Alice Herz-Sommer: Saved by Music by Linda Harris Sittig

Posted on March 1, 2019 by lhsittig@verizon.net

As people age, they often comment on their aches and pains.

What magic would have to occur in your life to live past 100, joyful every day? Would that even be possible if you had lost almost all your family during the Holocaust and had been imprisoned for over two years in a Nazi concentration camp?

Alice Herz-Sommer lived to the age of 110, dying just a week before Lady in Number Six, won the Academy Award for best documentary of 2014. It was the story of her incredible life.

Would Alice have been impressed with the award? I’m not sure. She would have been pleased, but she derived her endless joy in life from her music.

Born in 1903 in Prague (Czechoslovakia), which was then still a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Alice grew up in a cultured Jewish family where music was revered. She started piano lessons at the age of five and became one of the best-known pianists in Prague.

March 1939, saw Hitler’s army invade and occupy Czechoslovakia, forcing Jewish residents to relocate inside the Prague ghetto. The Jews were forced to sign away their businesses and their belongings. The Nazi’s confiscated their radios, even the family pets. Alice’s family learned to subsist under Nazi rule.

But then in 1942, as Alice stood by her side, her mother was deported to a camp. Alice channeled her sorrow by studying Chopin’s 24 Etudes, the most technically demanding piano pieces she had ever attempted.

Those Etudes would later save her life.

Three years later when Alice was 39, she, her husband and young son, were all sent to Theresienstadt. Her husband was then transferred to Auschwitz, where he died. While in Theresienstadt, Alice became part of the camp’s orchestra.

For the Nazi’s, the musical concerts were pure entertainment. For the prisoners, the music was their only form of moral support. Alice began to play Chopin’s Etudes from memory—smart enough to realize that if the Nazi’s wanted to hear her music, she would be kept alive. During her two-year imprisonment, Alice performed in over 100 concerts.

Day in and day out she played the piano. At night she slept side by side on a thin mattress with her young son Rafi, murmuring to him that they would be all right.

Theresienstadt was liberated in 1947. While approximately 35,000 prisoners had been murdered at Theresienstadt, including 15,000 children—Alice and Rafi were rescued. With no family left, they moved to Israel. Alice took a job teaching at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and held that position for the next 37 years.

In 1986, Rafi, now an accomplished cellist, decided to move to London for a job opportunity; Alice moved with him. At the age of 86, she took a one-room apartment, No. 6, in north London, and continued to do what she loved most–playing the piano.

She played for three hours a day, every day, up until the age of 109. Her reputation grew, and people lined up in front of her building at 10 a.m. every morning to listen to the strains of classical music float out her window.

I watched a documentary about the Lady in Number Six. I loved how Alice wore a string of pearls, and black lace-up tennis shoes as she sat at her piano. A mischievous smile brightened her elderly face. Age spots and gnarled fingers did not diminish the sparkle in her eyes or the spirit of contentment that enveloped her. I asked myself how was that possible, given the circumstances of her life. Music, of course, was the answer. Her music was her purpose, her passion.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the documentary:

“Life should never be taken for granted.”

“What matters most in life…is life itself.”

“Every day, life is beautiful.”

“Even now, I am still full of joy.”

Strong women come from every corner of the globe, but all have the connecting element of passion.

Thank you to Joy Westfall who sent me an email saying I had to look into the story of Alice Sommer. I am so glad I did!

If you enjoyed this month’s blog, please sign up on the right sidebar to become a follower. Join with 800 other readers who believe that strong women’s stories deserve to be told.

You can also catch me on Twitter @LHsittig, my author Facebook page at Linda Harris Sittig, and my website LindaSittig.com where you can learn about my journey in becoming a writer.

Here is the link to my two novels featuring strong female protagonists:

Cut From Strong Cloth https: //www.amzn.com/1940553024.

Last Curtain Call https://www.amzn.com/1940553067.

~ Linda

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Mary Freeman Kelly Spitzer: For the Love of Swimming by Linda Harris Sittig

Posted on February 1, 2019 by lhsittig@verizon.net

I usually make it a rule only to profile strong women who have passed away.

But for this month I want to make an exception. I am telling the story of Mary Freeman Kelly Spitzer, because her accomplishments were extraordinary, and yes, she is very much alive.

Born in 1933, Mary started swimming at the age of fourteen. She learned and practiced her strokes in the pool at the Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington D.C. where her father was a chemist on the staff.

Almost from the beginning, a competitive nature led her to push herself. Each time she swam, she tried to beat her previous times. The backstroke became her specialty.

By 1950 many Americans were leaving cities and moving to the suburbs. With this relocation and the availability of the new Polio vaccine, public swimming pools and swimming clubs prospered. Mary now had other girls to swim with, and compete against for awards.

By age eighteen, in 1951, Mary Freeman won the AAU National Championship Title in the backstroke and was designated as an Olympic hopeful. That honor put her on the July cover of LIFE magazine. Her aquatic accomplishmenst were quite noteworthy, since this is a full twenty-one years before Title IX was passed allowing women to compete in collegiate sports.

One year later, Mary was on her way to Helsinki, Finland, representing America in the Olympics. She was the top seed in the backstroke, but did not win the medal.

It was at the Helsinki Olympics, however, that Mary met her future first husband, Olympian Rower John Kelly Jr. of Philadelphia. They married in 1954, two years before his sister, Grace Kelly, married Prince Rainier of Monaco.

Mary Freeman Kelly and her husband bought a home in Philadelphia; she continued to swim, but retired from competition.

It would have been plausible for Mary to settle into a country club life and continue her swimming in club pools. However, she thought about the girls who loved to swim but did not have the opportunity to swim competitively.

After being asked to coach a swim team in a summer league, she decided to form her own swim team where girls who wanted to compete could learn the rigors of serious competition.

In 1955 Mary established one of the first all-women swim teams in the country. She named her team the Vesper Boat Club, which was the same title as the rowing team in Philadelphia for whom her husband competed.

At first, Mary’s team rented space from the mid-city YMCA pool, but then progressed to the Kelly Pool in Fairmont Park, which provided them with 50-meter swimming lanes. Later, the Vespers would train at the University of Pennsylvania’s pool.

By 1958 Mary had a swimmer in the finals of the women’s national championship.

Within two years, six of her girls swam at the U.S. Olympic Trials, and two of them qualified to compete at the 1960 Olympics in Rome, Italy.

The following year Mary coached her Vesper team to the AAU National Championships in Philadelphia, and they won.

Like any sport, swimming incurs fees. Instead of taking a coaching salary, Mary used the fees paid by her amateur athletes to rent the pool space where the team practiced.

What makes Mary Freeman Kelly Spitzer stand out among coaches is that she encouraged her athletes to be ladies first, swimmers second. She enforced an innovative and rigorous program for her girls, yet the swimmers attest to this day that she made each of them feel a part of the team, regardless of their proficiency level. Vivacious, yet humble, Mary became a role model for hundreds of girls throughout the years.

In 1964 Mary was asked to be an Olympic swimming coach for the United States, but she declined. With a husband, and five children, she opted instead to continue coaching the women’s swim team at the University of Pennsylvania, close to home.

In 1968, at the age of 34, Mary retired completely from coaching to be more involved in her children’s lives. But in the 13 years that she coached, Mary produced 15 national champions who went on to win 26 national titles among them. Her girls set 10 world records and sent swimmers to nine Olympic Trial finals. Twelve of her swimmers went on to become coaches themselves.

She and Jack Kelly divorced in 1980, and after his death in 1985, Mary married university professor, Alan Spitzer.

In 2008 she was the first female coach to be inducted into the ASCA Coaches Hall of Fame. In her interview she espoused that her love of the sport drove her to excel and her tenacious (she said aggressive) spirit propelled her to provide a competitive swimming experience for girls.

It is of interest to note that out of 71 coaches named to the ASCA Hall of Fame, only seven have been women—starting with Mary Freeman Kelly Spitzer.

Considered to be one of America’s greatest swim coaches, Mary’s swimmers still speak of her with fondness. Was she tenacious? Absolutely. But she was also gracious, kind, and a lady to the core– a true strong woman.

A tremendous thank you to both Mary Brundage DeLashmutt and Mary Ellen Olcese who alerted me to Mary Freeman’s story and then provided pertinent information to flesh out the details. Both Mary and Mary Ellen swam for Mary Freeman.

If you enjoyed this story and are not yet a follower of this blog, please sign up on the right side-bar to receive once a month posts. And if you have an extraordinary woman whose story you would love to share, please contact me. I am on Twitter @LHsittig, FaceBook as Linda Harris Sittig and my website: www.lindasittig.com.

Interested in other strong women? My two novels, Cut From Strong Cloth and Last Curtain Call are available in print and Kindle from bookstores and on Amazon.

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2019

Posted on January 15, 2019 by lhsittig@verizon.net

By Linda Harris Sittig

When I first started this blog seven years ago, I wanted to highlight women from all different backgrounds who had lived extraordinary lives by giving of themselves to make this world a better place.

I envisioned that they would come from different races and ethnic backgrounds, different countries and eras. What would bind them all together was my concept of a strong woman, a female who struggles to follow her passion and perseveres, even though obstacles litter her path.

I didn’t know back then how many women I would find. Now, almost eight years later I have written over 90 entries about amazing women from all walks of life. Two of them, Ellen Canavan and Annie Charbonneau, led me to write my first novels, Cut From Strong Cloth and Last Curtain Call. They are Book 1 and Book 2 of my “Threads of Courage” series.

As I sit here working on my third novel, and at the same time researching women for the blog, I am struck by the sheer number of everyday women who led strong lives, and yet, often did not receive credit for their accomplishments.

Not wanting to slight men, I acknowledge there have been many strong men who also spent their lives in helping others. And we often read about them.

However, history has often overlooked strong women. It was a Massachusetts wife, Abigail Adams, married to President John Adams, who wrote some prophetic words to him in 1776 while he was helping to draft the United States Constitution.

“Dear John, Remember the Ladies.”

Strong Women in History attempts to do just that.

A happy and healthy new year to all readers of this blog.

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Anna Coleman Ladd: an Artist Who Gave Back by Linda Harris Sittig

Posted on January 1, 2019 by lhsittig@verizon.net

Walt Whitman once said, “Keep your face always turned toward the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you.”

But WWI forever changed looking toward the sunshine.

The new military trench warfare of 1914 – 1919 saw soldiers popping their heads up out of the trench to look ahead—only to have parts of their faces blown off by enemy machine gun fire. Many soldiers survived, but at what cost?

Eight million soldiers died in WWI, 21 million were wounded, and over 20,000 in France alone were so badly disfigured that their lives were virtually destroyed. Returning home without a nose, or lips, or half of their face made the veterans visual outcasts in their own homeland. And since plastic surgery was not yet an advanced science, there was little hope for them to ever resume a normal life.

Living in France toward the conclusion of WWI, Anna Coleman Ladd, a sculptress from Boston, Massachusetts, saw a way to use her artistic talents. She would create masks for the mutilés de la face, men whose faces had been horribly disfigured by shrapnel, bullets, and/or flamethrowers.

With funding from the Red Cross, she opened a studio in Paris that would produce facial masks to hide the deformities inflicted by war.

Her first task was to get to know the men and have them feel safe in her studio. She talked with each patient about his family, his siblings, his life before the war. If he had any pre-war photographs of himself, she studied those, too.

Next, she would construct a plaster mold of the man’s face, filling in the parts that had been blown away in combat. Knowing that she could only give the patient one expression, she tried to construct each mask to be as nearly a replica of the victim’s former face as possible.

Once the plaster mask was complete her next step was to use a thin sheet of galvanized copper to cover the sections of the mask which hid the deformities. Finally, after many adjustments, she would have the veteran wear the copper mask in the studio while she painted it with flesh-tone enamel hardened onto the copper. The last step was to glue on any needed hair that could be trimmed to look like eyebrows, eyelashes, or a mustache.

The veteran simply hooked the mask onto his face by means of eyeglasses. The result was life changing. One man told Anna that he had not returned to his family after his discharge because the lower half of his face had been so badly mutilated, he was afraid he would scare his wife.

Each mask took approximately one month to complete. By the time the Red Cross lost the funding for the studio, Anna Coleman Ladd in two years had changed the lives of over 185 veterans, giving them the gift of being able to be seen again in public and return to their families.

After the war, Anna returned to Boston with her husband and reestablished herself as a neo-classical sculptress, creating many famous works such as the Triton Babies sculpture in the Boston Public Garden fountain.

But the French never forgot her kindness. In 1932 she was awarded the Cross of Chevalier (Knight) of the French Legion of Honor.

Not one of her masks still exist, nor the records of the names of the men she treated.

Modern day soldiers still experience the tragedy of facial disfiguration from combat wounds. But, today, those veterans receive facial prostheses made of silicone and acrylic, designed on a computer and held in place with implants.

Back in 1919 Anna Coleman Ladd could not have conceived of a world where surgical reconstruction would reach the heights of medical expertise. All she knew was that thousands of brave soldiers had sacrificed their faces in the war, and that she, in her own small way, could help restore some of their lives.

Whoever said that one person can’t make a difference? They can. Ask the 185 French men who were treated by one strong woman, Anna Coleman Ladd.

Thank you to Ann Livoti for sharing Anna’s amazing story with me.

Happy New Year to everyone. If you enjoyed this month’s blog, please do two things: 1) become a follower by signing up on the right sidebar and 2) encourage a friend to become a follower as well. I’ll be hard at work researching other amazing women whose stories deserve to be told, and finishing my third novel. You can check out my other novels at: Cut From Strong Cloth www.amzn.com/1940553024  and Last Curtain Call www.amzn.com/1940553067.

Do you have a strong woman I should know about? Please leave a response and tell me!

Linda😊

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    Mary Titcomb: Bringing Books to the People by Linda Harris Sittig

    Posted on December 2, 2018 by lhsittig@verizon.net

    Before we had Kindle and Nooks and E-Readers, we had stand-alone bookstores and public libraries. Today, most of us take our easy access to books for granted.

    But a hundred and twenty years ago in America, public libraries existed mostly in cities and towns. If you lived in a rural area, there was little access to books.

    Enter Mary Titcomb, a young woman born in 1852 in Farmington, New Hampshire.

    Mary grew up in a home with parents who instilled in her the love of reading. As a young adult she was living in Concord, Massachusetts, when she read that her church was in need of a librarian. It seemed like a match made in heaven, someone who loved books could help bring them to other people.

    However, there was no established system in the late 1800s on how a person should go about becoming a librarian.

    So, Mary volunteered to work in the public library in Concord and learned the ins and outs of librarianship. Sometime later she applied for a job at the Rutland Public Library in Vermont and held that job for twelve years.

    Then in 1901 Mary moved to Washington County, Maryland to organize the Washington County Free Library, the second county library system to open in the United States.

    While working at the library in Hagerstown, Maryland, Mary was concerned that the supply of books was only available to patrons who lived in town. She came up with the idea to house small movable collections in various post offices and stores throughout Washington County where local people could check out books. But who would maintain those collections and oversee their distribution?

    Then Mary came up with the ingenious idea that she could design a book wagon and take it on the road, so to speak, driving out in the country and bringing rotating collections to rural families.

    She set about designing a wagon, similar to a city milk wagon or turn of the century tinker’s wagon. Mary’s blueprint showed where multiple shelves of books would sit firmly on both sides of the vehicle. An interior space held extra volumes. All told, 200 books would be available.

    Mary launched her book wagon in April of 1905. Joshua Thomas, the library janitor, hitched up two horses, Dandy and Black Beauty, and headed out of Hagerstown onto the rural roads of Washington County. Mary had given him strict directives that when he stopped at a farmhouse or rural cluster of homes, he should give patrons ample time to select a book of their choice. The books were free of charge and would be on loan for two weeks.

    In the first six months, the book wagon made a recorded total of 31 trips out in the countryside. The library wagon would continue these trips weekly for the next five years until it was involved in a significant accident. Neither Joshua nor the horses were hurt, but the wagon and most of the books were ruined.

    Washington County then decided to designate funds for the purchase of a motorized wagon to replace the old horse-drawn one. A year later, the new vehicle was called the Bookmobile—the first known mechanical vehicle in the United States to bring books into rural America.

    While bookmobiles struggled to keep their funding during the Great Depression of the 1930s, most of them did survive until the 21st Century when technology supplemented delivering books directly to neighborhoods. There are approximately 650 bookmobiles still in operation in America today, mostly in rural counties.

    Mary died at the age of eighty in 1932, but not before she had realized her life’s goal—to enrich people’s lives through reading.

    In her own words, “books bring people pleasure because through books they are lifted out of all routine of everyday life, their imaginations are quickened and in the brief space that the books hold them in thrall, the colors of life assume a bright tint.”

    I applaud the passion and perseverance of Mary Titcomb and thank her for her marvelous innovation. I was one of the kids who waited for the bookmobile each summer.

    If you enjoyed Mary Titcomb’s story, please sign up on the sidebar to become a regular follower of this blog.  You can also catch me on Twitter @LHsittig or lindasittig.com, my website. My novels that feature strong women in history, Cut From Strong Cloth and Last Curtain Call are available in bookstores and online through Amazon.  www.amzn.com/1940553024.

    ~ Linda

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    Clara Lemlich: Labor Activist by Linda Harris Sittig

    Posted on November 1, 2018 by lhsittig@verizon.net

    Image result for garment factory silhouette

     

    In November of 1909, she appeared as a will-of-the wisp young woman pushing her way to the front of the Union stage. Perhaps, she even stood a bit crooked, due to the uneven mending of bones previously broken by hired thugs.

    At twenty-three, Clara Lemlich hardly looked the part of a labor activist, although she had already been arrested seventeen times for unlawful picketing.

    Clara’s passion was to organize the other garment workers in New York City in a strike for more reasonable working conditions. At this point in time, female garment workers earned $6.00 a week. For that, they worked 11-hour workdays, six days a week.

    Ms. Lemlich’s rebellious attitude stemmed from an early distrust of officials. While living with her family in a Jewish community in the Ukraine, peace ended abruptly in 1903. A violent pogrom (campaign of violence) launched by local officials swept through the community. After watching loved ones and neighbors beaten and killed, Clara’s family emigrated to New York City and settled in a Jewish neighborhood on the Lower East Side.

    Clara, like many immigrant girls her age, got a job in the garment industry, working sweltering hours in a shirtwaist (blouse) factory. Disgusted with the humiliating way the female workers were treated, she repeatedly urged the Union to organize the women to strike.

    The male leaders of the Union were not in favor. They wanted to concentrate their efforts in raising the men’s pay.

    On November 22nd Clara stood with the massive crowd outside the Cooper Union building in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. While the Union organizers argued for control, Clara had herself hoisted to the stage and commanded the attention of the crowd as she spoke fervently that unless the women garment workers went on strike, their working lives would never improve.

    The women in the audience burst into spontaneous applause.

    The next day, 20,000 out of the 32,000 workers in the New York garment industry went out on strike. And they stayed on strike until Feb. 10, 1910, practically crippling the industry. It became known as The Uprising of the 20,000. As a result, almost every factory agreed to a Union contract.

    One factory did not.

    That was the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory that exactly thirteen months later experienced the worst disaster in garment workers’ history – the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. One hundred forty-six workers, mostly female, perished in the fire or jumped to their deaths on the pavement below.

    The tragedy left Clara heartbroken, but stronger in her resolve to help working-class women.

    As a result of all her activist activities, Clara became blacklisted in the New York City garment trade. That galvanized her to turn her energies to work as a suffragist, arguing that American women could only improve their lives if they had the chance to vote.

    In 1913 Clara married Joseph Shavelson, and together they had three children. The family moved first to East New York and then to Brighton Beach in Brooklyn. For several years, she kept a lower profile while raising her children.

    Then in 1929 Clara helped to launch the United Council of Working-Class Women, which eventually had affiliates all across America, addressing working women’s issues of housing, education, and fair consumer pricing.

    For the next several decades she worked tirelessly to promote the idea of improved labor conditions in American factories. With a charismatic presence, Clara roused working-class women to fight for their rights, battle unfair housing practices, and establish a control to rising rent and food prices.

    The last recorded activity for Clara was in the 1960s when, in her eighties, she became a resident of the Jewish Home for the Aged in Los Angeles, California. While living there, she persuaded the management to join the boycott of grapes and lettuce, in support of the United Farm Workers led by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta.

    Clara’s last activist effort was to encourage the staff of the Aged Home to organize together for better working conditions. She passed a few months late at the age of 96 years.

    Thank you to Ed Jahn for sending me Clara’s name to research.

    If you enjoyed Clara’s story, please sign up on the right side of the blog to become a regular follower. And if you know of a strong woman from the past whose story deserves to be told, please contact me.

    ~ Linda ~

     

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    Emma Gatewood: Guardian of the Appalachian Trail by Linda Harris Sittig

    Posted on October 2, 2018 by lhsittig@verizon.net

    Emma Gatewood never considered that she was a remarkable woman.

    In 1955, at the age of 67, she hiked the entire Appalachian Trail—alone. And without a tent or sleeping bag.

    To truly appreciate her accomplishment, you need to read about Emma’s life.

    Before 1955, she had never ventured far from her rural upbringing in Gallia County, Ohio. Married at twenty to a husband who quickly turned abusive, Emma worked the farm with him and gave birth to eleven children, often becoming pregnant just three weeks after the birth of the last child.

    When I first read about Emma Gatewood, I wondered why she remained for forty-eight years in such an abusive marriage, even loosing teeth during the physical assaults.

    Born into a farm culture where children learn early the meaning of chores, Emma worked hard her entire life. But, she was trapped with no outside job skills, no savings, no higher education, and nowhere else to go.

    What she did have was a love for walking and spending time alone in the woods.

    When her youngest child turned twenty-six, Emma walked away from her home to find the solace of a place she had only read about: the Appalachian Trail. She knew the journey would take approximately five months to complete the entire 2,050 miles.

    She did not bother to inform her family that she would be gone for a while.

    Setting her sights on the southern end of the Trail, she took a bus to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. Her provisions included a pasteboard suitcase in which she had packed an extra pair of dungarees (jeans), a dress, a pair of slippers, a blanket, a coat, a plastic shower curtain, a flashlight, a Swiss army knife, a notebook, and a bottle of water.

    On her feet she wore a pair of plain sneakers.

    Starting in the spring, she walked north, averaging fourteen miles a day. By day number two she left the pasteboard box behind and carried her provisions in a sack. No sleeping bag, no tent, not even a map; she simply followed the white paint on the trees that blazed the way.

    Wild berries and edible greens provided her with some nourishment. When she became very hungry, she walked into towns to purchase food she could carry.

    She often slept in shelters on the trail, or up on a picnic bench, sleeping in her coat with the plastic shower curtain under or over her. If the weather turned bad, she walked into a town, knocked on doors and asked permission to sleep on someone’s front porch. She quickly learned that the families living in small houses were usually the most willing to share. Sometimes, she was invited to dine with the family, even if they only had soup for dinner.

    As her sojourn continued, journalists would station themselves at strategic stops to ask her how the trip was going. Newspapers began following her journey.

    Although she had encounters with copperheads, hurricanes, and freezing temperatures, Emma also had days when the spectacular beauty of nature almost overwhelmed her.

    Once, after she had been on the Trail for months, she came to a swollen river. Emma did not know how to swim. She waited for hours, praying that someone would come to help.

    Two college boys hiking the trail found her. She explained her predicament. One carried her on his back across the river, while the other shouldered her supplies. Emma recorded their names in her notebook, and her gratitude. Decades later, those college boys, now men, recounted the story of how they had helped this amazing older woman hiking the Trail alone.

    When Emma finally arrived at Mount Katahdin, Maine, she had worn out seven pairs of sneakers and lost thirty pounds of body weight.

    But here is what she gained; respect for herself, freedom from abuse, and the knowledge that she was stronger than she could have ever imagined. She climbed to the top of Mt. Katahdin, held her head high, and sang “America the Beautiful”.

    When she returned home, she filed for divorce.

    In an amazing follow-up, she returned to the Trail and hiked its entirety two additional times in following years. Then she wrote letters advocating that the Appalachian Trail deserved to be preserved and maintained for all Americans to enjoy it.

    Emma Gatewood, alias Grandma Gatewood, alias Queen of the Appalachian Trail, died at age eighty-six, after completing her bucket list: to take a trip on a boat, and to take a bus trip to every state. She made it to the continental forty-eight.

    Hats off to you, Emma Gatewood, for your courage, your fortitude, and your unshakable spirit. You proved that strong women persevere.

    Thank you to Kathy Winters, who hiked in Emma’s footsteps, not just once, but twice and told me about Emma’s story, and Grandma Gatewood’s Walk by Ben Montgomery.

    If you liked this story, please sign up on the right-hand side bar to become a monthly follower of this blog.

    You can also follow me on Twitter: @LHSittig, or my website: lindasittig.com, or on Amazon where my two novels of strong women, Cut From Strong Cloth and Last Curtain Call, are available.

    ~ Linda ~

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    Lis Hartel and Jubilee: Olympic Champions by Linda Harris Sittig

    Posted on September 4, 2018 by lhsittig@verizon.net

    I live in an area where horse farms dot the countryside and driving the back roads one can not fail to be impressed by the magnificent thoroughbreds grazing in the pastures.

    But what about an average bay mare named Jubilee who had never raced or competed? How could that horse be special?

    Back in the early 1940s Lis Hartel of Denmark had been in love with horses since childhood. Both of Lis’s parents rode, but not professionally. Lis decided she wanted to try dressage, and her preliminary attempts showed great promise.

    Then in 1944, Denmark was engulfed in a polio epidemic. At the young age of 23, Lis contracted the debilitating disease. To complicate matters, she was pregnant with her second child.

    After the successful delivery of the baby, the doctors informed Lis that she would most likely never ride again. Although she began rehabilitation immediately, a permanent paralysis existed from her knees down.

    With encouragement from her husband and parents, Lis worked her muscles daily, determined to prove the doctors wrong.

    Here is where Jubilee enters the story.

    Jubilee was a thoroughbred mare who belonged to Lis’s family. Neither a race horse nor a dressage horse, Jubilee was ridden for light exercise. With Lis unable to use her legs to nudge or guide a horse, she needed an intelligent animal who would be able to discern commands via weight shifts in the saddle.

    Lis decided to incorporate Jubilee into her next part of rehabilitation. To further complicate the issue, Lis’s arms and hands had never regained their former strength, so she knew she would have to completely rely on Jubilee’s understanding of the weight shift.

    Lis and Jubilee began training together, and entered the 1947 Scandinavian Riding Competition. They won second place.

    Lis’s dream had always been to compete in the Olympics, but the equestrian sport of dressage was not open to women; only commissioned military officers were allowed to compete.

    Then, in 1952, the rules changed.

    Knowing it was a long shot, and that Jubilee would need more professional training, Lis drove the two of them to train for the Olympics, in spite of her lasting paralysis.

    Her competition in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics became legend.

    She was one of four women to be the first females to compete in dressage in the Olympics. And although she had to be lifted up onto Jubilee’s back, together they went on to win the Silver Medal.

    When the horns blew for the athletes to mount the Olympic Podium to receive their medals, the crowd watched astonished as Henri Saint Cyr of Sweden, the Gold Medal Winner, walked over to Lis, helped her down from Jubilee’s back, and carried her to the platform to receive her medal.

    Four years later, Lis and Jubilee competed in the 1956 Stockholm Olympics. Once again, they won the Silver Medal in dressage.

    Lis Hartel had changed the world’s perception of people with disabilities.

    Although she planned to continue to compete with Jubilee, the mare developed an incurable leg infection one year after the Stockholm Olympics, and did not survive.

    Lis continued to ride, but never again in the Olympics.

    Instead, she put her energies into opening the first European therapeutic riding center for people with disabilities.

    Interviewed in her 87th year, Lis said that the riding center was her most proud achievement, but her best memory was of Jubilee at the ’52 Olympics.

    We salute both the woman and her horse.

    Thank you to Diane Helentjaris for telling me about Lis Hartel and to Lorraine Jackson’s excellent research on Lis’s life.

    Do you have a strong woman from history whose story deserves to be told? Please contact me: linda@lindasittig.com.

    Sign up on the right side-bar to become a regular follower of Strong Women in History, and you’ll never miss a timely story.

    You can also read my novels about my favorite protagonists:

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    Bridget Biddy Mason: from Slave to Philanthropist by Linda Harris Sittig

    Posted on July 31, 2018 by lhsittig@verizon.net

    On a block on Spring Street, in downtown Los Angeles, sits a unique art installation, dedicated to a woman whose name had been silent for over one hundred years.

    Bridget ‘Biddy’ Mason led an incredible life. Born a slave in Hancock, Georgia in 1818, she later became a well-known California philanthropist, and died as the richest African-American woman in Los Angeles in 1891.

    From childhood on, Biddy experienced heart-ache and hardship. Separated from her birth parents at a young age, she was sold to John Smith and went to live on his plantation in South Carolina. There, she was assigned to work with the house servants and to assist the plantation midwife.

    At the age of 18, John Smith ‘gifted’ her to his cousin, Robert Smith. Biddy then moved to a new plantation in Logtown, Mississippi where she grew into the role of the plantation’s midwife. In the ensuing years she also gave birth to three daughters, whose father was assumed to be Robert Smith.

    While Robert Smith and his family lived in Mississippi, he converted to the Church of Later Day Saints (Mormon). As part of his conversion, he was strongly urged to set his slaves free. But he refused.

    In 1848, Smith decided to move his family to Utah. Biddy and the other slaves walked behind the family wagon, for the 1,700-mile trek. On the trail, Biddy helped to herd cattle, prepare meals, and act as the trail midwife. Her youngest daughter made the trip strapped to Biddy’s back.

    Once they reached Utah, Mormon leader Brigham Young announced he was seeking a group to establish a Mormon community in San Bernardino, California.

    In 1851 Robert Smith packed up his family and set out for California, unaware that the Compromise of 1850 had stipulated that California was admitted as a free state and any slaves brought into California would be granted their freedom.

    As the Smiths set out for California, Biddy once again walked behind the family wagon, this time for 650 miles.

    Upon reaching San Bernardino, California, Smith was alerted to the 1850 Compromise but kept his slaves ignorant of the law. Five years later, fearing he might lose his slaves, Robert Smith made plans relocate his family to Texas.

    In the meantime, Biddy had become acquainted with Robert and Minnie Owens, two free African-Americans living in San Bernardino. Once they explained to her that she and the other slaves were being held illegally, Biddy planned her escape.

    Under cover of night, Biddy led several of the other enslaved women and their children away from the Smith home.

    Hotly pursued by Smith, the women managed to reach a canyon outside of present day Santa Monica, California, when Smith caught up with them.

    Fortunately, Biddy’s friend Robert Owen alerted the Los Angeles County sheriff that Robert Smith had broken the law. The sheriff sent out a posse and located Smith, and quickly freed the women and children.

    Biddy discovered that she could sue for her freedom. In late 1856, with the help of Robert Owen, she petitioned the Los Angeles County Court, only to be told she could not testify on her behalf, since she was a black woman. She then requested a few minutes to talk with the judge in private.

    That judge, the Honorable Benjamin Hayes, listened to her incredible story and immediately granted her freedom, the freedom of the ten women traveling with her, and all the children.

    Now a free woman, Biddy moved to a rural community on the outskirts of Los Angeles, and worked as a midwife. After ten years of saving every penny she had a bank account of exactly $250.00.

    Emptying her account, she bought the one thing she desired most, her own land. The money enabled her to buy two lots. Then she promptly set about building a clapboard house. Next, she built two smaller houses and rented them out.

    Wanting to help those less fortunate than herself, she set up a day care operation and a small orphanage in her own home. She became legendary for never turning anyone away who needed help. From providing daycare for working mothers, to ministering to prisoners, Biddy shared her resources with others.

    As the years went on, she saved money from her various incomes, and shrewdly invested in buying more land.

    By 1872, she had enough cash to set up the first elementary school for black children in Los Angeles, as well as the first African Methodist Episcopal church in the area.

    And she continued to purchase real estate.

    By the 1890s, Biddy’s home and adjacent property were located directly in the center of the Los Angeles financial district—prime urban real estate.

    When she died in 1891 her estate had a value of $300,000, approximately 6 million dollars in today’s money.

    And then, like so many strong women, she slipped out of history.

    In 1989 the city of Los Angeles turned Biddy’s original property into a high-rise office building. The Power of Place, a non-profit corporation dedicated to celebrating Los Angeles’s multicultural history created an art installation on the property to honor Biddy’s life. Members of the project included Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, Donna Graves, Dolores Hayden, Susan King, and Betye Saar.

    As you walk right to left along the 8-foot-high, 81-foot concrete linear wall you can read about the salient events in Biddy’s life. At the end of the wall, if you look to your west, there is a floor to ceiling photograph, grainy with age, of her original Los Angeles homestead.

    A strong woman who lived her life with purpose, helping others.

    Thank you to my brother, Randy Harris, who took me to visit Biddy’s memorial.

    If you enjoyed Biddy’s story, sign up to become a follower of Strong Women on the right sidebar and you’ll receive notification once a month of another blog post.

    In the meantime, you can read the fascinating stories of my two favorite strong women on Amazon.

    Cut From Strong Cloth www. amzn.com/1940553024.

    Last Curtain Call www.amzn.com/1940553067.

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    Aelfleda and Her Fellow Needle Workers by Linda Harris Sittig

    Posted on July 3, 2018 by lhsittig@verizon.net

    Picture a few women sitting together with a large piece of linen stretched out between them on a wooden frame. They are hunched over the fabric. Threading their needles with brightly colored yarns dyed from natural resources, they carefully embroider the cloth with a series of scenes depicting an event of importance. Since most of their neighboring villagers can neither read nor write, the tapestry they are creating will serve as a testimony to history.

    None of them sign their names to the linen panel.

    Aelfleda, was certainly one of those women. A noble Anglo-Saxon of the Middle Ages, she lived near Ely, in Cambridgeshire, England, and was renowned for her prowess with a needle. Late in the year 991, she created a hanging tapestry curtain that illustrated the valiant deeds of her husband, Chieftain Brithnoth. He died at the Battle of Maldon on August 10, 991, defeated by the invading Vikings, referred to at the time as Danes.

    Aelfleda created the tapestry, no doubt, to preserve her husband’s legacy. After all, he was the Earl of Essex. She gave the tapestry as a gift to the Abbey of Ely in Cambridge. Records show that after Aelfleda’s death, the head of the abbey granted her granddaughter a small village nearby, dedicated to preserving the art of textile tapestries.

    And there the story might have ended, except that a scholarly notion abounds that Aelfleda’s tapestry became the inspiration for the more famous Bayeux Tapestry. That tapestry was created some 80 years later and portrayed the historic Battle of Hastings in 1066.

    Aelfleda’s tapestry has long since disappeared, but The Bayeux Tapestry has survived nine centuries, telling the story of the pivotal battle between England and France that consequently changed history.

    Who exactly made the Bayeux Tapestry is not known. Scholars attest that its superb construction points most decidedly to English members of a guild, either men or women or both. What is known of the 231-foot woolen embroidered scroll, is that it tells in exquisite detail the series of historical events that led to the Battle of Hastings, in chronological order, and containing all the gore and glory of warfare at that time.

    For those of you unfamiliar with the Battle of Hastings, this is in 1066 when William the Duke of Normandy (later called The Conqueror) sailed from Normandy, France, and defeated the Anglo-Saxons across the English Channel in Essex, England. In this decisive battle, William the Conqueror forever established Norman rule of Britain.

    The Bayeux Tapestry is believed to have been commissioned by the Bishop of Bayeux, Odo of Centeville, who happened to be William the Conqueror’s half-brother. The purpose was to celebrate and acknowledge William’s conquest of England and at the same time draw the moral that Howard’s defeat (Anglo-Saxon king) was divinely construed because he had gone back on an oath made in church.

    Scholars agree that the tapestry was designed most likely by an Englishman who had the extensive military knowledge and could draw the pictures of the horses in battle, the Viking-inspired ships, and all the soldiers (both Anglo-Saxon and Norman) in authentic military garb.

    A side note: the Vikings had started invading and conquering numerous European principalities starting around 800 A.D. When they landed on the north shore of France and took over the population, the area became known as Northman Land, eventually shortened to Normandy. William the Conqueror would have descended then from a Viking-Franc heritage.

    Back to the Bayeux Tapestry: The needle workers transferred the original drawings to the linen, and created embroidered panels that were 20 inches high, each one approximately one yard in length.

    Later, a more sturdy linen backing was sewn on, and the panels numbered.

    The tapestry must have taken months to sew and how many skilled crafts-people worked on it, can only be imagined. Again, no one signed their name to the linen. But what makes the Bayeux Tapestry so amazing is the authenticity of details from that period that brings the story to life.

    As one walks (left to right, as if reading a book) along the Tapestry, now mounted in a special museum in Bayeux, France, the story unfolds depicting 626 human figures, 190 horses, 35 dogs, numerous ships, and only 500 short inscriptions in Latin.

    I was fortunate to visit the museum and spent over an hour walking along the tapestry and ‘reading’ the embroidered pictures. The embroidery itself was masterful, and the depiction of life in 1066 was illuminating.

    The panels, constructed of biscuit-colored linen, have the dominant colors of the horses, ships, and soldiers’ garb in red-browns, blues, and browns, although a total of eight different colors can be seen. Constructed continuously, the scroll records everything—what the people wore, what they ate, what the buildings looked like; even the appearance of Halley’s Comet was noted.

    A descendant of William the Conqueror still sits on the British throne today. That would be Queen Elizabeth II, and I am certain she has seen the Bayeux Tapestry and marveled at the handiwork of the unknown needle-workers who chronicled for the future, how Anglo-Saxon society was vanquished and the new nation became Britain.

    If you enjoyed this month’s blog, sign up on the right side-bar to become a follower of Strong Women. Then click the links below to see my two favorite strong women!

          Cut From Strong Cloth     www.amzn.com/1940553024.

    Last Curtain Call                www.amzn.com/1940553067.

     

     

     

    Do you have a favorite strong woman who deserves to be known? Tell me who she is!

    ~ Linda:)

     

     

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