March is Women’s History Month
Who are the women in your family’s history?
There are well-known women who have played significant roles in society and have done what they felt was—and still is—necessary to gain more equality for all women. Perhaps one of those women is a part of your family’s history. Education has played a major role in the rise of women’s equality. Let us not forget, however, the role all women play to move life forward: as mothers and family nurturers, as teachers, business partners, entrepreneurs, as artists of all types, members of the military, as doctors and nurses, emergency medical technicians, as lawyers and police officers, and a myriad of other professions that show women have become a major force in today’s world.
Have we thought as well about the women on whose shoulders we stand? The women who came before us who were the wives of farmers or miners, the women who were maidservants for others or who were indentured servants or slaves? That is why I decided to write the book I recently published, titled Remember the Ladies—Uncover the Stories from Your Feminine Line.
The phrase “remember the ladies,” comes from a letter written by Abigail Adams, the second First Lady of the United States, to her husband, John Adams, as the founding fathers were debating what the Constitution of the United States should include. Up to that point in recent history, women did not have the right to vote, and many had no right to own land. Many women were not considered “free” to live life as they desired. Most of those ladies’ stories are unknown and if you want to find them on genealogy sites, you will most likely find more information about the men of the family. That is why I decided to look further and picked certain women to write about in my book, showing that you too can do the same thing, even when you have only a few known facts.
Red Cross Volunteer
Florence May Hess Styer, 1918 during the Spanish Flu pandemic.
I was intrigued to learn who the first woman in my family was who come from another country to the United States. To my surprise, I found Hannah Penn, who braved the wild Atlantic on an eight-week trip to settle in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the year 1634! I did research to learn what that voyage on a small sailing vessel would have been like. Hannah was known as a maidservant. Her older brother had come as part of the Winthrop Fleet in 1630, so she had family in the colony. She was a single woman at the age of twenty-seven. However, Hannah had learned to read the Bible and was able to teach others at a time when there were no formal schools. She married, had children, and lived to be ninety-eight years old. In all, I wrote six stories, and have helped others do the same. The photo is my own grandmother who helped with the Red Cross during the 1918 pandemic, known as the “Spanish Flu.” This was during World War One when many of the doctors and nurses were off in Europe helping with the war effort.
My goal was to write about ordinary women in extraordinary times. To learn more about my book, you can go to https://www.amazon.com/author/j.a.mcdowell. Each story gives the basic facts of the women’s lives, starting with a lady betrothed to a knight at the age of eleven! After each chapter, I give information as to how to flesh out each of the women’s stories. At the end, I talk about what this journey has meant to me—its relevance in my life. This is something about which I am still learning. Each of the women had strength, endurance, resilience, empathy, and love. Did they know what they would be passing along to the women in their future families? Probably not. But today, we have both the opportunity to celebrate our ancestral mothers, and the opportunity to inspire the women and girls in our current generation with hope, love, and gratitude for all women.
@authorJudithMcDowell on Instagram
https://amazon.com/author/j.a.mcdowell
