I Hate to Write is the compelling story of Edith Agnes McCormick an Irish immigrant, a devoted mother raising three sons in New York City in the early 1900s through WWI. Edith is an extraordinary woman of courage and fortitude. Through her diary, which amazingly encompasses the period 1901 to 1919, Edith provides a compelling, extraordinarily personal glimpse into family life, but also the events occurring at the turn of the century through the cataclysmic changes of WWI.
Edith’s writing style is an educated one, her sense of humor with respect to family life in Manhattan with all of its challenges jumps off the pages and captures the heart and mind of the reader in a unique and captivating fashion. She opens our eyes to a time when flight was a breathtaking novelty. It was a time prior to air conditioning, when horses were dying in the sweltering heat of New York summers, when people sought summer relief in the seashore cottages of Staten Island. Edith’s day to day thoughts are illuminating, as she opines upon such events as Theodore Roosevelt and the Panama Canal, the Russo-Sino War, Peary’s discovery of the North Pole and the need for equal rights in the workplace and the vote for women. Edith’s patriotic zeal and support for her country and its allies is compelling. Equally compelling is Edith’s concern for her sons as America is drawn into the war in Europe.
