In 1938, Helen Ricks sailed off on a freighter to experience a part of the world that was so very different from her life in Virginia. Helen wrote of her adventures in a journal and years after her death, this journal was found by Helen Sablan, Ms. Ricks' great niece. As Helen read the words, she became inspired to trace the footsteps that were so vividly described and write of her own adventures.
From Samuel Pepys' diaries of the 1600's to Isak Dinesen's memoirs in Out of Africa first published in 1937, to the more recent Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes, readers have been interested in the true life experiences of people especially those that involve travel and fulfillment of dreams.
There are many travel books on bookstore and library shelves that feature cultural aspects of countries and cities. These are the books we buy before embarking on a trip to a foreign land. There are books on travel journaling, solo travel, modern women travelers, early day women travelers, and freighter travel; however, there is no book on the shelves that combines all of these aspects. Devotedly Dixie: Travel Journals of Two Helens has it all.