FIND ME FRIDAY

Introducing Find Me Friday - The last Friday of each month I will discuss a famous disappearance.  Seek, but he may not always find...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"PLEASE KNOW I AM QUITE AWARE OF THE HAZARDS"

Image
  A rambunctious Kansas girl took to the sky and soared above the rest. Her story has become legend due to its sad, mysterious ending. Amelia Earhart should be remembered as a true pioneer - showing the world that flying would become a common way to travel. Along the way she challenged gender roles, encouraged women to challenge themselves, and became a style icon. Amelia Earhart will never be forgotten. Born July 24, 1897 in Atchison, Kansas, Amelia Mary Earhart was raised to never be a girly girl. Her mother, also Amelia, encouraged Earhart and her sister Grace to wear bloomers instead of dresses. The sisters loved the outdoors and trouped around Atchison with a gang of kids getting dirty climbing trees. Amelia's father, an alcoholic, had trouble holding down a job. He moved the family to Des Moines, Iowa. It was there in 1907 Amelia saw an airplane for the first time. She was, however, too afraid to fly. Amelia graduated high school in 1916. She trained as a nurse's aide for...
Read more

BERTIE, BEAUTIFUL GIRLS, AND BOUNTIFUL BUCKS

Image
  Post Civil War America faced great financial changes. Industrialization and an agrarian economy no longer based on enforced labor created opportunities for anyone to make a great fortune. Old Guard families with immense wealth resented this encroachment to their whole their hold on society. Families from all over America arrived in New York (snidely called  arrivistes)  replete with cash and two goals : build mansions and enter their daughters into society. But, when father's womanizing reputation or mother's unsavory past became grist for the gossip mill, these daughters had no chance of a proper debut or snagging an eligible society bachelor. Over the sea, to London and Paris went mothers and daughters. Flush with cash, beauty, and personality, these young women wove themselves into the British upper class and saved the aristocracy from ruin. America became fascinated with all things British because of Bertie - Prince Albert Edward, eldest son of Queen Victoria. Berti...
Read more

LOOKING FOR A MIND AT WORK

Image
" I'm lookin' for a mind at work ." Ain't we all Angelica. Hamilton' s Schuyler Sisters predate Sister Sledge by 200 years, but they were family ; everyone could see they were together as they walked on by, all girl group sass and swishing hips.  And the real  Schuyler Sisters were the same, holding 1770's New York city society in thrall. But one man with a dueling pistol changed the life of middle sister Eliza, and possibly the fate of the nation. ANGELICA !  Phillip Schuyler, father of Angelica Eliza and Peggy, was a general in the Continental Army. Their mother Catherine was born a Van Renesselaer. Both were old name Dutch founders of New York City families. (Like the names Mrs. Astor would put on her 400 a hundred years later.) Angelica was the first daughter. Through their father's military connections the sisters socialized with the top political names of the era. Angelica fell in love with a Brit, John Baker Church, supplier to both the French a...
Read more