Author Interview With Rebecca Irvine Christian Family Author

Today, I'm delighted to welcome Rebecca Irvine, Christian Family Author.  Rebecca and I became acquainted when she won a copy of my Regency Romance Novel, A Very Merry Chase in a Giveaway early this year and then posted a lovely review.  When the link popped up on one of my Google alerts, I stopped by her blog for a visit and was delightfully surprised to discover that Rebecca was also an author--and an illustrator--and that her blog was filled with fun and fascinating articles and other items making it well worth the visit.  (Be sure to check out her hilarious comments on the weekly Police Beat items in her local newspaper--I laughed until I had tears in my eyes.)  I immediately invited Rebecca to interview here so my readers would have the opportunity to become acquainted with her and her marvelous books.  In honor of the occasion, Rebecca will be giving away a copy of her book, Family Home Evening Adventures to one lucky person leaving a comment here, and I have made one of my musical jigsaw puzzles featuring the cover as a Keepsake, just to thank everyone for stopping by to visit.  Q. Tell us a bit about Yourself:
 A. Here is my standard short bio: Rebecca Irvine is a graduate of Brigham Young University where she earned both Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Communications. She served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in England.  In addition to a love of writing, Irvine followed in her father's footsteps and became a college professor. Rebecca is married and the mother of three fabulous kids. Works by Irvine include 'Adventures with the Word of God' (Horizon/CFI 2008) and 'Family Home Evening Adventures' (Horizon/CFI 2009).
Q. Tell us about your history as a writer:
 A. I have always loved to read and enjoyed books, but I kind of stumbled into being an author. My first book was a set of scripture study aides I had developed for use with my own children. Too often I had seen my kids' eyes gloss over during family scripture study. I wanted to help them be more interested. After developing a number of monthly themes that seemed to work well, I decided to make a book of them and see if I could get it published. After being turned down by one publisher, the manuscript was picked up by Horizon (CFI). My second book was intended to be a book of scripture study aides as well, but the publisher had me switch it to be FHE lessons.
Q. What was it about writing that captured your fancy?
 A. I wanted to be a writer from a very young age, but never really equated that thought with being an author. My father is a marketing professor, which beget in me a love of advertising from a very young age--I wanted to be a copywriter from about age 13 on. In college I majored in advertising communications; I loved it so much I never had to switch. Unfortunately, later I learned copywriters do not earn much money. I ended up in marketing research, which involves a lot of writing as well (just not as fun or creative).
Q. Do you have an all-time favorite novel and what elements make it your favorite?
 A. I do not have an all-time favorite, but some of my favorite classical authors include Jane Austen, Mark Twain, and Shakespeare. I love their use of language and humor. Additionally, I collect Emilie Loring novels, which are some favorites from my youth. As for authors currently living, I greatly admire Janette Rallison. Her work is laugh-out-loud funny, yet clean and uplifting.
 Q. How do you research your books?
 A. I turn to any resources I can, whether on the Internet, in books, or other publications. Currently, I am doing a bunch of research for a new manuscript and it involves pulling information from textbooks, magazines, encyclopedias, and other non-fiction books. I often find these resources by closely reviewing bibliographies of other reliable publications.
Q. Tell us about your favorite story that you have written, and why it's your favorite?
 A. I do not write much in the way of fiction; however, I really enjoyed writing a short story last winter based on an experience of my dad and grandfather. I think it meant a lot to me because of the heritage and family history involved. In fact, my grandfather has since passed away and I have been even more grateful I wrote it. And I am interested in writing a novel about his life.
On Writing:
Q. Is there anything you absolutely must have in order to write?
 A. I find it hard to write without my laptop. On occasion, in times of desperation, I have written on paper or on napkins. But I dislike having to type it all in later. I feel like it is doubling the work effort.

Q. What is the most difficult part of writing for you?
 A. Time! I often have a hard time keeping a regular schedule for writing what I want to write. In addition to being a mom of three (four if you count my dh ;-), I work two part-time jobs. So my schedule for writing is often here and there.
Q. What's a typical working day like for you? When and where do you write?
 A. When I am in a good groove I spend an hour a day, usually from 2 to 3 pm before the kids get home from school, with the goal to get about 1,000 words down. I usually work in my home office on my laptop; sometimes I sit on my bed with my laptop instead. I also do a lot of writing on the weekends (Friday nights work great for me).
Q. Tell us a little bit about your life online and any sites you maintain.
 A. My blog is the one big online presence I maintain rebeccairvine.blogspot.com. Originally it was called Scripture Mom, but my publisher wanted readers to be able to find me online more readily and requested I change it. In addition to my blog I try to be on facebook regularly, which is linked into Twitter. I also have an author page on Goodreads.
 Just For Fun:
 Q. What is your favorite quote?
 A.  One of my favorite quotes is “Truth well told,” which is the slogan for a famous advertising agency called McCann-Erickson. In college I was an intern in their New York office where I worked on the Ponds cold cream account. I think this quote is what I strive to achieve in my books.
Q. Where is your favorite place to read?
 A. In bed—sometimes in the afternoon I sneak a few minutes of reading in while my kids are busy with their after school antics. A large window by my bed provides plenty of natural light. And then sometimes I read an hour or so before going to sleep. I usually have at least three or four books stacked up on my bedside table.
 Q. If you were a supernatural or mythological entity, what, or who, would you be, and why?
 A. Hmmm… I am not a big sci-fi kind of person. My husband suggests I should be Mr. Predict-the-future-of-the-stock-market Guy. That may not be so bad. On the other hand, an angel would be something more up my line because I would enjoy helping others and being able to fly. And I love the scripture, “O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart…”
Q. If you were stranded on a desert island what 3 things would you desperately want with you, and why?
 A. Practical me says, “Food, water, and a hand-crank radio to call my rescuers.”
The stressed-out, wants-to-run-away mom in me says, “A fully loaded/charged Nook, Thanksgiving dinner, and a Pottery Barn inspired cabana in which to relax.”
Rebecca's Blog
Rebecca on Twitter
****
And that dear readers, is your introduction to the author Rebecca Irvine, I hope you have enjoyed meeting her as much as I did.  Now, before you run off, be sure to leave a comment for your chance to win a copy of Rebecca's family friendly book, Family Home Evening Adventures, and don't forget to download your complimentary musical jigsaw puzzle of the cover to share with your family.

Smiles & Good Fortune,
Teresa
************************************
It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one’s dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent. W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) Of Human Bondage, 1915

Molly MacRae: Author of the Cozy Mystery Novel - Lawn Order

Today I'm especially delighted to welcome my long-time friend Molly MacRae.  Molly, and her family, lived in Johnson City for many years and our sons attended school together.  Molly and I were also founding members of a local writer's group known as Diversities. To celebrate her visit here at MyLadyWeb, Molly has generously offered a copy of her newest cozy mystery novel Lawn Order, and just to say thank you to everyone who visits, I've created a complimentary musical jigsaw puzzle of the cover.  I'm particularly excited about Molly's newest release because Lawn Order stars my favorite Molly characters, her delightfully eclectic, sisterly duo Margaret and Bitsy, whom many of you might recognize from a series of stories published over the years in Alfred Hitchcock magazine.
Q. Tell us a bit about Molly MacRae:
A. I grew up surrounded by all the classic elements of story, in a small town, in a large, loving, rambling family. I was born and raised in northern Illinois, spent my childhood summers on an island in Lake Michigan, lived for a year in Edinburgh, Scotland, for four in west Texas, and was blessed to live in upper east Tennessee for twenty. I’ve worked in a delicatessen, a towel factory, and a university dormitory kitchen cooking for 2,000. I’ve taught emotionally disturbed teenagers to use hand tools, I’ve been a museum director, a bookstore manager, and now I work in the children’s department of the public library. My husband I live in Champaign, Illinois. We have two grown sons and a grown cat. I’ve had incredible luck throughout my life.
Q. Tell us about your history as a writer:
A. My writing “career” is one of many disruptions. I knew I wanted to write from the time my brother Andy read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish to me. Dr. Seuss blew my little four or five-year-old mind away. Seuss put stars in my eyes and lead in my pencil. I wrote my first complete mystery series for a high school French class – in French. The stories starred François Spagatini, l’investigateur and involved an escaped circus lion, a red canoe, and an air mattress. But it turns out I’m easily distracted by things like having children, work, family. My first published short story appeared in the January 1990 issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Over the years they’ve published seven more. My first novel, Wilder Rumors, came out in 2007. My second, Lawn Order, came out in December 2010.
Q. I know that you recently had some very exciting news. Could you share that with us?
A. I recently signed a three-book contract for a new light paranormal mystery series with Penguin. Woohoo! The series, tentatively called The Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries, follows Kath Rutledge, a textile preservation specialist who inherits her grandmother’s wool shop and also ends up with a depressed ghost on her hands. I think of it as the series that puts the woo woo in wool.
Q. What was it about writing mysteries that captured your fancy?
A. I like reading mysteries so it seemed natural to try writing them. I like the structure of mysteries. They have a beginning, a middle, and an end with the loose threads tied neatly. Wouldn’t it be great if life were like that?
Q. Do you have an all-time favorite novel and what elements make it your favorite?
A. No all-time favorite novel. I have many favorites for various reasons and different moods – an awful lot of it to do with humor. A few of those favorites: The Thin Woman by Dorothy Cannell; The Bilboa Looking Glass by Charlotte MacLeod; The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde; The Sot Weed Factor by John Barth; Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White; and even though they’re total fluff, I love the Hamish Macbeth mysteries by M.C. Beaton. They follow a predictable course and the characters never change but they’re completely charming. I do have a favorite author and that’s P.G. Wodehouse. I love his stuff for his characters, the intricacy of his plots, the escapism of his world, and above all for his humor.
Interviewer's Note: My youngest son and I spent last spring working our way through the entire Jeeves and Wooster DVD collection staring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry...which we borrowed from the Johnson City Public Library!  If you have not seen these video's, they are a delightful introduction to P.G. Wodehouse.
Q. How do you research your stories?
A. I started out the easy way by writing what I know. Doesn’t that sound better than saying I make it all up? Characters are easy – we’re surrounded by characters everyday and I just take notes. For the museum details in Wilder Rumors I drew on my own background in small museums. The bookstore details in the first several Margaret & Bitsy stories (the Hitchcock stories) were cadged and cobbled together from details of bookstores I liked. But then, in a strange twist of fate, my life started imitating my stories when I was offered the job as manager of an independent bookstore. So the rest of the Margaret & Bitsy stories, and their novel Lawn Order, draw from my own bookstore experience. The new series for Penguin will require more actual research, but there’s a great local group called the Champaign Urbana Spinners and Weavers Guild and the members have agreed to let me pester them with questions. And there’s a wonderful needlework shop, here, called Needleworks, which I plan to borrow from shamelessly. The Internet is a good resource, too, if used wisely. And there’s always the public library. Books – they’re full of good information.
Q. Tell us about your favorite story that you have written, and why it's your favorite.
A. I’ve never really wondered which is my favorite and don’t think I have one. Maybe I’ll say Lawn Order, though, for the simple reason it’s the most recent one to see the light of day.
On Writing:
Q. Is there anything you absolutely must have in order to write?
A. Like a good luck charm or a fetish? No. Or do you mean do I need a legal-sized pad of paper and a number two pencil because I always start a project in long hand? Or a quiet room? Or the right music? Or the right chair? No. I’m not particular. I write in my writing room upstairs and I stop and write on my walk to work (when it isn’t too cold to take my mittens off). I write on my computer and I write in notebooks. I also write on small pads of papers, on scraps, or on paper napkins. So I guess the answer is I need to have something to write on and something to write with, although I’ve also walked along repeating something over and over to myself until I can get somewhere and find something to write on or with. My brain. I guess I need my brain. (Interviewer's Note to Molly's family: Gift the darling girl with a micro digital recorder to carry in her pocket so she doesn't have to walk down the street talking to herself, or take off her mittens on those cold mornings.)
Q. What is the most difficult part of writing for you?
A. Sometimes it’s breaking the glare of that first, blank page. Sometimes it’s keeping the energy flowing through the sagging middle of a story. Sometimes it’s making sure I’ve reached the real end and not left the real conclusion and loose ends tangled in my head. Sometimes it’s turning off the inner editor who gets stuck like a broken record going over, and over, and over a paragraph or scene. Sometimes it’s reining in silliness that becomes ludicrous. Sometimes it’s not having a thick enough skin or not trusting myself. Shall I keep going and show you what a mass of insecurities I can be?
Q. What's a typical working day like for you? When and where do you write?
A. The common wisdom is that a writer should write every day. Although I believe that to be true, before the Penguin contract, I had the luxury of not writing every day if I felt more like trying a new recipe or having lunch with friends or cleaning the cat pan. But consistency is good and I do my best when I write every day. And now it’s necessary. My goal is to write 333 good words each day. I get up at 5:30 and write before breakfast. If I don’t reach the goal by the time I go to work, I write during my lunch hour, and then write some more after supper, if need be. It’s not much, 333 words, but working at that rate I can finish a novel in nine months and still have time to say hi to the family or clean the dratted cat pan.
Q. Tell us a little bit about your life online and any sites you maintain.
A. I have a website where people can find out what’s going on in my writing world. You can read the first chapters of Lawn Order and Wilder Rumors, there, and My Trouble, my first story published in Hitchcock and listen to a podcast of “Fandango by Flashlight,” one of my later Hitchcock stories. The website also has a page of links to other author sites and other interesting and entertaining websites, plus food blogs I like to drool over. I blog the first Monday of each month on Vintage Cookbooks & Crafts, a blog maintained by Amy Alessio. Amy is fascinated by food and craft fads from the 60s and 70s and it’s always interesting to see what triggers her gag reflex. I also contribute to The Mystery Cats – very haphazardly – a blog I maintain with mystery author Sarah Wisseman. I’m also on Facebook and Shelfari.
Just For Fun:
Q. What is your favorite quote?
A. No one favorite. But I keep some around that I like a lot. Here are five:
“I’ve tried to put in my films what Edgar Allan Poe put in his novels: a completely unbelievable story told to the readers with such spellbinding logic that you get the impression the same thing could happen to you tomorrow.” Alfred Hitchcock
“The tools I need for my work are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey.” William Faulkner
“The bookstore is one of humanity’s great engines . . . one of the greatest instruments of civilization.” Christopher Morely
“Every murderer is probably somebody’s old friend.” Agatha Christie
“No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!” Monty Python
Q. Where is your favorite place to read?
A. I can read anywhere. I’m hopeless at these favorite things, aren’t I?
Q. If you were a supernatural or mythological entity, what, or who, would you be, and why?A. I’d be a selkie, because it would be fun if they really existed, although weird.
Q. If you were stranded on a desert island what three things would you desperately want with you, and why?
A. A very powerful, solar-powered communication device; a gel cap that, when dropped into a small container of water, expands into a one room shelter complete with preserved foodstuff and seeds and tools to grow more while waiting for rescuers to arrive in response to the very powerful, solar-powered communication device; a solar-powered e-reader loaded with every book in the Gutenberg Project.

Molly MacRae’s website: Molly MacRae.Com
Thanks to Molly for stopping by, and thanks to all our visitors too.  I hope you enjoyed the interview.   Please don't forget to download your complimentary musical jigsaw puzzle of the Lawn Order cover before you go, and be sure to leave a comment below to be entered to win you very own copy of Lawn Order.
Contest closes 11:59 PM, April 23, 2011.

Smiles & Good Fortune,
Teresa
************************************
It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one’s dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) Of Human Bondage, 1915

What Every Woman Must Not Say

What Every Woman Must Not Say

"I don't pretend I'm clever," he remarked, "or very wise,"
And at this she murmured, "Really," with the right polite surprise.
"But women," he continued, "I must own I understand;
Women are a contradiction--honorable and underhand--
Constant as the star Polaris, yet as changeable as Fate,
Always flying what they long for, always seeking what they hate."
"Don't you think," began the lady, but he cut her short: "I see
That you take it personally--women always do," said he.
"You will pardon me for saying every woman is the same,
Always greedy for approval, always sensitive to blame;
Sweet and passionate are women; weak in mind, though strong in soul;
Even you admit, I fancy, that they have no self-control?"
"No, I don't admit they haven't," said the patient lady then,
"Or they could not sit and listen to the nonsense talked by men."

Adapted from
Are Women People? A Book of Rhymes For Sufferage Times.
by
Alice Duer Miller

*****************

I love history in all it’s forms–especially women’s history. A graduate degree in women’s studies was not an option at the university where I received my MA in History so I had to make do with a more generalized degree. However, in every class I made up for the lack by researching the condition of women in each age that I studied. I have always been fascinated by women’s history, so I thought I would start sharing some of the lost treasures that I uncover. I believe that most people have curious minds and like glimpses of how the world was, and how things were perceived in the past. I firmly believe in the idea that we must remember history in order to learn from it, grow and hopefully cut down on the number of stupid mistakes that random impulse and intellectual curiosity and greed and a thousand other human motivators lead us to make.

Smiles & Good Fortune,
Teresa
************************************
It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one’s dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) Of Human Bondage, 1915

Women Surviving Poverty In Historic Times - Dressmakers and Milliners

FRENCH COUTURE - DRESSMAKERS AND MILLINERS IN PARIS.   

"If a revolution come again, I think well, madame, it will be the great shops that will fall, and that it is workwomen who will bear the torch and even consent to the name of terror, pétroleuses. For see a moment what thing they do, madame. Everywhere, the girl who desires to learn as modiste, and who, in the day when I had learned, became one of the house that she served, and, if talent were there, could rise and in time be mistress herself, with a name that had fame even,--that girl must now attempt the great shop and bury her talent in always the same thing. No more invention, no more grace, but a hundred robes always the same, and with no mark of difference for her who wears it, or way to tell which may be mistress and which the servant. It is not well for one or the other, madame; it is ill for both. Then, too, many must stand aside who would learn, since it is always the machine to sew that needs not many. It is true there are still houses that care for a name, and where one may be artiste, and have pride in an inspiration. But they are rare; and now one sits all day, and this one stitches sleeves, perhaps, or seams of waists or skirts, and knows not effects, or how to plan the whole, or any joy of composition or result. It is bad, and all bad, and I willingly would see the great shops go, and myself urge well their destruction."

These words, and a flood of more in the same direction, came as hot protest against any visit to the Magasins du Louvre, an enormous establishment of the same order as the Bon Marché, but slightly higher in price, where hundreds are employed as saleswomen, and where, side by side with the most expensive productions of French skill, are to be found the occasions,--the bargains in which the foreigner delights even more than the native.

"Let them go there," pursued the little modiste, well on in middle life, whose eager face and sad dark eyes lighted with indignation as she spoke. "Let those go there who have money, always money, but no taste, no perception, no feeling for a true combination. I know that if one orders a robe that one comes to regard to say, 'Yes, so and so must be for madame,' but how shall she know well when she is blunted and dead with numbers? How shall she feel what is best? I, madame, when one comes to me, I study. There are many things that make the suitability of a confection; there is not only complexion and figure and age, but when I have said all these, the thought that blends the whole and sees arising what must be for the perfect robe. This was the method of Madame Desmoulins, and I have learned of her. When it is an important case, a trousseau perhaps, she has neither eaten nor slept till she has conceived her list and sees each design clear. And then what joy! She selects, she blends with tears of happiness; she cuts with solemnity even. Is there such a spirit in your Bon Marché? Is there such a spirit anywhere but here and there to one who remembers; who has an ideal and who refuses to make it less by selling it in the shops? Again, madame, I tell you it is a debasement so to do. I will none of it."

Madame, who had clasped her hands and half risen in her excited protest, sank back in her chair and fixed her eyes on a robe just ready to send home,--a creation so simply elegant and so charming that her brow smoothed and she smiled, well pleased. But her words were simply the echo of others of the same order, spoken by others who had watched the course of women's occupations and who had actual love for the profession they had chosen.

Questions brought out a state of things much the same for both Paris and London, where the system of learning the business had few differences. For both millinery and dressmaking, apprenticeship had been the rule, the more important houses taking an entrance fee and lessening the number of years required; the others demanding simply the full time of the learner, from two to four years. In these latter cases food and lodging were given, and after the first six months a small weekly wage, barely sufficient to provide the Sunday food and lodging. If more was paid, the learner lived outside entirely; and the first year or two was a sharp struggle to make ends meet. But if any talent showed itself, promotion was rapid, and with it the prospect of independence in the end, the directress of a group of girls regarding such talent as developed by the house and a part of its reputation. In some cases such girls by the end of the third year received often five or six thousand francs, and in five were their own mistresses absolutely, with an income of ten or twelve thousand and often more.

This for the exception; for the majority was the most rigid training,--with its result in what we know as French finish, which is simply delicate painstaking with every item of the work,--and a wage of from thirty to forty francs a week, often below but seldom above this sum.

In the early stages of the apprenticeship there was simply an allowance of from six to ten francs per month for incidental expenses, and even when skill increased and services became valuable, five francs a week was considered an ample return. In all these cases the week passed under the roof of the employer, and Sunday alone became the actual change of the worker. The excessive hours of the London apprentice had no counterpart here or had not until the great houses were founded and steam and electric power came with the sewing-machine. With this new regime over-time was often claimed, and two sous an hour allowed, these being given in special cases. But exhausting hours were left for the lower forms of needle-work. The food provided was abundant and good, and sharp overseer as madame might prove, she demanded some relaxation for herself and allowed it to her employés. The different conditions of life made over-work in Paris a far different thing from over-work in London. For both milliners and modistes was the keen ambition to develop a talent, and the workroom, as has already been stated, felt personal pride in any member of the force who showed special lightness of touch or skill in combination.

"Work, madame!" exclaimed little Madame M., as she described a day's work under the system which had trained her. "But yes, I could not so work now, but then I saw always before me an end. I had the sentiment. It was always that the colors arranged themselves, and so with my sister, who is modiste and whose compositions are a marvel. My back has ached, my eyes have burned, I have seen sparks before them and have felt that I could no more, when the days are long and the heat perhaps is great, or even in winter crowded together and the air so heavy. But we laughed and sang; we thought of a future; we watched for talent, and if there was envy or jealousy, it was well smothered. I remember one talented Italian who would learn and who hated one other who had great gifts; hated her so, she has stabbed her suddenly with sharp scissors in the arm. But such things are not often. We French care always for genius, even if it be but to make a shoe most perfect, and we do not hate--no, we love well, whoever shows it. But to-day all is different, and once more I say, madame, that too much is made, and that thus talent will die and gifts be no more needed."

There is something more in this feeling than the mere sense of rivalry or money loss from the new system represented by the Bon Marché and other great establishments of the same nature. But this is a question in one sense apart from actual conditions, save as the concentration of labor has had its effect on the general rate of wages. Five francs a day is considered riches, and the ordinary worker or assistant in either dressmaking or millinery department receives from two and a half to three and a half francs, on which sum she must subsist as she can. With a home where earnings go into a common fund, or if the worker has no one dependent upon her, French thrift makes existence on this sum quite possible; but when it becomes a question of children to be fed and clothed, more than mere existence is impossible, and starvation stands always in the background. For the younger workers the great establishments, offer many advantages over the old system, and hours have been shortened and attempts made in a few cases to improve general conditions of those employed. But there is always a dull season, in which wages lessen, or even cease for a time, the actual number of working days averaging two hundred and eighty. Where work is private and reputation is established, the year's earnings are a matter of individual ability, but the mass of workers in these directions drift naturally toward the great shops which may be found now in every important street of Paris, and which have altered every feature of the old system. Whether this alteration is a permanent one, is a question to which no answer can yet be made. Wages have reached a point barely above subsistence, and the outlook for the worker is a very shadowy one; but the question as a whole has as yet small interest for any but the political economists, while the women themselves have no thought of organization or of any method of bettering general conditions, beyond the little societies to which some of the ordinary workers belong, and which are half religious, half educational, in their character. As a rule, these are for the lower ranks of needlewomen, but necessity will compel something more definite in form for the two classes we have been considering, as well as for those below them, and the time approaches when this will be plain to the workers themselves, and some positive action take the place of the present dumb acceptance of whatever comes.

Prisoners of Poverty
Helen Campbell, 1889
*****
MyLadyWeb’s primary goal is improving the financial condition of women (including myself) and men by providing such free and low cost tools as reliable domains and hosting, self-installing websites, turnkey websites, brandable ebooks, SEO tools, PLR and unique articles and so on and so on and so on…. So why in the world would I post women’s history on a blog dedicated to helping people build and maintain a low-cost business online? Well, because I have a graduate degree in history and I love history in all it’s forms–especially women’s history. A graduate degree in women’s studies was not an option at the university where I received my MA in History so I had to make do with a more generalized degree. However, in every class I made up for the lack by researching the condition of women in each age that I studied. I have always been fascinated by women’s history, so I thought I would start sharing some of the lost treasures that I uncover. I believe that most people have curious minds and like glimpses of how the world was, and how things were perceived in the past. I firmly believe in the idea that we must remember history in order to learn from it, grow and hopefully cut down on the number of stupid mistakes that random impulse and intellectual curiosity and greed and a thousand other human motivators lead us to make.
Smiles and Good Fortune,
Teresa Thomas Bohannon


****
It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one’s dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.
– W. Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965) Of Human Bondage, 1915

A Woman's Work Is Never Done - Surviving in Poverty - Paris Silkweaver

A SILK-WEAVER OF PARIS.

"No, madame, there is no more any old Paris. The Paris that I remember is gone, all gone, save here and there a corner that soon they will pull down as all the rest. All changes, manners no less than these streets that I know not in their new dress, and where I go seeking a trace of what is past. It is only in the churches that one feels that all is the same, and even with them one wonders why, if it is the same, fewer and fewer come, and that men smile often at those that enter the doors, and would close them to us who still must pray in the old places. Is there that consolation for the worker in America, madame? Can she forget her sorrow and want at a shrine that is holy, and feel the light resting on her, full of the glory of the painted windows and the color that is joy and rest? Because, if there had not been the church, my St. Etienne du Mont, that I know from a child, if there had not been that, I must have died. And so I have wondered if your country had this gift also for the worker, and, if it has not bread enough, has at least something that feeds the soul. Is it so, madame?"

Poor old Rose, once weaver in silk and with cheeks like her name, looking at me now with her sad eyes, blue and clear still in spite of her almost seventy years, and full of the patience born of long struggle and acceptance! St. Etienne had drawn me as it had drawn her, and it was in the apse, the light streaming from the ancient windows, each one a marvel of color whose secret no man to-day has penetrated, that I saw first the patient face and the clasped hands of this suppliant, who prayed there undisturbed by any thought of watching eyes, and who rose presently and went slowly down the aisles, with a face that might have taken its place beside the pictured saints to whom she had knelt. Her sabots clicked against the pavement worn by many generations of feet, and her old fingers still moved mechanically, telling the beads which she had slipped out of sight.

"You love the little church," I said; and she answered instantly, with a smile that illumined the old face, "Indeed, yes; and why not? It is home and all that is good, and it is so beautiful, madame. There is none like it. I go to the others sometimes, above all to Nôtre Dame, which also is venerable and dear, and where one may worship well. But always I return here; for the great church seems to carry my prayers away, and they are half lost in such bigness, and it is not so bright and so joyous as this. For here the color lifts the heart, and I seem to rise in my soul also, and I know every pillar and ornament, for my eyes study often when my lips pray; but it is all one worship, madame, else I should shut them close. But the good God and the saints know well that I am always praying, and that it is my St. Etienne that helps, and that is so beautiful I must pray when I see it."

This was the beginning of knowing Rose, and in good time her whole story was told,--a very simple one, but a record that stands for many like it. There was neither discontent nor repining. Born among workers, she had filled her place, content to fill it, and only wondering as years went on why there were not better days, and, if they were to mend for others, whether she had part in it or not. Far up under the roof of an old house, clung to because it was old, Rose climbed, well satisfied after the minutes in the little church in which she laid down the burden that long ago had become too heavy for her, and which, if it returned at all, could always be dropped again at the shrine which had heard her first prayer.

"It is Paris that I know best," she said, "and that I love always, but I am not born in it, nor none of mine. It is my father that desired much that we should gain more, and who is come here when I am so little that I can be carried on the back. He is a weaver, madame, a weaver of silk, and my mother knows silk also from the beginning. Why not, when it is to her mother who also has known it, and she winds cocoons, too, when she is little? I have played with them for the first plaything, and indeed the only one, madame, since, when I learn what they are and how one must use them, I have knowledge enough to hold the threads, and so begin. It was work, yes, but not the work of to-day. We worked together. If my father brought us here, it was that all things might be better; for he loved us well. He sang as he wove, and we sang with him. If hands were tired, he said always: 'Think how you are earning for us all, and for the dot that some day you shall have when your blue eyes are older, and some one comes who will see that they are wise eyes that, if they laugh, know also all the ways that these threads must go.' That pleased me, for I was learning, too, and together we earned well, and had our pot au feu and good wine and no lack of bread.

"That was the hand-loom, and when at last is come another that goes with steam, the weavers have revolted and sworn to destroy them all, since one could do the work of many. I hear it all, and listen, and think how it is that a man's mind can think a thing that takes bread from other men. I am sixteen, then, and skilful and with good wages for every day, and it is then that Armand is come,--Armand, who was weaver, too, but who had been soldier with the great Emperor, and seen the girls of all countries. But he cared for none of them till he saw me, for his thought was always on his work; and he, too, planned machines, and fretted that he had not education enough to make them with drawings and figures so that the masters would understand. When machines have come he has fretted more; for one at least had been clear in his own thought, and now he cannot have it as he will, since another's thought has been before him. He told me all this, believing I could understand; and so I could, madame, since love made me wise enough to see what he might mean, and if I had not words, at least I had ears, and always I have used them well. We are still one family when the time comes that I marry, and my father has good wages in spite of machines, and all are reconciled to them, save my brother. But the owners build factories. It is no longer at home that one can work; and in these the children go, yes, even little ones, and hours are longer, and there is no song to cheer them, and no mother who can speak sometimes or tell a tale as they wind, and all is different. And so my mother says always: 'It is not good for France that the loom is taken out of the houses;' and if she makes more money because of more silk, she loses things that are more precious than money, and it is all bad that it must be so. My father shakes his head. There are wages for every child; and he sees this, and does not so well see that they earned also at home, and had some things that the factory stops, for always.

"For me, I am weaver of ribbons, and I love them well, all the bright, beautiful colors. I look at the windows of my St. Etienne and feel the color like a song in my heart, and while I weave I see them always, and could even think that I spin them from my own mind.

"That is a fancy that has rest when the days are long, and the sound of the mill in my ears, and the beat of the machines, that I feel sometimes are cruel, for one can never stop, but must go on always. I think in myself, as I see the children, that I shall never let mine stand with them, and indeed there is no need, since we are all earning, and there is money saved, and this is all true for long. The children are come. Three boys are mine; two with Armand's eyes, and one with mine, whom Armand loves best because of this, but seeks well to make no difference, and we call him Etienne for my saint and my church. And, madame, I think often that more heaven is in him than we often know, and perhaps because I have prayed always under the window where the lights are all at last one glory, and the color itself is a prayer, Etienne is so born that he must have it, too. I take him there a baby, and he stretches his hands and smiles. He does not shout like the others, but his smile seems from heaven. He is an artist. He draws always with a bit of charcoal, with anything, and I think that he shall study, and, it may be, make other beautiful things that may live in a new St. Etienne, or in some other place in this Paris that I love; and I am happy.

"Then comes the time, madame, that one remembers and prays to forget, till one knows that it may be the good God's way of telling us how wrong we are and what we must learn. First it is Armand, who has become revolutionary,--what you call to-day communist,--and who is found in what are called plots, and tried and imprisoned. It was not for long. He would have come to me again, but the fever comes and kills many; he dies and I cannot be with him,--no, nor even see him when they take him to burial. I go in a dream. I will not believe it; and then my father is hurt. He is caught in one of those machines that my mother so hates, and his hand is gone and his arm crushed.

"Now the children must earn. There is no other way. For Armand and Pierre I could bear it, since they are stronger, but for Etienne, no. He comes from school that he loves, and must take his place behind the loom. He is patient; he says, even, he is glad to earn for us all; but he is pale, and the light in his eyes grows dim, save when, night and morning, he kneels with me under my window and feels it as I do.

"Then evil days are here, and always more and more evil. Month by month wages are less and food is more. My mother is dead, too, and my father quite helpless, and my brother that has never been quite as others, and so cannot earn. We work always. My boys know well all that must be known, but at seventeen Armand is tall and strong as a man, and he is taken for soldier, and he, too, never comes to us again. I work more and more, and if I earn two francs for the day am glad, but now Etienne is sick and I see well that he cannot escape. 'It is the country he needs,' says the doctor. 'He must be taken to the country if he is to live;' but these are words. I pray,--I pray always that succor may come, but it comes not, nor can I even be with him in his pain, since I must work always. And so it is, madame, that one day when I return, my father lies on his bed weeping, and the priest is there and looks with pity upon me, and my Etienne lies there still, and the smile that was his only is on his face.

"That is all, madame. My life has ended there. But it goes on for others still and can. My father has lived till I too am almost old. My brother lives yet, and my boy, Pierre, who was shot at Balaklava, he has two children and his wife, who is couturière, and I must aid them. I remain weaver, and I earn always the same. Wages stay as in the beginning, but all else is more and more. One may live, but that is all. Many days we have only bread; sometimes not enough even of that. But the end comes. I have always my St. Etienne, and often under the window I see my Etienne's smile, and know well the good God has cared for him, and I need no more. I could wish only that the children might be saved, but I cannot tell. France needs them; but I think well she needs them more as souls than as hands that earn wages, though truly I am old and it may be that I do not know what is best. Tell me, madame, must the children also work always with you, or do you care for other things than work, and is there time for one to live and grow as a plant in the sunshine? That is what I wish for the children; but Paris knows no such life, nor can it, since we must live, and so I must wait, and that is all."

Prisoners of Poverty
Helen Campbell, 1889
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MyLadyWeb’s primary goal is improving the financial condition of women (including myself) and men by providing such free and low cost tools as reliable domains and hosting, self-installing websites, turnkey websites, brandable ebooks, SEO tools, PLR and unique articles and so on and so on and so on…. So why in the world would I post women’s history on a blog dedicated to helping people build and maintain a low-cost business online? Well, because I have a graduate degree in history and I love history in all it’s forms–especially women’s history. A graduate degree in women’s studies was not an option at the university where I received my MA in History so I had to make do with a more generalized degree. However, in every class I made up for the lack by researching the condition of women in each age that I studied. I have always been fascinated by women’s history, so I thought I would start sharing some of the lost treasures that I uncover. I believe that most people have curious minds and like glimpses of how the world was, and how things were perceived in the past. I firmly believe in the idea that we must remember history in order to learn from it, grow and hopefully cut down on the number of stupid mistakes that random impulse and intellectual curiosity and greed and a thousand other human motivators lead us to make.
Smiles and Good Fortune,
Teresa Thomas Bohannon
Author of A Very Merry Chase

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It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one’s dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.
– W. Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965) Of Human Bondage, 1915