It Takes A Matriarch is the second of four books about the extended Reiss and Basler families who settled on a small farm in St. Clair County, Illinois in 1834 and 1839, respectively. It includes 780 letters saved by first generation Margaret Basler Reiss Ebert from 1852 to 1888. Some letters were phonetic English but most had to be translated from old German. Authors were Margaret's siblings, their spouses, her children, their spouses, her grandchildren, and two friends. They mention serving in the Civil War, personal challenges, life in St. Louis and Sacramento and Davenport, and the lost family fortune. One author was friends with John Wilkes Booth who shot President Lincoln.