Songs of America by Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw

Oh, I so enjoyed reading this book! From the beginning with the beautiful and inspirational Overture on The History of Music by Jon Meacham, I did not want to stop reading this history of America through music.

Music brings a deep association with the events and places I have experienced. When I hear a song I can place myself in a specific place and point in time. The Green Berets by Barry Sadler came out when I was fourteen. It had pride of country and was an appealing march. I bought a ceramic green beret pin at a drug store counter.

But the patriotic support of the war was short-lived and the backdrop of my teenage years was filled with anti-war music including Turn, Turn Turn, Where Have All the Flowers Gone? and Give Peace a Chance. 

The music of my life tracked the social changes going on. The songs about women waiting for men became feminist anthems. Love of country was replaced by calls for justice and equity. Love songs were still popular, but cooler were the protest songs for social change with messages of universal love, peace, inclusion, anti-authority, and dropping out of the system.

The music of patriotism is inevitably the music of protest, Meacham writes, adding that history is not just read, but is something we also hear. And he notes that history is a continual process. He holds hope that we "can overcome fear, that light can triumph over darkness, that we can open our arms rather than clench our fists." Music reminds the nation of where we have been and points to what we can become.

The authors begin with pre-Revolutionary songs such as John Dickinson's 1768 The Liberty Song which rallied the colonies to unite in a righteous cause and move through history to Bruce Springsteen's protest anthem Born in the U. S. A. Each song placed in its historical and cultural setting.  

Over There was George Cohen's "bugle call" 

evoking the American Revolution's Yanke Doodle in its patriotism.
"Johnny get your gun...show the "Hun" you're a son-of-a-gun"
"And we won't come back till it's over, over there."

The music discussed by Meacham and commented on by McGraw includes the well-known and well-beloved but also lesser-known songs that were influential in their day. They all represent America at a specific historical era: The Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, slavery and abolition, the Civil War, minstrel shows and racism, WWI and WWII, the social movements of Civil Rights and equal rights and voting rights, the reactive rise of the Klan and Jim Crow, the cultural division of the 1970s, and the political divisions of the last fifty years.

WWI saw patriotic music like America, Here's My Boy 

with a mother offering her 'boy' to the cause... 

and anti-war protest music like I Didn't Raise My Boy to be a Soldier.

McGraw's contributions are inserted in text boxes. He addresses the songs from a musician's viewpoint and from a personal, emotional response.

Sinatra was one of McGraw's idols

Songs of America is a book of history, filled with stories that trace the complicated American experiment in democracy.

In 1938 Irving Berlin's God Bless America was debuted on Kate Smith's CBS radio show. Woody Guthrie's This Land Is Your Land was originally titled God Blessed America and questioned the inequality behind the American promise.

History is an argument without end, Meacham shares. Americans have argued and fought, and dissent and protest continue, but this book offers the promise that "America is not finished, the last notes have not yet been played," and calls us to lift every voice and sing in the continuing great national conversation.

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

Songs of America: Patriotism, Protest, and the Music That Made a Nation
by Jon Meacham; Tim McGraw
Random House Publishing Group - Random House
Pub Date 11 Jun 2019
ISBN 9780593132951
PRICE $30.00 (USD)

All sheet music photographed are from my personal collection.

Helen Korngold Diary: June 2- 8, 1919

Helen Korngold, December 1919, New York City

100 years ago a Washington University student kept a diary. I found it in an antique shop in 2001. I was so taken by the author that I spent years researching her, her family, and the people and places she wrote about. This year I am sharing weekly posts from Helen Korngold's diary along with my research.

June finds Helen busy preparing for final exams.

June

Monday 2
Home – tired- study

Tuesday 3
Study for Shakespeare

Wednesday 4
Shakespeare. Slept.

Thursday 5
Study for Ed & Shakes. [Shakespeare]

Friday 6
Exams in Ed & Sh. Pretty fair.

Saturday 7
Exam in Hist., Ed. & Geol. I’m almost dead – downtown – dressmaker’s- Emil phoned – Milliners.

Sunday 
Sunday School. Swimming with Bernard in afternoon at Highlands – Had a wonderful time – to Satellites with Emil Winkler in evening. Big row over elections – they don’t suit us.

Notes:

Helen was busy preparing for final exams but managed to spend time at Highlands Amusement Park.

June 7, 1919 St. Louis Post-Dispatch notice

Helen did not have time to see Mary Pickford in her new movie.


In the news, the last WWI soldiers returned home are celebrated in a parade.

President Wilson congratulated the ladies on getting the vote.

June 7, 1919, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Make Me a City by Jonathan Carr

"But if what survives of our legacy is a patchwork of threads, I believe the historian has a duty to try to stitch them together." ~the ficitonal Mr Winship, Professor of American History at University of Chicago, in Make Me A City by Jonathan Carr

As a family genealogy researcher, I have delved into many turn-of-the-century place histories in which people still living recollected earlier days. Make Me A City is patterned in part on these late 19th c. volumes. Central is a fictional history of Chicago's first hundred years, offering an alternative narrative of its founding families. Interjected are other fictional primary sources. The overarching narrative is the development of the city, but the stories of these characters drives the book.

Jonathan Carr offers a French-born mulatto trader as the first European to settle at Echicagou where the Illinois River meets Lake Michigan. Jean Baptiste Pointe de Sable built his family an admirable home before an unscrupulous man determines to take it from him.

We follow Jean and his descendants through the century, along with the stories of men who built Chicago, the visionary engineers and the immigrant workers, the con men and the idealistic journalists.

The story keeps weaving back to Jean and those early days when all was set in motion--the disenfranchisement of people of color, the anti-immigrant prejudice, the powerlessness of women.

Toward the end of the book, Antje Van Voorhis Hunter, whose lineage traces back to Jean, travels to see a statue erected by Pullman to commemorate the Massacre at Fort Dearborn. Her grandmother survived that massacre and her version of history has been recorded by Prof. Winship.

The statue portrays a white woman and a baby on the ground with a scantily clad Native American raising a tomahawk overhead. Another Native American stands with his hand out to stop the massacre; this man is taller and wears buckskin trousers. The civilized Native heroically is stopping the violence. No soldiers appear in the scene.

Antje and her husband discuss the implications of the statue's version of history, "like using perfume to cover up a bad smell." The myth portrayed in the art has become an accepted and shared truth.

"If you take on somebody more powerful than yourself and play by the rules and beat them, they annul the result," Antje thinks, adding, "Then nothing has changed. "It's in our blood," Mr. Winship believes, referring back to the first violence committed against Jean.

I made a family tree to keep the families straight.

 Read an excerpt here.

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Make Me A City
by Jonathan Carr
Henry Holt and Co.
Publication: 03/19/2019
$30.00 hardcover
ISBN: 9781250294012

The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith

I could not stop reading Dominic Smith's new novel The Electric Hotel. I was transported back in time to the heady early days of film, disturbed by a trek into the horrors of WWI, and enthralled by the vivid characters and their stories, especially the tragic story of unrequited love.

Claude Ballard's cutting-edge, notorious 1910 film The Electric Hotel had impelled audience to high emotion. It was his highest achievement, but it came crashing down when Thomas Edison sued his company for copyright infringement--as he did all his competition, seeking a monopoly on the film industry.

Claude has not seen a movie since 1920 when in 1962 a grad student in filmography seeks him out. He realizes he has been "pickling" himself for thirty years, holed up in a hotel filled with other aging film industry has-beens, his hoard of film decaying from vinegar syndrome.

"He'd witnessed and photographed the passing of a golden, burnished epoch." from The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith

As Claude answers Martin's questions and shares his hoard of decaying canisters of film, he revisits his early life and ascent from a French farmer's son who in 1895 was mesmerized by the early Lumiere films, how he became a noted movie maker, then while bravely filming WWI he was taken by the German army, always haunted by the film actress who broke his heart.

"When I dream of that old life I see it like a strip of burning celluloid. It smokes and curls in the air, but it's impossible to hold between my fingers." from The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith

Sabine Montrose had beauty but no heart. She arrived in Paris as a teenager and fled when men pursued her. She learned to act and to use men but never would give her heart. Claude became one of her victims when the older woman took him into her bed for one night only. Claude was caught in her web, filmed her and made her an international star, forever hoping that Sabine would allow him into her life once again.

"Loving a woman was like that...was chasing smoke." from The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith

The son of a failed nickelodeon owner, Hal was the theater owner who ran Claude's films; the small, spunky boy Chip was the burning man in a circus act when he joined the company as a stuntman. Sabine's mysterious mentor Pavel was always at her side.

The mystery of what happened pulled me along like a magnet, but I cherished every sentence of the gorgeous writing and would not skip a line.

Smith was impressed by the quality and art of the early movies he viewed during his research. What treasures have been lost? The Electric Hotel is an actual 1908 film recently rediscovered. I viewed it online here. A couple take a room in a hotel in which stop-action animated luggage takes itself up the elevator and unpacks itself. Brushes clean the traveler's boots. I can imagine the impact on audiences over 100 years ago!

"People wanted escape, sure, but first they wanted the shock of recognition." from The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith

I previously read Smith's novels The Mercury Visions of Louise Daguerre and read and reviewed The Last Painting of Sara DeVos.

Read an excerpt at  http://www.dominicsmith.net/pdfs/excerpts/Eletric_Hotel_Excerpt.pdf

I was given access to an egalley through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Electric Hotel: A Novel
by Dominic Smith
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Sarah Crichton Books
Pub Date 04 Jun 2019
ISBN 9780374146856
PRICE $27.00 (USD)

Grace Will Lead Us Home: The Charleston Church Massacre and the Hard, Inspiring Journey to Forgiveness by Jennifer Berry Hawes

It was about fifteen years ago that a stranger came to church and after worship service was directed to the young adult Sunday School class. He sat quietly during the discussion. Then he spoke up, asking what the church believed about a divisive social issue. There was a stunned silence for a few seconds before I was inspired to answer.

I explained the official denomination's Social Principles. And I explained the wide range of personal beliefs that our community included. As we broke up, the man asked to see the pastor and asked him the same question.

The pastor was my husband. He explained the church doctrine and he gave his personal belief. The man nodded and said it was clear that the church was under the leadership of Satan.

He was a quiet-spoken man and I do not recall any high emotion from his face or voice as he told us that he would return the following Sunday to proclaim to the world that this was a church lead by Satan.

My husband conferred with church leaders and word got to a church member who was our state Senator. Her family were active members of the church and she reported the incident to the Capital police and the local police were also contacted. They knew this man and said he was likely 'off his meds.' The church asked for a restraining order to keep the man off the church property.

It was a fretful week. I was concerned that the man would return through the open doors and wreak havoc. Would he be violent? Would he have a gun? I pictured him walking up the aisle of the church, backlit by the summer sunshine coming in through the open double doors of the church, the risen Christ in stained glass above the entry.

Sunday came and the police arrived and kept the man across the street.

As the man shouted out his condemnation our church family drew strength and solidarity, from the teenagers to our septuagenarian WWII veteran whose wife restrained him from crossing the street to confront the man.

Churchs have conflicts and splits and bickering and disagreements. They are human institutions and filled with imperfect people. But the idea of a stranger entering and threatening lives was appalling.

Yet it happens too often. Recently, there have been attacks on African American churches and a synagogue. It happened this past week in Sri Lanka and as I finished writing this a California synagogue was victimized by a hate crime attack.

Our places of worship should be--are expected to be--safe havens for the church community and for the strangers who they welcome.

Jennifer Berry Hawes wrote Grace Will Lead Us Home to "convey the sheer scope of devastation that mass tragedies sow in the lives of everyday people."

The Charleston Church Massacre is a haunting tragedy. A stranger came to a Bible Study and murdered nine people. The reason Dylann Roof gave for his crime was that he "had to" do it. Indoctrinated by white supremacist website propaganda, Roof felt propelled to do something to reverse integration.

The impact on the personal lives of the congregation was devastating. Hawes tells the story of the survivors and the families of the deceased; we get to know them as people we care about.

For these people of faith, forgiveness is a Christian requirement they took seriously, forgiving Dylann Roof. What did that cost them to say those words! And what freedom was gained in letting go?

The narrative power of the book was overwhelming, even if sad and disturbing. Set within the larger picture, I learned about Charleston's history of slavery, the birth and decline of Emmanuel AME Church, the history of racism and the backlash against segregation. It took this tragedy to retire the Confederate flag from the courthouse. The portrait of Dylann Roof was mystifying. His social intelligence allowed him to manipulate his parents and yet he could not make friends and avoided eye contact. Was he autistic?

The massacre was horrific and tragic. And I was sorely disappointed by the lack of compassion and support offered from the AME church leadership. As Emmanuel's pastor was a victim, an interim pastor was appointed. His abuse of power was unimaginable.

Grace Will Lead Us Home is a moving portrayal of a community in crisis and recovery.

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

Grace Will Lead Us Home: The Charleston Church Massacre and the Hard, Inspiring Journey to Forgiveness
by Jennifer Berry Hawes
St. Martin's Press
Pub Date 04 Jun 2019 
ISBN: 9781250117762
PRICE: $28.99 (USD)

Helen Korngold Diary: May 26-June 1, 1919

Helen Korngold, December 1919, New York City

One hundred years ago Helen Korngold kept a diary that documented her senior year at Washington University in St. Louis, her social life, and trips she took across America. I found the diary and researched Helen and the places and people she wrote about. Every week this year I am sharing her diary and my research.

May

Monday 26

Tired!

School. All dolled up for May Day & then it rained. Tough luck! Have to study at last! Final Exam tomorrow in Ed. 18.

Tuesday 27

School – practiced dancing with Eva – rotten. Keod Tea. Athletic Meeting- banquet – Farewell to Miss Grant – Won Baseball Honors & song for Senior Contest Honors.

Wednesday 28

School – Rehearsal with Eva in evening – junk – I’ll stay out of that dance.

Thursday 29

School – Rehearsal with Corrine. Home – To concert with Summer – lots of fun. Saw Mr. Miller – fair proposition.

Friday 30

School. Home – study

Saturday 31

School – downtown. Grandma’s – Uncle Joe leaves for Colo. & Grandma for Oaksville – Don’t like my new dress.

June

Sunday 1

Home – Rehearsal. Vaudeville was perfectly marvelous. We were all so thrilled & had such a glorious time. Also a big financial success. Some class to celebrate.

Notes:

May 26

Ed. 18 course description: Contemporary Educational Problems. Recent experiments on making schools more efficient will be discussed. Investigations will be made and reports prepared by members of the class. Three hours a week. Credit 3 units. (Wells)

May 27

Keod was the woman’s senior honor society at Washington University. 

Helen was active in sports. Her senior yearbook shows she was on the rowing team as a 'coxswain' and the hockey team. She wrote about playing baseball and basketball in her diary. 

          

May 28

Final Examinations Week was May 29 through June 6 

May 29
Perhaps Summer and Helen went to the opening Park concert

May 31

Joseph Frey (1884 to 1962) was Helen’s maternal uncle. His WWI draft card shows he had black hair and eyes and was of medium height and build. On the 1930 Census, he was boarding with Louis Lieberman in the home of his sister Jeannie Frey Rosenbaum. Lou was a pharmacist and Joseph a newspaper editor who started The Modern View, a weekly Jewish newspaper. In 1940 he was living with Jeannie and worked as a collector for a hospital. His WWII draft card showed he worked in Hot Spring, Arkansas and traveled nine states, and used his sister's address as a contact.

Oaksville is located just south of St. Louis, along the Mississippi River.

June 1

The Satellites Vaudeville

from The Jewish Voice, May 30, 1919

June 1, 1919, St. Louis Post-Dispatch article

Articles and ads from the newspaper that week:

May 27, 1919 St. Louis Post-Dispatch ad

May 29, 1919 St. Louis Post-Dispatch photo Soldan H. S.
'boys...who gave up their lives in the war"

St. Louis Post-Dispatch photograph of Memorial Day Parade

From the May 29, 1919 St. Louis Post-Dispatch

June 1, 1919, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The Ministry of Truth: The Biography of George Orwell's 1984 by Dorian Lynskey

In January 2017, Sean Spicer claimed that the crowd gathered to see President Trump take the oath of office was the "largest audience to ever witness an inauguration." When accused of misrepresentation Kellyanne Conway said her statement was "alternative facts." Over the following four days, sales of George Orwell's novel 1984 rocketed to number one bestseller.

Dorian Lynskey writes that more people know about 1984 than know 1984. It's catchphrases have entered the common language. Big Brother. Doublespeak. Newspeak.

In his book, Ministry of Truth, Lynskey examines the novel's origin, development, and influence in its time and its afterlife. Lynskey shows how Orwell's values and experiences shaped the novel and Orwell's purpose and intended message of the novel.

The book is in two parts, first telling the story of Orwell's life and beliefs, his world, the history of utopian and dystopian novels. In the second part, Lynskey covers the novel's influences, interpretations, and uses since its publication.

Since January 2017, dystopian novels have topped the best-seller lists and newly published ones find a ready audience. 1984 was not meant to be prophetic, but a warning based on Orwell's experience.

"What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening," Trump proclaimed in a July 2018 speech, echoing the 1984 lines, "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." Orwell feared that objective truth "is fading out of the world." Seventy years later, we still share that fear.

Upon its publication, some thought it was a book that would only speak to one generation. Sadly, it has proven resiliently evergreen.

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

"The moral to be drawn from this dangerous nightmare situation is a simple one," [Orwell] explained in a press statement after the book came out. "Don't let it happen. It depends on you." quoted in The Ministry of Truth by Dorian Lynskey

The Ministry of Truth: The Biography of George Orwell's 1984
by Dorian Lynskey
Doubleday Books
Pub Date 04 Jun 2019
ISBN 9780385544054
PRICE $28.95 (USD)

Blended Embroidery: Combining Old & New Textiles, Ephemera & Embroidery

I love the idea behind Blended Embroidery by Brian Haggard. His art is a collage of textiles, vintage images, and ephemera printed on textiles, embroidery, and embellishments.

The Lacemaker by Brian Haggard

Haggard loves finding old pieces and repurposing them. His studio is filled with buttons, beads, laces, trims, threads, and textile pieces--even imperfect pieces.

Haggard shows how to make free form embroidered leaves and embroidered felt flowers, soft bows, walnut stained fabrics, photo imaging, attaching doilies and printed images.

Pincushions and sachets made of vintage images scanned on fabric

Chapters include

• Where to Look for Blended Embroidery Inspiration
• But It Looks Like Trash
• Materials, Fabrics, and Supplies
• Basic Stitches 

Projects include

• The Lace Maker
• Paisley Proper
• Scissor Sheath and Scissors Holder
• Pincushion
• Travel Bag
• Renaissance Revival
• Friendship Pincushions and Sachets
• Sewing Butler 

A Galley and About the Author is included.

Scissors holder and pincushion

Many of the Galley projects are a form of crazy quilting. The creativity is inspiring! I especially love the quilts that include antique family portraits printed on fabric!

Haggard's previous books included Crazy Quilted Memoires and Embroidered Memories. Visit Haggard's website at http://www.brianhaggard.com/

I received access to a free ebook in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Blended Embroidery: Combining Old & New Textiles, Ephemera & Embroidery
Brian Haggard
Book ( $27.95  ) eBook ( $22.99 )
SBN: 978-1-61745-809-5
UPC: 734817-113393
(eISBN: 978-1-61745-810-1)

Catching Up with Miss Kopp

My library book club read Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart last month and it was this month's book choice for my husband's Mystery Book Club. Both groups enjoyed the book and the Mystery Book Club scheduled to read the next book in the series, Lady Cop Makes Trouble, next year.

This month I also read Lady Cop Makes Trouble, Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions, and Miss Kopp Just Won't Quilt in the last few weeks in preparation to read her upcoming addition to the series Kopp Sisters On The March.

Lady Cop continues the story of Constance, Norma, and Fleurette Kopp, based on newspaper articles about Constance Kopp. Constance became a jail matron in charge of female prisoners.

A male prisoner faking illness and is taken to the hospital. Under Constance's watch, a distraction diverts her attention and the man escapes. It is the Sheriff, not Constance, whose job is on the line and she determines to find the escapee and save Sheriff Heath's reputation and job.

The escapee was a doctor who faked the illness of his patients to extort money from the families.

Lady Cop Makes Trouble becomes a news story headline bringing unwanted attention to Constance.

As jail matron, Constance is both firm and humane.

I might not ever see these women cleansed of their crimes and misdeeds, and I might not keep them from misfortune and misery, but I could rid them of vermin and send them to sleep in a clean and quiet bed. For some of them, it was the first night they'd spend free of torment--of one kind of another--in years. from Lady Cop Makes Trouble

Constance becomes involved with the women in the jail, their backstories revealing the lives of women a hundred years ago.

At midnight a woman will tell almost anything if she finds one who is sympathetic to tell it to. from Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions

Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions concerns girls who leave home without parental permission and are accused of being 'wayward' by their parents, which entails the girls being sent to a reformatory. If the girl left town with a man he would be accused of white slavery and under the Mann Act which made it a crime if he transported the girl across state borders.

The stories of three girls show the many causes of a girl's leaving home and the legal consequences of doing so. A nineteen-year-old girl wants employment in the war effort and to see the wider world. A sixteen-year-old girl attaches herself to a man who can get her passage out of town. He sets her up in an apartment in his name. And then there is Fleuette and her dream of breaking into show business.

Young women were being locked up for months, and possibly years, over offenses that amounted to little more than leaving their parents' home without permission, or carrying on with an unsuitable man. Constance couldn't help notice that the unsuitable men were never arrested for their part in the crime. from Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions

Women's parents and husbands determined their life choices. Parents sometimes opted to have their daughters arrested and sent to a reformatory until they were age 21. Constance visits the reformatory, run like a prison, where she sees orphans and children whose families were 'unsuitable.' Girls who fight or run away or set fires are sent into a closed room. The girls learned the domestic arts to prepare them for service or families and were on probation after they left, required to keep the job provided for them and to get approval if they wanted to marry.

The attractions of the greater world include working in a factory where girls could earn and spend their own money and the vaudeville stage with its painted glamour. Fleurette is taken by May Ward and her Dresden Dolls who sing There's a Little Bit of Bad in Every Good Little Girl, which Constance finds especially meaningful.

sheet music from my personal collection. Hear the song and read the lyrics
at https://www.sheetmusicsinger.com/theres-a-little-bit-of-bad-in-every-good-little-girl/

Girl Waits With Gun revealed that Constance was seduced by the traveling Singer sewing man and ran away from home to have her baby. Norman brought them back into the family home. A move meant the women could pass Fleurette off as her grandmother's child.

No one knows better that there's a little bit of bad in every good girl, and that girls gone bad can be reclaimed.

Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit shows Constance's determination and fearlessness when she pursues an escaped prisoner and rescues him from drowning. 

It is the 1916 election year and Sheriff Heath's appointment is coming to an end. The candidate for Sheriff, John Coulter, is focusing on the fact people have escaped instead of focusing on the positive that Miss Kopp has apprehended them.

The novel continues to probe the lives of women a hundred years ago. Miss Kopp visits girls in their new lives to encourage them to stay straight and helps a woman falsely committed to the asylum by a philandering husband. 

But this novel also considers the political climate of 1916, showing how some things haven't changed.

"It was an uncertain time in Bergen Country: there was labor unrest in the factories, a mistrust of immigrants who might be German sympathizers, and the very real fear that a munitions depot might go up like so many crates of firecrackers at the hands of secret agents of the Kaiser. And most of all, there was the absolute terror of war--a war we surely couldn't avoid much longer. The people were looking for an enemy, and John Courter had one on offer." from Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit by Amy Stewart

Miss Kopp is distressed by the machinations of John Courter. Sheriff Heath consoles her by saying, "He's putting all his worst qualities right out on display for the public to see," sure that the crowd of a few hundred people Courter drew did would not represent what the voters would decide on Election Day.

Meanwhile, Norma is inventing a portable homing pigeon station that could be used in the war effort for communication. Fluerette is part of the entertainment at the Plattsburg camp where men are training to be prepared for war. 

With the new sheriff comes huge changes, none of them good for Miss Kopp or the female inmates.

As a new member of the Kopp Sisters Literary Society, I choose to receive the upcoming Kopp Sisters on the March. It was a happy day when the Advanced Reading Copy arrived with cool swag: a bandana, binocular key chain, bookmark, and a delicious chocolate bar! Yes--I ate the chocolate bar soon after opening the package. But after I had checked out the book!

Gold Digger: A Rags to Riches to Rags Love Story

Baby Doe Tabor, born Elizabeth McCourt, was author Rebecca Rosenberg's life-long obsession and now Roseburg has resurrected Baby Doe in her newest book Gold Digger: The Remarkable Baby Doe Tabor. Rosenberg is the author of The Secret Life of Mrs. London--the 2020 Read Across California book choice and winner of the Independent Book Publisher's Gold Award.

The beautiful Baby Doe married for the promise of a gold mine--her mother always intended her to be the family's way out of debt. When her immature husband abandoned Baby Doe she supported herself by working for a tailor. Ever since she arrived in the Western wilds of Colorado, Baby Doe had turned heads and men scrambled for her favors. But the only man to claim her heart was the married Silver King Horace Tabor, who had rose from miner to riches to the U.S. Senate.

Baby Doe broke hearts when she and Tabor divorced their spouses and got married. The 'Tabor Luck' brought them spectacular wealth before the Eastern bankers convinced the Federal government to adopt the gold standard, sending silver prices plunging.

I was propelled to read Gold Digger. Baby Doe and her world are vividly rendered, and the economic and social challenges of the times are addressed through the action.

A terrifying scene of an attack on Chinese immigrants illustrates the anti-Chinese sentiment toward the people who came to do the manual labor. And the shunning of the Tabor wedding in Washington, D.C., even though President Arthur attended, illustrates the social rejection of the divorced.

Baby Doe's experiences ran the gamut from pampered daughter to the hard-working miner's wife who actually donned overalls and worked on site. She suffered a miscarriage and was abandoned by her first husband. She worked to support herself, fending off sexual predators and suitors. Then she coped with social rejection for her divorce and a relationship with the man she loved. Tabor showered her with riches and gave her two children before losing everything, but she stuck with him. No wonder that Rosenberg calls her 'remarkable'.

The sequel to Gold Digger, Silver Dollar (Baby Doe's daughter) is scheduled for release in September 2019--so readers won't have to wait long for the conclusion of Baby Doe's life!

Title: Gold Digger: The Remarkable Baby Doe Tabor
by Rebecca Rosenberg
Lion Heart Publishing
Price: $15.95 (print) $9.99 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-0-578-42779-9 (Print)
ISBN: 978-1-7329699-0-2 (Kindle)
Publication: May 29, 2019

Rosenberg writes about women who are survivors. She knows about resilience. She and her husband lost their home and lavender farm in a California wildfire in 2017.

Rosenberg's first novel, The Secret Life of Mrs. Jack London, imagines the relationship between the legendary novelist Jack London and his second wife Charmain, and her rumored affair with Harry Houdini. The story opens nine years into Jack and Charmain's marriage. Charmain had been Jack's typist. He divorced his first wife to marry Charmain.

I became his typist, his editor, his muse.--from The Secret Life of Mrs. Jack London by Rebecca Rosenberg

Romance is a prominent feature of the novel. Charmain was raised by an advocate of free love and she was comfortable with her sexuality.

In the novel, Jack finds Charmain essential but he also neglects her and carries on affairs. Charmain longs for their earlier passionate relationship. Men pursue her, making Jack jealous. Her suitors included Harry Houdini who loved his perpetual child-wife but found sexual fulfillment outside of marriage. Charmain's diaries refer to her affair with her 'Magic Man'.

Jack struggles with health issues and is burdened to pay for his many projects, both working hard and playing hard. Both Jack and Harry Houdini are charismatic, lionized, risk takers whose physical charms attract Charmain.

He said he'd never met a woman as game as me for adventure.--from The Secret Life of Mrs. Jack London by Rebecca Rosenberg

There is a desperation about Charmain that made me sad. Jack admired what he perceived as a masculine strength and bravery which matched his own. But what a burden it had to be to live up to his ideals!

Charmain not only typed his novels as he dictated them but cleaned them up, edited, and ghost-wrote them. She desperately wanted to succeed on her own as a writer but the publishers dismissed her until Jack arranged to have her books published.

Charmain discovers that men hold the power in the world and in love. Walking away, her life a blank journal, we hope she finds success on her own terms.

The Secret Life of Mrs. Jack London
by Rebecca Rosenberg
$14.95
Lake Union Publishing
ISBN 9781542048736

Helen Korngold Diary: May 19-25, 1919

In 1919, Helen Korngold, a senior at Washington University kept a diary which I found in a thrift shop in 2001. Over many years I researched Helen and the people, places, and events in the diary and created a family tree on Ancestry.com.

This year I am sharing weekly excerpts from Helen's diary.

May 19
Monday
School – May Day Final rehearsals. No studying.

Tuesday 20
May Day Dress Rehearsals. Summer came home! I was thrilled. No studying all day!

Wednesday 21
 School – May Day called OFF! Time wasted again.

Thursday 22
School – May Day called off! Satellites. No chance to study.

Friday 23
School – May Day called off! Can’t find time to do my work.

Saturday 24
School – Greek Games- Lou & Til took part. Cuqots – my new dress is beautiful!

Sunday 25
Rehearsal with Corrine. Wrote Ads – Millstone Dinner. To diner with Winkler. Swell time. Home. Dress. Y.M.H.A. Home 1 AM – almost dead.

NOTES:

May 24

Perhaps Helen went out with Emil Winkler, whom she went out with on June 7.
YMHA is the Young Men’s Hebrew Association

The Greek Games were held at Forest Park, presented by Central High School. An article appeared in the Sunday, May 25 St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Playing With Purpose: A Quilt Retrospective by Victoria Findlay Wolfe

I Am Not Perfect And That is OK is the title of a quilt by Victoria Findlay Wolfe. In her new book Playing With Purpose one of her first messages is that creativity and improvisation in art entails making mistakes. It is part of the process and one should not be dejected when things go awry. 

Give yourself permission, she advises, to let your work evolve and change. Allowing your work to evolve organically means letting go of set expectations. 

It is OK to set aside a project until you have a clear vision or new skill set to complete it. But don't expect to reach some fantasy of perfection. Worrying about perfection brings negativity and failure.  

Your work should bring joy. Creating a quilt should be playful. Don't overthink it.

We worry too much about color matching and using a limited fabric palette. Wolfe's work breaks out of such self-imposed limitations. Forget the 'rules'. There are no rules. There is what works, what tells your story.

 Few quilt artists are as creative with preprinted fabrics as Wolfe.

Learn new skills, Wolfe encourages. Break out of your comfort zone. As an artist, Wolfe is always evolving.

Tell the quilt police (in your head and outside) where to go. It's your fabric, your time, your memories, your joy. Just make!~from Playing with Purpose by Victoria Findlay Wolfe

 It is wonderful to study Wolfe's quilts presented in the book.

Learn more about Wolfe on her website

https://vfwquilts.com/

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

Victoria Findlay Wolfe’s Playing with Purpose: A Quilt Retrospective

Victoria Findlay Wolfe 

Stash Books

 Book ( $39.95  )

 eBook ( $31.99 )  

ISBN: 978-1-61745-828-6

UPC: 734817-113478

(eISBN: 978-1-61745-829-3)