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Rating: 
Summary: A Frank Tale of Arizona History
Review: In the late nineteenth century, Martha Summerhayes and her young lieutenant husband take up residence in the dusty army forts of Arizona. Vanished Arizona is a collection of memories of those days. Along the way, the reader meets a variety of characters such as a nearly-naked Indian cook and a "dentist" who accidentally extracts the wrong tooth.
We learn of treacherous travel in which mule carts overturn and people drown while crossing rivers. In one harrowing adventure, young Martha is advised by her husband to shoot herself and her baby son in preference to being captured by Indians.
What I love about this book is the guileless storytelling that seems unblemished by political correctness. She does not varnish the truth as she sees it, nor does she attempt to make her life in dusty Arizona attractive; she offers an honest appraisal of the rather brutal trials of an army wife in that era.
At times you'll love Martha Summerhayes for her courage, and at times you'll wish she didn't whine quite so much.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in frontier America and the brave people who settled the land.
Rating: 
Summary: Superficial and without emotion
Review: The second in the series, Living Voices of the Past, of diaries of the 1800s is the memoir of Martha Dunham Summerhayes' adventures of an Army wife as she follows her husband from post to post.Born and educated in New England, Martha (Mattie) is a well-traveled young lady, having spent time in Europe, most notably Germany. The tales of her life begin with her marriage to Jack Summerhayes in 1874. She follows him to the Wyoming Territory and Fort Russell where she learns that Army wives don't have nurse, cooks, and maids. She is totally on her own and makes due with what she can. She learns to put up with sand storms, scorpions, wild coyotes stealing their food, Indians, Mexicans, and the Army protocol. Mattie is a woman who is not used to hardship, but as the memoir is told from the early 20th century, the hardships and reality checks she faces do not seem so difficult as they must have been when she was enduring them. Mattie follows Jack to more than ten posts during his 30-year career. Along the way she has two children, Harry and Katherine, but Mattie seems more concerned with her own comfort and illnesses along the way than she does about her babies. Most of the time she refers to Harry as her son, and it is a good hour and a half before listeners learn his name. Jane Merrifield-Beecher is the voice of Mattie. She reads Mattie's memories so fast, that they are often difficult to decipher. Mattie's memories are rather superficial and while listeners learn about life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the adventure is more like a bad "B" movie than a real-life account of an Army wife.
Rating:
Summary: History, adventure, travellog make for a good read
Review: This is the story of a Nantucket woman who marries a cavalry officer and moves with him to various Army forts in the late 19th century. A very personal story of Army life in Indian country, raising children in very trying conditions, a travelog and adventure story. The tales of getting back and forth between Nantucket and Arizona is worth the reading alone.
Rating:
Summary: A rare and engaging perspective
Review: This type of narrative is a relative rarity in the history of the American border, and Arizona in particular. This is not only a woman's perspective but the views and memories of an army wife. The only comparable books that come to mind are the trilogy of Cavalry life by Libbie Custer. Mrs. Custer's books are more polished but more suspect as the information is filtered by her desire to glorify her husband. Mrs. Summerhayes account does not have this weakness and she is more concerned with how the events affect her children and herself. Her description of the Arizona landscape and conditions of Army life stays with you. In particular the sequence in which she is being transported through hostile territory when she is possibly in more danger from her husband than the Indians. This book adds much to the history of the Southwest and is justifiably considered a classic.
Rating:
Summary: A rare and engaging perspective
Review: This type of narrative is a relative rarity in the history of the American border, and Arizona in particular. This is not only a woman's perspective but the views and memories of an army wife. The only comparable books that come to mind are the trilogy of Cavalry life by Libbie Custer. Mrs. Custer's books are more polished but more suspect as the information is filtered by her desire to glorify her husband. Mrs. Summerhayes account does not have this weakness and she is more concerned with how the events affect her children and herself. Her description of the Arizona landscape and conditions of Army life stays with you. In particular the sequence in which she is being transported through hostile territory when she is possibly in more danger from her husband than the Indians. This book adds much to the history of the Southwest and is justifiably considered a classic.
Rating: 
Summary: 1999 Award
Review: Vanished Arizona audio book was rated in the top 15 of 200 audio books reviewed by The Arizona Daily Star for 1999. Another in the series, Living Voices of the Past is The Margaret A. Frink Diary from COVERED WAGON WOMEN, also one of the 15 in the top 200.
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