Imagine the joy of visiting an ancestral home and discovering diaries describing your family, a town, and a country from 1913 through 1931. This Eureka! experience befell Sheryl Jones at her great-great grandparents’ home in Galena, Illinois, a river port town sustained in the early 20th century by its booming lead-mining industry. The diaries were the work of young Lillian Trudgian, the editor’s third cousin once removed. This edition of Lillian’s Diaries: Whispers from Galena’s Past is an expansive and fascinating history of the Trudgian family, their neighbors and the everyday pattern of life found in the first seven years of these diaries. An index of surnames mentioned in the diaries is included for readers interested in northern Illinois genealogy. For all those aficionados of family genealogy, for everyone interested in the history of northern Illinois and its place in the growth of this nation, and for all readers who simply love a good read, this is the book.