My book club is reading Bold Spirit by Linda Lawrence Hunt, about "Helga Estby's forgotten walk across Victorian America," from Spokane to Manhattan.

To whet your interest, here's a summary from the book's back cover:

In 1896, a Norwegian immigrant and mother of eight children named Helga Estby was behind on taxes and the mortgage when she learned that a mysterious sponsor would pay $10,000 to a woman who walked across America. 

Hoping to win the wager and save her family’s farm, Helga and her teenaged daughter Clara, armed with little more than a compass, red-pepper spray, a revolver, and Clara’s curling iron, set out on foot from Eastern Washington. Their route would pass through 14 states, but they were not allowed to carry more than five dollars each. As they visited Indian reservations, Western boomtowns, remote ranches and local civic leaders, they confronted snowstorms, hunger, thieves and mountain lions with equal aplomb. 

Their treacherous and inspirational journey to New York challenged contemporary notions of femininity and captured the public imagination. But their trip had such devastating consequences that the Estby women's achievement was blanketed in silence until, nearly a century later, Linda Lawrence Hunt encountered their extraordinary story.

I won't spoil the story for you by disclosing the outcome of Helga's walk; however, the author's reflections In the last chapter are apropos for us family historians. Hunt cites six reasons family stories are "silenced":

1. ​Breaking a code -- the story breaks the code of cultural norms
2. Underestimating the worth -- others underestimate the value of a person's experiences
3. Sealing the shame -- stories that family members consider shameful often stay silenced
4. Believing one's story is incomprehensible -- the experiences are simply beyond the understanding of other family members
5. Keeping the peace -- family members try to maintain fragile family bonds by "not talking about it"
6. Avoiding the anger -- by staying silent, the person avoids hearing about the family's resentment

Let's not allow "silencing" to happen in our families. Tell the whole story, even if it causes some short-term discomfort.