No Votes for You

I follow only my relatives on Facebook, and that's it. My sister-in-law's husband Phil is a brilliant man, truly brilliant Senior Directer of IT in a school district. He obviously searches for and finds the weirdest stuff to send onto us, people who love him.

But, every now and then, he finds gems.

Woodrow Wilson had suffragettes picketing White House
They went on a hunger strike.  Then they were force fed raw eggs. More info

Here are some key phrases from the article you may access in "more info":

"...clubbed, beaten and tortured by guards at the Occoquan Workhouse...33 suffragists from the Nat'l Woman's Party had been arrested Nov. 10, 1917 while picketing outside the White House for the right to vote."

Some women were "tied by (her) hands to bars above her cell and forced to stand all night." One "suffered a heart attack and was denied medical care until the next morning". Hunger strikes resulted in forced feeding.

But there is more that happened. I won't detail the horror performed upon them.  This is something to relay: "The superintendent W.H. Whittaker (who) ordered beatings, called for Marines to guard the compound."

Pres. Woodrow Wilson and the Democratic congress stayed silent. 

This unequivocal torture and cruelty lasted so long, indeed long after U.S. involvement in and after WW1.  

At that time, 20,000,000 million women being regarded as chattel in America alone. In some countries there has been little or no change regarding the status of women.

Okay, I am done reciting the horrors of history and women.  

Thanks, Phil.

Wikipedia

Who are you? Who... who? Who...who?

The single touch

After spending/wasting a good part of the afternoon, the truth has emerged.  GENI© has wandered through the family line of my mother’s grandmother, Sarah Ann.  Twisting and turning, I followed only the male line for ease of surnames, there it was:

I am related to God Almighty!  God Almighty is my 93rd Great-Grandmother!

Sarah Ann introduced some great genes into the humble family line, as her husband Elish’s information dead ends when he was orphaned with his brother in Ohio. 

Her ancestors came from England = from Wales= from being the King of the Druids Wales = from Italy = from land of the Hebrews.  The researcher(s) made some phenomenal leaps to some conclusions that announced Adam had a daughter (!) who started the whole march of lineage.

While I could be rejoicing here, there are few things I know already.

I am a Child of God, the bloodline is Christ’s blood. And I also know that the jump from Sarah Ann involves some crazy speculation: God Almighty is not my 93^rd grandmother.

I will take this part about brutal leaders because they are just plain cool:

Brân “Fendigaid” (the Blessed) ap Llur Lieddiarth, Saint, Brenin of Silures

Or, Cerwyd ap Crydon, King of the Druids and Cornwall

Or, Tros, King of Troy.

P.S. My mother always told me that “Grammy” Sarah Ann had been  "kidnapped" and raised by Gypsies and had the gift of second sight. Mom believed this, and I believe her.  

Actually there is some truth to this one. Her family came from Europe to Kentucky as part of the immigration of Romanians, also called Gypsies. People came to her to read tea leaves and receive natural herbal healing.  

I wonder what tracing through the matriarchal lines would show me?

  

This is a re-post from 2014 w hen I was researching my mother's side of the family. I left off from that to do other writing.  Recently I did the DNA tests, connected with cousins from my father's side.

Heck of a thing, DNA. It showed me that I have Viking blood. Makes sense.

To Become Real

Christmas Morning

A retired teacher is blessed to think back over the years and remember the highs and lows of teaching. She/he is fortunate to pull up memories of random students and hope she provided them with what they will need for the next years.

I loved it so.

Perhaps some of the many incredible memories are also books, precious ones that shone above all the Sponge Bob, My Little Pony Adventures, and other  books.  Sharing those great books was a shining light I hope they could see.

The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, illustrated by Michael Nicholas, and published in 1922. It is a Pinocchio book in many ways, but incredible in its writing. When we read it in class, I wept for its beauty.

Here is an excerpt which shows exquisite writing. (I hope you give it a chance and see if you can experience its artistry.):

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others.  He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seam underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. 
He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else.  For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those play things that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understood all about it.

Someday, I hope and wish and desire to be a writer who can see beyond the mundane, and produce writing that makes the reader say, "Oh. So beautiful. Oh. I can see it. I can see it."

The entire book can be found at Or: How Toys Become Real 

Longing for Life