Meet Tessa from Laura Frantz’s An Uncommon Woman

Welcome to Novel PASTimes! We are pleased you stopped by today, Miss Tessa Swan. 

Much obliged. Pardon me as I trade my soiled apron for a clean cambric one. My flyaway hair and untied bonnet strings shall stay. 

Tell us something about your family? What’s it like living with five brothers?

Squirrely! Especially when you’re fifth in the family and the only girl. Let’s see, there’s Jasper, the eldest and the most hog-headed. Then there’s Lemuel, Zadock, Cyrus… And Ross, the baby, only he’s bigger than me now. I’m most partial to Ross given I helped raise him. Of all my brothers, Ross keeps his face to the sun. Always sees the bright side. He’s most like Pa, you see. Only Pa was felled by Indians awhile back. 

I heard tell of one Swan who’s been called a fearsome wrinkle of a woman in homespun. Who might that be? 

That would be Aunt Hester. She’d as soon spit at than speak to you. She fancies herself the spinster queen of Fort Tygart, if for no other reason than she’s likely the oldest woman in the territory. And surely the meanest. I say all this without rancor as I do love her, ornery as she is. 

Is there anything special about your name? 

Tessa? It sounds right pretty, some say, with Swan attached. ‘Twas my granny’s name. She hailed from Scotland. Our family Bible penned it Teresa but somehow it got shortened to Tessa. I like my name. The French and Indian War hero, Clayton Tygart, remarked on it, too, when we first met. He called it uncommon. In a territory of so many Janes and Marthas and Anns I’ll keep it, thank you. 

What do you like most about where you live?

Aside from it being uncommon dangerous, you mean? I liken western Virginia to the Garden of Eden after the fall, breathtakingly beautiful but spoiled by the serpent, by so many hardships and trials. The Buckhannon is one of the most beautiful rivers I’ve ever seen. Actually, it’s the only river I’ve ever seen. I’d like to remedy that.

I hear a lament in your voice. Would you like to live somewhere else?

I’ve heard tell of overmountain places like Philadelphia. Williamsburg. Where folks don’t have to watch their backs or fear for their very lives. I’d like to know what’s it like for a body to rest easy, to look in shop windows and partake of a meal they didn’t have to cook in an ordinary or sit in what’s called a pew in a church with a big bell that rings you right in. One day, maybe…

What is your heart’s deepest desire?

To find a man who is brave yet loves books. Most men I know can’t read nor write. I do both but have never met a man who manages both, too, except for the fort’s storekeeper, old as yesterday’s breeches. 

What are you most afraid of?

Being taken captive by Indians like my beloved childhood friend, Keturah Braam. We were out picking strawberries when she vanished, quick as a blink. I recall it clear as yesterday though more than a dozen years have passed since. She was my bosom friend. Nobody’s come close since. 

Thanks for allowing us to get know you a little better!

Mighty kind of you. Thank you!