Emma's early childhood was spent in Rabbit Hash, Kentucky,[1] a small town on the Ohio River near Cincinnati.

[4] Emma and Frank had five children: twin daughters Jean and Judith (September 1902), son Joe Winchester (February 1905), Katharine “Kitty” (January 1907), and Mark (March 1909).

At one point she notes in her journal that her daughter, Jean, had run away and then she adds “I don't blame her.”[5] Emma and Frank separated a number of times, and during these times Emma lived in the Francis Willard Home for Women in Chattanooga to make money in town.

She also held the post of writer-in-residence at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee for one term.

For two months in 1914, Emma worked for the Chattanooga News and took on the role for paying her family’s bills.

She had planned to return to her job at the Chattanooga News to pay back the hospital bills, but she notes in her journal, “this Frank positively refuses to let me do.”[5] This life of continual poverty and the death of 3-year-old Mark eroded her health.

Emma Bell Miles died on March 19, 1919, and was buried in a simple grave in Red Bank, Tennessee.

This genre-defying book has elements of local color, short story, travel narrative, personal memoir, and cultural analysis.

Her journals also contain several references to manuscripts of other works that remain unpublished, including The Good Gray Mother and Our Southern Flowers.