""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" November 10, 1995 - Episode 469 - Women of Achievement and Herstory compiled by Irene Stuber """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" "In 1875 farmers comprised about 48 percent of the U.S. population. Now they were moving westward, seeking new land for new farms, opening up the Western frontiers, settling the prairies. The Homestead Act had a great impact on this exodus; and the farm wife pressed westward, shoulder to shoulder with her husband. "She helped fight off Indians, claim jumpers, and grasshoppers. She coped with prairie fires, plagues, blizzards and tornadoes, as well as epidemics of smallpox, cholera, typhoid fever, diphtheria, and malaria. "She rose at dawn to stoke the fire in the hearth of the cook stove, haul water, cook breakfast, and bake the day's bread. She made her own soap and candles, helped her husband "break" new sod and plant new crops, fed livestock, milked cows, and educated her own children until schools were built. "Her babies (she bore an average of 6 to 8 of which 3 - 5 might grow to adulthood) were delivered without benefit of a doctor." -- Adapted from an article by Marjory F. Hart, U.S. Department of Agriculture. 11-10 Anniversaries ........................................... B. Nov. 10, 1856, Mabel Loomis Todd, prepared Emily Dickinson's poems for their first publication. B. Nov. 10, 1893, Mabel Ethelreid Normand was the actual inventor of the pie-in-the-face routine, throwing one while a bored teenager on the Max Sennett set during the early days of Hollywood. She became a top drawing film actor but was hit over the head with a vase which might have caused some brain damage. Afterward she became a cocaine addict. She was considered a suspect in the unsolved murder of William Desmond Taylor. B. Nov. 10, 1907, Jane Froman, Broadway singer, was seriously injured in a plane crash while on tour entertaining troops in WWII. She never fully recovered from her injuries nor did her career. The movie _With A Song In My Heart_ (1952) had Susan Hayward doing the acting while the sound track was Froman's singing. B. Nov. 10, 1907, Mildred Lawrence, author. B. Nov. 10, 1949, Ann Reinking, dancer B. Nov. 10, 1949, Donna Fargo, country singer whose "Happiest Girl in the Whole USA" made her an overnight star and won her the Grammy award for Song of the Year 1972. Event Nov. 10, 1993: the English Anglican Church votes to ordain women as priests. Quotes du jour ................................................ "The minute a woman's age is known she is not seen for what she is -- or for what her fantasies are -- but quickly tagged by others with a certain mental set. She is pinioned by her years, able to go neither backward or forward." -- Naomi Thornton ................................................. To receive Women of Achievement and Herstory by email, write and in the body of the note . ....................... * ........................ Don't let anyone tell you there weren't notable and effective women throughout history. They were always there, but historians failed to note them in our histories so that the women of each generation has had to reinvent themselves. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- >>(C) 1995, All Rights Reserved, Irene Stuber, PO Box 6185, Hot Springs National Park, AR 71902, voice mail or fax, 501-624-5262 ID #300, or email irenestuber@delphi.com with comments and suggestions. Distribute verbatim copies freely with copyright notice for non-profit use. We are accepting *limited* donations (only what can be spared) to help offset the online costs of posting WOA.<<