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.
