@jinglepostman @KarenStrickholm Thank you both for the wonderful list of book recommendations.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm last edited by
@KarenStrickholm @jinglepostman Definitely a novelistic story.
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@wdlindsy @KarenStrickholm @jinglepostman to take nothing away from the cherished ancestor or her headress & sumptuous flowers, look at the simplicity of the handmade dress with the pearl trim & the perfect drape of the skirt overlay
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@wdlindsy @KarenStrickholm @jinglepostman Interesting family history. We forget TB here in the US, but it remains a scourge in the world. Getting back to books, I learned that by reading _Mountains Beond Mountains_, an inspiring biography of the late Dr Paul Farmer. (Incidentally, my Brooklyn great aunt survived TB in an Adirondack sanitorium & went on to marry a physician she met there).
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Elizabeth S. last edited by
@jinglepostman Frances actually had two maiden sisters who raised their son. Frances' father was from Canton and her mother from Peabody. They were an admirable family in that they stressed education. Frances' mother was a Mount Holyoke graduate. The family sent their daughters back from Arkansas to Massachusetts for education: Frances to Wellesley, Mary to Mount Holyoke, Ruth to Abbott. Then the three daughters went on to do graduate degrees — accomplished women.
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@3dogcouch @KarenStrickholm @jinglepostman Yes, we tend to have forgotten TB — and I fear many communicable diseases we've forgotten about could surge back as people get bitten by bugs of vaccination denialism. I attended an interesting lecture last year about TB treatment which told me something I had not known: that there was a stigma attached to it for young women because myths claimed women got TB for being licentious.
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@3dogcouch @KarenStrickholm @jinglepostman I fear this snippet from the newspaper article about their marriage (Arkansas Gazette, 18 June 1921) is murky, but it describes the dress in detail. The article also features the same picture of Frances in her wedding dress I shared. The photo I shared was my grandmother's. She and my grandfather attended the wedding.
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@wdlindsy @KarenStrickholm @jinglepostman Lovely. Orange blossoms in her hair!
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@3dogcouch @KarenStrickholm @jinglepostman I have a set of photos that must have been taken on her wedding day as she and her sisters prepared for her wedding. They were all out on the back porch of her family, helping each other fix their hair, and so on — really charming photos of the three of them looking happy on a bright June day as one prepared to marry.
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Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @jinglepostman Another fascinating photo! Oh yes I can see that's a handsome man of the upper class.
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Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @3dogcouch @jinglepostman Wow I'd love to see those if you have shots!
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@wdlindsy @KarenStrickholm @jinglepostman oh wow, I had never heard that before! It is hard to imagine Aunt Mary licentious...
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@3dogcouch @KarenStrickholm @jinglepostman Same for me with my female family members who died of TB. Two of my mother's aunts died young of TB — and once I learned about that stigma that loose women got it, I saw some stories I had long heard about gossipy women in their town in a new light. Gossips said they took unchaperoned train trips wearing fashionable skimpy clothes, so what could you expect except that they'd get TB?
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm last edited by [email protected]
@KarenStrickholm @3dogcouch @jinglepostman This is one that I'm fairly certain was taken on the wedding day, as Frances prepared for the wedding with her sisters Mary and Ruth assisting her, all sitting in the June sunlight on the back porch of her family. And, though not from the wedding, a three-generation photo of Frances with her mother Helen and her baby son George. This was taken after she learned she had TB and was preparing to go to the treatment center in Colorado.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm last edited by
@KarenStrickholm @jinglepostman Truly not upper-class at all. That categorization might apply to Frances' family, the Tuckers, but not my family into which she married, the Batchelors. My great-grandparents were struggling small or middle-class farmers just south of Little Rock, whereas Frances' family had wealth and social standing in Little Rock, and were highly educated. This was a match that puzzled a lot of folks, but her diary makes clear to me it was very much a love match.
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Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @3dogcouch @jinglepostman Train trips in skimpy clothing!!! The nastiness of female gossip is really something. Maybe because they are repressed themselves but they don't want to acknowledge that because then they'll see the degree to which they are powerless and that's painful. And so they project back out. Maybe...? I was thinking this morning about how women used to go to "charm school," learning how to be polite and demure.
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Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @3dogcouch @jinglepostman These are marvelous! Her clothing is exquisite.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm last edited by
@KarenStrickholm @3dogcouch @jinglepostman I'm not much of an expert on clothing of that era, but agree that it really is fascinating. What I notice about Frances in the photo is how sad she looks, and that tugs at my heart. She had by this point found she had TB and needed treatment, and would have to leave her son in the care of family members. Having read her diary and her thoughts about all of that, I find this really poignant.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm last edited by
@KarenStrickholm @3dogcouch @jinglepostman Yes, sad that women can tear away at other women in that way. As a little girl, my mother helped the postmaster (a woman) in her town sort mail, and she told me that the postmaster told her not to listen to nasty gossip about her aunts who had died young of TB, and about how this was due to their unchaperoned train trips and the fashionable clothes they wore. The postmaster told her that the woman spreading those rumors were just jealous.
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Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @3dogcouch @jinglepostman Indeed. She also looks deeply fatigued.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm last edited by
@KarenStrickholm @3dogcouch @jinglepostman That's what I see in her eyes in that photo. And it's so apparent in her diary, in which she kept writing up to a few days prior to her death. It's heart-breaking reading. Brings me to tears anytime I read it (I made a transcript before donating it to the Arkansas Studies folks). My grandmother and John, Frances' husband, had an older sister Lilah (Delilah) who dearly loved Frances and fretted very much about her and her health.
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