Best Wishes For The New Year!!!!!
Hope you receive my wishes before midnight, but if not, then hope you still get them.
Hugs and Kisses from me to you.
The Sassy Countess is a blog about historic houses, properties, castles, estates, mansions, homes, land, and lifestyles! Focusing mostly on 18th century, other time periods are also included, such as Regency, Golden Age, Gilded Age, Victorian, American Post and Antebellum, Romantic, Jacksonian, Medieval, Renaissance, Edwardian, New Republic, etc.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Monday, December 30, 2013
Women's History Paper #1
Paper #1
Taylor Speer-Sims
Women's History
University of Nebraska - Kearney
November 3, 2013
The first half of the class introduced many
different books, authors, subjects, and time periods. There
were differences,
but there were also similarities. Arguments by each author introduce ideas that
were
precise and obvious. There were assumptions and biases, which brought each
book its’ own interpretation.
Each work, however, was about women and her
triumphs.
Laurel Thatcher
Ulrich, the very first in the series for the class, includes extracts from
Martha Ballard’s diary. It was also a biography written by Ulrich; therefore
the book was both a primary and a secondary source. Ulrich gave her reader an idea about what daily life was like for
a woman of local respect. Martha Ballard was a midwife, thus she had a higher
position than most women in the area. Yet, she was still below male doctors,
her husband, and even her son. As the men rested from their day, the woman
still worked on into the evening, “a woman’s work [was] never done.” [1]
Ulrich also
included an idea called the “social web.” This was important to the area where
Ballard lived, but also to the book as a whole. It was a social “structure of
relations in a community” that linked together like a spider web.[2]
Martha Ballard met with everyone in town, if not for midwifery, then for
medicinal support as a type of doctor, nurse, apothecary, or in death where she
wraped bodies. The idea of the social web continued as others helped out
Ballard in the community, and it continued on throughout time. This was really
an anthropological idea.
The only obvious
political scene within the text was the area where President Washington died.
The town held parties and parades, but Ballard was too busy to attend any of
these.[3]
Could this have been a political statement that Ballard was not interested in
politics at all? Was Ballard trying to prove her point that she was more busy
than any man, or in fact any one in the town? More to the point, the idea that
Ulrich included this almost in passing gave the reader the idea Ulrich was
biased, that women did work more, and harder, than any of the men at that time.
There was not much
more that Ulrich could have used within her text to improve her point. This
book was very well written and included Ballard’ diary material as most points.
Ulrich used opposing and congruent information from contemporary letters,
estate manifests, petitions, etc. There were some secondary sources, but the
book was based mainly on primary documents. Ulrich fully researched her subject
before she came up with her argument, at least within this area of history.
Linda K. Kerber
included many time periods in history, where Ulrich only had the one. Kerber
began her book with the Daughters of Columbia and concluded with the New
Republic. Yet, she still included information on the Victorian era, and even
postmodern times.[4] Kerber’s
main idea is that historiography should be explored and the book traced “the
intellectual development” of Kerber through the essays included within.[5]
Interpretation of history changes throughout time, including social studies and
women’s studies. There are essays that compare women directly with their male
counterparts, and then later she targets relational connections or
discrepancies.
Because this book
was on several essays, fluidity was somewhat choppy between lectures. Just as
Ulrich, Kerber emphasized differences in women’s and men’s positions. Most of
the sources Kerber used were professional discussions, lectures and/or papers
She included quite a lot of historiography on each page within the footnotes.
She obviously created a well-regarded set of essays.
The next week
found that students read two different works, one from Gerda Lerner and another
by Corrine Field. Field’s article was about defining age as sections in one’s
life, as well as the different ages and points for white men, minority men and
all women. Field pointed out that antebellum women’s argument was that women
were always dependent on men, they were minors and that “ her sphere is
circumscribed, not by her ability, but by her sex.” [6]
Field included an anthropological view on aging. The obvious issue with this
work compared with the others, was the limitation due to length. Kerber also had
essays; she just had more of them.
Gerda Lerner’s
book was a full biography just like Ulrich’s. However, The Grimke Sisters was
not primarily diary based. Lerner had a bibliography of thirteen pages that was
separated into sections within primary and secondary documents. Another
difference was that Lerner wrote on two women, not just one. Lerner argued that
the Grimke sisters came from a comfortable life to took up a cause greater than
themselves, that of abolition. The “sisters from South Carolina had become the
first female abolitionist agents in the United States.”[7]
These women were
by far the most visual than any that the class studied. Other writers included
these women within their texts, but Lerner does not point that out to her
readers. Her words flowed from one chapter to another with the idea that the
reader knew nothing about the pair. Lerner wrote subtly, yet clearly. This was
done by mentioning how great these women were to their contemporary society
such as how Sarah Grimke’ was the “first woman to write a coherent feminist
argument,” yet they “lived their faith, with stubbornness, courage and
dedication.”[8]
The Grimkes were
probably the most important sisters in history, they were the first women
speakers in the U.S. Angelina was the first woman to address a legislative
body. Both women based their arguments on humanity and Christianity. Even with
this recognition, Lerner pointed out that they were considered “masculine, old
hens, and unable to attain husbands,” which was a main argument against women
mentioned in almost all of the forthcoming books.[9]
The book on
Sojourner Truth was about another great woman in the antebellum period. Nell
Irvin Painter wrote a biography about one woman more similar to Lerner than to
Ulrich’s. Where Ulrich based her book largely on a diary, Painter’s used many
more secondary sources. Sojourner Truth “built networks of human contact…
[that] sustained her materially and spiritually,” similar to Martha Ballard’s
social web.[10]
A difference
between Lerner and Painter was that Painter had no bibliography, using his
notes to show information as well as sources. Painter wrote in the fashion of
Lerner, so that the reader understood that woman were instrumental to history.
Of course, Painter’s subject did not begin in a comfortable situation, but as a
slave. Truth also based her arguments on humanity and Christianity. Painter
told a story about a slave born and kept in the North, and who escaped to be
one of the most respected black and/or woman abolitionists in Antebellum America.
Antebellum America
had women participate in suffrage movements along with abolition. Jean H.
Baker’s book Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists was not about
sisters in the biological sense as Lerner’s was, although it does mention the
Grimke sisters. Baker had chapters that focused on one person, or groups of
women. Eeach section played a role in the next chapter, so the flow was easy.
Just as Lerner wrote that women were masculine, Baker emphasized “women, in the
conventional wisdom of the day, were considered asexual and passionless.”[11]
Baker shared the
fact that women formed groups that battled for women’s suffrage, that women
were individuals; they were like others, yet still different. Baker wrote about
strong women, and about how those organizations ran mainly on volunteerism.[12]
Painter’s and Lerner’s books coincide with Baker’s and the idea of lesbianism
being written between the lines. Baker wrote many thought “the African race was
entirely composed of males,” yet “women – black and white – were still
invisible even to reformers and sympathizers,” just as Painter emphasized. [13]
Lucy Stanton and Angelina Grimke found romance and married, and they both were
the only females within their books. Baker argued that these women came
together (and grew apart) to seek social change for America.
The second time
where two sources were used within one week brought a paper by Carole Shammas.
This paper’s thesis argued that the Married Women’s Property Acts were “in
certain respects… analogous to the emancipation proclamations and related acts
concerning enslaved persons.”[14]
Even though this was a paper, the subject was nothing like that of the former
one. Nor was it truly similar to the other books. This document did have a lot
of information about property rights. However, it was not a legal document. The
main fault of this paper was Shammas included only basic information on dower
rights. She did not include all information. She wrote that a woman could not
do with her dower property as she wished. (Women were able to rent out and
improve these properties) While she cited many legal books for this
statement, there was not one primary document. She did have primary documents
throughout the piece. So, not including contradictory information showed her
bias.
Margaret D.
Jacobs, however, included many contradictory statements within her book. This
was obviously a great book because it won the 2010 Bancroft Prize.[15]
This was one of the longest, yet easiest to understand. The flow was almost
continuous, yet the subheadings and chapters separated it each section for easy
reading. Painter wrote about a minority, so too did Jacobs. Also just like
Painter, Jacobs’ subjects had to contend with racism as well as sexism. The
author had a section on terms and abbreviations, unlike the others. However,
Cott had something similar in her book. Jacobs used many secondary sources, and
her primary sources were mostly records and interviews.
Jacobs wrote that
Native children were stolen away from their families and sent to a school where
“if they [ran] away from their slavery there” they were hunted down like
convicts.[16] Therefore,
Lerner and Jacobs wrote on legalized bondage. Jacob’s title brought out what
happened to Truth, as well as to her own subjects. Jacob’s book included all
aspects of the problem and included opposing views. Elizabeth Cady Stanton in
Baker’s book, was interested in parental rights just as many of the women in
Jacobs’ book either claimed to be, or actually was.
Nancy F. Cott
wrote in the introduction that her book was “about the time when the word
feminism came into use in the Untied States, and the women who used it.”[17]
Cott used a flow that was chronological and discussed feminist groups like that
of Baker. However, Cott wrote that even though there were some organizations,
many did not get together for one purpose. As Baker’s organizations were mostly
volunteer based, Cott argued that post suffrage groups had mostly employees.
Cott included that some people said women were not a sex, but human.
Women thought that they were “morally and superior to men” as apposed to women
in the other books who thought that that’s what they were fighting for.[18]
Cott gave direct information on lesbianism and how women’s friendships became
scrutinized. As the women in Jacob’s books began to feel free with their own
sexuality, so too did women in Cott’s book. While women were still “masculine”,
this was the book that introduced the idea that women were thought to be
communist or socialist if they agreed with disarmament[19]
The last book of
this module was another biography. Blanche Wiesen Cook’s work on Eleanor
Roosevelt was also the longest book that the class read. Cook, like Painter,
did not have a bibliography, but used notes at the end of the book. Like
Kerber, Cook had quite a bit of historiography within her notes. Just as
Ulrich’s and Painter’s subjects, ER used her connections within family and
friends. However, only like Truth did ER use her influence for political
purposes. Cook used a chronological flow that was easy and exciting to follow.
Just like Lerner
and Ulrich, Cook chose to write on only one person. However only as Lerner,
Cook’s subject was on a famous woman, a woman that became more historically
visual. As the Grimke sisters were of middle class social status, Elizabeth
Cady Stanton was from the upper-middle class, and Cook’s subject, but Eleanor
Roosevelt, was from high-society. Just as Sojourner Truth, Eleanor Roosevelt
changed herself into a woman of conviction, wisdom and courage. While Roosevelt
appeared to have been the least interested in Christianity as an argument, she
was very much interested in human rights.[20]
Eleanor Roosevelt was certainly the most well known throughout time than any of
the other subjects to more people in the world.
Cook argued that ER
didn’t care about a person’s social status or income she cared about human
beings. ER knew about changing needs of the planet long “before most of
America’s leadership” did.[21]
Roosevelt was another woman that suffered, yet used her experience to help others.
Cook used large quotes within the text to not only emphasize her point, but to
get the reader into the story, and to make it feel completely authentic.
Photo Credit: :Women's Suffrage," 1820, University of Louisville:
Bibliography
Baker,
Jean H. Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists. New York: Hill and
Wang, 2005.
Cook,
Blanche Wiesen. Eleanor Roosevelt, Vol I, 1884-1933. New York:
Penguin Books,
1992.
Field,
Corinne T. “Are Women… All Minors?:
Woman’s Rights and the Politics of Aging in
the Antebellum United States”, Journal of Women’s
History, Winter 2001, Vol 12, Issue 4. in Ebsco Host. (2013)
http://0-web.ebscohost.com.rosi.unk.edu/ehost/detail?sid=bb38942b-4199-4b5f-9e73-a7be63a93213%40sessionmgr14&vid=1&hid=19&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=aph&AN=4146774
(accessed November 3, 2013)
Jacobs, Margaret D. White Mother to a Dark Race {Settler Colonialism, Maternalism, and
the Removal of Indigenous
Children in the American West and Australia, 1880-1940} Lincoln, NE:
University of Nebraska Press, 2009.
Kerber, Linda K. Toward an Intellectual History of
Women, Essays by Linda K. Kerber.
Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1997.
Lerner, Gerda. The Grimke’ Sisters From South Carolina:
Pioneers for Woman’s Rights and
Abolition. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1998.
Shammas, Carole
"Re-Assessing the Married Women's Property
Acts," Journal
of
Women's History 6:1.
Spring 1994, in Ebsco Host. 2013 http://0-web.ebscohost.com.rosi.unk.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=bf2d520f-3730-4aa1-9cbc-c3ca11507260%40sessionmgr13&vid=2&hid=19
(accessed November 3, 2013)
Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of
Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary,
1785 – 1812. New York:
Vintage Books, 1990.
[1] Laurel
Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her
Diary, 1785 – 1812. (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 210.
[2]Ibid, 75.
[3] Ibid, 32.
[4] Information
from this chapter is being used by author for a full paper in another class
entitled “Columbia Cried: The Poetic, Romantic, and Enchanted Rituals of
Mourning for George Washington.”
[5] Linda K.
Kerber, Toward an Intellectual History of Women, Essays by Linda K. Kerber.
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), back cover.
[6] Corinne T.
Field, “Are Women… All Minors?: Woman’s Rights and the Politics of Aging in the
Antebellum United States”, Journal of Women’s History, Vol 12, Issue 4
(Winter 2001) in Ebsco Host. (2013)
http://0-web.ebscohost.com.rosi.unk.edu/ehost/detail?sid=bb38942b-4199-4b5f-9e73-a7be63a93213%40sessionmgr14&vid=1&hid=19&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=aph&AN=4146774
(accessed November 3, 2013)
[7] Gerda
Lerner, The Grimke’ Sisters From South Carolina: Pioneers for Woman’s Rights
and Abolition. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 110.
[8] Ibid, Xviii;
274.
[9] New
Hampshire Patriot, (August 15, 1837._ quoted in ibid.
[10] Nell Irvin
Painter, Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol. (New York: W. W. Norton
& Company, 1997), 113.
[11] Jean H.
Baker, Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists. (New York: Hill and
Wang, 2005), 75.
[12] Ibid, 125,
156.
[14] Carole Shammas, "Re-Assessing the Married Women's Property
Acts," Journal of Women's History 6:1 (Spring 1994), in Ebsco Host. (2013) http://0-web.ebscohost.com.rosi.unk.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=bf2d520f-3730-4aa1-9cbc-c3ca11507260%40sessionmgr13&vid=2&hid=19
(accessed November 3, 2013)
[15] Margaret D.
Jacobs, White Mother to a Dark Race {Settler Colonialism, Maternalism, and
the Removal of Indigenous Children in the American West and Australia,
1880-1940} (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2009), front cover.
[16] Ibid, 165.
[17] Nancy F.
Cott, The Grounding of Modern Feminism. (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1987), 3.
[18] Ibid, 17.
[19] Ibid, 257.
[20] Blanche
Wiesen Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt, Vol I, 1884-1933. (New York:
Penguin Books, 1992), 3, 17.
[21] Ibid, 19.
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Guest Writer On Magnolia Grove
Magnolia Grove
Guest Writer
:DeAnna Stevens:
Historic buildings are
found throughout the United States.
From the White House to the rubble of a house in Georgia, each building
is a unique piece of American history.
The majority of the buildings are in varying states of disrepair;
however, several of these buildings have been purchased by local historical
societies and have been or are in the process of being renovated. This is what has happened to Magnolia Grove
in Greensboro, Alabama. Purchased by
the Alabama Historical Commission, Magnolia Grove has been preserved so that
future generations of Americans can enjoy the house.
Built by Colonel Isaac
Croom, the exact age of Magnolia Grove is unknown. However, a historical survey completed in 1936 states that the
house was built in the early 1830’s (Burkhardt, 1936). The architect of Magnolia Grove is unknown. Located in Hale County, Alabama, Magnolia
Grove sits on fifteen acres filled with magnolia trees. After Isaac Croom’s wife died in 1878, the
house passed to their niece, Sarah Hobson. It was Sarah’s son who made Magnolia Grove a
historical landmark due to his achievements as an adult. Richmond Pearson Hobson grew up in Magnolia
Grove and was a naval hero in the Spanish-American War. Richmond Hobson retired from the navy and
was elected a United States Representative.
In 1933, he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the
Spanish-American War. During his time
in office, Hobson proposed several constitutional amendments to ban alcohol and
became known as the “Father of American Prohibition” (Hanson) (Hobson, Richmond
Pearson, (1870-1937)).
The design of Magnolia
Grove is typical of Greek Revival style.
Six Roman Doric columns frame the front of the house and the two story
portico. There are eight windows on the
front. Each window is a 6 over 6 blind
sash window. There are two sets of
double doors found on the front of Magnolia Grove. One set is the main entrance and one set leads to a second story
balcony. The doors are identical and
each set is framed by sidelights and a transom window. The second story balcony is slightly wider
than the doors and there is a decorative wrought iron railing surrounding the
balcony. The front of the house and the
columns are stuccoed.
The sides and back of
Magnolia Grove are exposed brick. There
are four single chimneys, two on each side of the house. Magnolia Grove has a very simple square
floorplan. On the first floor, a
central hall splits the house in half.
On the left side, a parlor and a dining room share equal space. A larger living room and small study occupy
the right side. Each room has its own
fireplace. There are fifteen windows on
the first floor, four in each room except for the study, which has three. The hallway is lit by the sidelights and
transom window as well as a chandelier.
There are double doors at the end of the hall leading out to the rear
porch. Magnolia Grove’s rear porch is
also two stories and framed by six cast iron columns. There is a detached kitchen and cook’s house located just off the
rear porch. The rear of the house also
boasts four 6 over 6 blind sash windows.
The other nineteen windows are 6 over 6 sash windows.
The second floor is the
same floor plan as the first floor. The
central hall bisects the house into two sections. The left side contains two bedrooms of identical size. There is a fireplace and four windows in
each bedroom. The right side contains
one large bedroom and smaller fourth bedroom.
There is a fireplace in both of these bedrooms. The larger bedroom has four windows and the
smaller bedroom has three windows.
There is also a window located above the stairs on the second
floor. Other than the crown molding
throughout the house and the beautiful curved staircase, the interior of the
house is plain in its ornamentation.
Decorative trim frames each doorway.
Magnolia Grove still contains all of the original Hobson family
furniture and pictures of the Hobson and Croom families are located throughout
the house.
Bibliography
Burkhardt, E.
W. (1936, November 11). Magnolia Grove, 1002 Hobson Street, Greensboro, Hale
County, AL. Retrieved December 29, 2012, from Library of Congress:
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/al0219/
Hanson, P. D.
(n.d.). Richmond Pearson Hobson. Retrieved December 29, 2012, from
Alcohol Problems & Solutions: http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/Controversies/Biography-Richmond-Pearson-Hobson.html
Hobson,
Richmond Pearson, (1870-1937). (n.d.). Retrieved December 29, 2012, from
Congress.gov: http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=H000667
Originally written for Class at APUS: December 30, 2012.
Guest views do not necessarily represent the views of The Sassy Countess of her employees (my dog, kids, brother and mother.)
Photo Credit: http://jxn2whosr166gg2.zippykid.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Greensboro-Magnolia-Grove_4-73_JqclcbslbwText-z800.jpg
Photo Credit: http://jxn2whosr166gg2.zippykid.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Greensboro-Magnolia-Grove_4-73_JqclcbslbwText-z800.jpg
Saturday, December 28, 2013
Historic Hottie: John Randolph Of Roanoke
He Was A Dastardly Dandy Too!
The very first "Historic Hottie!"
 |
| http://elektratig.blogspot.com/2011/01/john-randolph-of-roanoke-proceedings.html |
Andrew Jackson appointed him U.S. Minister to Russia, but was only there for a week when he returned home. Randolph was consistently drunk and high, and then became obsessed with Jackson. (Crawford)
John Randolph had fallen deeply and madly (literally from what I can tell!) in love with his cousin Nancy. When he found out that she was to marry another cousin, he met with her and told her that he hoped it wasn't true because he wasn't worthy of her. He left the plantation house where they were, "Bazarre," her sister and brother-in-law's home. Afterward, he came to despise Nancy possibly because she turned him down, or possibly because of the horrible scandal she was involved in. (A great story!) He treated her with contempt for the rest of his life.
John Randolph of Roanoke was one of the leaders of perhaps the most powerful family in the South from the late 1700's until at least the Civil War. He had served as the legislative leader in the Virginia Assembly for his cousin, Thomas Jefferson. History records that he ruled the Assembly with an iron hand - and a whip. He was the unquestioned master of a string of plantations in the Tidewater area of Virginia. Jonathan Daniel's, in his book The Randolphs of Virginia described the family as "America's foremost family," and Randolph as an orator and businessman "with few peers."
 |
| Photograph from the nomination quoted in part below. |
Although he competed stride for stride with other members of the Virginia aristocracy by amassing over 8,000 acres of land and 400 slaves, John Randolph had doubts about the morality of the use of slaves all of his life.
He was one of the first plantation owners to recognize the benefits of educating his slaves and treating them as humanely as possible. Randolph personally taught many of them to read and write. He also organized them into groups and gave each separate tracts of land for which they were to be responsible - an unusual approach in those days.
So, the man beat his enslaved privately, yet protested their enslavement publicly, and Randolph set them free upon his death. He was a man of contradictions. Being the daughter of an alcoholic myself, I would guess that he was cruel partly because of his addictions. They also came from a need for adulation and a superiority complex, in my opinion. Maybe it was because he was jilted by the woman he loved and still carried a jealousy for his rival? Or, some would say that he was a product of where he grew up. This could be argued in the fact that he tried to push through abolitionist positioning. Yet, he did not release his own slaves until he died....
Alan Pell Crawford, Unwise Passions. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000)
 |
| State's rights were argued in 1799, much sooner than what a lot of people realize. |
And, dueling.....
 |
| http://phw02.newsbank.com/cache/ean/fullsize/pl_012282013_0322_30900_525.pdf |
The above news article reads:
The editor of the Richmond Enquirer and John Randolph are
engaged in calling each other hard names. Mr. Randolph was the aggressor. The
following is from the Enquirer, elicited by the abuse of that unprincipled
libeler, John Randolph of Roanoke:
“We owe our acknowledgements to Mr.
John Randolph for several favours of the description. The time may come when we
shall return the debt with interest. He has calumniated us – how could we
expect to escape his remorseless vengeance? Why should he who has abused so
many others spared ourselves? Or, how could we, who despise his avaricious
spirit, and his unblushing rapacity of the public money, have calculated upon
his forbearance?”
In another place, in the same paper, Mr. R, Says:-
“A man, who has sinned against his
own conscience, and sunk himself in the opinion of all honorable patriots, by
plunging his arm into the public coffers, and disgracefully feeding in the
public crib, may falsely charge us with looking, only after the loaves and
fishes. We scorned to justify his rapacity – and the inextinguishable
resentment which we have provoked, may now vent itself in the bitterest and the
most unfounded reproaches.”
 |
| A little bit of a different story here than what Crawford accounts. |
On his death...
 |
| http://phw02.newsbank.com/cache/ean/fullsize/pl_012282013_0341_26452_731.pdf |
The above news article reads:
Miscellany.
JOHN RANDOLPH – ON HIS DEATH-BED.
The Christian Watchman publishes
the following account of the last moments of this eccentric man:--
Randolph
was near his end: Dr. - was sitting by
the table, and his man John (Juba was left at Roanoke) sitting by the bed in
perfect silence, when he closed his eyes, but for a few moments, and seamed by
his hard breathing to be asleep. But as the s… proved, it was the intense
working of his mind. Opening his failing eyes upon the Doctor, he said sharply,
“remorse” – soon afterwards, more emphatically, “REMORSE” –
presently, at the top of his strength he cried out “REMORSE” He then ended “Let me
see the word.” The Doctor, not apprehending his desire, made no reply.
Randolph then said to him with great energy, “Let me see the word. Show me
it in a Dictionary.” The Doctor, looking round, told him he believed there
was none in the room. “Write it then,” said Randolph. The Doctor
perceiving one of Randolph’s engraved card on the table, asked if he should
write on that. “Nothing more proper,” was the answer. The Doctor then
wrote the word in pencil under the printed name and handed it to Randolph. He
seized it, and holding it up to his eyes with great earnestness, seemed much
agitated. After a few seconds, he handed back the card, saying, “Write it on
the other side.” The Doctor did so, in large letters. He took it again and
after gazing upon it earnestly a few seconds returned it, and said, “Lend
John your pencil, and let him put a stroke under it.” The black man did so,
leaving it on the table. “Ah!” said the dying man, “REMORSE, you
don’t know what it means.” But added presently, “I cast myself on the
Lord Jesus Christ for mercy.”
Dr. – then
showed me the identical card. On one side was written “John Randolph of
Roanoke: Remorse,” and on the other side, “Remorse.”
Information on Randolph's house and lands:
In America, families spent gigantic amounts of money on their houses, "for no better purpose than to lure a few European fops and empty-headed parasites."
Mansion wits and fops repair,
To game, to feast, to saunter, and to stare,-
Thine eyes amid the crowd, who fawn and bend,
View many a parasite, but not one friend....
~ Peter Markoe
 |
| http://images.virtualology.com/ac/5/i/ency0089.jpg |
Following the prolonged Randolph - will litigation, Judge Wood Bouldirt
purchased the Middle Quarter of Roanoke; the Lower and Ferry Quarters along
with Randolph's other plantations passing to other owners. The Middle
Quarter, being most intimately associated with the great and eccentric
Randolph, attracted the attention of his contemporaries and successors who
recorded their impressions of the land and buildings....
The remaining cottage is an extremely simple one-story three-bay
structure with exterior-end brick chimneys. The building is covered by a
 |
| artist rendering |
steep gable roof and is
fronted
by a shed roof porch that is
framed into the
structure of the cottage.
Immediately to the west of
the second cottage is a
two-room, gable-end-front
frame structure that has not
been positively identified as dating from the Randolph occupancy. Behind these two build-
ings is an early smokehouse. On the lawn just to the west of the present
residence is a low rough boulder marking the site of John ~Randolph's first grave.
Roanoke Plantation still evokes the image of ~Randolph's time and
milieu, and suggests something of his personality. While one of his
"cabins" has been
Matoax was the real name of Pocohontas, & his boyhood home.
replaced by a later
larger
house, the second
(with its kitchen and
an additional
outbuilding),
remains in a good
state of preservation.The wood has been
cut back, but not eliminated. The roadway through the plantation has been improved, but
follows the original roadbed. At some distance from the house complex, there is another
early building; this may have been an overseer's house and is presently is unoccupied.
Later, he was not so hot (in my opinion), but he was still as much a dandy while in politics as he was on his deathbed. And, interesting, most of the locations on the web talk about how he was the great abolitionist man, but did not include his mean, drunken, opium addicted, weirdo side!
Was he a creapo? Or, was he just forlorn in love?
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| Wiki Images |
Friday, December 27, 2013
Chicago Art Institute - Part 1
Pictures of my trip to the Chicago Art Institute.
I was there to find something for my farming paper. I did, plus much more!
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| The next four paintings were so large that these pictures were taken from across the large gallery! |
Thursday, December 26, 2013
18th Century Asparagus in Cream
Adventures in Food
Using modern day materials
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| It may look ugly, but it is DELICIOUS! |
I'm not an asparagus fan, but I really loved these. It does not change the texture, though. My family members who love asparagus, loved it too. It had a taste very appropriate for Thanksgiving and/or Christmas.
I also want to tell everyone that I am by no means a professional in photography or in cooking!
I'm just a city lady trying out new things.
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| Woops, forgot to salt the water before the first batch, but the rest got it! |
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| Got a little over done because I was doing everything, and taking pictures too. But, at least you can see the next step. |
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| I used allspice so that I wouldn't have to add them separately. |
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| Because I was taking the picture and trying to separate, it didn't work with the first egg. So, I just used a strainer to drain the white out. |
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| Plated with the Potted Salmon. |
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