As I prepare to let go of the previous trove of letters that make up the body of my next book, The Blue Box: Three Lives in Letters, and that detail the lives of my great-grandmother, grandmother and mother, from 1850 to 1931, I realize that I am most fond of my grandmother, Helena Caperton Lefroy, or at least of her memory.
Blog Posts about My Family
Sallie’s Two Fans — The Blue Box: Three Lives In Letters
Now that my next book, my thirteenth or fourteenth—I’ve lost track—is only a month away from publication by Sarabande Books, I’m thinking of the three women whose lives my book attempts to encompass: my great-grandmother, my grandmother and my mother.
Here Comes The Future
All of us who are actively engaged in life feel ambivalent about the generations that are rushing to take our place on this earth, even those that are made up of our most beloved relatives.
Old Love
Now and then, due to luck or grace or the peculiar workings of that agency those of us who have any sense call A Higher Power (drawing the line at The, though), people come back into my life, vastly changed but still recognizable, at least after a while, as newer versions—reincarnations—of people I lost or sloughed off years ago.
Thank You, Roald Dahl
Thank God for Roald Dahl. Thank God for parents who read aloud to their children. In spite of all the signs to the contrary, we may not have lost books and readers—or the writers that grow out of this blessed combination.
A Tale of Two Pincushins
Curtie would never have imagined that her handiwork, perhaps not appropriately valued during her life time, could inspire such awe and pleasure in a group that knows their textiles and their important role in interpreting our history.
More About Auntie Mame
Now, all these years later, I wonder if the fact that these boys were all scions of well-known families contributed to their noteworthy mildness. Was there then—certainly not now—an emphasis on right behavior and staying out of trouble that actually corralled their adolescent male desire?
Iona and Sallie; Sallie and Munda: Granddaughters and Grandmothers
Yesterday my granddaughter Iona Ellsworth invited me to tea and we chatted for a while with the particular warm intimacy and understanding that seems to exist, often, between grandmothers and their blessed grandchildren—blessed by our love as well as by their many gifts.
I Stand Corrected…
My granddaughter told me last evening that she in fact DID NOT WATCH “Sex in the City” as I had assumed, but “Desperate Housewives.”
Keeping Up With Granddaughers
Since from the beginning of my career as a writer, I’ve written about women and sex, I bought this series… and watched about twenty minutes of the first episode.