She was judged unfit for marriage.
They said I would never get married. In four years, twelve men looked at my wheelchair and left. But what happened next shocked everyone, including me.
My name is Elellanar Whitmore, and this is the story of how I went from being rejected by society to discovering a love so powerful that it changed history itself.
Virginia, 1856. I was 22 years old and considered a defective product. My legs had been useless since I was 8 years old. A horseback riding accident had broken my spine and trapped me in this mahogany wheelchair that my father had ordered.
But here's what no one understood. It wasn't the wheelchair that made me unfit for marriage. That was what it represented. A burden. A woman who couldn't be with her husband at parties. A person who, arguably, could not have children, could not manage a household, could not fulfill any of the responsibilities expected of a Southern wife.
Twelve marriage proposals arranged by my father. Twelve refusals, each more brutal than the last.
"She can't walk down the aisle." "My children need a mother to pursue them." "What's the point if she can't have children?" This last rumor, completely false, spread like wildfire in Virginia society. A doctor started speculating about my fertility without even examining me. Suddenly, I wasn't just disabled. I was flawed in every way that mattered to America in 1856.
When William Foster, a fat, drunken man of fifty, rejected me in spite of my father's offer of a third of the annual profits of our estate, I knew the truth. I would die alone.
But my father had other plans. Plans so radical, so shocking, so completely outside all social norms that, when he told me, I was certain I had misunderstood.
"I entrust you to Josiah," he said. "The blacksmith. He will be your husband. »
I looked at my father, Colonel Richard Whitmore, owner of 5,000 acres and 200 enslaved people, certain that he had lost his mind.
"Josiah," I whispered. "Father, Josiah is a slave."
