Books on Women Searching for Healing and Justice

Sometimes I find myself reading books simultaneously with themes that reinforce each other. These past weeks I read The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez: A Border Story by Aaron Bobrow-Strain and Legacy: Trauma, Story and Indigenous Healing by Suzanne Methot. Both books feature the stories of women who experienced trauma and struggled with CPTSD. 

Aida's story illuminates the immigrant experience at our Southern borders and the vulnerability of women who seek permanent and legal immigrant status in the United States. Suzanne tells her story in the context of generations of First People whose social, cultural, and religious traditions were broken under colonization and the removal of children to residential schools where they underwent abuse. 

Both books touched me in many ways. I empathized with the women. They endured the unimaginable and survived. I was educated in the history and ongoing policies that destroy traditional native cultures and leads to generations of damaged individuals. Most of all I was angered by ongoing racism and misogyny and the withholding of justice.

The House on Mango Street changed Aida Hernandez's life. In her darkest hours, she remembered the words of hope: "I have gone a long way to come back."

Aida wanted to dance. She wanted to finish high school and go to college. She wanted to become a therapist. She wanted to give her son a good home. She wanted to love and be loved. Her hopes were just like yours and mine.

But Aida's life held more horrors than any one body should be able to endure. She had survived even death but suffered from crippling CPTSD--Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. She came from a legacy of abuse but a knife attack tipped her over the edge. It only took one mistake, a $6 mistake, to remove Aida from her son and family, locked up for months in a women's prison. They were not given tampons, or enough toilet paper, or adequate wholesome food. There were not enough beds or blankets to keep warm. 

And that is when Aida saw The House on Mango Street on the prison library shelf and it started her reclamation and a life of helping the other women with her.

Aaron Bobrow-Strain's book The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez brings to life unforgettable women, and through their stories, explores the failure of Prevention Through Deterrence which posits that if the journey is horrific enough people will not come. Women suffer the most in this system. 

He shows how American economic and political policies and the desire for cheap labor created the influx of illegal immigrants. 

Immigrants in detention centers are treated like hardened criminals with shackles, solitary confinement, lack of medical care, meager inedible food, and a scarcity of hygiene supplies. They have no legal rights. They are provided no legal counsel. Border Patrol and detention centers have created jobs and business--paid for by the government. 

Who are the people seeking refuge in America? What drives them from their homeland? What options are available for legal immigration? What happens to those who are apprehended? This book will answer all your questions. But you may not like the answers.

Justice. How many times have we forgotten this value? 

The proceeds from this book will be shared between Aida Hernandez, the Chiricahua Community Health Centers to support emergency services for people dealing with domestic violence or sexual assault, and the author to offset costs of writing the book. Which for me means an instant add to my "to buy" list.

Click here to read an interview with the author at Borderlands-Works in Progress. 

I thank the publisher who provided a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez: A Border Story

by Aaron Bobrow-Strain

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Pub Date 16 Apr 2019

ISBN 9780374191979

PRICE $28.00 (USD)

Suzanne Methot's Legacy: Trauma, Story, and Indigenous Healing combines her personal story with history and psychology to create an understanding of the consequences of colonization. She demonstrates how abuse and CPTSD creates a cycle that impacts generations. On the personal level, she documents her own legacy of abuse and dysfunction and how a return to traditional ways brought healing. On the universal, she explains the psychological damage of trauma through story, with summary charts at chapter ends.

Methot's book is perhaps more suited for the indigenous population or educators those in the helping professions who work with indigenous people. But I also found her insights applicable in many ways. I found myself thinking about women I have known who demonstrated the characteristics she describes. And I even found myself applying her insights to characters in novels I have read! 

from the publisher:

Five hundred years of colonization have taken an incalculable toll on the Indigenous peoples of the Americas: substance use disorders and shockingly high rates of depression, diabetes, and other chronic health conditions brought on by genocide and colonial control. With passionate logic and chillingly clear prose, author and educator Suzanne Methot uses history, human development, and her own and others’ stories to trace the roots of Indigenous cultural dislocation and community breakdown in an original and provocative examination of the long-term effects of colonization. But all is not lost. Methot also shows how we can come back from this with Indigenous ways of knowing lighting the way.

I thank ECW for providing a free ebook in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Legacy: Trauma, Story, and Indigenous Healing

Methot, Suzanne

ECW Press

$24.95 CAD

DESCRIPTION

Published: March 2019

ISBN: 9781770414259

Helen Korngold Diary, April 7-13, 1919

Each week this year I am sharing from the 1919 diary of Helen Korngold. Helen was a student at Washington University in St. Louis. She became a teacher with a long career before marrying Fritz Herzog, a renowned mathematician. I include notes from my research into the people, places, and events Helen mentions.

Helen Korngold, Dec. 1919, New York City

April

Tuesday 8
School – good classes. Lil Tiger – Ev. Cohn & Ed Siff were up in the evening – rehearse for law case. Anna & husband Lustig also came up.

Wednesday 9
School – played basketball – went to Pauline Carp’s – practiced – studied. K received letter from Summer.

Thursday 10
School – home- sleep- solo & orchestra playing Thurs. Eve at Naphtali lodge – Masonic order – home- write letters to Ida & Ruth.

Friday 11
School – almost fell asleep in Well’s class – driest thing on earth. Dancing. To Temple with Harry Vogel.

Saturday 12
School – good classes. Study till 4 – walked a bit with Pauline – went to see grandma & came home. Study & work on Ed. topic in evening.

Sunday 13
Herbert Pawlinger came to St L. He’s the sweetest, handsomest, finest chap in 2 hemispheres, Karol excepted. He & pop had an accident but they came out whole. Herb had dinner with us. We went to trial at Temple in evening – it was wonderful – danced till 12 bells.

NOTES:

April 8

Lillian Rosalind Tiger was in the 1922 Senior class of Washington University. She appears on the 1920 St. Louis Census, age 19, living with her father Isodore, born in Russia, Jewish, and working as a ‘jobber’ in the clothing industry. Her mother was Bessie Cohn Tiger. Her sister Ethel and brother Louis were clothing salesmen. According to the 1913 Gould Directory, Isodore resided on Russell Rd in St. Louis.



Evelyn Cohn appears on the 1920 census as Jewish Russian born September 26, 1898. She worked as a stenographer in a shoe company. Her sister was a 'steno' with a paper company. They lived with their mother widowed Ida along with two more sisters. The 1929 St. Louis city directory shows she was a saleswoman at the Grand Leader Department Store. Evelyn died in October 1975 in West Palm Beach, FL.

Anna and Edward Lustig appear on the 1920 St Louis Census where he worked as a jobber in ladies ready to wear.

April 10

Naphtali Lodge #25 was chartered on October 14, 1839, and is the only remaining Blue Lodge that still meets at the New Masonic Temple in St. Louis, MO. http://www.blogger.com/profile/13485702033465159118
A history of Free Masonry and Judaism can be found here: http://www.masonicworld.com/education/files/mar05/freemasonry_and_judaism.htm

April 11
Article from the Jewish Voice


Several Harry Vogels can be discovered. Harry Fred Vogel was a grocer in 1900. Harry Vogel in later city directories is a restaurateur. On the 1910 Census, a Harry Fred Vogel and son Harry Fred Vogel worked at a car company. Harry Vogel born 1895 is a clerk on the 1916 city directory. WWI draft registration shows a Harry F. Vogel, Jr. born in 1890 in the U.S. Another WWI draft registration shows a Harry Vogel born in 1888 in Germany. A WWII draft registration shows Harry Fred Vogel born in St Louis and living in Indianapolis, Indiana and working for Los Angeles machinery supply.

April 13

Herbert Lincoln Pawliger (2/121894 to 11/1967) lived with his family at 1915 Broadway in New York City.

His WWI Draft Registration shows he was of medium height and build with brown hair and eyes. He was a clothing salesman for Jay Tee Frocks.

On the 1910 New York Census was 16 and living with his family Max, 48 born in 1882, and a manufacturer of furs; Nettie, 40, born in 1883; Arthur, 19 and a salesman; and Ruth E. age 14 and born in 1895.

On the 1920 New York Census, he was in commercial sales, living with his parents and Arthur, a photographer, and Ruth who was a clerk at Standard Oil.

On the 1925 New York City Census he was living with his family: father Max Pawliger, who was a fur merchant in the company of Pawliger and Staubsinger; mother Nettie; and siblings Arthur and Ruth E.

 The 1930 New York Census shows Herbert and his family the same as the 1930 information.

Hebert’s WWII Draft registration shows he worked at Jay-Tee Frocks and was married to Minna. They had a child Winifred.

In December Helen and her parents and at least one sister visited the Pawlings in New York City in December at the invitation of Ruth Pawling.

April 13, 1919 ads from St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Stix, Bauer & Fuller ad

Classic to Contemporary String Quilts

Classic to Contemporary String Quilts by Mary M. Hogan offers 14 quilt projects perfect for scrap quilting, using pieces of all sizes. What quilter doesn't need patterns like these?

And it's amazingly simpler than I ever thought.

I have never really understood paper piecing. I even bought a book about how to paper piece but still felt confused. So when I saw Mary's pages on how to paper piece blocks for her book I was amazed--I understood the process! Each step is photographed, fronts and backs of the work in progress, with descriptions of what to do. 

Included are squares with center seams, half square triangles, and quarter square triangles, directional quarter square triangles. Blocks in which the background foundation fabric become part of the finished block include half square triangles, half covered background squares, star points, and one and four corner covered blocks. 

There's more--Crooked strings and disappearing strings and adding selvages to strings! Mary shows how to make tree panels for her branching tree blocks and Dresden plate sections. Various foundations are shown, including paper, fabric, and tulle.

Next comes the patterns for quilt projects. String pieced blocks in traditional patterns include flying geese, large block Carpenter Square, Church Dash, Shoo Fly, Card Trick, and Bow Tie.

Her star quilt pattern is original and modern in design. She offers a large Dresden Plate block pattern in a plethora of bright prints to create a floral-like block, and a Dresden Plate table runner.

String pieced sets are sliced thin to be scattered across a single background color for a simple, modern feel. A monotone palette for the strings also has a modern vibe set with white.

Her trees are very cool and make up to 16 1/2" x 18" size. She shows them as a set representing seasons but could also be set together into a bed sized quilt.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Classic to Contemporary String Quilts
by Mary M. Hogan
Fox Chapel Publishing
Landauer Publishing
Pub Date 08 Apr 2019
ISBN 9781947163041
PRICE $24.95 (USD)

Morality and the Environmental Crisis by Roger S. Gottlieb

Deeply thoughtful and reasoned, Morality and the Environmental Crisis by Roger S. Gottlieb is a profound work that draws from all areas of human thought and experience.

Gottlieb proposes an argument then offers the counterarguments in a complex ladder of understanding that is nevertheless so well presented that the reader can follow the progression of thought.

Some years ago I participated in a small group study on energy use and climate change. The participants were all of a like mind and voiced frustration with 'those people' who remained unresponsive to arguments to change their lifestyle. The antagonism and anger weighed heavy in the air.

We cannot change the world or even change all the people around us.

We can only do what we can do. I have used tote bags for shopping for years. I have decided to make bags for produce instead of using the plastic ones at the stores. I have recycled glass and cans and paper for forty-seven years. I rarely buy red meat. When we turned in our leased car we had clocked only 10,000 miles over three years. We insulated our house and bought all LED bulbs. We compost and avoid pesticides.

It isn't enough.

We support candidates that work to save the Great Lakes and who are concerned with climate change.

It isn't enough.

As Gottlieb writes, we are still complicit--I am still complicit.

I buy yards of cotton fabric to make quilts as a creative outlet--cotton that requires fertilizers and pesticides and factories to make it into fabric and chemicals to treat it and trucks to get it to the quilt shop. Just so I can cut it up and sew it into something new, tossing the bitty scraps into the trash that goes into a landfill.

I am part of the problem. We all are. Our entire society, economy, and culture make us so. As a society, we are more interested in technology than nature. Jobs instead of preservation. Maintaining our lifestyle than worrying about oil spills somewhere else.

We need widespread collective and political action to change society. Maybe it can happen--we got a man on the moon and people sacrificed to support the war effort during WWII. Nothing less can alter the course we are headed on.

I continue to do what I can because it feels like a moral imperative, like not leaving untended fires in the forest or tossing trash along the roadside, a habit based in reason and science and tradition and personal values.

Do we love nature enough--know nature personally enough to care to preserve it? Not just the puppy mill dogs and the lab rabbits, but also the forests and the marshlands?

How can we save the natural world from our collective brutality if we do not love it? If we do not know it, how can we love it? and if everything else--work, ease, moral limits, the dominant institutions of our society--removes us from it? from Morality and the Environmental Crisis

Gottlieb ends the book by employing the ageless use of story to show the choice we each must make: we can embrace despair or gratitude. Gratitude does not negate despair, it makes life worth living in the face of awful realities.

Learn more about the book and author and see the table of contents at
https://www.kriso.ee/cambridge-studies-religion-philosophy-society-morality-db-9781316506127.html

I was given access to a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Morality and the Environmental Crisis
by Roger S. Gottlieb
Cambridge University Press
Pub Date 02 Apr 2019 
ISBN 9781316506127
PRICE $29.99 (USD)

The Story of Charlotte's Web by Michael Sims

I was a few months old when E. B. White's classic children's book Charlotte's Web was published. My First Grade teacher read the book aloud to my class. As a girl, I read it many times, and when our son was born I read it to him as well. And the older I become the more I realize the impact the story had on my life.

Knowing my esteem for the book, my son gifted me Michael's Sims book Charlotte's Web: E. B. White's Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic for Christmas. It was a lovely read, entertaining and enlightening.

White had a love of nature and animals. As a child, his family spent their summers in Maine, and in spite of his allergies, it was the highlight of the year. As an adult, he and his wife Katherine purchased a farm in Maine--with a view of Mount Cadalliac on Mt. Desert Isle across the water. My husband and I spent many summers camping at Acadia National Park! It is a beautiful area.

White admired the popular columnist Don Marquis who created the characters Archy--a cockroach--and Mehitible--a cat. White liked how Marquis kept his animal characters true to their nature while using them for social satire. Archy inspired the character of Charlotte.

Archy

I was a teen when I discovered Marquis on a friend's parent's bookshelf. I borrowed the book and later bought my own copy.

White's first children's book was the best-selling Stuart Little, illustrated by Garth Williams who was just beginning his career. Williams was established by the time he contributed his art to Charlotte's Web.  He created beloved illustrations for Little Golden Books and authors like Margaret Wise Brown and Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I enjoyed the details about White's writing process. He worked on the novel over a long period, carefully considering every aspect, even setting it aside for a year. He researched spiders in detail. He sketched his farm as a model. He thought carefully about what words Charlotte would spin into her web. White hated rats, and kept Templeton's nature intact without a personality change. Fern was a later addition.

Sims reproduces the text from the manuscripts with White's editing. I am always fascinated by seeing an author's edits and the development of a story.

White's name was also well known to me as it appears on The Elements of Style, which started as a pamphlet written by White's professor Strunk!

White's wife Katherine wrote a column on gardening, Onward and Upward in the Garden, which was published in a book form after her death--and which I had read upon its publication!

See Garth Williams original drawings here.

Helen Korngold Diary April 1-6, 1919

A hundred years ago Helen Korngold kept a diary that recorded her senior year at Washington Univerity, experience as a student teacher, and her social life in St. Louis. Every Saturday I am sharing a week's entries along with notes on my research into the people, places, and events Helen mentions.

Helen Korngold, Dec. 1919, New York City

April
Tuesday 1
April fool. Scandal Sheet came out. It wasn’t especially good. Karol drilled Boy Scouts.

Wednesday 2

Taught Wellston school all day II grade – kids were o.k. They were crazy about me. Oh, how I love myself! I’ve been thinking about Summer. Karol reminded me of him. I’m just naturally crazy! Well, must get busy & study.

Thursday 3
School. History is getting dreadfully hard. Nothing exciting. Home. Letter from Summer! I was so happy to get it – told me lots about his trip & first impressions of Little Rock.

Friday 4
School.  Danced 2 hours in gymie  – Mixer at night – pretty nice.

Saturday 5
School – Wells told me to cultivate my scientific imagination! Junior Council – elected me treasurer. Home with Roslyn Eberson, Corrine Wolf & Audrey Young. All of them raved about Summer’s photo – so did I!

Monday 7
School – Orchestra- Wrote notes for J. Council


NOTES:

April 1
The Washington University Scandal Sheet was shared by the university "forgotten history" at http://www.studlife.com/scene/2018/11/08/how-well-do-you-know-your-niche-wu-history/

Tuesday, April 1, 1919
Scandal Sheet: Profs Evade Dry Law Attempt to Avoid 18th Amendment
The 18th amendment was ratified in 1919 and prohibited the sale of intoxicating liquors. Miss Macaulay, “dean of the women,” walked down into the basement of the women’s dormitory, MacMillan Hall, in late March of 1919 and tripped over a “large cork.” She ended up finding three bottle tops and a corkscrew at the foot of the stairs. She then called in two other people to help her with her search. The article claims she said, “Friends, I smell a rat.” When the “friends” came back with bottles, they apparently said, “Miss Macaulay, you were wrong about smelling a rat; it was a bird. We have located 15 bottles of Old Crow.” My god. Apparently there was a whole horde of “wet goods” in the basement, and three professors were implicated in the findings of the booze because of three books that were found alongside the paraphernalia. One book was connected to a professor simply based on the initials written on the “flypiece.” A truly thrilling scandal.

April 4

St Louis Post Dispatch notice Friday, April 4 1919

Gymmie- a campus nickname for the gymnasium. The 1915 Hatchet mentions the McMillian Vaudeville being held at the “gymmie” instead of the Thyrsus “cubbie.”

April 5

Rosyln Eberson (born Jan 1900) on the 1910 census was living with parents Alex and Henrietta and her mother’s father Philip Augatstein. Alex was a clothing salesman. Rosyln graduated from Frank Louis Soldan HS in St. Louis in 1916. In 1929 she lived at Rosebury St. in St Louis. In 1920 Rosyln and her parents lived with her paternal grandparents Elias and Yetta Eberson. Elias worked for “Paint Co” and was born in Krakow. Rosalind was a stenographer at an insurance company on the 1920 and 1930 census. In May, 1939 she married Joseph Lederer.

Spring Dress ads from St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sunday, April 6, 1919:

The Sun is a Compass by Caroline Van Hemert

I love a good adventure story and if it involves ice I'm in. Caroline Van Hemert's memoir The Sun is a Compass is a beautiful and thoughtful exposition on her love of the Alaskan wilderness and the 4,000-mile journey she and her spouse shared over six months. The memoir transcends the typical story of man (or woman) vs nature, for Van Hemert also documents her struggle to find her life path--will she be content in a research career, what about children, how long will their bodies allow them to follow their hearts?

Working in the field as a student, Alaskan native Van Hemert became interested in ornithology, and in particular why so many chickadees beaks were misformed. Lab work was soul-deadening. She and her husband Peter, who at eighteen trekked into Alaska and built his own cabin by hand, had long discussed a dream journey from the Pacific Northwest rain forest to the Arctic Circle. Before Van Hemert decided on her career path they committed to making their dream a reality.

Their journey took them across every challenging terrain and through every extreme weather imaginable, bringing them face-to-face with predator bear and migrating caribou, driven near crazy by mosquitoes swarms and nearly starving waiting for food drop-offs. But they also met hospitality in far distant corners and saw up close a quickly vanishing ecosystem.

It is a story of a marriage, as well; how Peter and Caroline depended on each other while carrying their own weight--literally, with seventy-pound supply packs.

I enjoyed reading this memoir on so many levels. Van Hemert has written a profound memoir on our vanishing wilderness and the hard decisions women scientists must make.

Learn more about the book, see a trailer, and read an excerpt at
 https://www.littlebrownspark.com/titles/caroline-van-hemert/the-sun-is-a-compass/9780316414425/

I thank the publisher who allowed me access to an egalley through NetGalley.

The Sun Is a Compass: A 4,000-Mile Journey into the Alaskan Wilds
by Caroline Van Hemert
Little, Brown and Company
Pub Date 19 Mar 2019 
ISBN: 9780316414425
PRICE: $27.00 (USD)