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This chapter discusses two journals which reflect Rebecca's life following her childhood entries in Flowers in Frolic. In the first journal Rebecca wrote of her experiences with William and reminisced about him immediately after his departure. In the second, Rebecca reflected on her relationship with her husband and her role as a wife while William was away, as well as her concern that William continue to act as a faithful husband. Throughout these two journals Rebecca established important components of her life narrative. She defined her husband's personality and character, created her own persona, located her own position in society, and finally illustrated the nature of her relationship with her husband.

This chapter describes passages from the autograph journal of Rebecca Burgess (neé Crowell), entitled Flowers in Frolic, and the reflections therein; which, when coupled with corroborating historical evidence, paints her as a middle-class woman of moderate privilege, a woman whose community was intrinsically important to her identity and a community whose character was not changing, despite the economic transition of Massachusetts from a rural to an industrial economy. This book establishes Rebecca's world for the reader of her journals: it reveals her gentility with references to religious and ethical tropes in the writing; it introduces her community as a network of friends and relations who cared about her; it reflects her connection with William two years before they married; and it also shows that Rebecca was no stranger to loss at an early age.

This chapter examines the ways in which Rebecca engaged in negotiating between multiple identities simultaneously. Her multiple identities speak to the way in which she wanted to be remembered, and her embrace of different personas reflects a practice in which all humans engage. All people employ different identities at the same time, and these identities are complex and socially constructed. What makes Rebecca unusual is the way she inscribed all her identities and retained those narratives for the public to peruse. Rebecca's identities suggested what was important to her—country, kin, community, and, of course, her ongoing “relationship” with William.

This chapter shows how Rebecca's journals reveal the transition of her personality from young bride to sea captain's wife. Rebecca's entries illustrate new facets of her relationship with William, which depict his personality aboard ship. Throughout her journey, Rebecca noted both her reliance on and independence from traditional Victorian definitions of womanhood. She became a social commentator on sailors and their lives, as well as the lands she visited, and revealed her sentiments about life on the sea by using language to justify her position away from the defined domestic sphere of traditional womanhood. She cast herself as the protagonist of an adventure story, enjoying and writing down in great detail the experiences of maritime life. Her journals reflect her growing sense of self, as defined by the maritime world of which she had become a part.