horse, a cow, and chickens, and cleaning the house. Occasionally, she does errands in town or visits with family and neighbors. 

In the beginning of January, Bessie begins her first entry the way she will begin many entries after- describing when James got home, when he got up, and that she got him something to eat. Many of her days play out like this- she talks about James’ comings and goings and the verbal and emotional abuse she suffers from him, the chores she did around the house, and a bit about her children. This is her whole world.

I say all that and it doesn’t describe the extent of the fascinating and heartbreaking parts of her life. As we will see, her family is unique, the city she lives in is growing, and, as the year goes on, she struggles with her health as she realizes that she is pregnant and begins writing about it in code. 

Let’s start with her family… I have provided the details of her family members as best I could on the People page for Bessie, but one characteristic of the family that is particularly interesting, especially in 1880’s, is that 4 of the 9 siblings were deaf. These four are Lida, Belle, Katie, and Hiram. With roughly 50% of the siblings affected, it sounds like an autosomal dominant disorder. I can’t find any record of either of their parents being deaf (the Federal Census did keep track of what they called, “Deaf and Dumb”), but who knows. The three younger deaf siblings were educated at the Wisconsin School for the Deaf. The school was established in 1852 and is still running today. It was residential, so the children would have lived there, and they would have learned American Sign Language. The three women- Lida, Belle, and Katie- all get married and Lida and Belle both have children. Bessie is very close with both Belle and Katie, so I wonder if she could sign as well?

Next, James… I unashamadly hate him for Bessie’s sake. Where to start?...

First, I have to say that I hate that we have to spend so much time thinking and talking about James at all, and that she had to spend so much time thinking and talking about him too. The truth is, though, she was a woman in the 1880s, on the frontier of the new-ish country, with two small children, and too few opportunities. Bessie had attended school until she was 18, but social class or societal expectations kept her from being able to earn a sufficient living outside of her home. Indeed, none of the sisters or their mother ever worked that I can find, relying on each other for support if or when they were without a husband. James was her financial safety, the father of her children, and her link to the outside world. She was captive to his support and his abuse. I can’t imagine the vulnerability of being a women then, and with two very young children to care for. It must have been like a kind of prison in that house. These were the potentially disastrous outcomes of a poor decision in marriage, often made with little information, for women across many decades. It could have gone well or it could have gone like this. Very few women at the time got out through divorce, like Retta Dunklee did, and perhaps Bessie could have done so as well. She just didn’t have the chance.

The first thing that we notice about James is that he is out until the early morning hours every night. Honestly, I don’t know how he does it. It is like he never sleeps. He does work at a saloon, but it seems that he might also be an alcoholic. He is often making promises to Bessie about how he will quit drinking or not stay out so late. I also think that she wouldn’t mention it so much if it were not a choice he was making.

James also seems to have a problem with spending too much money. Money is a common concern for Bessie. She mentions when he gives her money and how much, when he takes it back from her, and in a particularly angry moment, she describes how he is in hopeless debt. The description spans multiple dates and, although it is written on pages for January and February, she notes that she wrote it in May:

Sunday 31

Written May 13, 8:30pm

You bet J is a queer man. Whatever he does is all right, but I do all wrong. Yesterday, I took $5.25 out of his pockets + went over town + only spent the 25. Last night he said I could have the 5, to get a new hat for my self, as mine made my head ache so, but this morning he just took

February

Monday 1

The 5: himself + now is off riding with that miserable Jim Cogn* + I can stay at home + go without things while he can take it + blow it all in for nothing + tell me “oh paid bills.”

Never mind

You bet if he was just 1/10 part as saving as I he would not be owing 

Tuesday 2

one man a single cent but as it goes I suppose he will never be out of debt. I’m sure if he would try to be a little saving I could deny my self any thing + not say a word to try + help along to get out of debt, but as it is, he can spend money here + there + always has it, only when I ask for a nickel or dime then “I haven’t any.” I suppose

Wednesday 3

When he comes home (if he does) he won’t have a cent. + last night he said it was the last time he’d be out. That he’d or they had enough of it. That they would not ask for him again.

It looks like someone tried deciphering some of the code after Bessie died. The code shows up a few times in the diary, but I think only the one in the Memorandum was her’s- written in fountain pen and just the numbers without the corresponding letters. Someone came along later and rewrote the code other places along with the letters. In some coded sections, there are also words written in a different utensil than Bessie’s numbers. I can’t know who did this or when, obviously, but I think it must have been the person that saved her diary after her death… one of her sisters, perhaps?

Bessie ends her year in much the same way, but doesn’t write in code again. James seems to have really gone off the rails, though. Right after he gets home from the trip, for example, Pearle gets so sick for so many days that Bessie calls a doctor, and James is still staying out all night. She comments more and more that she is “alone,” a word that she uses often, although her sisters are around, and their mother. She goes shopping and sees her family for Christmas. Still, she seems unhappier than ever. 

It is not that my lot is low,

That bids the silent tear to flow,

It is not grief that bids me moan,

It is that I am all alone.

In woods and glens I love to roam,

When the tired hedger hies him home;

Or by the woodland pool to rest,

When pale the star looks on its breast.

Yet when the silent evening sighs,

With hallowed airs and symphonies,

My spirit takes another tone,

And sighs that it is all alone.

The woods and winds with sudden wail

Tell all the same unvaried tale ;

I've none to smile when I am free,

And when I sigh, to sigh with me.

Yet in my dreams a form I view,

That thinks on me and loves me too ;

I start ! and when the vision's flown,

I weep that I am all alone.

Interesting that Bessie substituted the word death for the word grief in the first stanza.

There was a good 4-6 inches of snow on the ground and it was about 15 degrees out, so finding the site wasn’t easy going. Fortunately, Bessie and James were buried not far from the entrance, along with other graves from the late 1800s and early 1900s. We walked to the general location and began looking for the grave markers of the people buried around them. This cemetery has huge old trees and rolling hills, not the neat rows of gravestones that some have. The markers were spread out seemingly randomly, with lots of space between them, and they faced in all different directions. After stomping around in the snow for a few minutes, I found the stone we were looking for- not her’s, but an indication that she was close. That was the best we could do. We stood there for a few minutes silently until our toes couldn’t take the cold anymore, and left.