Book Review: The Ride of Her Life

Hi friends, and thanks for stopping by to read my book review of The Ride of Her Life.

It’s Cowgirl Monday and I’ve recently finished reading a book about a cowgirl, her horse, and their ride across America.

Yeah, Annie Wilkins is a nomad travelling on four hooves. I can relate to the nomad thing and I’ve been a life long horse lover. I’ve been waiting to read this book for quite a while since I first heard about it, but at $16 for a Kindle eBook, it’s a bit outside of my budget.

Around here I occasionally share free Kindle novels I’ve found on Amazon and a few times I’ll send out a Tweet or write a quick post when I’ve found a great deal on a book.

Disclosure: I’m an Amazon affiliate and if you click on the links in this article and make a purchase on Amazon, I’ll receive a small commission for the referral.

Finally on sale!

There are a few authors I check almost daily on Amazon to see if one of their books has gone on deal for free or really cheap. There are some books or authors I only occasionally think about checking. The Ride of Her Life by Elizabeth Letts is one of those books. $16 for an eBook? You gotta be kidding me! The paperback is $11. It’s cheaper to buy a real book I can hold in my hands instead of one that’s more convenient for me to carry inside my Kindle.

I wasn’t holding out much hope this book would ever go on sale, but for three or four years whenever I thought about it, I’d check on Amazon.

Nope, always too expensive.

At the end of April, 2025 Amazon held a book sale and sent a few suggestions my way. One is book by Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air, that I’ve already read – bought the paperback many years ago. And that’s another yikes at a regular price of $12 for the Kindle version. The paperback costs $8. On that day it was $1.99 for the Kindle. Yeah, sure, I’ll grab it and read it again.

Then I had a kind of “hmmm, I wonder” moment. I haven’t checked The Ride of Her Life in a long time. Let’s give it a shot.

SCORE! Got it at the price I was willing to pay – $1.99.

Annie Wilkins

The Ride of Her Life is the true story of Annie Wilkins who was diagnosed at age 63 with tuberculosis in 1954 and given two to four years to live. She was a dirt poor farmer and refused to take her doctor’s recommendation to become a charity case in a care home for invalids.

Annie lived a hard life as a farmer in Maine on a property that had been in the family for years, originally purchased by her grandfather. After she was diagnosed with TB she decided she wanted to see the Pacific Ocean before she died.

Annie had no money, no savings, and she was about to lose her farm because she couldn’t pay the back taxes, around $50. She heard about a company that sold pickles and they would advance farmers seeds and buy the dill pickles at harvest.

Against her doctor’s orders to rest, Annie worked hard all summer. From sun up to sun down she was in the fields, hoeing, and weeding, and harvesting the crop when the cucumbers were the right size. She canned the pickles and at the end of the season sold them back to the company. All this back breaking work netted her $100.

Annie bought a horse, Tarzan, and along with her dog Depeche Toi, headed south in late November.

No geographic conception

Annie has no real sense of the size of America or where the states are in relation to each other. All she knew was if she headed south she would hit warmer weather. Annie begins the long ride of her life in the late fall coming into winter. Her ride takes her through New England and other states that are known for snowy winters.

She does not have a map of the USA. Occasionally she picks up gas station maps, but those are usually just of the local geographic area.

Annie got as far south as Arkansas and Oklahoma. From there, it appears to be a good idea to just keep riding in a westerly direction through New Mexico and Arizona to reach California. She received an invitation to Cheyenne Frontier Days in Wyoming and headed north to participate in the parade. Annie had been given a letter to drop off to the governor of Idaho. She was determined to keep her word and play pony express.

Now that’s she’s in Boise, Idaho, she has to make her way through Oregon and then ride south to reach California.

As most of us who have studied American geography know, heading up to Idaho and Oregon is not the most direct route to California. Not by car and even slower by horse.

Kindness of strangers

Annie Wilkins relied on the kindness of strangers for her cross-America ride. She knocked on doors of farm houses and asked if her horse could stay in a stall for the night. She also asked if she could sleep in the barn.

Most of the farm owners were appalled to have a woman to sleep in the barn. What if word got out? Usually they offered her a room in the house, including a shower, dinner and breakfast.

Sometimes Annie slept in police stations. This was a common practice in the 1900s. Travellers who needed a bed for the night but couldn’t afford hotels often got a spot in a jail cell. Door left unlocked of course! The police officers usually provided Annie with meals.

Sometimes Annie didn’t need to knock on doors. Strangers often pulled their cars over and invited her to stay with them.

When Annie was in Tennessee, a group of townspeople gifted her a Tennessee Walking Horse named Rex. At first she was hesitant to take charity, after all Rex was an expensive looking horse. They said she can repay them by getting the word out about this amazing breed. Eventually Rex became her main riding horse and Tarzan transitioned into a pack horse.

Annie rode her horses most of the way across America. There were a few times when she and the horses were offered a ride. This was especially helpful in bad weather.

Unfortunately, Annie’s detour through Idaho caused her to become snowbound in Oregon. She found a room and a job. A much better decision than pressing on in the snow and ending up like the Donner Party!

Then came a break in the weather and she heard from one of her new friends that they knew a man who was going to take his truck and attempt to drive through the mountains into California. Luckily for Annie, there was room for her and the animals to hitch a ride.

Media coverage

Shortly after Annie began her journey, a car pulled over. She must have been quite a sight. A woman bundled up in several layers of clothes, a fully laden horse, and a dog running alongside. The man was a journalist and asked if he could interview her. The article was picked up by the AP (Associated Press) and ran in many newspapers across the country.

This generated TV news stories and Annie was unaware she was becoming a media sensation. Journalists began looking for her and asking for interviews. A scout for the Ed Sullivan show tracked Annie down and asked her to appear on the show. Annie didn’t own a TV set and had no idea who Ed Sullivan was. She declined the invite. Annie did not want to detour through New York City.

With the news coverage, Annie was able to get word out of the towns where she’d pick up her mail, care of general delivery. She received a lot of letters, many extending invitations for her and the animals to stay at their farms.

Residents who anticipated she might come through her town, set out in advance looking for her to invite her to be their guest. Often they came with a truck and horse trailer so Tarzan could be driven to their farm. Occasionally the police came looking for her, also with a horse trailer, because they decided traffic would be too dangerous for her to ride through their town.

California!

After nearly two years, Annie arrived in Los Angeles, California.

At this point, the book is showing about 60% read, so I figure some real good stuff is going to happen in California to fill up the rest of The Ride of Her Life.

Nope.

The last couple of pages happen really fast. Annie meets Art Linkletter and Groucho Marx and appears on their shows.

The end.

But there is an epilogue.

Amazingly, Annie lived until 1980, passing away at age 88. Greatly outliving her original diagnosis of two to four years.

The Ride of Her Life

So what is filling the last 40% of the book? The author, Elizabeth Letts, cites every resource and reference she uncovered while writing the book. And yes, a lot of research went into writing this book. Amazing dedication for someone in 2020 during the pandemic to write about a cross country journey from nearly 70 years ago. Most of the people who knew Annie are no longer alive. Pretty tough to find first person memories from those who met her on the road.

I felt the book went overboard listing all the references and acknowledgements. This is not a university dissertation where a professor will be verifying all the facts.

It’s understandable the price tag on this book because of all the time it took to research historical facts and retrace Annie’s route. Writing this book was an extremely time-consuming task. It must have been a labor of love for the author.

I still think $16 is overpriced for an eBook.

I’m glad I read the book. As a horsewoman and a nomad, The Ride of Her Life was definitely an excellent reading choice for me. Very happy I snagged the Kindle version when it was on sale.

The last of the saddle tramps

Throughout her ride, Annie often referred to herself as the last of the saddle tramps.

The above image is linked to Annie Wilkins page on the Minot Maine History Society’s website.

Happy Cowgirl Monday!

xoxo

Published by Cheryl @ The Lifestyle Digs on June 30, 2025.

More reading:

Check out this post from a previous Cowgirl Monday:

The Girl who Loves Horses and Dogs

6 Things I Love almost as much as Riding my Horse