Elaine Goodale Eastman (1863 - 1953) and Dora Read Goodale (1866 - 1915) were American poets and sisters.

They were born in Mount Washington, Massachusetts and grew up on their father's farm. They showed remarkable poetic precocity. Poems of Elaine appeared as early as her eighth year, in Sky Farm Life, a monthly conducted by herself. In 1887 verses of both sisters began to appear in Saint Nicholas and their contributions to periodicals were thereafter frequent. The most noteworthy of their books are:

1911 novel by Elaine Goodale Eastman, illustrations by Angel De Cora and William Henry Dietz

• Apple Blossoms (1878)
• In Berkshire with the Wildflowers (1879)
• All Round the Year (1880)
• Verses from Sky Farm (1880)

In 1881 Elaine published The Journal of a Farmer's Daughter. Two years later she became teacher in the Hampton (Va.) Institute, a historically black college for the education of freedmen and Indians. In 1885 Goodale made a tour of observation through the Sioux Reservation.

In the next year she received a government appointment to teach Indians at the White River Camp. In 1890 Goodale was made superintendent of all Indian boarding schools in South Dakota.

In 1891 she married Dr. C. A. Eastman, a mixed-race Sioux doctor. They had six children. She witnessed many monumental events in Sioux history, such as the aftermath of the Wounded Knee Massacre, which scarred her deeply. Her marriage was strained but the couple remained together for three decades.

Elaine Goodale Eastman wrote a book about her experiences as a Sioux school teacher called Sister to the Sioux. She published her last book of poems, The Voice at Eve, in 1930; it included a generous biographical essay entitled "All the Days of My Life."

Dora Read Goodale wrote Heralds of Easter (1887).

• This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.

[edit] External links

• Dr. Ruth Ann Alexander, "Elaine Goodale Eastman and the Failure of the Feminist Protestant Ethic", Great Plains Quarterly, Spring 1988

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