Shifting the center of gravity from pulpits to parsonages, and from confident sermons to whispered doubts, this family narrative humanizes the Eliot saints, demystifies their liberal religion, and lifts up the largely unsung female vocation of practical ministry. Spanning 150 years from the early 19th century forward, the narrative probes the womens defining experiences: the deaths of numerous children, the anguish of infertility, persistent financial worries, and the juggling of the often competing demands that parishes make on first ladies. Here, too, we see the matriarchs granddaughters scripting larger lives as they skirt traditional marriage and womens usual roles in the church. They follow their hearts into same-sex unions and blaze new trails as they carve out careers in public health service and preschool education. These stories are linked by the womens continuing battles to speak and make themselves heard over the thundering clerical wisdom that contradicts their reality. A wealth of photographs, genealogical charts, and a family roster deepen the readers engagement with this ambitious biography.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1874.