A Hodge Podge of History and Current Events

Down to the final chapter. Huzzah. I guess. It's going to go over budget. No stopping it now. I only have about 2,000-words remaining. To make budget I will have to cut 80% of the final chapter. Can't do it. Not that much. So I'm going to be over. Pity.

The bigger pity is the query letter. Oh, that is going to s*ck trying to write. I've never written a query letter yet that anyone liked, much less felt inspired to read my work because. Whatever. I'll deal with that next week. Some time today (or tomorrow, more likely) I will finish my latest revision of Traitor. It will be done. Finished. Complete. Until someone tells me I have to edit it again. Cr*p.

On a lighter note, here are a few things I found in the bin of old photographs, newspaper clippings, and other odds and ends. (Got a couple of old button hooks. That's what Mother said they are, anyway. People used to use them to help button up their shoes. They have to near one hundred years old. Kind of cool.)

Here are two poems my grandmother wrote. No idea as to when. They were written on 3"x5" pieces of paper. Not titles. Some corrections. Terrible handwriting. I'm not sure of some of the words and so have guessed.

Waiting
by Amy Holmes

Waiting the hours of my life spent waiting
Inside a car hot, tiresome I sit waiting
At Doctor’s office where others wait I too sit waiting
The hours the minutes crawl as waiting I sit

(The reference to the doctor almost makes me think this was a recent piece, and she should be known as Amy Mulnix.)

Where are They
by Amy Holmes

I saw it standing by the way
Sunken sills door away
Roof with shingles born away
Windows pane less sightless eye

The yard with brambles long over grown
Winter winds around it shrink and moan
A silo that had once held feed
For cattle’s milk production need

Now leans at an angle propping indicated
The barn collapsed where it had waited
Often I wonder as I pass
Where are they now who lived there last

For some reason, Grandma cut out a piece from a Sunday paper, dated August 7, 1938. (My birthday was on a Tuesday that year - or would have been had I been born.) The article is titled, "Stories of Famous Hymns: A Mighty Fortress is Our God", by Horace B Powell. Did a Google search on Mr. Powell and got no results. Must have been a local writer.

What I find interesting is not the article my grandmother saved. Rather, it's what's on the back. There is part of an article about England's treaty with Italy. (Remember, this is 1938. World War II.) The headline reads, "England's Bol". The rest is cut off. The sub title reads, "Britain's Treaty With Italy Based on Idea Fascists Plan About Face, But Does Mussolini Play a Deeper Game?" The article talks about a general war almost being inevitable, Germany "mobilizing her entire population on this assumption", Poland not remaining true to the French system of "collective security", Neville Chamberlain's believe Italy could be "won back". Only four paragraphs, but kind of interesting.

Below that is a Dorothy Dix column. I checked on Dorothy Dix, too. This is what Wikipedia says about her:

Dorothy Dix (November 18, 1861 – December 16, 1951), was the pseudonym of U.S. journalist Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer.

As the forerunner of today's popular advice columnists, Dorothy Dix was America's highest paid and most widely read female journalist at the time of her death. Her advice on love and marriage was syndicated in newspapers around the world. With an estimated audience of 60 million readers, she became a popular and recognized figure on her travels abroad.

Her name is the origin of the term Dorothy Dixer, a widely-used phrase in Australia meaning a question from the floor that enables the speaker to make or strengthen a point he wanted to get across, especially in Parliament.

I don't have the entire question, nor Dorothy's complete answer, but it seems people were struggling with the redefining of male/female roles even in 1938. This is what I've got.

Dear Miss Dix - Does the modern man no longer expect to support his wife? I am a good-looking girl with a good job and I have had several proposals of marriage, but..." (no more)

The next section is in bold. It may, or may not, be Dorothy's reply. It is broken in two parts, or there are two separate bold sections.

"...supported herself before marriage can just as well do it after marriage, and that there is no reason for him to toil to pay for hte bread and butter of one who can perfectly well provide herself with cake. Also, he argues that their combined earnings will give them many more luxuries..."

"...woman can toil all day in an office or shop, come home and clean up the house, get dinner and be a bright and vivacious companion with whom her husband will enjoy stepping out of an evening."

Three stars, and then regular type. No bold.

"The old order was that the man should be the provider and the woman the homemaker. You..."

I would really love to get a copy of that newspaper. Unfortunately, I don't even know which newspaper it was. Based on the year, I am guessing it was a paper from Sandstone, MN, but I'm not certain.

This is really fascinating. Well, to me it is.

I love history when it's written by real people.

Have a great day.