Elisa was born Elisa A. Wood on March 5, 1811 at New Bedford, Massachusetts. She married Elhanan Vanliew on June 30, 1831. The exact location of Elisa's home is not given in the diary, but certain place names are mentioned, Seneca Lake, Lodi, Ovid, etc., placing our diarist in Seneca County, between Seneca and Cayuga Lakes.

Elisa and Elhanan had a large family, the 1850 census shows that there were six children and three laborers in their household. By 1853 when this diary commences there were two additional children and she was pregnant with her ninth child while writing the diary.

Elisa writes daily, at least several lines a day, occasionally a full paragraph or two. She thanks the Lord for waking each day and thanks him for being able to rest her head at night. The entries often have a melancholy nature, including a morbid longing for the release of death. Her entries record her disappointment in her marriage with hints of spousal neglect, as well as the heavy burdens of caring for a large household and large and prosperous farm account for this.

In 1853, Elisa would have been about 42 years old and already the mother of eight children. She was pregnant while writing this diary, her ninth and final child was born in September of 1853. The day before the birth of her 9th child, Elisa begins to relate the disappointment in her marriage:

"I verily believed that there were many who enjoyed life together and I hoped to be one of that number. Truly marriage is a school from which I have learned much and often as I have looked in a sadness around our fireside and knew by the disinterested feeling which my companion manifested that he was unhappy have felt that the marriage state has the sanction of our heavenly Father, and although we pledged ourselves to live together as man and wife, the marriage relation has not been cherished and kept fulfilled in duties equally binding where there is no yielding to each others wishes, there cannot be fellowship both must yield to each others desires and wishes and if I know my own heart this would ever have been a great pleasure to me, now could this feeling yet be cherished we might, perhaps be happy in fulfilling our obligations to each other and do our duty."

Finally, on September 26th, 1853, her child is born, in the absence of her husband, and she thanks the Lord for his help:

"This morning (thanks to Him who has been my strength) for I had been perfect weakness had it not been for thy strengthening arm O Lord could not have been here this morning, but Thou hast Said in Thy word thou would save those in Child bearing that put their trust in Thee. Saturday at 6 o'clock at night my babe was born, and since that time have felt more sensible of my entire dependence on God that ever I have done, for it seemed to me that when I prayed for strength to be given me in this hour of trial (for surely this was a trying time for me Vanliew being absent, and regardless of my delicate situation) and I was immediately strengthened and have never suffered less on such an occasion am this morning able to sit up in bed to eat my breakfast and write a little...."

The writings are interesting as they document the hard life of a woman in the "Burnt Over District" of New York State. She was obviously affected by the religious revivalism of the day. However the religious enthusiasms surrounding her only seem to have reinforced her depressive nature.