Grit and Objectivity in Anne Ellis's Ordinary Woman

Introduction: Ellis's Characteristic Restraint

In the first installment of her autobiography, The Life of an Ordinary Woman, Anne Ellis describes life growing up in pioneer conditions in a small Colorado mining town. Without power or plumbing, Ellis took a lot less for granted than people living in Colorado today, yet her memoir never borders on the preachy or the complaining. In describing the hardships that she and her family endured, Ellis is dry and factual; she does not pull any punches that the reader is aware of, but neither does she embellish the difficulties or her own stoicism and valor in response to them. Above all, she never whines—though if ever a Colorado resident had reasons, Anne Ellis did.

Throughout the autobiography, and indeed throughout her life as she describes it, Ellis's implicit thesis is that life happens—and whether that means good or bad, riches or poverty, struggle or ease, it is something that simply has to be dealt with, not qualitatively measured. This refusal to judge her circumstances or wallow in complaint establishes the entire tone of her narrative voice.

Death, Destruction, and Emotional Distance

In the second paragraph of the memoir, Ellis recounts the details of her grandfather's death as she learned them from her mother, who witnessed the event. After being called into the yard of his house and shot for being a Confederate soldier (which he was not), "she said he tried to scratch some message on the ground before he died, but they couldn't make it out. The bushwhackers burned the house."[1] Any sense of desperation, horror, or even sadness in this scene is provided by the reader; Ellis does not even pause to acknowledge her ancestor's death before moving on to the next piece of destruction.

This sets the tone of the work; whatever might befall Anne Ellis, she shows herself bearing it with a jaw-setting determination and grit that does not have the time to deal with things like grief and regret. She hardly ever describes herself displaying emotions of any kind, and certainly not any that might admit the possibility of defeat. The unsentimental treatment of a violent, unjust death establishes that Ellis will not dramatize hardship, no matter how extreme.

Hidden Emotion Beneath the Surface

Although such emotive descriptions are never explicitly made, there are hints that an Anne younger than the author was not as even-keeled and wise as she makes herself out to be. These moments occur with the same surface simplicity as every other detail in the work: "Nellie Smeltzer was the town dressmaker and milliner. As a girl, she had money and some of the good things it brings; such as education and breeding."[2]

There is a hint of jealousy and even more palpable contempt written between the lines of this passage, especially with the author's inclusion of the word "breeding." Breeding is generally something only the upper classes think exists, especially in the egalitarian world of the American pioneer. Ellis goes on to praise Smeltzer's skill as a dressmaker and does not let the difference in their upbringings affect her perception or description of this woman, but one detects a wistfulness in her tone that even she may not be aware of. These buried moments of vulnerability complicate Ellis's self-portrait and suggest depths beneath her stoic surface.

Personal Narrative Over Historical Documentation

Though Ellis's true story takes place in a Colorado mining town and portrays a presumably accurate picture of life as it was in that place and time, this text is more a personal narrative and less a useful historical document. In four pages, Ellis takes us from one Christmas to another, highlighting the important events in her own life but not touching on the world outside her own experience.[3] This is not really a fault in the memoir; it is a personal narrative, and does not attempt to be anything else.

Like Ellis, this book stands for nothing but what it is, and it does not hint at things beyond its scope. History necessarily draws conclusions and inferences where hard, observable facts cannot be found. Ellis and her autobiography resist that impulse toward larger meaning-making. Her refusal to contextualize her story within broader historical trends is consistent with her refusal to dramatize or interpret her own experience.

Conclusion: Honest Self-Portraiture

Likewise, both Ellis and her memoir attempt to be objective and unbiased in their description. There is no arrogance to the tone of the novel; no "holier-than-thou" dimension to the suffering Ellis endures. Likewise, there is no false modesty and no great humility. Anne Ellis sees herself, and describes herself, as the ordinary woman of her title. Her book stands as a frank and honest description of her life; she leaves it up to the reader to glean meaning and draw conclusions from her story. This restraint and refusal to impose interpretation—on history, on emotion, or on her own significance—becomes the very foundation of her memoir's integrity.