Theodore Sargent wrote the book on Elaine! The best biography, that is.
Here is Ted's BIO:
Theodore D. Sargent
I am presently a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biology at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, MA. I had published extensively as a behavioral ecologist, including a 1976 book on the underwing moths (Legion of Night, Univ. Mass. Press) while at the university. But after my retirement in 1999, I began to focus on other interests, including a compilation of literary references to New England birds – with the goal of eventually publishing a “Words on Birds” reference book.
That goal was temporarily sidetracked, however, by the fortuitous discovery of hundreds of personal letters and other memorabilia of one of the poets who had attracted my attention with regard to birds. This poet was Elaine Goodale (1863-1953) from the tiny town of Mt. Washington in the Berkshire mountains of western Massachusetts. Elaine, along with her sister, Dora, had attracted considerable attention as the young authors of Apple Blossoms: Poems of Two Children (1878, Putnam). Indeed, Elaine actually authored, or co-authored with her sister, four books (mostly poetry) before she reached her eighteenth birthday!
Elaine Goodale would go on to live a long and complicated life – includingextensive experience teaching Native Americans, especially on the Great Sioux Reservation in what was then the Dakota Territory. She was present at Pine Ridge at the time of the Wounded Knee massacre, and had announced her engagement to the Sioux physician, Dr. Charles A. Eastman, just prior to that event. Their marriage would eventually yield six children, and some seventeen books – often written jointly – while the couple lived primarily in Amherst, Massachusetts. This long life, replete with many trials and tribulations, and illuminated by Elaine’s own letters, provided the material for my 2005 biography, The Life of Elaine Goodale Eastman (Univ. of Nebraska Press).
From our present point of view, it seems important to note that Elaine continued to write poetry throughout her long and sometimes trying life. Her poems, in fact, provided what I felt were the best available insights into her inner attitudes and feelings throughout her life. Most of these poems were eventually published in her 1930 collection, The Voice at Eve (Bookfellows, Chicago). This poetry, though rather dated by today’s standards, does provide important material that should help us understand this unquestionably complex and courageous woman.
Meanwhile, my own pursuits include further studies on moths, more research onthe Eastman’s, and preparation of a selection of my own poems under the tentative title: Ted’s World: Women-Moths-Ephemera.