Writer, editor and web producer in history, healthcare, higher ed and science.

My specialties include

• Turning dense, technical web content into accessible copy that anyone can understand
• Overhauling website content if it needs new life
• Helping clients reorganize their sites 
• Writing for online and print publications
• Research and editorial services

Work in Progress

Dear Hannah: The Civil War Letters of Joseph D. Price

Joseph, my great-great-grandfather, wrote hundreds of letters to his girlfriend Hannah Price during the Civil War. He, a member of the pacifist Church of the Brethren, and she, a Quaker, had unorthodox ideas about slavery and the war—and they themselves were decades ahead of their time. She wanted to be a doctor, and he said that because he could farm anywhere, he'd move with her wherever she could find a medical school.

But the war intervened, and he joined the prestigious Anderson Cavalry (the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry) for the duration of the war. At one point, his entire unit was jailed because they refused to fight unless they had adequate weapons, horses and food; at another, his brother, a captain in the 116th Pennsylvania Infantry, was killed at the Battle of Stones River. 

They moved to Kansas, where seven years later he was killed by the family's bull. Desolate, with three young children and another on the way, Hannah decided to move back to Pennsylvania—where she went to medical school and graduated from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1881. She practiced until her death in 1915, the same year as her son John Caleb Price, a pioneering radiologist who died of exposure.

Joseph was funny, sensitive, slight, insecure, insightful and very romantic. Hannah was mischievous, tall, stout and stubborn. Their delightful, erudite letters open a new window into the lives of soldiers and the families they left behind.