Simple Gifts: A Memoir of a Shaker Village

Sprigg, who has published several books (By Shaker Hands) about the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, or Shakers, spent three summers in the early 1970s living and working as a tour guide at the Shaker village of Canterbury, N.H. Although she never completely embraced the Shaker dogma, as a college student she was profoundly influenced by the months she spent with the seven aged Shaker women who were the only surviving inhabitants of the village. In this loving recreation of Shaker life, the author provides a history of the religion as well as interesting biographical sketches of the residents. Despite a strict belief in celibacy that was responsible for the dwindling number of adherents, Sprigg describes Lillian, Bertha and Gertrude, the three elders with whom she had the closest contact, as having led lives that included nurturing children who had been brought to their settlements. During the summers the author came to admire and respect their good-humored dedication to a life of prayer, hard work and nonviolence. And readers will feel deep poignancy in this engaging book when Sprigg writes, ""The Shakers I knew best are all gone now."" (June)