#Dorothy Gilmans Short Stories | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

oadara · 5 years

Link

...

I sometimes hear people complain that classic literature is the realm of dead white men. And it’s certainly true that men have tended to dominate the canon of literature taught in schools. But women have been writing great books for centuries. In fact, you could probably spend a lifetime just reading great classics by women and never run out of reading material.

This list is just a sampling of great books written by women of the past. For the purposes of this list, I’ve defined classics as books that are more than 50 years old. The list of classics by women focuses on novels, but there are some plays, poems, and works of nonfiction as well. And I’ve tried to include some well-known favorites, as well as more obscure books. Whatever your reading preferences, you’re bound to find something to enjoy here. So step back in time and listen to the voices of women who came before us.

The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon (990s-1000s). “Moving elegantly across a wide range of themes including nature, society, and her own flirtations, Sei Shōnagon provides a witty and intimate window on a woman’s life at court in classical Japan.”

The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu (Before 1021). “Genji, the Shining Prince, is the son of an emperor. He is a passionate character whose tempestuous nature, family circumstances, love affairs, alliances, and shifting political fortunes form the core of this magnificent epic.”

Oroonoko by Aphra Behn (1688). “When Prince Oroonoko’s passion for the virtuous Imoinda arouses the jealousy of his grandfather, the lovers are cast into slavery and transported from Africa to the colony of Surinam.”

Phillis Wheatley, Complete Writings by Phillis Wheatley (1760s-1770s). “This volume collects both Wheatley’s letters and her poetry: hymns, elegies, translations, philosophical poems, tales, and epyllions.”

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft (1790). “Arguably the earliest written work of feminist philosophy, Wollstonecraft produced a female manifesto in the time of the American and French Revolutions.”

The Romance of the Forest by Ann Radcliffe (1791). “A beautiful, orphaned heiress, a dashing hero, a dissolute, aristocratic villain, and a ruined abbey deep in a great forest are combined by the author in a tale of suspense where danger lurks behind every secret trap-door.”

Camilla by Fanny Burney (1796). “Camilla deals with the matrimonial concerns of a group of young people … The path of true love, however, is strewn with intrigue, contretemps and misunderstanding.”

Belinda by Maria Edgeworth (1801). “Contending with the perils and the varied cast of characters of the marriage market, Belinda strides resolutely toward independence. … Edgeworth tackles issues of gender and race in a manner at once comic and thought-provoking. ”

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818). “Driven by ambition and an insatiable thirst for scientific knowledge, Victor Frankenstein … fashions what he believes to be the ideal man from a grotesque collection of spare parts, breathing life into it through a series of ghastly experiments.”

Persuasion by Jane Austen (1818). “Eight years ago, Anne Elliot fell in love with poor but ambitious naval officer Captain Frederick Wentworth … now, on the verge of spinsterhood, Anne re-encounters Frederick Wentworth as he courts her spirited young neighbour, Louisa Musgrove.”

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847). “Having grown up an orphan in the home of her cruel aunt and at a harsh charity school, Jane Eyre becomes an independent and spirited survivor …. But when she finds love with her sardonic employer, Rochester, the discovery of his terrible secret forces her to make a choice. “

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847). “One of the great novels of the nineteenth century, Emily Brontë’s haunting tale of passion and greed remains unsurpassed in its depiction of destructive love.”

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë (1848). “A powerful and sometimes violent novel of expectation, love, oppression, sin, religion and betrayal. It portrays the disintegration of the marriage of Helen Huntingdon … and her dissolute, alcoholic husband.”

The Bondwoman’s Narrative by Hannah Crafts (mid-19th century). “Tells the story of Hannah Crafts, a young slave working on a wealthy North Carolina plantation, who runs away in a bid for freedom up North.”

Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1850). “Recognized for their Victorian tradition and discipline, these are some of the most passionate and memorable love poems in the English language.”

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852). “Selling more than 300,000 copies the first year it was published, Stowe’s powerful abolitionist novel fueled the fire of the human rights debate.”

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (1854). “As relevant now as when it was first published, Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South skillfully weaves a compelling love story into a clash between the pursuit of profit and humanitarian ideals.”

Our Nig by Harriet E. Wilson (1859). “In the story of Frado, a spirited black girl who is abused and overworked as the indentured servant to a New England family, Harriet E. Wilson tells a heartbreaking story about the resilience of the human spirit.”

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot (1860). “Strong-willed, compassionate, and intensely loyal, Maggie seeks personal happiness and inner peace but risks rejection and ostracism in her close-knit community.”

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs (1861). “The remarkable odyssey of Harriet Jacobs (1813–1897) whose dauntless spirit and faith carried her from a life of servitude and degradation in North Carolina to liberty and reunion with her children in the North.”

The Curse of Caste, or The Slave Bride by Julia C. Collins (1865). “Focuses on the lives of a beautiful mixed-race mother and daughter whose opportunities for fulfillment through love and marriage are threatened by slavery and caste prejudice.”

Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House by Elizabeth Keckley (1868). “Traces Elizabeth Keckley’s life from her enslavement in Virginia and North Carolina to her time as seamstress to Mary Todd Lincoln in the White House during Abraham Lincoln’s administration.”

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868). “The four March sisters couldn’t be more different. But with their father away at war, and their mother working to support the family, they have to rely on one another.”

A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella Lucy Bird (1879). “In 1873, wearing Hawaiian riding dress, [Bird] rode her horse through the American Wild West, a terrain only newly opened to pioneer settlement.”

The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson (1890). “Though generally overlooked during her lifetime, Emily Dickinson’s poetry has achieved acclaim due to her experiments in prosody, her tragic vision and the range of her emotional and intellectual explorations.”

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892). “The story depicts the effect of under-stimulation on the narrator’s mental health and her descent into psychosis. With nothing to stimulate her, she becomes obsessed by the pattern and color of the wallpaper.”

Iola Leroy by Frances E.W. Harper (1892). “The daughter of a wealthy Mississippi planter, Iola Leroy led a life of comfort and privilege, never guessing at her mixed-race ancestry — until her father died and a treacherous relative sold her into slavery.”

The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals by Dorothy Wordsworth (1897). “Dorothy Wordsworth’s journals are a unique record of her life with her brother William, at the time when he was at the height of his poetic powers.”

The Awakening by Kate Chopin (1899). “Chopin’s daring portrayal of a woman trapped in a stifling marriage, who seeks and finds passionate physical love outside the straitened confines of her domestic situation.”

The Light of Truth: Writings of an Anti-Lynching Crusader by Ida B. Wells (late 19th century). “This volume covers the entire scope of Wells’s remarkable career, collecting her early writings, articles exposing the horrors of lynching, essays from her travels abroad, and her later journalism.”

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1902). “Transformed from princess to pauper, [Sarah Crewe] must swap dancing lessons and luxury for hard work and a room in the attic.”

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy (1905). “The French Revolution, driven to excess by its own triumph, has turned into a reign of terror. … Thus the stage is set for one of the most enthralling novels of historical adventure ever written.”

A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter (1909). “The story is one of Elnora’s struggles to overcome her poverty; to win the love of her mother, who blames Elnora for her husband’s death; and to find a romantic love of her own.”

Mrs Spring Fragrance: A Collection of Chinese-American Short Stories by Sui Sin Far (1910s). “In these deceptively simple fables of family life, Sui Sin Far offers revealing views of life in Seattle and San Francisco at the turn of the twentieth century.”

American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings by Zitkala-Sa (1910). “Tapping her troubled personal history, Zitkala-Sa created stories that illuminate the tragedy and complexity of the American Indian experience.”

The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton (1913). Undine Spragg’s “rise to the top of New York’s high society from the nouveau riche provides a provocative commentary on the upwardly mobile and the aspirations that eventually cause their ruin.”

Oh Pioneers by Willa Cather (1913). “Evoking the harsh grandeur of the prairie, this landmark of American fiction unfurls a saga of love, greed, murder, failed dreams, and hard-won triumph.”

Suffragette: My Own Story by Emmeline Pankhurst (1914). “With insight and great wit, Emmeline’s autobiography chronicles the beginnings of her interest in feminism through to her militant and controversial fight for women’s right to vote.”

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim (1922). Four women who “are alike only in their dissatisfaction with their everyday lives … find each other—and the castle of their dreams—through a classified ad in a London newspaper one rainy February afternoon.”

The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1924). “Evangeline Knapp is the perfect, compulsive housekeeper, while her husband, Lester, is a poet and a dreamer. Suddenly, through a nearly fata accident, their roles are reversed.”

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925). “Direct and vivid in her account of Clarissa Dalloway’s preparations for a party, Virginia Woolf explores the hidden springs of thought and action in one day of a woman’s life.”

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (1928). “First published in 1928, this timeless portrayal of lesbian love is now a classic. The thinly disguised story of Hall’s own life, it was banned outright upon publication and almost ruined her literary career.”

Plum Bun by Jessie Redmon Fauset (1928). “Written in 1929 at the height of the Harlem Renaissance by one of the movement’s most important and prolific authors, Plum Bun is the story of Angela Murray, a young black girl who discovers she can pass for white.”

Passing by Nella Larsen (1929). “Clare Kendry leads a dangerous life. Fair, elegant, and ambitious, she is married to a white man unaware of her African American heritage, and has severed all ties to her past.”

Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum (1929). “A grand hotel in the center of 1920s Berlin serves as a microcosm of the modern world in Vicki Baum’s celebrated novel, a Weimar-era best seller that retains all its verve and luster today.”

Thus Were Their Faces: Selected Stories by Silvina Ocampo (1930s-1970s). “Tales of doubles and impostors, angels and demons, a marble statue of a winged horse that speaks, a beautiful seer who writes the autobiography of her own death, a lapdog who records the dreams of an old woman, a suicidal romance, and much else that is incredible, mad, sublime, and delicious.”

Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers (1930). “Sayers introduces Harriet Vane, a mystery writer who is accused of poisoning her fiancé and must now join forces with Lord Peter Wimsey to escape a murder conviction and the hangman’s noose.”

All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West (1931). “When Lady Slane was young, she nurtured a secret, burning ambition: to become an artist. She became, instead, the dutiful wife of a great statesman, and mother to six children. In her widowhood she finally defies her family.”

Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann (1932). Olivia Curtis “anticipates her first dance, the greatest yet most terrifying event of her restricted social life, with tremulous uncertainty and excitement.”

Frost in May by Antonia White (1933). “Nanda Gray, the daughter of a Catholic convert, is nine when she is sent to the Convent of Five Wounds. Quick-witted, resilient, and eager to please, she adapts to this cloistered world, learning rigid conformity and subjection to authority.”

Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson (1934). “Times are harsh, and Barbara’s bank account has seen better days. Maybe she could sell a novel … if she knew any stories. Stumped for ideas, Barbara draws inspiration from her fellow residents of Silverstream.”

The Wine of Solitude by Irene Nemirovsky (1935). “Beginning in a fictionalized Kiev, The Wine of Solitude follows the Karol family through the Great War and the Russian Revolution, as the young Hélène grows from a dreamy, unhappy child into a strongwilled young woman.”

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1936). “Gone With the Wind explores the depth of human passions with an intensity as bold as its setting in the red hills of Georgia. A superb piece of storytelling, it vividly depicts the drama of the Civil War and Reconstruction.”

After Midnight by Irmgard Keun (1937). “German author Irmgard Keun had only recently fled Nazi Germany with her lover Joseph Roth when she wrote this slim, exquisite, and devastating book. It captures the unbearable tension, contradictions, and hysteria of pre-war Germany like no other novel.”

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (1937). “One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston.”

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson (1938). “Miss Pettigrew is a governess sent by an employment agency to the wrong address, where she encounters a glamorous night-club singer, Miss LaFosse.”

The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen (1938). “The orphaned Portia is stranded in the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother’s home in London. There she encounters the attractive, carefree cad Eddie.

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (1939). “Ten strangers are lured to an isolated island mansion off the Devon coast by a mysterious U. N. Owen … By the end of the night one of the guests is dead.”

Mariana by Monica Dickens (1940). “We see Mary at school in Kensington and on holiday in Somerset; her attempt at drama school; her year in Paris learning dressmaking and getting engaged to the wrong man; her time as a secretary and companion; and her romance with Sam.”

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (1940). “Wonderfully attuned to the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition, and with a deft sense for racial tensions in the South, McCullers spins a haunting, unforgettable story that gives voice to the rejected, the forgotten, and the mistreated.”

The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead (1940). “Sam and Henny Pollit have too many children, too little money, and too much loathing for each other. As Sam uses the children’s adoration to feed his own voracious ego, Henny watches in bleak despair.”

The Bird in the Tree by Elizabeth Goudge (1940). “The Bird in the Tree takes place in England in 1938, and follows a close-knit family whose tranquil existence is suddenly threatened by a forbidden love.”

Anne Frank: A Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (1942-1944). “Discovered in the attic in which she spent the last years of her life, Anne Frank’s remarkable diary has since become a world classic—a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to the human spirit.”

The Robber Bridegroom by Eudora Welty (1942). “Legendary figures of Mississippi’s past—flatboatman Mike Fink and the dreaded Harp brothers—mingle with characters from Eudora Welty’s own imagination in an exuberant fantasy set along the Natchez Trace.”

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (1943). “The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years.”

Nada by Carmen LeFloret (1944). “One of the most important literary works of post-Civil War Spain, Nada is the semi-autobiographical story of an orphaned young woman who leaves her small town to attend university in war-ravaged Barcelona.

The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford (1945). “The Pursuit of Love follows the travails of Linda, the most beautiful and wayward Radlett daughter, who falls first for a stuffy Tory politician, then an ardent Communist, and finally a French duke named Fabrice.”

One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes (1947). “This subtle, finely wrought novel presents a memorable portrait of the aftermath of war, its effect upon a marriage, and the gradual but significant change in the nature of English middle-class life.”

Family Roundabout by Richmal Crompton (1948). “We see that families can both entrap and sustain; that parents and children must respect each other; and that happiness necessitates jumping or being pushed off the family roundabout.”

The Living Is Easy by Dorothy West (1948). “Cleo Judson—daughter of southern sharecroppers and wife of ‘Black Banana King’ Bart Judson … seeks to recreate her original family by urging her sisters and their children to live with her, while rearing her daughter to be a member of Boston’s black elite.”

Half a Lifelong Romance by Eileen Chang (1948). “Shen Shijun, a young engineer, has fallen in love with his colleague, the beautiful Gu Manzhen. … But dark circumstances—a lustful brother-in-law, a treacherous sister, a family secret—force the two young lovers apart. “

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (1948). “Tells the story of seventeen-year-old Cassandra and her family, who live in not-so-genteel poverty in a ramshackle old English castle. Here she strives, over six turbulent months, to hone her writing skills.”

Pinjar: The Skeleton and Other Stories by Amrita Pritam (1950). “Two of the most moving novels by one of India’s greatest women writers. The Skeleton …is memorable for its lyrical style and depth in her writing. … The Man is a compelling account of a young man born under strange circumstances and abandoned at the altar of God.”

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier (1951). “While in Italy, Ambrose fell in love with Rachel, a beautiful English and Italian woman. But the final, brief letters Ambrose wrote hint that his love had turned to paranoia and fear. Now Rachel has arrived at Philip’s newly inherited estate.”

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey (1951). “Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, recuperating from a broken leg, becomes fascinated with a contemporary portrait of Richard III that bears no resemblance to the Wicked Uncle of history.”

Excellent Women by Barbara Pym (1952). “As Mildred gets embroiled in the lives of her new neighbors … the novel presents a series of snapshots of human life as actually, and pluckily, lived in a vanishing world of manners and repressed desires.”

Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks (1953). “In a novel that captures the essence of Black life, Brooks recognizes the beauty and strength that lies within each of us.”

Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple (1953). “Ellen was that unfashionable creature, a happy housewife struck by disaster when the husband, in a moment of weak, mid-life vanity, runs off with a French girl.”

Nisei Daughter by Monica Sone (1953). “With charm, humor, and deep understanding, Monica Sone tells what it was like to grow up Japanese American on Seattle’s waterfront in the 1930s and to be subjected to ‘relocation’ during World War II.”

Cotillion by Georgette Heyer (1953). “Country-bred, spirited Kitty Charings is on the brink of inheriting a fortune from her eccentric guardian – provided that she marries one of his grand nephews.”

Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya (1954). “This beautiful and eloquent story tells of a simple peasant woman in a primitive village in India whose whole life is a gallant and persistent battle to care for those she loves.”

The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (1955). “Since his debut in 1955, Tom Ripley has evolved into the ultimate bad boy sociopath. Here, in this first Ripley novel, we are introduced to suave Tom Ripley, a young striver, newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan.”

A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O’Connor (1955). “These stories show O’Connor’s unique, grotesque view of life— infused with religious symbolism, haunted by apocalyptic possibility, sustained by the tragic comedy of human behavior, confronted by the necessity of salvation.”

Collected Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1956). “Millay remains among the most celebrated poets of the early twentieth century for her uniquely lyrical explorations of love, individuality, and artistic expression.”

The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West (1957). “An unvarnished but affectionate picture of an extraordinary family, in which a remarkable stylist and powerful intelligence surveys the elusive boundaries of childhood and adulthood, freedom and dependency, the ordinary and the occult.”

Angel by Elizabeth Taylor (1957). “In Angel’s imagination, she is the mistress of the house, a realm of lavish opulence, of evening gowns and peacocks. Then she begins to write popular novels, and this fantasy becomes her life.”

The King Must Die by Mary Renault (1958). “In this ambitious, ingenious narrative, celebrated historical novelist Mary Renault takes legendary hero Theseus and spins his myth into a fast-paced and exciting story.”

A Raisin the the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (1959). “Set on Chicago’s South Side, the plot [of this play] revolves around the divergent dreams and conflicts within three generations of the Younger family.”

The Vet’s Daughter by Barbara Comyns (1959). “Harrowing and haunting, like an unexpected cross between Flannery O’Connor and Stephen King, The Vet’s Daughter is a story of outraged innocence that culminates in a scene of appalling triumph.”

The Colossus and Other Poems by Sylvia Plath (1960). “Graceful in their craftsmanship, wonderfully original in their imagery, and presenting layer after layer of meaning, the forty poems in The Colossus are early artifacts of genius that still possess the power to move, delight, and shock.”

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960). “The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published.”

The Householder by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1960). “This witty and perceptive novel is about Prem, a young teacher in New Delhi who has just become a householder and is finding his responsibilities perplexing.”

The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart (1961). “This remarkably atmospheric novel is one of bestselling-author Mary Stewart’s richest, most tantalizing, and most surprising efforts, proving her a rare master of the genre.”

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (1961). Miss Jean Brodie “is passionate in the application of her unorthodox teaching methods, in her attraction to the married art master, Teddy Lloyd, in her affair with the bachelor music master, Gordon Lowther, and—most important—in her dedication to ‘her girls,’ the students she selects to be her crème de la crème.”

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (1962). “Merricat Blackwood lives on the family estate with her sister Constance and her uncle Julian. Not long ago there were seven Blackwoods—until a fatal dose of arsenic found its way into the sugar bowl one terrible night.”

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1962). “Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O’Keefe (athlete, student, and one of the most popular boys in high school)… are in search of Meg’s father, a scientist who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government on the tesseract problem.”

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing (1962). “Doris Lessing’s best-known and most influential novel, The Golden Notebook retains its extraordinary power and relevance decades after its initial publication.”

The Group by Mary McCarthy (1963). “Written with a trenchant, sardonic edge, The Group is a dazzlingly outspoken novel and a captivating look at the social history of America between two world wars.”

Efuru by Flora Nwapa (1966). “The work, a rich exploration of Nigerian village life and values, offers a realistic picture of gender issues in a patriarchal society as well as the struggles of a nation exploited by colonialism.”

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1966). “Antoinette Cosway, a sensual and protected young woman … is sold into marriage to the prideful Mr. Rochester. Rhys portrays Cosway amidst a society so driven by hatred, so skewed in its sexual relations, that it can literally drive a woman out of her mind.”

#must-read #female authors #classic literature #literature written by women #literary classic #literary classics written by women

48 notes · View notes

amphipodgirl · 5 years

Text

Name ten favorite characters from ten different things (books, tv, film, etc.), then tag ten people

Thank you to @carryonsimoncarryonbaz for tagging me!

Miss Marple (Agatha Christie) -- She’s this little old lady, never married, who people think must be entirely unworldly but she’s got these sharp perceptions and always knows what’s what. I so love stories of people who defy expectations, especially when those people are women and those expectations are in part because of their gender.

Mrs. Polifax (Dorothy Gilman; the first book is The Unexpected Mrs. Polifax) -- She’s widowed, her children are grown, and life has lost its savor, so she volunteers as a CIA spy. She gets her first mission through a series of misunderstandings and turns out to be terrifically good at it, partly because nobody thinks this sweet old woman could be a spy (is anybody spotting a theme here?) but most of all because she really cares about people and befriends them.

Maya Drajar (The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison) -- The way Maya feels when he is thrust into life at court and has no idea what is going on or what any of the hidden meanings are is pretty much how I’ve felt my whole life. If he can figure things out, maybe there’s hope for me.

Tamar (The Book of Genesis) -- In the Torah, women often get very short shrift, but Tamar gets an entire chapter to herself. She’s smart and courageous and determined and gets Judah to concede that she is in the right. I took her name when I converted and chanted her story for my adult bat mitzvah.

Master Oakhallow (The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon) -- At first I thought I would list Paks but then I decided that the Kuakgan holds even more of my heart. When I was in college, I used to fantasize about a place that would take in beaten down people and let them rest and heal. If I could check in to his grove, I think I would.

Julius Vanderdecker (Flying Dutch by Tom Holt) -- He’s so flustered and well-meaning and long-suffering.

Matthew Shardlake (C J Sansom; first book is Dissolution) -- He’s smart and kind and sad and the things that attract him most in a woman are spirit and intelligence, even though in Tudor England those are not any kind of feminine ideal.

Cimorene (Patricia C. Wrede; first book is Dealing with Dragons) -- She finds being a fairy-tale princess to be boring beyond belief, so she runs away to be a dragon’s captive princess. Smart, resourceful, non-nonsense, and caring.

Nutt (Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett) -- Tortured and gentle and talented. It’s possible I have a type.

Ekaterin Vorsoisson (Lois McMaster Bujold, first appears in Komarr) -- I actually had a really hard time choosing between her and Cordelia Naismith, who first appears in Cordelia’s Honor. They’re both really smart, really competent, non-nonsense women... Okay, maybe I have more than one type.

Tagging @daisy---bug @thehoneyedhufflepuff @lafeli85 and, well, I don’t feel like I know anybody else on here well enough to tag them but anybody who sees this please feel free to self-tag

#fandom meme #fandom ask #10 characters #apparently I like underdogs and sad boys

6 notes · View notes

juniperusashei · 2 years

Photo

Great Short Stories by American Women edited by Candace Ward - 3/5

This is just another random anthology I picked up for $2 at Half Price Books (ironically the list price is a dollar). I’m constantly on the lookout for good source material for my next film, but unfortunately this book had nothing on the same level as “Lilacs” by Kate Chopin or “The Standard of Living” by Dorothy Parker. It’s organized roughly chronologically, but genre-wise covers mostly just regionalists and modernists. I’d say a short story collection is skippable when the best one in it is one I’ve already read (and I’m sure everyone here has too: “The Yellow Wallpaper”). The one story that felt fresh to me was “The Stones of the Village” by Alice Dunbar-Nelson; I had never even heard of her, but this story was definitely the centerpiece of the collection. Seek it out on its own if you can, but skip the rest.

“Life in the Iron-Mills” by Rebecca Harding Davis A classic example of short fiction written to draw awareness to a social issue: the welfare of millworkers in the 1860s. Not much depth besides this. “If you could go into the mill where Deborah lay… no ghost Horror would terrify you more.” I found it exceedingly difficult to get through, because it’s written in the dialect of first-generation Irish and Welsh immigrants.

“Transcendental Wild Oats” by Louisa May Alcott Veganism taken too far. Pretty effective satire, but some of it left me wondering whether or not it was supposed to be funny.

“A White Heron” by Sarah One Jewett Decent sentimentalist prose on nature. It comes together cleanly, the way a short story should.

“A New England Nun” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman I was disappointed that this story was not, in fact, about a nun, unless you count the metaphorical discussion of nuns. Still, this is a good early example of the psychological story; it’s the first in the collection with characters that actually feel like real people with complex internal lives. Interesting meditation on solitude, nature, and spinsterism.

“The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman This short story needs no introduction. Probably everyone has read it, but it was nice to revisit it for the first time since high school. One of the most creepy things I’ve ever read; if you’ve somehow not read it yet, it’s an early feminist horror story and that’s all I’ll say. Probably one of the best short stories ever written.

“The Storm” by Kate Chopin Another that I had read before. A very necessary challenge to the moralism of the time, but tame by today’s standards. I’m very glad this collection included a Chopin story, even if it’s not my favorite, because her style is so distinct from her predecessors: almost all the action is external, revealing the characters’ psychological motives in a very cinematic way (before cinema even existed!) That’s the reason she’s one of my favorite authors.

“The Angel at the Grave” by Edith Wharton Thematically similar to The House of Mirth: the claustrophobia of a dying upper class, mourning a bygone era. Altogether too much tell and not enough show.

“Paul’s Case” by Willa Cather Paul has some of the DNA of Max Fischer from Rushmore, or perhaps Holden Caufield from The Catcher in the Rye, but not as compelling as either of these works.

“The Stones of the Village” by Alice Dunbar-Nelson One of the more powerful of the collection so far, similar in theme to Passing by Nella Larsen or “Desirée’s Baby” by Kate Chopin. Dunbar-Nelson’s prose is extremely readable and the story was absolutely riveting — spanning decades, it probably would have made a good novel, too.

“A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell If any of the stories in this collection befitted a film adaptation, this would be the one, though it appears Alfred Hitchcock beat me to it. Perhaps this is because it was apparently based on a stage play? It’s a very neat feminist murder mystery, solved through knowledge of the women’s work that men so often deride.

“Smoke” by Djuna Barnes Very dense prose that recalls Virginia Woolf a bit. So much is packed into just three pages! For that reason, I found this actually pretty hard to understand.

“Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston The most “Southern Gothic” of all the stories in this book. Despite Hurston’s prose being crystal clear, I found this a little hard to understand because of the way the dialogue is written.

“Sanctuary” by Nella Larsen It’s such a tragedy that Larsen’s literary career was cut short, because the prose here is just as gorgeous as Passing. Though possibly too short to develop its themes, this story has the requisite jaw-dropping irony that makes a good short story.

#short stories #anthology #Great Short Stories by American Women #3 #june 2022 #2022

0 notes

tellmeastory-app · 2 years

Photo

Read a short story from the "Mrs. Pollifax Pursued — by Dorothy Gilman" book in a genre Thriller. This story is the best story of 18 April, according to the "Tell me a Story" Telegram project users. Source: https://tellmestory.app/story/mrs-pollifax-pursued-a-book-by-dorothy-gilman

#IFTTT #book #short-story #story #books and literature #books #read-next #bookblr #bookshelf

0 notes

all-my-books · 7 years

Text

2017 Reading

262 books read. 60% of new reads Non-fiction, authors from 55 unique countries, 35% of authors read from countries other than USA, UK, Canada, and Australia. Asterisks denote re-reads, bolds are favorites. January: The Deeds of the Disturber – Elizabeth Peters The Wiregrass – Pam Webber Homegoing – Yaa Gyasi It Didn't Start With You – Mark Wolynn Facing the Lion – Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton Before We Visit the Goddess – Chitra Divakaruni Colored People – Henry Louis Gates Jr. My Khyber Marriage – Morag Murray Abdullah Miss Bianca in the Salt Mines – Margery Sharp Farewell to the East End – Jennifer Worth Fire and Air – Erik Vlaminck My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me – Jennifer Teege Catherine the Great – Robert K Massie My Mother's Sabbath Days – Chaim Grade Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me – Harvey Pekar, JT Waldman The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend – Katarina Bivald Stammered Songbook – Erwin Mortier Savushun – Simin Daneshvar The Prophet – Kahlil Gibran Beyond the Walls – Nazim Hikmet The Dressmaker of Khair Khana – Gayle Tzemach Lemmon A Day No Pigs Would Die – Robert Newton Peck *

February: Bone Black – bell hooks Special Exits – Joyce Farmer Reading Like a Writer – Francine Prose Bright Dead Things – Ada Limon Middlemarch – George Eliot Confessions of an English Opium Eater – Thomas de Quincey Medusa's Gaze – Marina Belozerskaya Child of the Prophecy – Juliet Marillier * The File on H – Ismail Kadare The Motorcycle Diaries – Ernesto Che Guevara Passing – Nella Larsen Whose Body? - Dorothy L. Sayers The Spiral Staircase – Karen Armstrong Station Eleven – Emily St. John Mandel Reading Lolita in Tehran – Azar Nafisi Defiance – Nechama Tec

March: Yes, Chef – Marcus Samuelsson Discontent and its Civilizations – Mohsin Hamid The Gulag Archipelago Vol. 1 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Patience and Sarah – Isabel Miller Dying Light in Corduba – Lindsey Davis * Five Days at Memorial – Sheri Fink A Man Called Ove – Fredrik Backman * The Shia Revival – Vali Nasr Girt – David Hunt Half Magic – Edward Eager * Dreams of Joy – Lisa See * Too Pretty to Live – Dennis Brooks West with the Night – Beryl Markham Little Fuzzy – H. Beam Piper *

April: Defying Hitler – Sebastian Haffner Monsters in Appalachia – Sheryl Monks Sorcerer to the Crown – Zen Cho The Man Without a Face – Masha Gessen Peace is Every Step – Thich Nhat Hanh Flory – Flory van Beek Why Soccer Matters – Pele The Zhivago Affair – Peter Finn, Petra Couvee The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake – Breece Pancake The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared – Jonas Jonasson Chasing Utopia – Nikki Giovanni The Invisible Bridge – Julie Orringer * Young Adults – Daniel Pinkwater Jonathan Swift: The Reluctant Rebel – John Stubbs Black Gun, Silver Star – Art T. Burton The Arab of the Future 2 – Riad Sattouf Hole in the Heart – Henny Beaumont MASH – Richard Hooker Forgotten Ally – Rana Mitter Zorro – Isabel Allende Flying Couch – Amy Kurzweil

May: The Bite of the Mango – Mariatu Kamara Mystic and Rider – Sharon Shinn * Freedom is a Constant Struggle – Angela Davis Capture – David A. Kessler Poor Cow – Nell Dunn My Father's Dragon – Ruth Stiles Gannett * Elmer and the Dragon – Ruth Stiles Gannett * The Dragons of Blueland – Ruth Stiles Gannett * Hetty Feather – Jacqueline Wilson In the Shadow of the Banyan – Vaddey Ratner The Last Camel Died at Noon – Elizabeth Peters Cannibalism – Bill Schutt The Handmaid's Tale – Margaret Atwood A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry The Food of a Younger Land – Mark Kurlansky Behold the Dreamers – Imbolo Mbue Words on the Move – John McWhorter John Ransom's Diary: Andersonville – John Ransom Such a Lovely Little War – Marcelino Truong Child of All Nations – Irmgard Keun One Child – Mei Fong Country of Red Azaleas – Domnica Radulescu Between Two Worlds – Zainab Salbi Malinche – Julia Esquivel A Lucky Child – Thomas Buergenthal The Drackenberg Adventure – Lloyd Alexander Say You're One of Them – Uwem Akpan William Wells Brown – Ezra Greenspan

June: Partners In Crime – Agatha Christie The Chinese in America – Iris Chang The Great Escape – Kati Marton As Texas Goes... – Gail Collins Pavilion of Women – Pearl S. Buck Classic Chinese Stories – Lu Xun The Return of the Soldier – Rebecca West The Slave Across the Street – Theresa Flores Miss Bianca in the Orient – Margery Sharp Boy Erased – Garrard Conley How to Be a Dictator – Mikal Hem A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini Tears of the Desert – Halima Bashir The Death and Life of Great American Cities – Jane Jacobs The First Salute – Barbara Tuchman Come as You Are – Emily Nagoski The Want-Ad Killer – Ann Rule The Gulag Archipelago Vol 2 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

July: Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz – L. Frank Baum * The Blazing World – Margaret Cavendish Madonna in a Fur Coat – Sabahattin Ali Duende – tracy k. smith The ACB With Honora Lee – Kate de Goldi Mountains of the Pharaohs – Zahi Hawass Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy Chronicle of a Last Summer – Yasmine el Rashidi Killers of the Flower Moon – David Grann Mister Monday – Garth Nix * Leaving Yuba City – Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni The Silk Roads – Peter Frankopan The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams A Corner of White – Jaclyn Moriarty * Circling the Sun – Paula McLain Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them – Al Franken Believe Me – Eddie Izzard The Cracks in the Kingdom – Jaclyn Moriarty * Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe – Fannie Flagg * One Hundred and One Days – Asne Seierstad Grim Tuesday – Garth Nix * The Vanishing Velasquez – Laura Cumming Four Against the Arctic – David Roberts The Marriage Bureau – Penrose Halson The Jesuit and the Skull – Amir D Aczel Drowned Wednesday – Garth Nix * Roots, Radicals, and Rockers – Billy Bragg A Tangle of Gold – Jaclyn Moriarty * Lydia, Queen of Palestine – Uri Orlev *

August: Sir Thursday – Garth Nix * The Hoboken Chicken Emergency – Daniel Pinkwater * Lady Friday – Garth Nix * Freddy and the Perilous Adventure – Walter R. Brooks * Venice – Jan Morris China's Long March – Jean Fritz Trials of the Earth – Mary Mann Hamilton The Bully Pulpit – Doris Kearns Goodwin Final Exit – Derek Humphry The Book of Emma Reyes – Emma Reyes Freddy the Politician – Walter R. Brooks * Dragonflight – Anne McCaffrey * What the Witch Left – Ruth Chew All Passion Spent – Vita Sackville-West The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde The Curse of the Blue Figurine – John Bellairs * When They Severed Earth From Sky – Elizabeth Wayland Barber Superior Saturday – Garth Nix * The Boston Girl – Anita Diamant The Mummy, The Will, and the Crypt – John Bellairs * Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? - Frans de Waal The Philadelphia Adventure – Lloyd Alexander * Lord Sunday – Garth Nix * The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull – John Bellairs * Five Little Pigs – Agatha Christie * Love in Vain – JM Dupont, Mezzo A Little History of the World – EH Gombrich Last Things – Marissa Moss Imagine Wanting Only This – Kristen Radtke Dinosaur Empire – Abby Howard The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents – Terry Pratchett *

September: First Bite by Bee Wilson The Xanadu Adventure by Lloyd Alexander Orientalism – Edward Said The Lost Crown of Genghis Khan – Carl Barks The Island on Bird Street – Uri Orlev * The Indifferent Stars Above – Daniel James Brown Beneath the Lion's Gaze – Maaza Mengiste The Importance of Being Earnest – Oscar Wilde * The Book of Five Rings – Miyamoto Musashi The Drunken Botanist – Amy Stewart The Turtle of Oman – Naomi Shahib Nye The Alleluia Files – Sharon Shinn * Gut Feelings – Gerd Gigerenzer The Secret of Hondorica – Carl Barks Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight – Alexandra Fuller The Abominable Mr. Seabrook – Joe Ollmann Black Flags – Joby Warrick

October: Fear – Thich Nhat Hanh Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8 – Naoki Higashida To the Bright Edge of the World – Eowyn Ivey Why? - Mario Livio Just One Damned Thing After Another – Jodi Taylor The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman Blindness – Jose Saramago The Book Thieves – Anders Rydell Reality is not What it Seems – Carlo Rovelli Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell * The Witch Family – Eleanor Estes * Sister Mine – Nalo Hopkinson La Vagabonde – Colette Becoming Nicole – Amy Ellis Nutt

November: The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing The Children's Book – A.S. Byatt The Fire Next Time – James Baldwin Under the Udala Trees – Chinelo Okparanta Who Killed These Girls? – Beverly Lowry Running for my Life – Lopez Lmong Radium Girls – Kate Moore News of the World – Paulette Jiles The Red Pony – John Steinbeck The Edible History of Humanity – Tom Standage A Woman in Arabia – Gertrude Bell and Georgina Howell Founding Gardeners – Andrea Wulf Anatomy of a Disapperance – Hisham Matar The Book of Night Women – Marlon James Ground Zero – Kevin J. Anderson * Acorna – Anne McCaffrey and Margaret Ball * A Girl Named Zippy – Haven Kimmel * The Age of the Vikings – Anders Winroth The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction – Helen Graham A General History of the Pyrates – Captain Charles Johnson (suspected Nathaniel Mist) Clouds of Witness – Dorothy L. Sayers * The Lonely City – Olivia Laing No Time for Tears – Judy Heath

December: The Unwomanly Face of War – Svetlana Alexievich Gay-Neck - Dhan Gopal Mukerji The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane – Lisa See Get Well Soon – Jennifer Wright The Testament of Mary – Colm Toibin The Roman Way – Edith Hamilton Understood Betsy – Dorothy Canfield Fisher * The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - Vicente Blasco Ibanez Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH – Robert C. O'Brien SPQR – Mary Beard Ballet Shoes – Noel Streatfeild * Hogfather – Terry Pratchett * The Sorrow of War – Bao Ninh Drowned Hopes – Donald E. Westlake * Selected Essays – Michel de Montaigne Vietnam – Stanley Karnow The Snake, The Crocodile, and the Dog – Elizabeth Peters Guests of the Sheik – Elizabetha Warnok Fernea Stone Butch Blues – Leslie Feinberg Wicked Plants – Amy Stewart Life in a Medieval City – Joseph and Frances Gies Under the Sea Wind – Rachel Carson The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia – Mary and Brian Talbot Brat Farrar – Josephine Tey * The Treasure of the Ten Avatars – Don Rosa Escape From Forbidden Valley – Don Rosa Nightwood – Djuna Barnes Here Comes the Sun – Nicole Dennis-Benn Over My Dead Body – Rex Stout *

#books #reading #2017

9 notes · View notes

rocklandhistoryblog · 7 years

Photo

#TBT Harry L. and Adele Dow Sisco Family (1959). Image appeard in a feature in the Journal News in February, 1979.

It was a short obituary. Harry L. Sisco, a lifelong resident of Rockland County had died, leaving his wife, Adele, and five children. But in South Rockland, where he had lived all his life, memories going back decades and generations began to pour forth. The Siscos have been part of Rockland’s history since long before it was a county. Dr. Carl Nordstrom, the Rockland historian, thinks they may be "the single largest black family in Rockland County", and one of the oldest. It is possible, he thinks, they were descendants of a sailor, named Jan Francisco, who was on a Spanish or Portuguese ship captured by the New Amsterdam Dutch in 1643.

In Rockland history, the earliest Siscos appear in a survey report on the Cheesecocks Patent by Charles Clinton, who noted seeing in 1739 somewhere near the present day Airmont the home of Samuel Francisco, a free Negro. The Siscos appear thereafter in various Rockland records, their names variously spelled. Eventually they gravitated to the southeasterly part of the county and became part of its history. Sometime, possibly before the Revolution, they were among a group of black farmers who settled on land just south of Palisades and now encompassed by the Palisades Interstate Park. They called their little community "The Mountains" also known as “Skunk Hollow”.

Some Palisadians thought they came there to escape racial tensions in New York. Dr. Nordstrom thought they were drawn there because it was kind of no-man’s land, long claimed by both New York and New Jersey and there¬fore passed over by those looking for secure titles. In any event, the black settlers built houses, cleared and planted enough land to sustain themselves, erected what is believed to have been the first black church in Rockland County and next to it a cemetery. H. Archer Stansbury, an octogenarian of Closter Road, Palisades, recalls visiting the little church on festival days when there was a ceremony called "marching through the wilderness". After hymns and prayers in the church, the congregation did indeed march through the verdant, creation-fresh woods of the Palisades, returning enhanced and exalted to generous refreshments at the church.

The community endured until around 1915 and then vanished. Today there are left only shards and mouldering foundations. Still standing in the cemetery is the gravestone of Jane, the 14-day-old daughter of John and Jane Sisco, "who departed this life March 4, 1846".

That the history of "The Mountains" survives at all is due in no small measure to Harry Sisco, his daughter, Mrs. Shirley Sisco Swann and his niece, Mrs. Frances Pierson of Piermont. In 1974 they assisted Dr. Nordstrom, Dr. Jacqueline Holland, the Rev. C. J. Ross of the Sparkill’s St. Charles A.M.E. Zion Church, Leonard Cooke and others, in reconstructing its story as well as that of the black community of the Sparkill area. Later Mrs. Pierson assembled and mounted two exhibitions at the Piermont Village Hall—photographs and artifacts relating to the blacks of the area, including the community called "The Mountains".

Priscilla Sisco Swann (L) and Frances Sisco Pierson (R). Clipped from The Journal News, 04 Jun 1994, Sat, Page 15

It seems probable there were Siscos in other parts of south Rockland. Frank Bertangue Green in his "History of Rockland County" (A. S. Barnes & Co., 1886) notes that early in the 1800’s a Negro wheelwright, whose daughter was a Mrs. Sisco of Piermont Avenue, Nyack, erected and ran a grist mill and a carding mill at Tappan Slote. Toward the end of the century, the Siscos appeared in the old Nyack and Piermont directories. Peter Siscoe, a laborer, was listed in Piermont in 1894 and Abram Sisco, a coachman of Sparkill in 1897. Abraham Sisco was Harry’s uncle. He became a trustee of St. Charles A.M.E. Zion Church.

The Siscos were living in Sneden’s Landing across from the Presbyterian church in the gray house now occupied by Harry and Dorothy Davis when Harry was born. He was the seventh of eight children. His father Sam, a coachman and barber, worked for some of the well-to-do families of the area —the Winthrop Gilmans, the Agnews and the Foxes. Sam’s children, among them Susan, Sadie, Lenore, and Harry, became an integral part of the life of the community. For a time, the family lived in "The Mountains’’, or, as it was sometimes called, "Skunk Hollow". Harry remembered playing as a boy in the old church which by that time was unused and going to ruin. When school was in session he and his brothers and sisters, in fair weather and foul, walked the dirt road euphemistically called "the Boulevard” from "The Mountains’’ to the Palisades School.

Eventually there came to "The Mountains" a spunky little girl named Adele Dow, great-granddaughter of Hanna Whitehead Oliver, an Iroquois Indian. Harry fell in love with her and on August 13, 1925 they were married by the Rev. R. F. Pile of St. Charles A.M.E. Zion Church. To them were born in the succeeding years, six children, of who five survive. The sixth, Ramon, died suddenly at the age of 21 soon after returning from service in the Korean War.

Frances Sisco (Pierson) and Adele Dow Sisco at the Blacksmith Tea Shop, 1928-1932, in uniform. Courtesy of the Alice Gerard Collection of the Palisades Free Library

The news of Harry’s death on February 28, 1976 set the whole community to reminiscing about him as though an era had passed for in myriad ways he had been a part of many lives. "He was more than a good man; he was an institution," mused Mrs. Mildred Post Rippey. "He and his family knew their worth. They worked their way into our hearts.” Her mind went back to the little school in Palisades, built in 1860’s and now a community center, which she attended with Harry’s older sisters and, later, Harry. Every class day began with the children, in double seats, rising to salute the flag, march around the room, sing a hymn, say a prayer1, and then start classes. On Sundays, Mrs. Rippey remembered, many of the same children, Harry and his sisters among them, would assemble at the Presbyterian Church for Sunday School. One Easter Sunday, she and Susan Sisco were chosen to go through the community bearing Easter lilies to the sick.

Mr. Stansbury remembered Harry as the bugler of Boy Scout Troop No. 1 of Rockland County, which he organized on May 15, 1919. "Harry was a good Scout," he said. "He earned, and I remember giving him a good conduct badge." To Miss Emma Stewart came the memory of Harry as the boy who pumped the organ at the church on Sundays, first for Mrs. Lydia Post and later for Miss Stewart’s sister, Mrs. Everett Martine. For that chore, he received ten cents a week.

Mrs. Eric Gugler, one of the surviving children of Francois and Mary Lawrence Tonetti, the sculptors of Snedens Landing, recalled the Sisco family when they lived across from the Presbyterian Church.

"We played together, we grew up together, we put on plays together, we went to school together, and we all loved Harry’s twinkling eyes and beautiful smile,” she said.

It was the Fox families of Palisades with whom Harry was chiefly identified, however—Seth, Arthur, Miss Jenny, William, and in his last years, William’s widow, Mrs. Violet Fox. For almost a half century Harry served one or another of the families as caretaker, handyman, driving instructor, mechanic, snow plougher, philosopher, counsellor and friend. The adults respected and relied upon him. The children loved him, for Harry had a special no-nonsense rapport with them; he was their stern but unfailing ally. Elizabeth Fox, now Mrs. W. Arnold Finck, recalled that when winter snows came, the little Foxes would take to the long steep hills with their sleds, while Harry, driving a tractor with a flat, triangular wooden snowplow attached, went out to clear the roads. "Somehow,” she said, "Harry always managed to be at the bottom of the hill, ready to start up, just as we reached there on our sleds, so we never had to climb the hill.” Somehow, too, he kept an eye on them, whether they thought they needed it or not. Somehow, he had a sixth sense for danger or mischief or the need for communication or support. He counselled them sternly to obey their parents and to "straighten up and be somebody”.

"He was more successful than anybody else in talking sense into my head,” Dr. Donald Finck told his mother one day, a touch defiantly. To which Mrs. Finck replied smilingly, for she had also benefitted from Harry’s tutelage, "Yes, I expected him to.”

In their own children, Harry and his wife, Adele, instilled the same sense of personal worth and responsibility, with the following results:

Harry L. Sisco, Jr., is director of field services for Henderson Industries Automatic Weighing Systems, West Caldwell, N. J., and also assistant pastor of Berea Seventh Day Adventist Church, Nyack.

Priscilla Sisco Swann, with an associate degree in applied science, is employed by the Rockland County Health Department in public health education. She is also secretary-bookkeeper for the Seventh Day Adventist Westchester Area Elementary School in New Rochelle, one of the founders and a member of the board of directors of the Nyack Headstart Nursery School, and a board member of the Rockland Community Action Council.

Barbara Sisco Peterson is a computer programmer at Dairylea Cooperative, Inc., Pearl River.

Shirley Sisco Swann is quality control department head in electronic stampings, Plessy Montvale of Montvale, N. J.

Judy Sisco Peaks is assistant supervisor of data processing and control at Burlington Industries, Rockleigh, N. J.

In his last years, Harry, severely crippled by arthritis and walking with a cane, functioned as a chauffeur for Mrs. William Fox, proudly driving her 1950 Packard, which he kept as sparkling bright as a new-minted gold piece.

On August 16, 1975, the Sisco children gave a dinner-dance for their father and mother at the Holiday Inn, Orangeburg, in celebration of their golden wedding anniversary. It was a grand affair, to which young and old, friends and neighbors, black and white, to the number of 60-odd, came to express their admiration and love. Harry, resplendent in a white Tuxedo and ruffled shirt, was in a mood to match the occasion.

On December 1, 1976 he was hospitalized with a heart attack and family and friends spent anxious weeks of waiting. Mrs. Finck telephoned him at the hospital and Harry chided her gently for not coming to see him.

"I was told that no one but your family could see you,” she explained.

"I know,” said Harry, "but I’ve told them at the desk that you’re my family even if you don’t look like it.”

By the end of the month, Harry was home and feeling better each day. His wife left him in a cheerful mood the morning of February 28 to do some errands. She told friends who inquired about him at the supermarket that he was on the mend. When she returned home, he was gone.

There was a service at the Berea Seventh Day Adventist Church in Nyack. Members of Elks Lodge 424 of Nyack served as pallbearers. Then they took Harry to Palisades and laid him to rest in the old cemetery beside his parents, his brothers and the son he had lost after the Korean War. There, among other notables of Palisades such as Jonathan Lawrence Elder-Senior of pre-Revolutionary note; the redoubtable Molly Sneden, mistress of the Revolutionary War ferry; Winthrop S. Gilman, the banker, builder and historian; and others who did so much to create and maintain the rare and special aura of the little hamlet, Harry Sisco, now and for 71 years an integral part of its history, is at home.

_________________________

We are pleased and honored to feature Harry L. Sisco during Black History Month.

To listen to oral histories from Judy Sisco Peaks visit the archive here: https://www.hrvh.org/cdm/search/collection/larc/searchterm/judy%20sisco/field/all/mode/all/conn/and/order/nosort/ad/asc

www.RocklandHistory.org

#black history month #black history is american history #Rockland History #rockland county #skunk hollow #the mountains #palisades #sparkill #Orangetown History #orangetown

1 note · View note