International Women’s Day was first celebrated on March 19, 1911 at a time when women were pressing for their right to work, vote, be trained, hold public office and end discrimination. It wasn’t until 1975, during International Women’s Year, that the United Nations began celebrating International Women’s Day on 8 March. This year’s theme commemorates the fight to end violence against women.
The article above includes an excellent infographic on violence against women. Of course, International Women’s Day is also about celebrating, lifting one another up and cheering the accomplishments made by women everywhere. A fun article published in the Perth, Australia news celebrates women from 10 – 111 and brings a little more “international” to our own review of the day.
Source: TheGraphicsFairy.blogspot.com
So what on earth does that have to do with Foodie Friday? (I really like to stretch the themes, don’t I?!)
Simple: it’s cause for celebration, which always involves good food! Today, we challenge you to take a can of preserves (homemade or straight from the shelf) to a female neighbor, invite a young colleague out to lunch, offer a nibble of dark chocolate to the woman you encounter every day who drives you absolutely batty or simply extend the hand of kindness (with or without food in it) to a woman in your life.
Source: TheGraphicsFairy.blogspot.com
Here in Arkansas, we are fortunate to have the Women’s Foundation of Arkansas working every day to elevate woman with the belief that an educated woman can lift an entire family out of poverty. Executive director Lynnette Watts once told me that she believes “as women, we should be lifting one another up rather than feeling threatened when another woman succeeds.” Similarly, I think women can be singularly responsible, if they so choose, for the happiness of their household, neighborhood and community. It’s a lofty aspiration, but I’m up for the challenge. Are you?
We’d love to hear how you will reach out to another woman today with a Foodie Friday spin. After all, it’s the ticket to everyone’s heart, right?
My Daughters: The Future {Women’s History} Written by ARWB March 2012 Bloggger of the Month, Jennifer Janes, of Jennifer A. Janes
Earlier this month, I wrote about women in my past and present and my desire to pass this heritage on to my children. As I continued to ponder women’s history, I kept thinking about my daughters. Generations from now there will be others who will view my daughters as part of their history.
When I think of the future that way, it’s sobering. What am I doing today to make sure that my daughter’s impact the world for good, leaving a legacy we’ll all be proud of? My children are still young—only eight and six years old. They have plenty of time to make their marks on the world, but I can already catch glimpses of who they will become as I study who they are.
Both of my children are compassionate. They have chosen to sponsor a child through Compassion International and actively seek out ways to raise money to cover our monthly sponsorship costs. They help us recycle paper and cans because it helps the environment and because the money we receive goes into our sponsorship fund. They have sold candy, coloring book pages lovingly colored by them, and fruit punch and coffee at our garage sales to raise the sponsorship money.
In my older daughter I see a budding scientist. I could be wrong, but she seems destined for a career in science or medicine. She enjoys studying the human body and nature and loves animals and performing experiments. My younger daughter is an artist. She’s very creative, and I can definitely see her as a painter, graphic artist, or fashion designer.
I want to nurture these traits: the kindness and compassion, willingness to work hard for what they believe in, and creativity. I want to help them develop their uniqueness and pursue their talents and interests.
My goal is to help my daughters become who they are. Based on what I’m seeing now, I think they’ve got amazing contributions to make and will leave a positive mark on women’s history, regardless of how far-reaching their contributions are.
How are you mentoring the next generation of women? They’re the next chapter in the history books!
Jennifer lives in Southwest Arkansas with her husband and two daughters. She enjoys reading, writing, Bible study, and spending time with friends and family. She has enjoyed serving as Arkansas Women Bloggers’ “Miss March 2012” and is honored to have been chosen. To follow her story, visit:
Mission Accomplished {Women’s History} Written by Kimberly Mitchell of Write Your World
In 1984, President Reagan initiated the Teachers in Space Program, created to spark interest in science and mathematics among educators and their students and renew enthusiasm for the shuttle program. Christa McAuliffe, a high school social studies teacher from New Hampshire was chosen from 11,000 teachers to make history by being the first teacher in space.
Now that’s the part about women’s history. Here’s the rest of my story about this moment in history. One of the 5th grade teachers at my elementary school, Mr. B., also applied to the Teachers in Space Program. Though Mr. B wasn’t selected, he became an advocate for the program and for Ms. McAuliffe until every student in Liberty Elementary knew that on January 28th, 1986, a teacher just like those who stood at the front of our classrooms every day would do the impossible and ride a rocket into space.
My 2nd grade class gathered around the TV the morning of the launch. I saw Mr. B in the hallway, his face electric, his enthusiasm catching. Soon the entire school buzzed until teachers gave up trying to shush our excitement.
It was cold on the launch pad. Icicles hung from the shuttle. The launch was delayed as workers cleared the ice. I worried the launch would be canceled. The countdown started, flames burst from the bottom of the launch pad, the engines roared and my class cheered. For 73 amazing seconds we had liftoff. Then the unthinkable happened. I watched, disbelieving, as the Challenger exploded over the Atlantic.
My most vivid memory of that day isn’t the image of the shuttle exploding, but seeing Mr. B walk into our classroom with tears running down his face.
Three years later, I entered Mr. B’s classroom and began a 9 month journey full of discovery, fun and yes, space exploration. Mr. B took learning to a new level, challenging us to work harder, learn more, and above all, reach for the impossible. We raised money and the entire 5th grade class journeyed to the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Who flies fifty-five 5th graders from Tulsa to Houston for the weekend? That trip still remains the highlight of my school memories.
In one year, I learned that learning itself could be exciting, that new discoveries are just around the corner, and that if you push yourself, you can achieve more than you ever imagined. All that came from Mr. B., and it came from a woman and teacher who climbed aboard a space shuttle and took a risk to inspire and educate those around her. Christa McAuliffe lost her life in the Challenger disaster, but in Mr. B.’s class, that sacrifice was never forgotten. He passed on her courage and excitement to his students and it lives inside me today.
Note: Christa McAuliffe photo from www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/mcauliffe.html via www.wikimedia.org. This file is in the public domain because it was created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that “NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted”.
Kimberly Mitchell loves journeys, real or imagined. She has traveled to five continents and over twenty countries, always with a book in hand (or backpack). Now she writes middle grade adventures to send her characters on journeys, too. She lives in Northwest Arkansas with her husband and the best souvenir she ever found, a Yemeni cat. You can follow her random musings on writing, traveling, space and even camels at her blog, Write Your World.
It will surprise no one that I was a newspaper nerd in high school (it actually started in junior high). I was on newspaper staff as early as I could be, and I spent all the time I could in the journalism room, which was actually two rooms, complete with a bathroom, a darkroom (in those days we used film cameras!) and a loft.
The back room was the realm of the newspaper staff, where we had computers lining the walls and old-fashioned (even then) light tables and gluing machines for literally cutting and pasting the paper together. The front room was where the photography classes were taught and where a lot of hanging out on the part of newspaper, yearbook and photo staff people took place. It was Mrs. Akin’s room.
I never actually took a class from Mrs. Akin, but she was as much of an influence on my young life as any of my favorite teachers. She ruled her domain, letting us run wild and be teenagers and think that it was our domain but still requiring respect of her, our space, and, when she could manage, each other. A big feat when the high emotions of high school combined with the high emotions of creative people.
The journalism room was the go-to place for newspaper, yearbook and photo staff kids to hang out. We’d be in there before school started (yearbook was first period), during lunch (newspaper was right after lunch), after school and whenever else we could get away with it. I think of Mrs. Akin as the cool mom who always wanted the neighborhood kids to hang out at her place. It was a room of silliness, drama, learning and fun, a happy home that more than a few of us lacked otherwise.
And Mrs. Akin was always there. She unlocked the room in the morning, and seemed to always be sitting at her big metal desk, set diagonal in the corner of the room, behind her peace lily that managed to bloom even though it got no natural light. Behind her, a giant sheet with a tie-dyed peace sign hung.
She was a source of peace and calm, a touchstone. She taught so much more than how to take a good photo (“needs more contrast” was her mantra) or effectively disguise your identity (every year she made up a name for herself to use on photos she took, as an inside joke to those of us in the know). She taught us how to get along with people we didn’t like, to do the hard work we had to do around all the fun stuff, and, I think, how to be better people.
My junior year she wrote in my yearbook “Dear Sarah, In all our Journalism Room madness, you are that rare level-headed person who always helps us get this back in perspective. You’re a pleasure to have around. I’m looking forward to our continuing adventure.”
We took for granted that adventure would continue for a long time. I think we all imagined coming back to the journalism room, while we were in college, maybe, or perhaps years later, and seeing her still there, still sharing her wisdom and fun with the next generation of teenagers. Possibly still with faded notecards of Spanish vocabulary and her giant Murphy’s Law poster on the walls.
But that was not to be. The next spring, in May of 1996, Susan Akin died of a ruptured brain aneurism.
Memory is foggy stuff, but I remember this: I saw her briefly after school the day before she died. I’d only just come back to school after attending my grandmother’s funeral, but I didn’t go to class because I had a day-long AP test. I popped into the journalism room after, and I don’t remember who else was there, but I know she was, and we talked about my grandmother’s death. That was our last conversation.
We knew something was wrong when Mr. Teague, the newspaper teacher, came to unlock the room that morning. There’s nothing to say about a death that comes out of nowhere that isn’t cliché, but that’s probably because the cliches are all true. It was horrible, crushing, life-altering.
We got through it together, skipping class for a week, laughing too loud at stupid movies, with more tears and hugs than you would have thought possible from a bunch of jaded teenagers. And a few weeks later, we pulled together and got the yearbook out. There was a bookmark we also distributed noting her passing, and a bunch of us wore purple ribbons in her honor when we graduated.
It’s been 15 years, which seems as impossible as the idea that high school was 15 years ago. We’ve been through 15 years without those school visits, without getting to tell her what we were up to, introducing her to our kids. It still hurts like a death in the family. I know I’m not the only one who feels that way.
I also know that Mrs. Akin has influenced my life in ways she could never imagine. Because of her influence (and Mr. Teague, of course, but this is a women’s history story) and my love for my time spent in that room, I became a journalism major. Which led me to editing, which led to freelancing and all the unpredictably awesom things that have happened since. Her legacy is still here, in each of us who still share a love of words and a sense of silliness. I know I’m not the only one who feels that way, either.
Sarah E. White is a freelance writer, editor, blogger, wife and mom of a 2-year-old based in Fayetteville. She’s the Guide to Knitting for About.com and writes about her crafty life at Our Daily Craft .
I grew up in a house where the first VCR purchased was a John Wayne western so I’ve always had a mental image of cowboys and indians playing in my head. With my parents being the history buffs they are that we had to visit the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings and attend a real Powwow (as well as any Lewis and Clark point of interest) on our family vacation out west. Right before junior high, I even attended a month long summer camp at Old Washington State Park that was dedicated solely to learning about the role that Native Americans played in our state as well as what their daily life (food, family, beliefs) was all about.
Despite these all interactions with this history and culture, I never really saw Native American design as anything impressive. Sure, there was an amazing amount of craftsmanship in what they produced but I never saw it as “pretty”… until now. This Monday I am *mad about Native American inspired items.
*As with most MadMonday posts: These are just trends. Please do not take this as advice to go out and get a new wardrobe/ home/ or man based on this or any other trend…
1- This necklace pays homage to the “fringe necklace” while maintaining it’s own feel. I like the fact that it’s a little understated because it wouldn’t overpower any outfit, just add to it.
2- Do these not look like the most comfortable shoes in the entire world?!?!? I’ve mentioned Elsie’s blog and shop before and this is yet another example where her craftiness meets fashion.
3- This was actually the bag that first turned me on to the Native American inspired trend this season.
My first thought went something like, “I like sequins, I love those colors, and who doesn’t need on over-sized bag?’
My second thought was, “When did southwestern motif quit being cheesy and start being cool?”
Third thought, “I need to get one of those.”
4- If you decide to embrace this trend in your home I feel like staying with neutrals would be the way to go. This way you’re adding the fun vibe of the print without feeling like your house commutes to Santa Fe.
5- For the gal with low commitment to this or any other trend: nail art. This set is called Aztec Illuminati and is inspired by the geometric repetition found in most Native American patterns.
What do you guys think? Love it? Hate it? Anyone else out there who’s childhood outlook was largely influenced by John Wayne and his ability to always make friends with the natives?
Let me know!
Paige is a fabulous twenty something who is into photography, food, fashion, and (most especially) fun. A south Arkansas native she plans on moving to Northwest Arkansas in t-minus 6 weeks and she couldn’t be any happier about it. She blogs because she believes everyones prettier when they share.
Bikes, Babes and Bloomers {Women’s History} Written by Lisa Mullis of Frenetic Fitness
In celebration of Women’s History Month let’s talk about clothes. We love them. We wear them. We use them to impress and to be comfortable. Some of us listened to our mothers complain about garters and girdles. Many of our daughters will remember us complaining of the days of pantyhose being all but required for the office or for church. But I have to wonder, as I slip into my spandex/lycra bike shorts and lightweight nylon jersey, what would it have been like to try to live my lifestyle of athletic outdoorswoman while wearing a rib crushing corset and a 15 pound multi-layer of crinoline and skirt?
As the 19th century came to a close, there were great improvements to an invention that was changing the way people traveled: enter the bicycle. Cycling in Europe was a rapidly emerging sport in the 1860’s and 70’s. In 1877 a man named Albert Pope imported a contraption called the Penny Farthing or the Ordinary bicycle from Britain to America.
His company, Pope Manufacturing, would begin producing the Columbia bicycles. In that same year, the fashionable woman might have been outfitted in an underskirt to support a bustle with layers of ruffles and frills, a tight fitting corset, and a long waisted tight fitting bodice with long sleeves and during the day, a high neck. I can’t imagine how women were supposed to travel by bicycle wearing all that but many of them did; and many were injured by skirts caught in wheels or chains. I’m betting a lot of skirts were ruined too. Tired of sweating under layers of cumbersome clothes and worried about getting thrown to the ground, or tearing a skirt, the need for reasonable cycling clothes spawned a new fashion trend of split skirts or shorter skirts with a type of trouser underneath.
Amelia Jenks Bloomer was the editor of The Lily, a women’s temperance magazine. She was one of the best known proponents of the movement that would spawn the Rational Dress Society. Aiming to rid women of the binding and physical hindrance of corsets and heavy layered skirts, Mrs. Bloomer promoted the wearing of Turkish Trousers. These trousers, which became known as “bloomers” due to her patronage, would become the basis for women’s cycling suits. Amelia passed away in 1894, just as female cyclists were gaining acceptance and divided skirts and bloomers were adopted as cycling attire. She herself gave up wearing the trousers most likely due to societal backlash. Men thought that allowing women to wear the bifurcated raiment then exclusively available to men, would lead to women expecting to compete for a man’s place in society. Even many women felt that the shorter skirts and knickerbocker style cycling suits were immodest and lessened the gracefulness that is the hallmark of the female sex.
But all hail the freedom that comes from riding a bike. As women took to the cycling club tracks, the parks, and the streets to ride their bikes they enjoyed a huge increase in freedom of movement. Young women could cycle away from the prying eyes of parents and wives were not reliant on husbands for transportation. Bikes not only gave them independence but also gave them the freedom of exercise because they had ditched those binding corsets, hitched up their overskirts and put on their bloomers. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was already in her 80s during the Golden Age of Bicycling but she had this to say about the benefits, “The bicycle will inspire women with more courage, self-respect and self-reliance and make the next generation more vigorous of mind and of body; for feeble mothers do not produce great statesmen, scientists, and scholars.” This unburdening of those weighty garments let women exercise out in the fresh air, possibly for the first time since they were young children at play around their mother’s heavy skirts and before conforming to the feminine ideal of the day.
And knowing all of this, I’ve attempted riding my bike wearing a long skirt as part of the first of what I hope is an annual event for Little Rock, the Tweed Ride.
Photo used with permission.
Though my skirt was shorter and lighter than what women would have been wearing at the turn of the century, it still made riding more of a chore than wearing shorts or tights. Yet I’ve rarely had as much fun on my bike, especially with the knowledge that I didn’t ever have to wear that get up again if I didn’t want to. Instead I’ll stick to my short, tennis dress length bike skirt. You read me right; I own a spandex bike skirt. I wore it to the opening of the Clinton Library Bridge in Little Rock because I felt I should dress up for such an event.
As we sit around the house wearing yoga pants, or pull on shorts to head out for a run or to play with our kids at the park, as we put on our stretchy bike shorts with padded chamois, let’s give thanks to those women who were the bra burners of their day. And ride off into the sunset on our two wheeled steeds.
“[T]he bicycle will accomplish more for women’s sensible dress than all the reform movements that have ever been waged.” ~Author Unknown, from Demerarest’s Family Magazine, 1895
For all my homeschooling friends: I found this lovely book in the juvenile section of my library Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom by Sue Macy, check it out.
About Lisa: I’m a Wife and Mom. I’m a microbiologist. I’m a mountain biker, hiker, backpacker, sometime runner, and workout enthusiast all while being addicted to good food. I write about it at http://freneticfitness.wordpress.com. I also write for ArkansasOutside about other people who love to play outside too. I’m fueled by pizza, red meat and goat cheese risotto. And sometimes I sleep.
As a part of Jasmine’s experiment dubbed “Project Totus”, Jasmine was invited to Green Mountain at Fox Run. To follow Jasmine’s journey with food, emotional wellness, and body acceptance check out TheBrokins.com
Women can become so body obssessed! We adopt what media and social constraints tell us about our body. Though the average woman is anywhere between size 12-16, we still glorify the size 2. There is nothing inherently wrong with size 2! She is beautiful! So is a size 26, though! I was one of those women chasing the perfect jean size, ever distracted from fulfilling my potential as a woman because I was lost in the tyranny of dieting and punishing my body with workouts I did not enjoy.
I was invited to come to Green Mountain at Fox Run as a blogger. I left Green Mountain at Fox Run changed from the inside out. Even as I write this, I feel the emotions I unearthed bubble up. I cringe, inhale, and think quietly to myself, “you are okay, you are safe.” Green Mountain at Fox Run is a facility that was founded to address the broken mentality that exists about women’s body, food habits, and fitness. It is a woman only center that helps address nutrition, emotional health concerning food, and body fitness. The staff at GMAFR stand by the belief that your size DOES NOT equate to your quality of life. This is a hard belief to hold in our body obsessed society. I used to be, and still frequently am, obsessed about “skinny”. Chasing the next diet, diet tip, “life style change”, and ideal weight became distractions and compulsions for me. I am a recovered Bulimic turned Binge Eater.
While at Green Mountain at Fox Run, I experienced professionals for the first time in my life applaud my body. They focused on what it had accomplished instead of what it had not. Robyn, their gentle-spirited nutritionist, encourages each woman to heal their relationship with food. “Feed your body well,” she said in a class I attended. Her beautiful long hair tossed from side to side as she passionately encouraged us to eat foods we love.
One of my most formative experiences was with Kate Nolte, Green Mountain’s fitness specialist. Kate is an energetic and approachable woman. Her level of fitness shows in her sculpted body. I felt very intimidated by her. By the end of the week, though, I was being challenged to believe in my body and my abilities the way Kate believed in me. She shows woman after woman that your body is an amazing tool, irregardless of its size.
Combine Robyn and Kate with Darla Breckinridge, the Clinical Psychologist whose “Darlaisms” will make you both cry and laugh, and you get what I call the Green Mountain at Fox Run Trifecta. I came home deeply broken. I was in mourning. I realized how ugly I had been to my body, to myself. I realized how I had adopted a lot of what society and the media tells me to believe. I am still mourning… but today I am inching closer to hope and joy. I am embracing this body of mine with stretch marks and all. I am celebrating that I am beautiful and a scale cannot tell me that. I am finding ways to appreciate my womanhood, curves, rolls, stretch marks and all!
Jasmine Brown of The Brokins is the kind of girl you either love or really love. She is smart, wet-your-pants funny, and sometimes brutally honest. She has a unique and even snarky outlook on life. You will learn a lot of things you’ve always wanted to know and even some things you didn’t on her blog The Brokins.
Visits with my Good Witch from Jitney 14 {Women’s History} Written by Jeannie Smith of Mod Posh
“Oh Hillary, I get it! I am so sorry about all the ugly press that came your way when you were outed for having conversations with Eleanor Roosevelt. I get it, I do the same thing, AND I AM NOT A WITCH EITHER!…”
OK. I just shared a quote with you from my most recent imaginary conversation. The one I had with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, this morning. Yes, in my car, I said that out loud.
I know, I know, I am going to down a slippery slope here to write about my imaginary conversations, much less with the former First Lady, but let me explain. Today I was worrying about the fact that lately I have such conversations, particularly about my own writing. I was thinking “Am I crazy? Who does this?” And the answer came to me as I remembered that indeed none other than our own Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton admitted having done the same thing! Hillary, you may remember, was skewered by the press in 1996 when a biographer released that she often had conversations with Eleanor Roosevelt. At the time I thought it was a little odd too, although I never went so far as to question her sanity or call her a witch like so many people did when the story hit the press. But now that I am 44 years old I completely understand and this understanding is a revelation to me. One of my “Ah Ha moments” to paraphrase Oprah Winfrey, who I admire and refer to often but have not yet had the pleasure of conversing with, in my imagination or otherwise.
Like I have been doing for the past few weeks, this afternoon I was thinking of how much I love writing. I was also grappling with nagging self doubts that have crept into my fragile psyche since recently leaving a secure 9 to 5 job to devote myself to writing full time. I was thinking about the writer I admire most and having one of my imaginary conversations with her where I ask “what would you do if you were in my shoes?” It’s my method of sorting things out.
Of course being a hands on mom, I was having deep reflective time behind the wheel, in the school car line. As the mother of three teenage girls I do a lot of soul searching this way because I spend a lot of time waiting for them to come out of the buildings they are in so I can taxi them and their friends home or deliver them to their next activity. On any given day or night I can be found all over Northwest Arkansas lurking in parking lots and reflecting on life. Be it the mall, the skating rink, and other various athletic practice facilities, I try to make good use of my time. Sometimes that includes phone calls, editing on my laptop and on other days just anything to keep from falling asleep. (My big fear is I will nod off and my daughters will walk out to find me snoring or drooling in plain view of other moms, teachers or their friends.) Today I was in line simply lost in my thoughts trying to think myself out of these blues and really feeling bad about my imaginary conversations when I actually found an answer and vindication from the memory of the Eleanor Roosevelt/Hillary Clinton scandal.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not a writer who claims to have a muse, nor do I regard myself “muse worthy.” I simply have someone who, in reverence, I sometimes converse with when faced with looming decisions or introspection. Like Hillary, this person relates to my chosen profession which happens to be writing. How crazy can this “method” be if Hillary does it too? Today I had a moment where I feel Hillary was the response to my own musings, my “personal car line time” musings! (OK, it sounds little nuts.) While I didn’t hear the actual voice of Hillary respond, “It’s OK Jeannie, You are not alone, and I appreciate you feeling my pain!” (That WOULD be crazy.) I was able to breathe a sigh of relief I am not entirely certifiable.
The writer I speak to is Eudora Welty and from here on I will refer to her as my good witch of writing. Furthermore, if this means I am crazy, OK, it’s out there, alert the media. I doubt anyone is going to make much of a fuss about it; I won’t be skewered by the press on the scale of Hillary’s debacle and if I am booted off a couple of civic or church committees I can deal, I will look at it as having more free time.
Miss Welty is from my hometown, Jackson, Mississippi. I won’t give you the Wikipedia version of Eudora Welty, if you are not familiar with her artistry, I suggest you look it up for yourself and start reading her work. Among numerous honors, her novel, The Optimist’s Daughter, received the 1973 Pulitzer Prize and her photography hangs in the Smithsonian.
In 1984 she was my customer at the Jitney Jungle Grocery Store, which was recently recreated for the movie The Help. It was the famous Jitney # 14 I landed my first real job as a checker. I was dutiful and always showed up on time in my starched red smock and I remember getting very frustrated at the end of the night if my till was off even 2 cents.
I loved the job in part because it was in the Belhaven area of town near two colleges and I was itching to finish high school and join the academic world. I also loved the store because Miss Welty was a familiar customer. We were all protective of her “celebrity” since a few reporters would hang around from time to time trying to catch up with her and in fairness we worried about all the senior citizens who came in and out of the store because the neighborhood was becoming unsafe. Miss Welty did not send someone to grocery shop for her even when she was in her 80’s, she just walked right in carrying her own purse wearing sensible shoes and was as polite to us and I imagine she was to Gore Vidal or the famous people who visited her at home a few blocks away. She walked the isles seemingly unaffected by her fame and appeared very patient and deeply appreciative of any admirer that stopped her.
Each day I worked I looked for her to come through my line at the Jitney Jungle and I practiced just what I would say on the day I came face to face with her. When it finally happened I remember my palms got sweaty and I nervously placed her apples on the scale and carefully counted out her change saying “Thank you Miss Welty, have a nice day.” Then the most remarkable thing happened, she read my name tag then looked me directly in the eye and said, “Thank you, Jeannie.”
Yes, the simple acknowledgement changed my life, I felt like Dorothy being touched by Glenda’s wand. I already knew I wanted to write but there is just something electric about having a Pulitzer Prize winner say your name and acknowledge your existence. I took it as a sign I was going in the right direction. As I would learn later, she was kind to many others throughout her lifetime and was well known for her keen eye with people. No one loved other people’s stories imagined or real quite like Eudora Welty. She told them through her camera lens and with tapping the keys on the typewriter that sits in her famous home, now a museum. She was much more interested in the working class and the poor, the “regular Joe” than she was anyone on the society page, a page she could have easily owned. She was enamored by her fans and much more likely to compliment other writers than obsess about her image or engage in PR gimmicks. She never would have been less than polite to anyone who approached her and even in old age when she needed to turn people away from showing up at her doorstep she felt terrible having to place a sign on the door she was not available.
Among many things I admire how bold Eudora Welty was. At the young age of 23 she wrote a letter to the editors at The New Yorker and asked for a job. Although she was not published in the magazine for another 18 years she firmly took her writing career into her own hands and wrote the following letter:
“Gentlemen, I suppose you’d be more interested in even a slight-o’-hand trick than you’d be in an application for a position with your magazine, but as usual you can’t have the thing you want most. I am 23 years old, six weeks on the loose in N.Y. However, I was a New Yorker for a whole year in 1930-31 while attending advertising classes in Columbia’s School of Business. Actually I am a southerner, from Mississippi, the nation’s most backward state. Ramifications include Walter H. Page, who, unluckily for me, is no longer connected with Doubleday-Page, which is no longer Doubleday-Page, even. I have a B.A. (’29) from the University of Wisconsin, where I majored in English without a care in the world. For the last eighteen months I was languishing in my own office in a radio station in Jackson, Miss., writing continuities, dramas, mule feed advertisements, santa claus talks, and life insurance playlets; now I have given that up….”
I can give you a thousand reasons I am not a great writer, and will certainly never be as prolific an artist as Miss Welty. I will not try and I cannot rewrite ancient mythology and change the setting to rural Mississippi, it would be a disaster, but I have a deep love of both, and my current home, Arkansas. As a writer, I am working on being bold enough to remain unaffected by others’ opinions of my work, good or bad. I am also very engaged in other people’s stories and continue to collect a pay check writing. I imagine my constant desire to understand place and put into perspective community and the people in my life by putting pen to paper would please her and that just might make me crazy.
As for my career, I am approaching it with more confidence after this morning’s discussion. I am trying to be bold, trying not to let sweaty palms get to me and I am so appreciative to get a paycheck for my stories. I owe a great deal of thanks to my good witch, the one who spoke my name in Jitney Jungle 14 on Fortification Street in 1984. She and I will continue talking and I will let you know how that works out.
Jeannie Smith is the ( sleepy) mother of three teen-age daughters and wife(to one of the thousands of Mike Smith’s in the country) who resides in Northwest Arkansas. She blogs about everything from fashion & style she admires( but possesses little of) to her childhood in the deep south and her happy life in Northwest Arkansas (currently #1 on her favorite place on the planet list). She is a Senior Advertising Executive and Features Writer for Peekaboo Magazine. You can read more of her writing on her blog Mod Posh.
Our Story {Women’s History} Written by ARWB March 2012 Bloggger of the Month, Jennifer Janes, of Jennifer A. Janes
As I considered the topic “Women’s History,” I thought about some of the women I have studied and considered researching one who inspires me as fodder for this post. All I could think about, though, was our history.
I have regrets. I am not a genealogist, and I really don’t have a desire to spend lots of time tracing our family roots back to debtors’ prison in Europe. (I have family members who have already done that for me.) What saddens me is that I’ve lost stories that are part of who I am, part of who my daughters are. Our family is full of amazing women, yet their stories are lost because the storytellers have died, relationships have eroded, or I neglected to write down the stories I was told while they were fresh on my mind.
I have some mementoes to pass on to my daughters: a wedding band from my great-grandmother, jewelry from my grandmother, the quilt with flour sacking on the back that my great-great-grandmother made. I have a few stories too, but not as many as I wish I had. One woman in our family survived abuse at the hands of a man struggling with mental illness. After her escape, she got her college degree while raising two boys and had a successful career as an English teacher and school counselor.
Another woman in my family has been strong through circumstances that would have destroyed a weaker person. At the end of her ordeal, her husband’s health was wrecked, and she had relocated and left behind all of her friends and most of what she owned. When my girls are older, I will share her story with them, and they will look at her with new respect and will appreciate even more the time she has invested in their lives.
I remember snippets of other stories too: a crippled cousin who had to live with other family members because her own family couldn’t care for her medical needs, a maiden aunt who had a very long and successful nursing career, the woman who watched her brother walk away to buy a pair of shoes and never saw him again. No one ever knew what happened to him.
As you think about Women’s History this month, please take time to consider your story. Don’t make the same mistake I did. Talk to the history-keepers this month. Record or write down their stories. Your children will thank you.
Jennifer is a history buff who lives with her husband and two daughters in Southwest Arkansas. She enjoys reading, writing, Bible study, and spending time with friends and family. To follow her story, visit:
Categorizing Grey Hair {Women’s History} Written by Sweety Darlin’.
When Julie sent out the call for March guest posts I tried to think of all the women that I felt had influenced my life and who I admired. I had a long list… Catherine the Great of Russia, Queen Elizabeth I, Eleanor Roosevelt, Madonna, there were more it was a strange list. Then I realized while I admire all of these women they didn’t really shape me into the person I became.
My post last month was a letter to my mom, and while I don’t want to seem like I do nothing but sit around pining for my mom it was just the luck of the draw that the next month was about women’s history. My mother is a critical part of my personal history, and she had a theory of her own history by categorizing her grey hair. She would either hold small bits of hair or lay her hand on large patches and explain some of the following….
This area is for when I married Steve Brady. This is for when my first child died at the tender age of eight days old. This is when I had a healthy daughter. This is when I left Steve Brady due to his alcoholism. This is when I was raped. This is the abortion I had to have from that rape. This is the cancer diagnoses (that one got a big patch). This is for all the trials of motherhood (big patch again). This is for the next three rounds of cancer. This is for running my own company. This is for marital trials and tribulations.
Then she would explain that the non-grey hairs were for all the happy times. Watching my daughter grow up. Finding a man that truly loved me. Having success in my career. Seeing my daughter marry a man that loves her. Seeing my first grand child born, named for my deceased daughter.
When we think of the history of women, we should really think about the history of mothers. Our mother’s love(d) us beyond understanding, punish us when we deserve it, weep for us in prayer, put bandaids on boo boos, and then after all that effort have to let go of us and pray that they did the best they knew how.
Now that I am a mother I realize that even though I did not agree with my mother’s behavior and all the crazy things she did, she was only doing what she thought was the best for me at the time with the information she had. Did she regret some things, I have no doubt that she did. Hindsight is 20/20. However she loved me madly and only wanted me to become the best possible.
So this month as we read all the various posts regarding the History of Women, remember that those people all had mothers that made them exactly what they are, so I deem this the Month of the History of Motherhood.
You can call me Sweety Darlin’. I am a 29 year old mother of two teenagers, don’t argue! I love to sew and design and make things. If it goes through a sewing machine I am game! My kids are amazing when they are sleeping, and pretty decent the rest of the time.
