Reflections of Emma

Reflections of Emma is a book about a lifetime of thoughts of a woman known only to us as Emma. While on one of their many journeys to the northeast part of the country, Robert (Bob) and Becky found her Bible, an 1864 King James version, in an antique store in West Lebanon, New Hampshire. It had over a hundred clippings from newspapers and magazines on a wide variety of topics relevant to her time. These clippings held special meaning to Emma and gave Bob insight into her world and thoughts. After purchasing the Bible, Bob and his wife visited the northeast multiple times, spending hundreds of hours searching through local courthouses and libraries. They searched both local and national magazines and newspapers, attempting to document exactly where each article in Emma's Bible originated. In the end, there was only one clipping that could not be documented. While on these trips, they also went through courthouse birth and death records and visited countless cemeteries all over the northeast, attempting to discern Emma's last name; this also was to no avail. We may never know who she was, but she left us with a lasting view of mid- to late-nineteenth-century America.