Clever Divas

Mary Katherine Goddard, American publisher and the first American postmistress was a women who stood against the male prejudice of her time and in many cases tasted victory only to have it snatched from her grasp. However, she paved the way for courageous women who would come after her to take their rightful place in the history of the United Sates.

In 1774, Mary took over as publisher of The Maryland Journal, a revolutionary newspaper. Her brother, William Goddard, had turned over to her his position as publisher and printer to travel the country hawking the Constitutional Post. Mary published the Journal until 1784, when her brother forced her from her position and assumed his post as publisher.

A year after she took over control of the Journal, she became Postmaster of the Baltimore post office, making her the first woman to hold this postilion. Mary held the post for fourteen years, until, over the strong protests of the community, in 1789 Postmaster General Samuel Osgood replaced her with one of his political friends. His reason? He felt that the position required “more traveling… than a woman could undertake.” After being replaced, Mary opened a bookstore, which she ran for over twenty years.

Perhaps Mary’s most noted accomplishment came in 1777, when the Continental Congress decided that copies of the Declaration of Independence should be printed and distributed throughout the United States. Despite the Declaration being considered a treasonable document by the British and labeling Mary as a traitor to the British Empire, she not only took on the job, but also printed, for the first time, the names of all the signers.

On August 12, 1816, she died, an outstanding woman and a beloved member of the community of Baltimore, Maryland.

Blessings,

Diva Elizabeth

Since my last three books for Silhouette have featured firefighters, both men and women, I began to wonder how long women have been a part of this noble profession. Such men as Benjamin Franklin (credited with establishing the first volunteer firefighting company in America), George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Benedict Arnold, and Millard Fillmore, to mention just a few, all served as volunteer firemen.

But what about the women?

The first female firefighter on record was a black slave named Molly Williams, owned by a New York Merchant. During the infamous blizzard of 1818, Molly, wearing a calico dress and checked apron, helped drag the engine to the fire. Later, she became a distinguished member of Engine Company 11 and was dubbed “Volunteer No.11.”

In 1820, Marina Betts volunteered with the Pittsburgh firefighters, where she earned a reputation for dumping buckets of water on the heads of male bystanders who refused to help fight the fires.

One of the most memorable female firefighters started her distinguished career in 1851 at the age of fifteen when she saw there were not enough men to pull the engine to the fire. Dropping her school books, Lillie Hitchcock dashed into the street and took hold of the rope, while yelling to bystanders to join her, which they did. That was the beginning. After that, Lillie, over the strident objections of her father, the prominent Dr Hitchcock, attended fires on a regular basis, eventually earning an honorary membership with the company.

Her interest in firefighting and love of firefighters lasted her entire lifetime, even after she married the wealthy Howard Coit, a caller at the San Francisco Stock and Bond Exchange. Even after she was no longer actively participating in putting out fires, she continued to show her devotion to the firemen by visiting those that had been injured and sending flowers when one fell in the line of duty.

When Lillie died at the age of 86 in her beloved San Francisco, she donated one-third of her fortune to the city to be used in an appropriate way that would add to the beauty of the city she loved. Long after her death, because an agreement for its use could not be arrived at, the money remained unused. Her executors were adamant that two towers should be erected– one to honor Lillie and another to honor the firemen she cared fro so deeply. Both were eventually built.

Today, a 180-foot cylindrical tower (erected in 1933) stands at the top of Telegraph Hill. In Washington Square a second memorial was dedicated to Lillie. The sculptured granite rock would make Lillie happy. It depicts three life-sized firemen, one of them is lovingly cradling a woman in his arms.  Both are fitting memorials to woman whose individuality made her outstanding in her time and yet today.

 Blessings,

Diva Elizabeth

 My Peace Corps Adventure

            By: Skye Taylor

When the big 50 came around, I made a point of telling everyone I was celebrating the first day of the second half of my life.  Then I began to ask myself what I was going to do with all those years of living.  I’d been married, widowed, reared four children and had four grandchildren.  I’d built my dream house by the sea.  I had a good job, a great boss and no desire to return to school.  So, what next?

Then my daughter called to see if I wanted to go skydiving.  She’d seen an ad for early season deals on tandem jumps and we’d talked about it before, so, on Friday the 13^th  we leapt from a perfectly good airplane and — WOW!  I was so pumped when I got my feet on the ground that I signed up for lessons and six months later earned my Class A license.  I loved the rush of the freefall, the hushed ride under canopy and the awesome view.  But the adrenaline high, while exhilarating, was fleeting and I was looking for something more enduring.

That’s when Peace Corps, the “Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love” came into my life.

Most folk have the impression the Peace Corps is only for the young, but actually there is no age limit.  It’s for anyone who’s young at heart, looking to serve others and ready for adventure.  I leased my house, turned in my resignation, found a home for my cat and packed my gear into storage.  Fitting everything you think you need for two years away from home into the airline allowance of 80 pounds was my first challenge.  My “Basics” weighed 120. YIKES!  Learning to travel light was an adventure in itself.

As my training group assembled, I discovered that my skydiving gained me unexpected respect.  I was immediately drawn into the ranks of the younger crowd and treated as an equal.  Over the course of my service this meant I got invited to camp out on deserted islands, hike in the bush, snorkel into underwater caves and climb volcanic mountains, all of which made my time in the Peace Corps that much richer in experience.

The abrupt change from the crisp cold February air of Maine into the sultry heat of the South Pacific had me wondering what I’d gotten myself into as I descended to the Tarmac in the Friendly Isles.  Tired and disheveled, we wilted further in the claustrophobic confines of a tiny baggage claim and customs area where a few lazy fans tried but failed to stir the humid air.  It seemed as if the heat alone was going to defeat us before we even begun our training.

After an intense 8 weeks of language, culture and safety training I was posted to an outer island to set up a new Red Cross office and teach Tongan staff how to maintain it.  A month on site, another volunteer left and I was asked to fill her post working with a women’s hand craft cooperative as well.  Meanwhile, the chairman of the Red Cross chapter, who’d talked himself into the appointment while the original chairman was out of the country, had a problem.  The ousted chairman, quite naturally put out by the chicanery, refused to turn over the keys to the building and it was several months before I saw the inside of my new office. I attended an astounding number of meetings where great plans were discussed but never launched and none of the Tongans seemed distressed by this inertia.

I also didn’t have a house since the one promised by the same slick talking chairman, never materialized.  For a month I lived in a guest house, then in the home of a New Zealand couple on vacation and needing a house and dog sitter and finally with another volunteer.  It was not a very auspicious beginning.

But the Tongan people are wonderfully generous and eager to see that I had what I needed.  When I told my Tongan supervisor that I’d like to live with a family and named a village close enough to walk to work, she immediately called for her driver and we set off to talk to the village elder.  The Elder apparently didn’t have any acceptable suggestions (their Tongan was way to rapid for me to follow) but two days later Sapate summoned me to her office to introduce me to a couple who would love to have me live with them.  They offered me a room of my own and would I teach their children English, please?  It was a wonderful choice and made all the difference in my experience in Tonga.  I now have families on both sides of the globe.

With my housing settled and the keys finally wrested from the old chairman, I also had an office.  The meetings continued to be frustratingly fruitless, but the men and women I worked with were cheerful and tried their best to understand my western thinking.  I ran CPR courses, participated in the fundraisers necessary to the ongoing operation and made monthly pilgrimages to obtain funds from the treasurer and pay the bills, all in cash and hand delivered.  Once a week, I joined the hand craft cooperative to help with marketing ideas and the concept of supply and demand. 

My office was a stone’s throw from my supervisor’s, and she often rang me and demanded my presence, sometimes to discuss hand crafts (she was involved in this also) the Red Cross, or to help her on the computer, but other times just to talk.  She was college educated, had traveled outside of Tonga and was my age so she soon became my friend as well.  She invited me to family events, took me swimming with the whales, and included me in countless fun activities.  Mele, my hostess, although far younger, also became a close friend.  She helped me with my Tongan, and I helped her with her extension courses, but my favorite memory is of sitting in the warm dark nights on her veranda, just talking.  It was a peaceful, unhurried way of life I still miss.

But the richest part of my experience was the children.  I volunteered to read at the story hour at the only public library in Tonga, and within weeks discovered I was running it.  It was clear that a command of English is of paramount importance for young people who want to do anything more than become fishermen, farmers or housewives.  Tongan children begin English in the first grade, but they are taught by rote and often have no idea what the words they can spell flawlessly mean or how to use them.  So, in addition to the story hour at the library, I held story hours in my neighborhood.  The first afternoon I lugged an armful of books out onto our veranda and read to only five children, but the next time, there were more than thirty

Next I presented myself and a letter from the King authorizing me to teach in the government schools to the principal of the primary school, and he immediately asked when I could begin.  Not trained as a teacher, I suppose many of my methods were unorthodox by any standard, and certainly by Tongan standards, but apparently the principal and teachers felt what I was doing worked because they asked if I would share my lesson plans with them.  All the children were eager to please, but Tongans are not taught to think creatively, and this was the most challenging part of my work.  I wanted them to be able to use the language, not just recite it.

Our trainers warned us that often we might wonder if our time was wasted, that we might never know the effects of our work.  At the Red Cross and the handcraft cooperative, this was the case.  While I might make suggestions that were acted on once, even when a suggestion turned out highly successful, once I was gone, they went right back to doing it the old way.  But with the children, the difference I made came home to me in several ways.  Children I coached scored higher in their high school entrance exams than they had expected and wrote, in English, to thank me.  The eldest daughter in the family I lived with has scored highest in her class in English every year since I moved into her home.  The youngest daughter, who spoke no English at all when I arrived, qualified for the all English school the year I was getting ready to come home, and whenever I call them on the phone, she chatters to me in English as well as a native speaker.

The morning I left Tonga, Mele was up before sunrise picking flowers to weave into a kahoa (lei) for me to wear.  There were tears in her eyes as she wished me well and hoped I’d return for a visit one day, and as I walked across that hot tarmac under a brilliant tropical sun, I knew I was going to miss this place and these people more than I had ever expected to.  They’d become not just a part of my life, but a part of me and who I was.  I hope I’m a better person for the experience.  I gave two years of my life and shared my knowledge and skills, but I reaped far more than I sowed.  Peace Corps was an incredible, life changing experience that gave me not just a new view of the world, but a new view of myself.

Another Outstanding Woman!!!!!!!!!!!