The Evans journal begins on the day that her 17-year-old son John dies, cut down "in the bloom of health, in the beauty and vigour of youth" (4/28/1827). Over the next 17 years, the anniversaries of his birthday (2/5), death (4/29), and burial (5/1) serve as occasions for recollection and spiritual self-assessment. (So, too, do Christmas and New Year's Day.) Throughout the volume, Evans copies and composes scriptural and poetical verses that serve to transform her diary into a kind of commonplace book.
 
Although Evans regularly mourns the death of her son John, she also expresses concern for her other children, three of whom were enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania during a cholera outbreak. She writes, "The cholera that awful scourge which has been so long feared, has at last reached our city, and filled us with a dread and terror
 
every precaution that frail man could device is resorted to, to meet the fell destroyer—neither country nor town is exempt from its ravages" (7/25/1832).
 
Evans closes her journal on her 63rd birthday, 17 years after the death of her child, and "Sixteen years since I entered into Covenant with My God" (4/28/1844).

The Harriet Verena Evans journal is unlike any other in the APS collections. Evans began journaling late in life—on her 46th birthday, the same day that her 17-year-old son John died. Her recollections never stray far from that trauma. She returns to the death of her son with regularity, and his life appears to shape the form of her diary: she composes entries for exactly 17 years (4/28/1827-4/28/1844). The Evans diary is also unusual for its mode of composition. Interweaving homage to her son, scripture, religious self-assessment, and collected poetry, the Evans diary blends a woman's spiritual diary with a commonplace book. It is a remarkable volume that ought to interest researchers investigating women's history, antebellum mourning customs, and religious practice during the Second Great Awakening.
 
The Evans journal begins on the day that her 17-year-old son John dies, cut down "in the bloom of health, in the beauty and vigour of youth" (4/28/1827). Over the next 17 years, the anniversaries of his birthday (2/5), death (4/29), and burial (5/1) serve as occasions for recollection and spiritual self-assessment. (So, too, do Christmas and New Year's Day.) Throughout the volume, Evans copies and composes scriptural and poetical verses that serve to transform her diary into a kind of commonplace book.
 
Although Evans regularly mourns the death of her son John, she also expresses concern for her other children, three of whom were enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania during a cholera outbreak. She writes, "The cholera that awful scourge which has been so long feared, has at last reached our city, and filled us with a dread and terror
 
every precaution that frail man could device is resorted to, to meet the fell destroyer—neither country nor town is exempt from its ravages" (7/25/1832).
 
Evans closes her journal on her 63rd birthday, 17 years after the death of her child, and "Sixteen years since I entered into Covenant with My God" (4/28/1844).