Interesting Women

Off to lunch shortly to meet a new friend.

After a respite from reading because of nothing seeming interesting (thanks to the kindness of a friend) I revisited the great African American writer Zora Hurston and  I am now into another of my beloved Edith Wharton's novels, this The Reef. I was surprised and delighted yesterday to discover that one of my medical folks enjoys Edith Wharton also. There still may be hope for the profession. <s>

Then read a wondeful book review in this week's  The Nation of the latest resurrection of the diary of Lucie Dillon (Marquise de la Tour du Pin). I was reminded that I have not as yet gotten to Osborne's Idina Sackville biography.  So; lots of good reading for the rest of the summer.

Edith Wharton of course writes more or less of the time of Idina Sackville,  and my grandmothers. They are all history through the eyes of women who managed to define themselves in spite of cultural barriers and in the case of Lucie Dillon times of great troubles.

I am reminded of my wonderful Aunt Emma letters in Prairie Tree Letters.  Born in the early 1850s, she became a writer and reporter in Milwaukee and other Wisconsin towns. Later she taught in the public schools in southern California. Her letters encompass the last ten years of her life, mostly spent alone far distant from family.  Her sense of connection and joy past and contemporaneous  speaks for the rewards of life well spent.  She truly has been an inspiration and mentor for me.

I remain grateful for choices and accidents that permitted me to live life outside myself and of myself.  As Elizabeth Cady Stanton argued, it is a woman's right; just as it is a man's right.