Sometimes miracles happen when you expect them least but need them most. It is Christmas Eve of 1863. As a snow storm howls out-side, Maggie and her family care for their three youngest members, all of whom are seriously ill. A knock at the door brings an unanticipated interruption in the form of an odd little peddler. Despite her anxiety over the children, Maggie invites the stranger in and feeds him supper, an act of kindness that has an impact on her entire family.
Romance is in the air for Maggie Blaine Smith's daughters when Sergeant Patrick McCoy (daughter Frankie Blaine's beau) and Captain Philip Frost (daughter Lydia Blaine Lape's friend) make a surprise visit to Blaineton, New Jersey on their way to their new posts at Mower General Hospital, Philadelphia. Maggie struggles as she realizes that her daughters are becoming women. Eighteen-year-old Frankie will marry Patrick eventually. That much is obvious. But when? Maggie hopes and prays it will not for a while yet. Meanwhile, her husband Eli Smith is on a campaign to protect his stepdaughter's chastity, something both Frankie and Patrick find annoying. Neither parent, though, has any concerns about Lydia. She is the sensible one, the one who never does anything impulsively. In addition, she is an adult - nearly twenty-two years of age - and still in mourning for her late husband, Edgar Lape. Nothing to see here. Or is there?A visit Philadelphia and its Great Central Fair of 1864 just might change things for everyone.
Maggie Beatty Blaine Smith is a woman with a big heart. She used to run a rooming house and happily welcomed "down on their luck" boarders. Maggie also is a white woman who lives and works with her friends Nate and Emily Johnson, who are black. Because the boarding house had been located next to Blaineton's town square, the people living in Maggie's house were clearly visible, meaning that the town folk wrinkled their noses at her establishment and labeled her as an eccentric do-gooder.But now it is 1864. The members of her household have become more prosperous and they all have moved to the edge of Blaineton and into the spacious confines of Greybeal House. And Maggie is free to pursue her loving, welcoming lifestyle without having to face the town's disapproval. So, when Mary and Addie, two orphaned girls of color, show up, Maggie and Emily take them in without a thought. Upon learning that the girls need an education, the two women decide to enroll them in the Blaineton School, only to discover there's a problem: the school no longer takes black pupils. Worse yet, the one educational option open for children of color has been closed down.Maggie and Emily quickly come up with a solution: start a privately funded school not just for Mary and Addie, but for all of Blaineton's black children, one that will be far away from prying eyes. But word soon begins to spread about the school, talk morphs into resentment and anger, and things rapidly spin out of control. When controversy finally threatens to blow Blaineton apart, Maggie is called upon to unite the town.
It is August of 1862 and sixteen-year-old Frances "Frankie" Blaine learns that her beau, Patrick, will be enlisting in the Army. In the flush of first love, Frankie wants to be by his side. She also wonders why she can't enlist and fight in the war too. Since no one seems able to give her a rational explanation other than that she can't because she is a girl, Frankie comes up with a plan. But it backfires and thrusts her into a world that she didn't expect and from which she learns some large lessons.
Although Charles Best is known for discovering insulin, the story of his life neither begins nor ends with that one moment. Not only did he make many other discoveries, he was also one half of an extraordinary couple who, during their almost sixty years together, were involved in many of the significant events of the twentieth century. Margaret & Charley is the story of these two people from their beginnings on the east coast at the turn of the century through the years that followed. Through diaries, scrapbooks, photograph albums, and other documentation, the details of their lives are shared with the reader.
Women and Museums is a comprehensive directory of museums for, by, and about women, providing information about interpretive themes, historical significance of collections, and cultural and social relevance to women, along with programming events and facility information. Useful cross-reference guides and accessible format provide quick and easy ways of finding information on America's women-related museums. Visit our website for sample chapters!
