Confessions of a Late-Blooming History Buff

I have a confession to make. I wasn’t always a history buff and did not grow up dreaming about archives, nineteenth-century newspapers, or the private correspondence of America’s First Ladies. In fact, my unlikely journey into history began with something far less glamorous: Trying to read Julia Gardiner Tyler’s handwriting.

It Started with a Stack of Letters

Chris was researching his biography, President Without a Party: The Life of John Tyler, when I began helping him transcribe letters written by former First Lady Julia Gardiner Tyler.

There were flourishes and ink blots. and words that seemed to disappear into other words. Sentences that required staring, squinting, comparing letters, and occasionally wondering whether Julia herself could have read what she had written.

Julia had the handwriting only-a-mother-could-love.

The Past Became Personal

Once you spend enough time with someone’s letters, history begins to feel very different. Julia was no longer simply a First Lady in a history book. She was funny, ambitious, complicated, determined, dramatic, politically aware, and endlessly interesting. Her personality and life was right there on the page.

Suddenly, history wasn’t about memorizing dates or remembering what I had been taught in school. It was about people. It was about figuring out why they made the choices they did, what they cared about, how they saw themselves, and sometimes what later generations got wrong about them.

From Transcribing Her Letters to Writing Her Story

Years later, Chris and I found ourselves returning to Julia. The woman whose handwriting had first pulled me into history had left behind a story more interesting than the familiar descriptions of the glamorous young First Lady who married President John Tyler. The deeper we looked, the more there was to discover.

That research eventually became our forthcoming biography, Presidentess: The Life of First Lady Julia Gardiner Tyler. Intersting how I started out trying to decipher Julia’s words and now Chris and I have written a book devoted to recovering her life story.

You Don’t Have to Be a Lifelong History Buff

That experience is one of the reasons we created History in Two Voices. Finding fellow history lovers “in the wild” isn’t always easy. We wanted to build a place where people could discover fascinating stories, ask questions, share memories, and enjoy history without feeling as though they needed an advanced degree or a photographic memory for dates.

Sometimes all it takes is one person, one photograph, one newspaper clipping — or one spectacularly difficult nineteenth-century handwriting sample — to send you down the rabbit hole. And I would know. It happened to me.

And I’m very glad it did. :)

✨ Follow along at History in Two Voices, where we believe history comes alive when we meet the people behind it.

Coming September 2026

Click on link below to pre-order our forthcoming biography, Presidentess: The Life of First Lady Julia Gardiner Tyler, (Univ Press of Kansas, Sept 8). Use 24LADYJULIA for 30% off at checkout for a limited time.