The Country Doctor’s Wife: Memoir

Whether she's sharing near-poetry about her garden, revealing village life and its residents, reflecting on a Quaker heritage, or chronicling the complications of her work as a doctor's wife, Cornelia documents it all with good humor and a passionate eye for detail. Life's small moments are made vibrant, their significance revealed. Sidestepping sentimentality, Cornelia offers readers a self-deprecating grace served with considerable wit. Her memoir is rich with anecdotes, for example tale of the hired girl who patched up victims of an accident while the doctor was out and the account of the frigid night she was pressed into service at a home birth alongside her then fiancé, and so much more. Cornelia is the friend and neighbor you would like to have, a woman and writer who savors life with wit and wisdom. Her memoir is a delight. Karen Kotrba, author of She Who Is Like a Mare: Poems of Mary Breckinridge