Cherry Potts's Blog, page 21

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 21st January

Today’s birthday girl is Sophia Jex Blake. 1840-1912.

Sophia was one of the first women to qualify as a medical doctor in the UK, despite every attempt to prevent her. She was an ardent feminist who lived with and became a life long friend of Lucy Sewell.

I am so impressed with Sophia that I nearly called a cat after her (Jex, not Sophia, by the way – or to be more exact Jex-to-be, a stray who turned out to have a home really.) This is similar to the can-she-come-to-tea test. Would I name a cat for her? Sophia passes both with flying colours, and is welcome to share gateaux any time she pleases.

I believe I love women too much to ever love a man.

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 20th January

late again! In my defense, an over-long dress rehearsal for Orpheus followed by a rehearsal for Vocal Chords put a bit of a dent in the day.

So the 20th of January: not exactly a vintage day for lesbians, at least that I have found dates for – so lets meet Cicely Cornwallis, 1656 – 1723, who according to Sarah Churchill was the ‘first favourite’ of Queen Anne, whilst still a young thing. Cicely was a distant Catholic kinswoman of Anne’s. Sarah described the relationship in her autobiography:

The fondness of the young lady to her was very great and passionate but – the Duchess of York accidentally finding upon her daughter’s table a letter to her favourite, unsealed up, read it and was much displeased at the passionate expressions with which it was filled.

The result of this discovery was that Cicely was sent away from court (theoretically for her ‘papism’) and all Anne’s letters were carefully censored from then on.

 Thus ended a great friendship of 3 or 4 years standing, in which time lady Anne had written it was believed, above a thousand letters full of the most violent professions of everlasting kindness.

Sarah claims that Anne forgot her favourite within a fortnight. One possible reason for this lack of grief may have been that she now had Sarah’s company to divert her. At any rate, for all Anne forgot her, Sarah did not. Years later when Anne came to the throne she persuaded Anne to write to Cicely to let her know when she would be passing her lodgings so that she could look out and see her; and to grant her a pension, both of which Anne was reluctant to do.

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 19th January

Sorry this is a bit late, I’ve been putting in new skirtingboard  in the kitchen in preparation for the new flooring. The kitchen is already warmer – no gaps between wall and floor for draughts.

Anyway, back to the party. There are still two birthday girls left for today, after yesterday’s early aperitif, but let’s go with Janis Joplin, January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970 wild child, singer and rebel. Mind you, you have to remember what she was rebelling against:

After they see me, when their mothers are feeding them all that cashmere sweater and girdle —– [expletive deleted by the New York Times], maybe they’ll have a second thought – that they can be themselves and win.

The sixties were not all free love and flower power, some women were still doing what their mothers told them: Janis wasn’t going to be told what to do by anyone. Unfortunately that meant a heck of a lot of drugs and an early death.  Janis would sleep with anyone with a pulse, and that included women. She had a brief relationship with Jae Whittaker.

Janis could really sing, and was a full on uncompromising kind of woman, Tiring to be around I imagine. So Janis can come to the party if she wants, but I think she won’t want. She’ll be out of her skull on something and ranting on, and forget she was invited, or think our polite little festivities are far too square, man.

Hey ho: win some, lose some. Happy birthday anyway, Janis.

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 18th January

No birthday girl today, but three tomorrow, so let’s get in an early celebration of Patricia Highsmith (19th January 1921).

Highsmith is one of those people I admire without much liking. I don’t enjoy her crime novels, and consider them sadistic. However she was a bit of a trail blazer with her novel Carol (aka The Price of Salt), published in 1952 under the pseudonym Claire Morgan, in particular as this was a lesbian novel with something approaching a happy ending, something unheard of at the time, and to be blunt pretty rare for a long time thereafter. It was at least 1986 before I found an unequivocal happy ending for a lesbian novel – generally back then the endings were: death (especially suicide) or major illness/disability, madness, eternal separation or (god help us) marriage, and I mean the conventional sort.

Highsmith never married or had children. Her most significant relationships were with women, in particular  Marijane Meaker, who wrote under the pseudonyms of Vin Packer and Ann Aldrich, and pretty much started the lesbian pulp fiction movement. Meaker wrote of their relationship in Highsmith: A Romance of the 1950s.

I get the impression that Highsmith was a bigoted pain in the butt, given to being unkind and arch. So perhaps the person to invite to the party would be her alter-ego, Claire Morgan, and serve champagne, because we can all be grateful for a happy ending, however compromised.

How was it possible to be afraid and in love… The two things did not go together. How was it possible to be afraid, when the two of them grew stronger together every day? And every night. Every night was different, and every morning. Together they possessed a miracle.

But there was not a moment when she did not see Carol in her mind, and all she saw, she seemed to see through Carol.

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 17th January

I’ve not found anyone with the 17th as their birthday, so another of my 16th Century muses. Catherine Cooke Killigrew 1530-1583. ‘A learned lady’ proficient in several languages, and a poet.

There’s not much information on Catherine, apart from her father Anthony Cooke and husband Henry Killigrew, and that she died in childbirth. Apparently Bathsua Makin thought that all the Cooke sisters (Anne was the mother of Frances Bacon, and Elizabeth married Thomas Hoby, Mildred married Lord Burleigh) were excellent poets.

This little snippet of poetry it would appear was sent to her sister Mildred, trying to get her to intercede with Cecil to prevent Catherine’s husband  being sent overseas. I have to say I didn’t know that when I found it, and was happy to consider it a possible lesbian missive. I’m disappointed that it’s purpose was so prosaic. But who cares, it’s a sweet little snippet.

In thee my soul shall own combined

the sister and the friend

if from my eyes by thee detained

the wanderer cross the seas

no more thy love shall soothe

no more as sister please

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 16th January

So did you notice I didn’t post anything yesterday? I was exhausted after the Story Sessions on Wednesday, and slept through my time for posting.

So to make up for it, here is  Edith Cooper 1862-1913. Her birthday is actually the 12th but I hadn’t found that out until too late to post her birthday card until now.

Edith was one half of  poet and playwright Michael Field with her aunt Katherine Bradley (27 October), sixteen years her senior. They were acknowledged to be in a romantic relationship and lived together for forty years, writing together at all times, even journals, and died within nine months of each other. This makes it impossible to figure out whether it was Edith or Katherine who wrote the following:

A Girl,
     Her soul a deep-wave pearl
Dim, lucent of all lovely mysteries;
     A face flowered for heart’s ease,
     A brow’s grace soft as seas
     Seen through faint forest-trees:
     A mouth, the lips apart,
Like aspen-leaflets trembling in the breeze
     From her tempestuous heart.
     Such: and our souls so knit,
     I leave a page half-writ —
           The work begun
Will be to heaven’s conception done,
           If she come to it.

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 15th January

Today we are lighting the candles on the cake for author Mazo de la Roche, born Louise Roche in 1879 in Canada.

Mazo was the author of the Jalna novels, and said that the (male) character Finch was based on herself.

She lived with Caroline Clement for 75 years. Caroline was an orphaned cousin adopted by Mazo’s parents when Mazo was seven. They adopting two children together. There is some conjecture that Caroline collaborated on the books.

Mazo seems to have been very private so she might not want to come to a party, but the invitation might please her nonetheless.

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 14th January

Today’s birthday belongs to Jane Welsh Carlyle, 1801-1869.

The only thing that makes one place more attractive to me than another is the quantity of heart I find in it.

So, if you look Jane up on the web, you might wonder what she’s doing here, one of those archetypal good wives, you might think, helpmeet to her husband, forgiver of his misdemeanours (although they liked a good argument) hostess to his grumpy reluctance to speak to people. Despite all that Jane was accepted as one of the most brilliant women of her age, and in terms of her relationships with women this is a case of needing to know about her ‘known associates’. Unless there is something wrong with the search mechanism on the site that purports to hold all her letters, they haven’t bothered loading any of those between Jane and Geraldine Jewsbury (birthday 22/8 since you’re asking or they no longer exist). Geraldine and Jane collaborated on Geraldine’s first Novel, Zoë, with another friend Elizabeth Paulet, and they had a lifelong friendship with a very deep emotional attachment.

On the other hand, 126 of Geraldine’s letters to Jane are available in totality in an upload of the collection made by ANNIE E. IRELAND

Here was a nature with which Mrs. Carlyle, endowed by heredity with a decided strain of ‘Bohemianism,’ could sympathise keenly enough. The small conventionalities and meaningless proprieties of daily life were as nothing in the eyes of these two. They could laugh together, they could utter to each other the scathing judgments on men and things which neither really felt; but, what is more, they could weep together, quarrel like lovers, make peace like lovers, despair together when all was dark to both, smile when the smallest ray of sun shone on either and show each to the other the wounds which each was too proud to show to the world – those terrible hurts which a woman instinctively hides, and most anxiously from those of her own sex. Each was isolated in many ways, and the stronger one suffered more, needed more, and received more, was less able to bear sympathy, while more utterly incapable of admitting pity – that cruel would-be healer of wounds.

Jane Welsh Carlyle, in a fragment of a journal kept by her, under date of March 26, 1856, says:-

‘To-day it has blown knives and files – a cold, rasping, savage day excruciating for sick nerves. Dear Geraldine,  as though she could contend with the very elements on my behalf, brought me a bunch of violets, and a bouquet of the loveliest, most fragrant flowers. Talking with her all I have done, or could do.’

Annie finishes her introduction:

I would say, ‘What a woman is to a woman, only a woman knows.’

And with these words I close my imperfect record of a woman whom I, too, loved, and whose letters tell what she was to one of the most remarkable women the world has known – or, rather, has not known.

.

Geraldine to Jane

You suggest my living in London? No, I would like a cottage in the country with you! You should keep the house absolutely – keep the accounts, keep the money – and I would write; and you should make me work,  and we would see each other alone, as wisdom inspired, and that is what would tempt me.

Slightly depressing that Geraldine is setting Jane up in the same support role she took with her husband, but still, Geraldine did eventually move to  be nearer Jane.

It’s worth reading her letters in full. It is hard to pin down what it is in an extracted sentence – the endless longing for a letter from her ‘Dearest Jane’, the forthright tone, the saying what she really thinks? The planning to meet and hating spending time in other people’s company? It certainly does read, from time to time, like a lover affair.

Jane would be an absolute hit at a party, she knew how to make people laugh and enjoy themselves, and she was a clever, clever woman.

I wonder, since she had a lifetime of doing without and illness, whether she’d like to push the boat out now and have something rich and throughly bad for her, or whether she’d prefer something plain and sustaining?

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 13th January

Today’s birthday girl is the ‘Last of the Red Hot Mamas’ – Sophie Tucker 1884-1966

A Vaudeville and Broadway star of her time, who started out (not her idea) blacked up, Sophie ‘came out’ as a nice jewish girl when her makeup box was stolen on the way to a gig. The audience was delighted and so was she.

Sophie sang joyfully about being a fat girl who loved to be loved, not taking nonsense from men, and was raunchy, outrageous and fun. She had quite a voice too, landing a $1000 recording deal with Edison.

Any party Sophie was invited to would need to have cocktails I suspect. I have a cocktail shaker somewhere – haven’t used it since… well, a loooong time. I can do a G&T by eye, who needs a shaker? Come on over Sophie, let’s let our back hair down and have a good laugh.

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 12th January

No famous birthday today, but three for tomorrow so let’s celebrate Carolyn Gold Heilbrun (aka Amanda Cross) January 13, 1926 – October 9, 2003 a day early. She’d probably quite like getting in early, she never was one for conventions. Described as the Mother of feminist academia (personally not sure I’d want to be described as the mother of anything much, but there you go!), she was a scholar who wrote extensively about Virginia Woolf, and wrote detective novels featuring a female academic under the name Amanda Cross.

Although married, she was unsentimental about her children, refused to take on the role of unpaid carer for her grandchildren, and bought a separate house so that she could get away from the domestic role when she felt the need to sit by the fire and think unencumbered.  She was much given to acting on principle and being practical about things, which included ending her own life when she felt it was time.

In later years she disliked social gatherings prefering to meet friends one to one, so she wouldn’t accept the invitation to a party – perhaps we’d have to arrange to meet on a park bench, with a flask of something warming and a really good ginger biscuit.

So Carolyn is another of those admirable women I’m not sure I’d actually get on with, so let’s celebrate another birthday: today is my friend Penny’s birthday. Penny is the owner of Lavender Lifestyles, a website that provides an outlet for lesbian artists and craftswomen to sell their work – an excellent place to find a birthday present for the lesbian in your life! She also taught me computer skills a very long time ago, which led to me writing Mosaic of Air, so thanks, Penny, and Happy Birthday!