Days of Our Lives: This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance!
We wake up each day to a new story. Or, more accurately, a new chapter in the story of our lives. Each day builds the story, the story we tell about ourselves and the story we tell ourselves.
That’s how Jonathan Evison cleverly constructs the story of Harriet Chance in his new novel, This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! Each chapter is a day in 78-year-old Harriet’s life. We travel through the days of her life, zooming from the present to past and back again. We’re not on a chronological journey. Instead, we’re visiting the days that build a life, some ordinary and some extraordinary.
But what else was on happening on those days? What other stories were being written while Harriet’s life was unfolding? We took a look at the world events from some of the chapter dates in This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! Here are some of the historic footnotes to the days of our lives:
July 4, 1938
This was the first time federal employees got a paid day off for the Fourth of July. The date had first been declared a federal holiday in 1870.
March 13, 2003
Utah teenager Elizabeth Smart, who had been kidnapped from her bedroom in June 2002, was found alive. “Every time I thought I hit rock bottom, somehow these people would find something new, something worse,” Smart told U.S. News in 2013, when her memoir, My Story, was published. She started the Elizabeth Smart Foundation to prevent crimes against children.
July 1, 1966
Medicare benefits became available for the first time. President Harry S Truman enrolled as the first beneficiary out of the 19 million people who signed up. He received the first Medicare card. Lyndon B. Johnson had signed the Medicare law on July 30, 1965.
May 18, 1980
Mount Saint Helens in Washington state erupted, “the largest terrestrial landslide in recorded history,” according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The summit was reduced by 1,300 feet. “Within 3 minutes, the lateral blast, traveling at more than 300 miles per hour, blew down and scorched 230 square miles of forest. Within 15 minutes, a vertical plume of volcanic ash rose over 80,000 feet.” The volcanic ash cloud encircled Earth in 15 days. 
Fifty-seven people died. This History Channel video looks back at the days leading up to the eruption (and it’s set to “Should I Stay Or Should I Go” by The Clash.)
September 9, 1957
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1957. It was the first civil rights act since Reconstruction.
November 4, 1966
The Arno River in Florence, Italy, flooded the city, killing 101 people and destroying many great works of art and rare books. It was considered the city’s worst flood in more than 400 years.
Do you remember any of these days? What were you doing? Tell us in the Comment below.
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I was ten years old when Mt St Helens erupted. I remember watching the CBS news on our little b&w kitchen TV while seeing pictures of trees and homes being destroyed. All of the ash covering everything in Washington state was fascinating. As a ten year old, I thought it would be pretty cool if an ash cloud would actually reach my home state of South Dakota. As a forty-five year old, its pretty terrifying.
I remember May 18, 1980. I live in Washington state and this date is forever embedded in my memory. I was headed out that Sunday morning on a jeep ride in the mountains around Cashmere, WA. What I thought were storm clouds headed my direction were the ash storm from this eruption. It was soon dropping ash, and everything turned dark as the sun was covered. It lasted for days, and was a horrible time for everyone. I never did take the jeep ride in the mountains.
Jonathan Evison has verbalized the fears and joys of a woman, Harriet Chance, who has reached the age of 78 and is looking forward to enjoying her final years just drifting along as she has done since the day she was born. In his accurate portrayal of Harriet he has touched upon a nerve with me, as I, too, was born in 1936, and although I have never married or given birth to children, I too am caring for someone who is ill and who is unable to cope with the poor health God has forced upon her, or so she says. It is as if Jonathan was able to get into Harriet’s skin and share with the reader Harriet’s long life and her last days and her experiences with her approaching death… the forgetfulness, the absent mindedness, the confusion and little “mini strokes” and even the anger with herself as these are all signs with which I can identify, as I, too, find myself entering a room and wondering why I am there and forgetting where I put the shopping list upon entering the supermarket, and trying to remember which pills have already been taken. Jonathan has made me feel that I am not alone in feeling these things because it is almost the norm for women approaching the age of 80 to experience these problems. And I thank him for his masterful use of humor in describing Harriet’s lot in life. It is by far the best book I have read in the past 5 years. I plan on purchasing Jonathan’s other books as well.