Some things I read to try to keep the hope alive: The Enthusiast by Brad Montague Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson Rep. Hilary Scholten on BlueSky (this is my house representative; I encourage you to find your own) The 1619 Project Normal Women: Nine Hundred Years of Making History
Posts
Of my four great-grandmothers, I only ever met one of them. Great-grandmother Sylvia died in 1943, before my dad was even born. He thought of his grandpa Bert’s second wife Edith, whom Bert married when my dad was only a year old, as his grandma. Edith passed away in 1963, so I didn’t know her either. Great-grandmother Alta (whom everyone called by her middle name Gladys) died just twenty days before I was born, so though there are pictures of me with her husband Vergil when I was a baby, I never met her either. Great-Grandmother Cora (whom everyone called Anna, a nickname version of her middle name Annis) died in 1951, before my mom was even born. She thought of her grandpa Bert’s second wife Irene, whom Bert married when my mom was only two years old, as her grandma. Irene passed away before I was two years old, and I don’t think I met her. (But Irene was her middle name, of course.) And yes, both my parents had a Grandpa Bert. Dad's was Albert Eugene, and Mom's was John Albe...
postcard to Sylvia from her sister Goldie, 1914 My great-grandmother Sylvia was born in 1886 in rural Indiana. She was nine years old when her father, a farmer and a Civil War veteran, died of a stroke. Her mother married again, and Sylvia lived in her stepfather and mother’s home until she was married at the age of twenty years. Her oldest daughter was born only six months after she was married. When I once brought this tidbit up at a family reunion, more than 100 years later, Sylvia’s son-in-law replied in a completely deadpan voice, “You have to be sure there’s somebody to inherit the farm.” Further checking into the facts reveals that his eldest daughter was also conceived out of wedlock. Obviously today having a baby before a wedding is usually no longer quite as scandalous as it used to be. The thing is, it happened a lot more often when it was scandalous than we, living today, might think. There was a code of silence among families about such things for centuries. Wom...
Susan B. Anthony in 1890 “Thus have we done a thing altogether unknown in the history of this country; a thing which would have feared all former politicians; a thing, which, if our old Whig politicians were now to hear, they would turn in their graves . If we have made peace with France, thus increased in power, we ought to enquire what are likely to be the consequences of such a measure.” (The Parliamentary Register: Or an Impartial Report of the Debates that Have Occurred in the Two Houses of Parliament, Volume 1, 1802). This quotation is from a 4 November 1801 House of Commons speech by a Mr. Windham on Britain giving too much power to France while negotiating to end the revolutionary wars. It is, as far as scholars can tell, the first use of the phrase “turn in their graves,” and it was meant to indicate that hearing such news would cause the people great unrest, even in death. If our mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and ancestors back to the b...
Saturday 5 April 2025 I found violets in the front lawn when I came back from my walk on Monday. Violets will always put me in mind of my grandma, my dad’s mom, who collected anything with violets on it, from cheap plastic window ornaments to gilded English china and everything in between. In her last months, just after my grandpa’s passing, I can remember her, a pale and grieving shadow of her former self, stumbling through her yard picking violets to bring inside, using a plastic juice cup as a vase. I now have a few of her treasured pieces - a couple of fragile teacups, miniature candlesticks only large enough for a birthday candle, a small china clock with an extremely loud tick that takes a battery size that soon they won’t make anymore. My mom, my sister, my aunt, my girl cousins have the rest. Someday my daughter will have mine; she and my nieces will have the ones my mom and sister keep now. Stuff, yes, but stuff that puts us in mind of her; even though the day is rapidl...