Take some quality time getting to know Charity and Sylvia

Sylvia, left, and Charity, right, among their neighbors in Weybridge. Art by Tillie Walden.

Charity & Sylvia is a love story by Tillie Walden that follows the relationship of Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake, which began in 1807 in the town of Weybridge, Vermont. Walden describes the story as a “nearly true” historical account, filling some gaps with her imagination and heightening some details “in the spirit of drama.”

It’s a sensitively told story, narratively and visually—a window into the lives of a same-sex couple more than 200 years ago. The main characters are layered and distinctive, and we come to care about them as we follow them across their lives together.

My two daughters, Shannon and Tara, gave me the book as a birthday present. Perhaps it was looking into their now-adult faces as I unwrapped the gift that filled my reading with thoughts about time. Whatever the reason, I found myself thinking about time in three ways: the time Walden invested in making the book, time as it passed in the story, and time as it related to the heart of Charity and Sylvia’s story.

Time invested

Author Tillie Walden was once a competitive ice skater. I’ll bet her wrist is as strong as her ankles after poring over almost 250 pages of hand-drawn material in Charity & Sylvia.

My first thought when I pulled the wrapped book from my gift bag was, “Ooh, nice heft.” (Insightful, I know.) After unwrapping the book and flipping through it, I thought, “That’s a lot of pictures.” In all, there are almost 2,500 illustrated panels spread across 250 pages, plus 20 or so additional pages of hand-lettered chapter titles, maps, and other storytelling devices. Most panels are arranged in a rigid 12-panel grid, three panels wide and four deep.

A typical 12-panel grid, with plenty going on. Art by Tillie Walden.

More doesn’t mean better, of course. Amount of elbow grease expended does not equate to quality (just like having counted 2,500 panels for this article does not make it better, but I wanted you to know). Producing a high panel count on deadline is more likely to decrease quality. What makes the number of drawings especially noteworthy in Charity & Sylvia is that they never feel rushed.

Walden invests time and care in each panel. Pen strokes are patient, intentional, and controlled. I can sense Walden’s steady hand methodically laying down the lines of a bonnet or her thought pattern as she contemplates how to render the rays of the sun.

The small size of each panel (2 inches wide by 2⅛ inches high in the book) limits content, yet the level of attention is consistent throughout. Walden directs our focus through selective details, such as shingles on a roof or snowflakes in a sky. Each panel rewards attention.

Many panels contain more than one word balloon, carefully but tightly fitted around the figures. The amount of text sometimes teeters on the edge of too much, but rarely crosses it. The clarity of the lettering ensures readability. The word-dense narrative occasionally gives way to expertly timed, wordless panels—visual storytelling that communicates as much as the word balloons.

A four-panel excerpt from a wordless page. Moments like this made immediate emotional connections. I could feel her foot touching the floor. Art by Tillie Walden.

Time passing

The result of all this thoughtful planning and execution is a deliberate reading pace. The content within the panels further encourages readers to linger.

The 1800s English spoken by the characters, inspired by Charity and Sylvia’s own writings, doesn’t match our faster, more direct 2026 cadence. The voices in the story come from a time when language was more formal and eloquence was prized. The book is filled with elegant dialogue, prayers, and poems.

The story doesn’t yank readers along with a bounding plot. Most of the story unfolds through slower, engaging passages about everyday life, such as conversations about weather, gossip, the pressures of work, and family squabbles. Major life events—joyous births, gut-wrenching deaths, and grueling hardships—are woven into everyday life and amplified by the familiarity and feeling we develop for the characters.

References to historical events, bookended by the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, mark the passage of time, but Walden is careful not to let the backdrop overtake the story. A more meaningful measure of time is the aging of Charity and Sylvia, who are 30 and 23, respectively, when they meet. They change as people do as they grow older. More wrinkled, more frail, more afflicted by maladies. They care for one another until Charity’s passing at 74.

Time at the heart of Charity and Sylvia’s story

Charity & Sylvia is a love story about two women who fell in love 219 years ago, in a very different time, yet their story is told with tenderness and insight that makes their love real and relatable.

Walden tells us in the book’s afterword:

❝

“It was never hard for me to connect to their story because I look out my window and see a sight very similar to theirs. My home, like theirs, is a queer one. It is in Vermont, on a dirt road, near a farm. I too fight worms on my trees, watch the leaves change color, get buried in snow, and sit by the fire. Like Charity, I toil over words. Like Sylvia, I pray for those I love.”

I don’t want to presume how Walden’s own experiences may or may not have shaped her portrayal of Charity and Sylvia, but empathy seems to permeate some heartbreaking moments:

When Charity and Sylvia gaze at a ring that symbolizes the marriage they cannot legally have—a ring they keep hidden because they can’t wear it in public.
When they gaze at newborn babies knowing they will not have one of their own.
When Charity, who feels her time may be running short, protects Sylvia by burning poems and letters she’d written to her. “There is far too much detail,” she says, fearing the letters might one day be discovered.

My heart broke. As a married man and father, I could sympathize, but I could not truly empathize. I’ve never experienced such restrictions.

Art by Tillie Walden.

Vermont did not legally recognize marriage between same-sex couples until 2009. Charity and Sylvia therefore could not marry in the legal sense, even though their relationship was understood and respected within their community. Same-sex relationships in Charity and Sylvia’s time could bring gossip, scorn, ostracism, or worse. Charity tells Sylvia, “We would not find comfort or acceptance in any other land.”

By “any other land,” Charity means anywhere other than Weybridge, a town that blew away my expectations. I don’t know what I expected exactly—crazed, intolerant townspeople from some relative dark age brandishing torches and pitchforks? Not so.

Weybridge embraced Charity and Sylvia, even if there was some level of discomfort with same-sex relationships. Their union was well known. The community regarded them as a couple. Poet William Cullen Bryant, Charity’s nephew, wrote about his aunts that they “took each other as companions for life” in a union that was “no less sacred to them than the tie of marriage.” The couple were liked, respected, and active members of the community. They were also prosperous businesspeople, which was uncommon for women of the time.

Still, the couple felt the need to be careful, avoiding public displays that might risk the status quo. In a scene both beautiful and sad, the two hide behind a tree to share a kiss.

Charity and Silvia share an intimate moment while hiding out of sight in the shade of a tree. Art by Tillie Walden.

That acceptance extended to the Weybridge Congregational Church. Charity was a church leader, and Sylvia taught Sunday school. One of the church’s pastors, Eli Moody, became a lifelong friend and regarded the couple as trusted confidants. Faith is a recurring theme throughout the book. Charity expresses hers through poetic, passionate prayers, while Sylvia’s deeply rooted faith is accompanied by recurring feelings of guilt—feelings Charity shares, though less outwardly.

Final thought

I felt a striking dichotomy in Charity & Sylvia. The book is about the complexities surrounding a same-sex relationship centuries ago—and, at the same time, almost not at all. Instances when the couple’s sexuality is directly addressed, as heartfelt as they are, blend into everyday life, where familiarity makes such distinctions simultaneously meaningful and unimportant.

Little bits

By the end of my reading, I felt like I’d lived a lifetime in the 1800s among the people of Weybridge, Vermont.
One chapter in the book describes a snowstorm in July, an example of the devastating weather of 1816, when many Weybridge residents struggled through illness and death, endured ruined crops, or left in search of better conditions. The event is presented from the limited perspective of 1816 Weybridge residents, who didn’t understand the cause of the weather. A little background reading in the comfort of my climate-controlled dining room revealed that 1816 is referred to as the Year Without a Summer, when atmospheric effects from the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia blocked sunlight and cooled much of the Northern Hemisphere. Good storytelling, sharp editing.
Perhaps it was the theme of faith throughout the book, but the layout of the chapters, each with a title at the top, reminded me of a hymnal.
The book is not a breezy reading experience. Take your time. I got the most out of it by reading about 18–20 pages per day for two weeks.
I don’t want to suggest, by describing the difficulties faced by a same-sex couple in 1807, that same-sex couples in 2026 are relatively free from discrimination or hardship; they certainly are not.
Pages 241–245 are brilliant, without a word, poetically expressing devastation following loss and then slowly coming back to life.
Pay special attention to the last panel of each chapter. There are some jewels.