What was life like in Nauvoo, Illinois, the headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the early 1840s? Perhaps no other writings capture the experiences of the Saints in Nauvoo so vividly and poignantly as the diaries, letters, and reminiscences of the wives, mothers, and sisters who lived there. Some women wrote in diaries and journals as an outlet for feelings and emotions that were sometimes too deep to share with others. As Emmeline B. Wells observed, "There always seems to be so much to write about . . . thoughts that come crowding up in throngs, [that] we write to be quit of them, and not let the crowd increase." Others wrote letters to explain their lives to family members and friends in distant places. "With little time and fewer materials," writes author Carol Cornwall Madsen, "they found ways to write their impressions and convey the enormity of the changes in their lives since they had become Mormons. The strength of their conversion, the difficulties of Kirtland and Missouri or the voyage across an ocean, and the challenges of Nauvoo all had to be explained, or at least described, to absent loved ones." And some wrote for their posterity: "to leave a valedictory that not only explained but also linked their lives and times with those that followed. Their writings are reality remembered, filtered through time, experience, and self-appraisal." "Perhaps they understood that women oft-times hear their own voices in the voices of other women, and hoped they would be heard across the generations," Dr. Madsen explains "This volume is an attempt to reflect the spirit of their desire and to reaffirm the reality of our spiritual heritage. How better to claim that legacy than to allow these women to speak to us in their own words?"