But With the Dawn, Rejoicing

This is the autobiography of a woman named Mary Ellen Kelly. In her teens she had begun to develop rheumatoid arthritis. By the age of 20 she was almost totally immobile. On a train she couldn’t use the sleeper car, but had to travel in the baggage car, strapped to a board. She had the use of only two fingers on one hand; it once took her over two hours to write a note just twenty-five words long....