Meeting!

We met on January 7. Frances, Carolyn, and Amanda came to my house. Reid didn’t attend—something about bringing the baby home from the hospital….

One Thousand White Women proved an interesting jumping off point for exploration. Amanda watched two films, The Long Riders and Jessie James (the old one, not the recently released one) Both deal with the West and the Indian Wars, in the same time frame as OTWW.

Frances found a fascinating volume—Texas Women on the Cattle Trails, edited by Sara R. Massey. The book tells the stories of 16 women who drove cattle during the last half of the 19th century. These women, like the heroine of OTWW, stepped out of conventional roles and took on many hardships. (you left the book at my house, Frances. I’ll bring it to you)

Carolyn read Where the Road Goes by Joanne Greenberg, who, under the name of Hannah Greene, wrote I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. It is a book of diaries and letters and concerns a grandmother who, following a cause, decided to leave her children and grandchildren to walk across the country. Her family objects, tragedy ensues.

My search for plucky women who take a leap into the unknown lead me to Amy Bloom’s recent book Away. Lillian Leyb flees to New York after all her family is killed in a pogrom in Russia. When word comes that her daughter may have survived, she tries to get back home, by crossing the US, traveling through Canada to cross the Bering Strait. Stepping off into the unknown, indeed! Locally, we have the example of Emily Howland, who left her comfortable New England life to found a school for the children of freed slaves in Northumberland County. There’s a book in the library, Miss Emily, by Mildred D. Myers, classified historical fiction.