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Show 37 Explanation of Notes: References designated by page numbers only are from the book, Her Diary, The Early Autobiography and Diary of Ellis Reynolds Shipp, M.D., compiled and edited by h"er daughter, Ellis Shipp Musser, Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1962. In her foreword, Mrs. Musser mentioned that while many of Dr. Shipp's writings, "particularly in the civic and professional fields, have been lost, numerous letters and personal papers remain." This, in addition to three hand-written documents-an early autobiography, a diary representing seven years, and a late autobiography "written after she was 83 years of age from the recollections of her lifetime." Editor Musser, toward the end of her Foreword (p. vii), states: "I have, over many years, compiled and edited my mother's autobiographies and diary, which she gave to me before she died with permission to publish them when I felt it appropriate." The compilation and edit duties did span "many years" for they were in daughter Ellis's possession for the quarter century between her mother's death and the book's publication when the editor herself was in her 83rd year. The portion of Dr. Shipp's writings accessible to researchers consists mainly in Her Diary and a volume of published poetry, titled Life Lines, some personal unpublished letters to her youngest daughter, now held in the L.D.S. Church Historical archives, a children's story or two, and some miscellaneous commemorative poetry published in periodicals of the time, plus her writings in the Salt Lake Sanitarian, privately published by her husband from 1888 to 1891. The archives of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers have a very few unpublished holdings under Dr. Shipp's name which are not presently available to researchers. These considerations have inclined this author toward a sharper focus-the seven years of diary keeping with their validity and immediacy-as a clear window through which to view Ellis Reynolds Shipp as she was, in the process of becoming. |