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Book Review: "Poisoned Vows" by Clifford L. Linedecker

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ (4/5 stars)

One woman. Eleven marriages to nine men. Three kids. Two murders. Countless webs of tangled lies and lives and personas and masks.

Some would call the life of Jill Coit fascinating. Full, even. Some might call her adventurous, others might say relentless. In “Poisoned Vows”, Clifford L. Linedecker explores the life of this vivacious, stunning, and conniving woman. Written during her trial, and weeks before the sentence hearings, Linedecker takes the reader through each of Jill’s marriages, children, various plots to get money, different job and career changes, and finally, a trial that exposed her bigamist and selfish ways.

From each husband, she’d swindle money and affection until she no longer had a use for them, then leave them for the next shiny toy in the form of another man who would fall for her attractiveness and charm. Her third husband, Clark Coit, whose last name she would use throughout her life, and her ninth husband, Gerry Boggs, were both shot to death by an assailant who entered their homes. Coit met his fate in 1972, and a hauntingly similar murder would rob Boggs of his life in 1993. Jill was convicted of Boggs’ murder in 1995, and while it is believed she also killed Coit, she was never brought to trial for the first murder.

Linedecker does an excellent job of unravelling the messy details of Jill’s life. The emphasis on Jill being “sexy” in the first part of the book was a bit much, but otherwise, it provided a riveting read for true crime fans, for a case that was massively overshadowed at the time by the OJ Simpson trial.

Author Interview: Karen Hamilton-Viall

I am thrilled to have on my blog this month cosy paranormal mystery author Karen Hamilton-Viall. From her adventure in seeking out the grave of a real life mid-nineteenth century London Metropolitian officer who inspired a character in her novel, to seeking purpose during the pandemic as so many of us did, she brought to life a truly intriguing mystery series and its main character, Ada Baker.

Feel free to take a paragraph to introduce yourself.

Karen Hamilton-Viall is a new British author whose debut novel, a paranormal murder mystery titled The Curious Life of Ada Baker, has been published by Cranthorpe Millner. She lives in the countryside on the Essex/Suffolk border; a land of cosy thatched timber frame cottages and chocolate box villages. The sort of villages where you could imagine Miss Marple roaming around. This location inspired her to set her novel there in the fictional town of Sudfield. She’s been writing stories since she first learned to pick up a pen but only dared to dream in recent years that she could become a published author.

What made you start writing?

I’ve always loved writing, as far back as I learnt to write sentences. It’s something that’s always been part of me. When I was young, it was short stories and poetry. Then, when I was older, I started earnestly trying to write novels.

And what drew you into cosy mystery and fantasy?

I’ve always loved the genres, as far back as I can recall. I read Agatha Christie as a child and a lot of Enid Blyton. I watched all the cosy crime shows too, Poirot, Miss Marple, Murder She Wrote, Columbo, etc.

My fascination with the strange goes back a long way too. My mum used to buy me Misty annuals as a kid and a comic book about strange tales. She also brought me my first book on ghosts. As I got older, I became fascinated with werewolf and vampire stories. I read a lot of Anne Rice Novels. I dipped into horror too, I loved Christopher Fowler’s horror books. His horrors were made up of the everyday things around you. I recall one that had the lion statues in Trafalgar Square coming to life and attacking someone. I’m fascinated with the idea that fantastic things could be hiding behind the veneer of our everyday lives. I wanted my novel to feel like that too. Most people can’t see the things that Ada can, but it doesn’t mean they’re not there.

How many books have you written now, and how many are published?

I suppose Ada is my third book, although I never finished my first book. It was an erotic/fantasy/horror called The Beyond. It was very wordy and descriptive. My second book is called The Invisible King. It’s an erotic fantasy, the idea for it came to me in a dream. It’s finished but I don’t think it’s good enough for publication. I wrote it just for me. The Curious Life of Ada Baker is the only published book so far, but my intention is to make it into a series. I’ve already made a good start on book two. I also write a lot of short stories, particularly for my Godson’s. Every Christmas, I write them a new Christmas story and record myself reading it to them. I always think, what better gift than the gift of time and creativity.

I read on your blog about Robert Branford. What was the experience of visiting his grave like given the inspiration he gave you for “The Curious Life of Ada Baker”?

I’m so glad you’ve asked this. You’re the only person to pick up on this so far. Robert Branford was one of the first mixed-race officers in the Metropolitan (London) police force, in the mid nineteenth century. I came across his story in a newspaper clipping and felt inspired to include him in my story. He was the illegitimate child of a white mother, and an unknown father. It was a huge stigmatism at that time to be illegitimate. He joined the Met in 1838, did well, and rose to the rank of superintendent before he retired in 1866. The author Stephen Bourne has kindly written a piece about him, which is included in the back of my book. Stephen specializes in writing about Black British History.

Robert came quite late to the story. I’d already written a lot of the book before I found out about him, but I hope to include him more in future stories. Little Waldingfield, the village he lived in, is the only village where I’ve used a real name. Most of the other places in my novel are fictional but based on real places in the area. It’s a lovely little village and Robert is buried in the grounds of St Lawrence’s church. Even today it’s a sleepy little spot but in Branford’s day, it must have been little more than a hamlet.

As I arrived, I was struck by the peace and serenity of the place. The graveyard is overlooked by ancient cottages that abut its edge. I found myself wondering if Branford had lived in one of these and if he’d thought, “One day, I’ll be buried there.” My heart skipped when I found the grave. Somehow, I was lead straight there. I said a quiet prayer to him, telling him of his inclusion in my book and I hoped that he didn’t mind. It really helped bring another dimension to him for me. No longer was he a character but a real flesh and blood man, who was lying buried somewhere beneath my feet.

Your website says the pandemic in 2020 brought life to standstill, as it did for many, which encouraged you to write more. Did you find writing at that time to help with the standstill?

I did yes. Like many of us, I felt completely helpless. I normally work in schools and at historic sites running school history workshops but suddenly nobody wanted ‘hands-on’ anymore. We’d taken 15 years of love and hard work to get our business to where it was, so we didn’t want to drop it and find other jobs. My husband started a temporary gardening business but as I can’t drive, and we live in a village with a poor bus service, I was more restricted. I decided to write and try to finish a novel. I’d been inspired by my friend Helen Jr Bruce. She’s 14 years younger than me but has already published two novels and is working on her third. I found her truly inspirational. It was a case of, well if she can do it, surely, I can. I set myself a target number of words to write each week, which I usually exceeded. It gave me a purpose and made the lockdowns feel like less of a waste of life. It was an escapism for me and very cathartic. I couldn’t control what was happening in the real world, but I could control what happened in my little make-believe world.

“The Curious Life of Ada Baker” has been out since Sept. 27 of this year. What, if anything, did you do to prepare for its launch?

My publisher, Cranthorpe Millner, have been amazing. They sent me long lists of stuff that I could be doing to prepare for the launch. I did think about self-publishing, but they’ve been a brilliant guiding hand to me through the process. They had me doing all sorts of things, looking up shops that might want to stock the book, thinking of magazines, radio shows, etc, who might like it. I had to imagine what my typical reader might be like, which was helpful in working out where to market it. They also arranged a bookstagram tour for me on Instagram. I’d never heard of doing this before. They had me create some very novel book promo to send the ARC readers. They all received a copy of my book, one of Ada’s business cards, a typed letter from Dennis, the poltergeist character in my story, and a recipe written in invisible ink by Mrs Entwhistle, the Edwardian cook in my story. It can only be revealed by a UV torch which I also sent them.

I also found a local bookshop in Colchester and asked my publishers to arrange a book signing there. I’ve been trying to grow my social media following to get the word out about my book. I even ran a competition for people to win a copy, as well as other spooky goodies. As much as I love my online followers, I’m now trying to find ways to meet people in person, so I’ve been writing to local library services.

What made you decide to make Ada a psychic?

The book started with one idea. What if a psychic could harness the abilities that a dead person had accrued in life. If a spirit knew how to drive a train, then Ada could drive a train. She does this by letting the spirits temporarily posses her. She’s always still there but she takes a back seat for a while and lets them steer her body. Mrs Entwhistle is a brilliant cook and she’s always using her knowledge to prepare food for Ada, but during the story Ada has to call on some far more unusual ghostly skills.

Where is your book set and why did you choose that setting?

It’s set in rural south Suffolk, England. It’s part of an area called East Anglia, on the East Coast of England. It’s just a short distance above London but far enough away to feel very different. I moved here back in 2005. I used to live in South-East London but my husband hated it there. We’d visited the area in our hobby as re-enactors and decided to move here. It’s chock full of medieval and Tudor thatched timber frame cottages, with pastel coloured pargeted walls (pargetting is artistic plasterwork patterns).

The book is set in the fictional town of Sudfield but it’s based loosely on Sudbury in Suffolk and other places in the area that I live. It’s a lovely part of England but isn’t visited as often as other places like the West country or the Lake District. It deserves to be better known. In hindsight, I wish I’d based my book entirely on real places. I guess I chose it because I love the area so much and people always say write about what you know. I think a little of south London has crept into the novel too. The house I grow up in was a 1930s semi-D and was the inspiration for Ada’s home.

Do you know any real-life psychics?

When I started writing the novel, no I didn’t, but I’ve spoken with several since then. One of my friends is psychic, she came to it via a near death experience. I’ve also met a few psychics in ghost investigations I’ve attended, and I also interviewed one, Mike Baker. I’d already written my novel when I found him. He’d written a book about his own experiences as a psychic detective, and I interviewed him for my blog (https://www.karenhamilton-viall.co.uk/post/me-my-shadow-an-interview-with-psychic-medium-mike-baker) . He made a prediction of where I should go to find a publisher and as it turned out, he was correct.

Who are your favourite authors?

I read a lot of nonfiction. History books in particular, but more recently, books about the supernatural, psychics, folklore, witches, etc. If I had to pick one author, I’d say Neil Gaiman. He’s a master storyteller and I’m in awe of his writing. If I could be a tenth as good as him, I’d be happy.

Another writer I love is Adrian Bell. He’s been dead for 50 years now but there’s something about his writing style that I love. I got drawn into reading his books after watching a TV segment on him and his book Corduroy. I’ve read every one of his books now.

I also love Jane Austen; I’ve read every one of her books and Elizabeth Gaskill. I love beautiful descriptions. I think it was Elizabeth Gaskill who instead of describing a tapestry as being old, said something like, ‘A tapestry which had been woven by fingers that had long since turned to dust’. I thought that was such a beautiful way to describe it. I’m quite an eclectic reader as you can see.

What challenges do you encounter writing paranormal cosy mystery?

I think fantasy writing is freer than writing a book about a historical event. Even though you’re writing about something quite intangible like ghosts, it still has to feel like something that could happen. I did some research amongst friends about what they liked and disliked in novels and that was something that came across very strongly. People tend to still have very fixed ideas about what a ghost can and can’t do, even though most people haven’t experienced one. We’re very guided by media and books. One beta reader was adamant that a ghost couldn’t type or do delicate things, but I knew from another friend’s experience that they could. There are no definite rules for ghosts, just people’s perceptions which can make it difficult to write something that feels convincing to everyone.

What other genres have your explored in writing?

My writing has always had a fantasy basis but other genres are included within my writing, romance, erotica, horror.

Have you had any real paranormal experiences? (I find paranormal stuff fascinating, personally!)

Yes, quite a few. When I moved out of home at 19, I moved into a top floor flat of an Edwardian terraced house (early 20th century). I wasn’t thinking about ghosts at all when I moved in. Britain has an ancient history, and it was a relatively new home. Shortly after moving in, we’d hear heavy footsteps stomping up the stairs. You’d expect to hear the flat door open, but it never did. Then a minute later it would start again. We laughed at it to begin with, but I think that annoyed the spirit and the activity picked up. One day, as I was home alone sitting in my room, the arms of the long sleeve t-shirt that was hanging on the back of the door lifted into the air. I ran over to it, dragged it off the door and stomped up and down on it. I even saw him briefly in the bathroom as a shadow figure. In the end I found myself trying to make peace with him, acknowledging he existed but being firm that I needed to live there too and the activity died down after that. I think he just wanted to be acknowledged as existing. He went on to inspire the poltergeist character of Dennis in my novel. I’ve always wanted to go back there and say to the current owners, ‘Have you experienced anything odd?’

I also had an experience at Michelham Priory in Sussex. I was lucky enough to stay in the Managers flat for a couple of weeks. On a couple of nights, I was woken up by loud dragging noises, as if a piano was being dragged. We got up to investigate the source of the noise but could see nothing. My husband and I both felt a whirlwind going around our heads. It was only years later we saw on a TV show called Extreme ghosts, that a previous manager had experienced something very similar to us. That felt good, a sort of vindication that our experience had been real. I think it’s a very haunted house.

I’ve also had quite a few smaller experiences. They all outlined in more detail on my blog.

How many books are going to be in Ada’s series?

I don’t know yet. I’ll keep writing until I feel that there’s nothing more left to say for her and it reaches some sort of natural conclusion, but I have an idea for book three already.

And where can readers find you on social media?

I’m pretty much everywhere, Twitter https://twitter.com/FantasyKaren, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KarensFantasyFiction , Instagram @karenhamiltonviallauthor, TikTok @kazhoney.

I don’t have YouTube but I’m hoping at some point to make a podcast, I’d like to create one about writing but it’s just a dream presently.

My website is: www.karenhamilton-viall.co.uk

https://linktr.ee/Kazawoo

Good Reads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61613596-the-curious-life-of-ada-baker?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=hfZz45wQpq&rank=1

I want to thank Karen for being here and sharing her fictional world with us. It’s been an absolute pleasure! Please check out her website and blog for more information on her book and her fascinating writing journey!

Family Murder Mystery (Part 5): the Bull Marriage

A man who spent his life as a seafarer drifted somewhere between the woman he had waiting at home and the sea stretching out vast before him.

The woman who married such a man spread her identity somewhere between a single mother, independent and responsible for everything in his absence, and the doting, loving homemaker who made his time ashore as comfortable as possible.

(Image by Jana from Pixabay )

Considering the heavy, feminine expectations Victorian-era society placed upon women, a seafarer’s wife would have blurred these lines. In her husband’s absence, she had to be head of the house, the caretaker, the house cleaner, the mother, and when he came home, she still had to be a wife. Her independence and self-reliance had to be given up to him for a short time, handing over the head of the house role to her husband while he was home, as societal expectations dictated at the time.

In Hanna Hagmark-Cooper’s 2012 book, she interviewed and discussed stories of sailor’s wives from Åland, an island in the Baltic Sea belonging to Finland. While interviewing sailors for another project, Cooper describes how she ended one interview only for the sailor’s wife to pull her aside. She recalled the woman’s words:

“It’s us you should interview. It was us that were left to cope with everything on our own while he was away for long, long periods. We took care of everything and then, when he came home, we were just supposed to let go and let him take over. He was used to being in command at sea, so he wanted to be in command at home as well.”

After their marriage on May 29, 1915, Frederick and Theresa Bull settled into 385 Barking Road, Plaistow, London. According to their marriage certificate, the couple lived together prior to the wedding. No doubt there was little time before he returned to sea, though. At 24-years-old, Theresa began a cycle of living as a single woman and having her new husband home for short periods. As she began having kids, it would become a dual life of single motherhood and handing over control of the household to Frederick when he returned from sea.

(385 Barking Road, via Google)

Cooper writes how the women she spoke to described a duality in the life of a seafarer’s wife. Sailor’s wives, Cooper discussed, felt as though they lived two lives. One, when her husband was gone, and the other, when he was home. One wife told Cooper:

“He’s got two completely different lives, one aboard and one at home, but so have I. One life with him, a man in the house, and another one when I have to take care of everything on my own, and those lives are totally different. Life is much easier when he’s at home, but it is difficult not to stick my nose in it, which you have to do when you’re alone. He wants to be in charge, naturally, and it’s not always easy to give in all the time.”

(Image by Shima Abedinzade from Pixabay )

While most women Cooper talked to appeared happy with their lives, adjusting to the duality, other women experienced some sort of identity crisis when stuck between the two worlds. One described her relationship as “painful and tiring”. She didn’t know which one of her worlds was the real one between “the never-ending switching from single life to couple life,” saying it “erases the boundaries for who I am.”

Others described how, despite the farewell being heartbreaking each time, they looked forward to their husbands returning to sea, since the time he was away meant a return to what she and her children knew as “normal.” They enjoyed having their husbands home, but these women also became accustomed to a certain freedom when he was gone, their own routines and plans and a house that wasn’t as messy in his absence.

“My feelings when he leaves are mixed, but since I’ve always lived like this - and want to live like this – it feels quite good. I know he’ll be home again after four weeks, but it sometimes feels like dying a bit each time he leaves,” another woman told Cooper.

There’s little to go on in regards to how Theresa may have felt about her new role as a seafarer’s wife, whether she regarded Frederick’s constant absences as freedom or loneliness, or how she adjusted over time. Nor do I know how frequently or for how long Frederick was gone when he left. Her life became a cycle of preparing for his departures, having him leave, the period in which she lived without him, and then his return and subsequent time at home.

Their first child, a son named Frederick George Bull (Fred, as he was known), was born April 8, 1916. Theresa’s life changed rapidly, becoming both a sailor’s wife, and then a mother, within a year or two. Motherhood would have been a drastic change she carried mostly on her own, caring for both a home and a new baby while Frederick was at sea.

A daughter, Theresa Agnes Bull, was born Jan. 19, 1918. Annie E. Bull followed on Oct. 24, 1919, and their fourth and final child, Veronica Govia Bull, was born on April 18, 1921. Their mother had four children by the time she turned 30.

The few family stories that exist depict Frederick as a loving father who was happily married to Theresa. One cousin told me how the younger Fred got his job on the docks when he was of age because Frederick was so highly thought of. Details on how Theresa viewed her marriage are non-existent. No one knows whether she was as happy as her other half in this marriage.

The 1921 Census lists Frederick as 41-years-old, and Theresa as 30. Frederick at the time worked on the docks for the New Zealand Shipping Company. No employment is listed for Theresa. Veronica isn’t present, so presumably, Theresa was likely pregnant at the time the census was taken. Fred, at five years old, was attending board school. By this time, the family lived at 19 Norman Road in East Ham, London.

(1921 Census)

A quick look at Wikipedia tells me that the New Zealand Shipping Company ran passenger and cargo ships between New Zealand and Great Britain from 1873 to 1973, after which it was absorbed into another company.

The route from New Zealand to Great Britain and vice versa would have been a long one, yet Frederick worked on the docks as per the census, which means he was closer to home and not gone for long periods anymore. It isn’t clear when he changed jobs between 1915 and 1921.

However, the Spanish Flu pandemic had devastated London between 1918 and 1919. The Historic UK website describes a brutal sickness for those infected:

“Onset was devastatingly quick. Those fine and healthy at breakfast could be dead by tea-time. Within hours of feeling the first symptoms of fatigue, fever and headache, some victims would rapidly develop pneumonia and start turning blue, signalling a shortage of oxygen. They would then struggle for air until they suffocated to death.”

Over 50 million people died of the Spanish Flu worldwide. In Britain alone, the death toll surmounted to 228,000.

“More people died of influenza in that single year than in the four years of the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351,” says the Historic UK website.

As we are seeing with the current COVID-19 pandemic, the aftermath on everyday life was difficult. By the mid-1920s, unemployment in Britain hit 2 million, rising to 70% in some places, according to the Historic UK website. UK exports were expensive and interest rates were rising. Great Britain was importing more coal than it was mining and there was little investment in new mass-production techniques. The post-war prosperity didn’t last long in the aftermaths of a gruesome virus. The country hit a post-pandemic depression.

According to a 1923 article discussing his disappearance, Frederick also suffered “an accident which incapacitated him, for some months” on July 20, 1918. No other details were given about this accident.

“He resumed work for some time, but had to give it up again”, the article continues, stating he received compensation but his job was filled, leaving him unemployed with a wife and four kids at home to provide for.

Frederick’s life as a sailor, it seems, was over. A plaguing injury. A faltering economy. The number of jobs shrinking before his eyes. What did this mean for his future, as a family man in his forties?

(Image by Gianluca from Pixabay )

Theresa’s life as she knew it also became frighteningly unstable. If she had been unhappy as a seafarer’s wife before, she was now staring down the possibility of losing everything and being unable to provide for her children. If she had enjoyed the freedom that accompanied her husband’s profession, she faced the potential of losing that. Money would have been tight alongside that disappearing freedom.

With their life together stalled, what did they do from there? Did Frederick become disposable to Theresa, with his injury and unemployment, or was his mysterious death to come a tragic result of that injury?

This, I’ll explore in the next post. Thanks for coming along.

Sources

Pandemic

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/The-Spanish-Flu-pandemic-of-1918/

Britain in the 1920s

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/The-1920s-in-Britain/

Ancestry records

The 1921 Great Britain Census

Family Murder Mystery (Part 4): Theresa Semken

Theresa Agnes Semken also grew up in a world that was changing fast for women. Born on Dec. 11, 1890, her first decade of life watched the Victorian era fade into the Edwardian era, and the 1800s open into the new century of the 1900s.

The times were tumultuous for women, bound to strict gender roles and expectations, in which men and women existed in “separate spheres”, according to Oxford Open Learning, which meant that “a man’s place was in the world of economics and business while a woman was a trophy of the home.” Lower income women could work, yet only one third of women worked throughout the 19th century. Upper middle class women were to be the perfect wife and mother, tending to the home and children while her husband worked, the “angel of the house”.

Image by Prawny from Pixabay

According to an article by Ignatius Nsaidzedze, “An Overview of Feminism in the Victorian Period (1982-1901)”, women were completely at the mercy or lackthereof of her husband. The theory of separate spheres depended on deeming all women as nurturing, sacrificial, altruistic, pure, and pious. Men were assertive, materialistic, competitive. Of course, we know now that this concept of putting women into their places simply gave men no other responsibility outside of their day jobs while their wives provided the emotional and physical unpaid labour of running a home and caring for the children. She also had to be sexually submissive to her husband, without birth control, and continue the cycle of bearing and birthing and caring for children.

“Michael Hale, who was Chief Justice in England during the seventeenth century said a husband could not be guilty of raping his wife ‘for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife had given up herself in this kind unto the husband which she cannot retract,’” Nsaidzedze writes. He also points out that the U.S. didn’t pass its first marital rape law until 1979. A simple Google search reveals that even Canada didn’t pass its first marital rape law until 1983.

While having no rights over her body, she was also financially dependent on her husband, had no recourse for divorce or child custody, couldn’t make a will, keep money she earned, and relinquished all personal and property wealth to her husband.

By the 1850s, tides were turning when the feminist movement began its upheaval, focusing on education, work, rights regarding property, sex, marriage, divorce, and voting. In 1870, the Married Women’s Property Act was passed.

According to the UK Parliament website: “This allowed any money which a woman earned to be treated as her own property, and not her husband's. Further campaigning resulted in an extension of this law in 1882 to allow married women to have complete personal control over all of their property.”

In 1922, husbands and wives were allowed to inherit each other’s property with the Law of Property Act. Legislation in 1926 gave women equal rights as men to “hold and dispose of” property.

The Matrimonial Causes Act passed in 1857, founding the grounds for which a woman could file for divorce: adultery that had to be accompanied by life-threatening cruelty and desertion. Men could file for divorce solely for adultery. This changed in 1923, which have wives the right to divorce on grounds of adultery alone. The 1937 law extended those grounds to include unlawful desertion for over three years, cruelty, incurable insanity, sodomy, and incest.

Women won the right to vote in 1918 with the Representation of the People Act, which allowed women over the age of 30 with who met a property qualification to vote. The Equal Franchise Act in 1928 handed the right to vote to women over the age of 21, giving them the same voting rights as men.

Through all this, Queen Victoria, the monarch of the time, called feminism a “wicked folly of women’s rights”, according to Nsaidzedze’s article. During her reign, she was the epitome of what the Victorian era expected of women. She had nine children and became the shining example of domestic bliss and a woman’s “place” as an angel of the home.

Naturally, all of this would have had a profound impact on the young girls growing up in this era. Even then, Theresa still grew up in what seemed to be another typical family of the Victorian era.

Her father, John or Johann Semken, was a German immigrant, listed on the 1891 census as a gas stoker. These men worked in gasworks or gas houses, which were industrial plants which produced flammable gas for lighting in towns and cities. Some gasholder structures still exist in England today. The Historic England Blog does a fantastic piece written about gasholders, which I will link to at the end of this post.

As a gas stoker, John would have spent his long days over a fire in one of these places. Arduous, hot, and dangerous work, no doubt.

His wife, Rosalie (maiden name Summerfield) was not employed and stayed home with their six kids, listed oldest to youngest: Herman (1884), Caroline Rosalie (1889), Theresa Agnes (1890), Lousia Veronica Florence Govia (1894), Lilian Elizabeth (1896), Jessica H.M. (1898), and Elaine Kathleen Patricia (1901).

1901 Census (Ancestry.ca)

Rosalie didn’t have employment listed on a census until 1901, when she too worked in the gasholds. Herman, who would have been 17, is listed as a porter at a factory.

In the 1911 census, Theresa was 20-years-old and working as a bag repairer. Rosalie changed jobs in that decade to work at a secondhand furniture place, and both Louisa and Lilian, 16 and 15, worked as confectionery packers.

This was not one of those upper-middle class families in which the wife stayed home and could afford to fit into the stereotype of the era’s perfect woman. She went to work shortly after giving birth to her last child. This inability to clamber out of poverty would plague Theresa throughout her life, I learned through family stories and later records.

1911 Census (Ancestry.ca)

Theresa’s years before and upon meeting Frederick are as blurry as his. They married May 29, 1915. No employment is listed for Theresa on their marriage certificate, and her father’s profession is noted as a gas stoker still. Again, the details on how she met Frederick are lost to time, and wedding photos, or any photos of them together, cease to exist to my knowledge.

She was a decade his junior, perhaps looking for a way out of her family’s money problems. This was, after all, an age where women were still highly dependent on men to provide for them. Was it a marriage of convenience, hence why Frederick tried to hide it from his father, or did his church-devoted parents perhaps frown upon the marriage to younger, poorer woman? Did they ever accept her?

In 1915, on their marriage certificate, Frederick is listed as being in the Seaman Merchant Service. Remember, marriage prevented him from being conscripted into the first World War until May 1916. Their first child, a son also named Frederick, was born April 8, 1916, not long before Frederick Sr might have been summoned to the war efforts.

There is a chance he didn’t go still, as I cannot find any records on either Ancestry or the National Archives that indicate he left England to help with the war efforts, so it’s possible he stayed behind and helped from home. Seaman merchants were the backbone to keeping Great Britain armed and operating during the war, supplying the military with ammunition, arms, raw material, food, and transporting soldiers overseas. And since, according to Imperial War Museums, these were civilian cargo ships and the term “Merchant Navy” wasn’t granted by King George V until after World War I, it’s simply possible that no records exist of Frederick’s activity in the war.

If Frederick spent a lot of time at sea, which he likely did, at the start of his marriage to Theresa, then she would have been raising her first child essentially alone. The pressures of being a new wife and mother, and being on her own a lot, would have felt immense.

What was their marriage like, from what I can piece together? How did a young, 24-year-old bride and mother adapt to life with a man who spent much of his life at sea? Did bitterness fester within her because of i? Did they adjust, or did the time he spent out at sea separate them emotionally the way the vast ocean did physically?

Did Theresa see the sharp orange glint of the sun on the horizon at the dusk of his life before he did? And did Frederick sail straight into his own fate?

Without knowing her attitudes towards marriage and children, it’s hard to tell how she would have felt about her new station in life. And without travelling back in time, I don’t know how they truly felt about each other.

Regardless, I’ll explore all this in the next post, delving as far as I can into their marriage, their children, and what led up to the days before his death. I’ll dedicate a post on its own to his death - there is a lot of information to go into that one. As always, thanks for being along on this journey.

Image by Dieter Freese from Pixabay

Sources

Ancestry records

The Historic England Blog

https://heritagecalling.com/2020/07/15/a-brief-introduction-to-gasholders/

Merchant Navy

https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/a-short-history-of-the-merchant-navy

Right to vote

https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/overview/thevote/

Divorce laws

https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private-lives/relationships/overview/changesindivorce

Property laws

https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private-lives/relationships/overview/propertychildren/

An Overview of Feminism in the Victorian Period [1832-1901] Ignatius Nsaidzedze Department of English, Faculty of Arts, The University of Buea

2017

https://www.arjonline.org/papers/arjel/v3-i1/12.pdf

Oxford Open Learning - Feminism in Victorian England

https://www.ool.co.uk/blog/the-role-of-women-in-victorian-england

Lilacs and Thunderstorms: Springtime Depression

Sometimes I hide within bleakness. At least, that’s how it’s felt lately. Work stress. Financial hardship. Feeling stuck in various aspects of my life: physically, emotionally, financially, and mentally. I look around my home which, honestly, is a depression house. Neglected, messy, and a reflection of my mindset. It’s so messy I am not even sure how to organize my thoughts within this piece of writing.

Like a long post-winter hangover, I am tired. Exhausted. Recovering from trauma is not linear or long bubble baths or bundling up in blankets for a “mental health day.” It’s forcing myself to get up and go to work, the threat of unpaid bills looming. It’s doing the dishes and cleaning when I want nothing more than to disappear. Cutting the grass and setting up the garden lest the outside of the house look as chaotic and manic as I feel. Watching the perennials return with a vengeance, the pink flowers almost a bright neon shade on the crawling plant. The dark green leafy plant I have no idea the name of, soon to bloom in bursts of purple. The violets rising to the sunlight after the rain. New alyssum plants crawling about in their pots, flowering in purple and white.

(Violets, photo by author)

In the early days of spring, I noticed something in my garden preparations: initial buds on my young lilac bush. I’ve had it for three or four years now, and it’s been strengthening its roots and branches to ready itself to blossom into the purple flowers I adore so. Would it finally bloom this year?

This week, it did. And it felt like the true start to a new season. A new era. Lilac bushes spend their first few years growing resilient and tougher branches on which to hold their blooms. My inner witch is taking it as a sign.

Life is a lilac bush. We all have a tree of life that doesn’t grow upwards in excess until the roots are strong. Sometimes it needs periods of growth and becoming ready to hold the abundance that’s coming. My tarot and oracle cards have all been pointing to some sort of abundance and bettering of fortune to come, should I continue with my plans and on the road I currently walk. If I maintain patience and consistency.

Maybe I haven’t been stuck. Maybe that growth of roots and tougher branches is where I’ve been. Maybe now, it’s time to begin blooming.

(Beginning lilac blooms, photo by author)

Look at lawns in comparison. Plain, trimmed short, shallow roots, maintained with toxic and fake chemicals and little natural life to it. A native plant garden brimming with wildflowers and bushes have deeper roots, preventing floods as they soak up excess water. They grow taller, burst with colour, and attract pollinators which create an ecosystem. A community. Humans are the same. For communities or human connection, there needs to be authenticity, strong roots, a support system, and diversity. Diversity builds empathy and friendship.

The lilac bush truly burst with new leaves and flowers when a thunderstorm rolled through this last week. I was stuck inside at work, yearning to take a long walk in the rain, get drenched, puddle jump, to close my eyes and listen to the thunder. I relate to the chaos, I suppose.

Most people seek shelter from the rain but I am content to walk through it despite thunder or lightening crashing overhead. I guess I have been ripped open so many times that it’s familiar to me. Or maybe I am accustomed to a lack of shelter when storms rage that standing out in the midst of it is calming now.

But we can’t live that way forever. We cannot forever be a storm, nor can we always be a young lilac bush, stranded in weakness when we should and could be thriving. Complex PTSD and mental illness can truly stunt that growth. When all you’ve known is depression and mental chaos, crashing storms in your brain, a soul of rain and sorrow and anguish, it’s terrifying to let that go. To let the sun peek through and feel the warmth of something new.

A depression house isn’t merely a physical dwelling. It’s a mental and spiritual prison, too. I am at a point where I am sick and tired of my own bullshit, longing to move on and grow branches that will some day flower and welcome the light when the rain is over.

I’ve done it all, it seems. I’ve been on meds, quit smoking cigarettes, cut back on drinking, been in therapy, changed my diet, done endless journaling and self-therapy (and continue to), taken supplements that are supposed to help depression, and sometimes… well, on the bad days it all feels pointless. It feels like I’ll never get better and this is the best I’ll ever be but it isn’t the best I want to be. My body and brain feel like a depression house with no escape. Flapping wings against walls merely caked with dust and old wood but they never quite break open.

And damn, I want them to.

Darkness doesn’t last forever. Storms run out of rain. Lilacs, after a few tumultuous young years, bloom. That means there must an exit to this shadowy and desolate depression house, right?

(Lilac blooms, photo by author)

Family Murder Mystery (part 3)

THe Backdrop: Exploring Frederick George Bull's early life

Frederick George Bull grew up between two worlds in London: the ending of the 1800s, a Victorian era overshadowed by Jack the Ripper in 1888 and filthy living conditions, and the early 1900s, which saw a world war, a pandemic, and a compelling door opening for the first-wave feminism movement. The world was changing.

London’s population swelled to over five million people in 1879. Despite becoming a political, financial, and trading capital, millions of people remained in extreme poverty. Human sewage swept into streets and the River Thames. Horse dung lined the streets and the soot and smoke lay thick in the air. Lower class people had few options when it came to maintaining personal hygiene. According to the Museum of the Home website:

“For most of the city's inhabitants, acquiring safe drinking water meant laboriously pulling it from wells, collecting rainwater, or travelling to public conduits and fountains and lugging the water back home.”

Only the wealthy had access to clean running water directly in their home up until the early 1900s, when it became commonplace for the middle and lower classes, too. Around this time, middle-class families also donned the use of servants. In 1900, almost a third of Britain's women between the ages of 15 and 20 took on paid domestic service. Meanwhile, the poor slaved away long hours in mills, factories, mines, and on docks.

(Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Education reform saw an upheaval at this time. In 1870, the Elementary Education Act came into effect, establishing a system of school boards to be put in charge of building and managing schools. Education for children between the ages of five and ten didn’t become compulsory until 1880, raised to eleven in 1893 and then to twelve in 1899.

Life expectancy in this time was low. One in three infants died before their fifth birthdays. For adults, men saw a life expectancy average of forty years, while women could expect to see their forty-second birthday. By the time 1900 hit, this was raised to forty-five years for men and fifty for women. Disease was rampant, due to the city’s blatant filth. The establishment of a central and nationalized water system would go a long ways to redirecting waste away from direct contact with people and for maintaining personal hygiene.

This era of London is oddly fascinating, but I won’t go into extravagant detail. I’ll leave some links at the end of this post if you desire further reading into the city’s history. This is simply the backdrop of the world against which Frederick was born.

His father, John Frederick, is listed on the 1881 census as a church verger (The 1891 census reveals it was for the Trinity Church) while his mother, Mary Ann (maiden name Pigott), was a housewife. Historically, a church verger was basically a building caretaker who took care of furnishings, relics, cleanliness, preparing for church services, and grave-digging responsibilities. It was a very behind-the-scenes job that ensured the church ran smoothly and that participants behaved.

(1881 Census for the Bull Family. Via Ancestry.ca)

The Bulls had a total of eleven children (oldest to youngest): John, Jane, Sarah, Alice, Daisy, Henry, Lily, Frederick, Elizabeth, Herbert and Alfred. Mary and John were both 40-years-old when Frederick was born on February 13, 1879.

I have no real way of knowing exactly what Frederick’s early years looked like or what environment he grew up in beyond the history reading I’ve done. I did get an anecdote or two about his later years, which we’ll get into soon. But his parents had a seemingly normal family for the time. A working father, a housewife, and a large group of kids.

Of course, in Victorian London, children were viewed as cheap labour, spending their childhoods working and contributing to the household income. They worked before or after school hours, often with parents. Income from children’s labour was much needed by families. This was an era where the visions of innocent childhood clashed with the traditions of working children. Whether or not kids should have been made to work their young years away became a great debate by the time Frederick was born. Indeed, in the 1891 census, Frederick’s occupation is listed as “scholar”. It’s hard to know if he, too, worked outside his school hours, or if his father’s income as a verger effectively sustained the family.

(1891 census for the Bull family. Via Ancestry.ca)

In 1901, at 22-years-old, Frederick still lived with his parents. But he likely spent little time at home. He was working at sea by this time. A 1901 Calendar of Prisoners shows him and another man on trial for thefts that occurred at sea. Frederick was found not guilty and released. The other man was found guilty. According to the record, the men were charged with “stealing a watch, a chain, and other articles, the property of Walter Edward Guinness, on the high seas, on the 13th June 1901.”

(1903 Royal Navy Register of Seaman's Services)

In April 1903, Frederick joined the Royal Navy as a cook. According to the Royal Navy Register of Seaman’s Services, at twenty-three-years-old, Frederick was 5’8” tall, had very light brown hair, grey eyes, and an eagle tattoo on his chest. For a reason only listed as “unfit”, he was discharged in November of 1904. This could have been due to sickness or injury, as injuries would plague him later on.

In 1909, I found Frederick in a Seamen’s Hospital and Discharges record, admitted with a hernia. He was discharged on October 15 as “healed”. For the 1911 census, he was working as a carpenter and living with his parents once more.

Somewhere in this time, he met Theresa Agnes Semken, who he’d marry on May 29, 1915. He was thirty-six and she, twenty-four.

He was a dashing, tattooed seaman, surely full of adventurous stories to capture the attention of any woman he fancied. How exactly Theresa caught his eye, no one knows. No one has ever passed down this part of the story. They could have crossed paths anywhere in the London streets. A pub. A market. Through friends. Nor is it known how long they knew each other before marrying. These details are, sadly, lost to time now.

The marriage certificate regarding this union is most curious. On it, Frederick’s father is noted as deceased and a former cab proprietor, which from the census records, we know wasn’t accurate. John Frederick died in 1916. Also, his name is noted as Frederick John. To be fair, it was common to list middle names before first names. But to be safe, I searched Ancestry records for that name with no luck. I could not find a Frederick John Bull of the same age who was a cab proprietor, with a son named Frederick George. So, I am trusting official records over what Frederick noted on his marriage certificate.

The occupation difference could be explained as John having his own cab and making money on the side of his verger job. The 1900s saw the gradual change from horse and buggy “hansom” cabs, to the car versions. It’s possible John owned a hansom cab – a lightweight buggy that only required one horse to pull it.

(Bishopsgate Institute)

John and Mary were also members of the Trinity Church for which he worked. Perhaps Frederick wanted to avoid marrying in the church, or avoid his father. Frederick and Theresa were married “by license” at the register office. Perhaps he put his father’s name down differently, claimed he was dead, and wrote down the side occupation. That’s a decent effort to put in to hide a marriage.

By marrying, Frederick also deemed himself exempt from mandatory conscription that came within the year, as World War I had started in July 1914. According to the UK Parliament website:

“In January 1916 the Military Service Act was passed. This imposed conscription on all single men aged between 18 and 41, but exempted the medically unfit, clergymen, teachers and certain classes of industrial worker.”

However, the UK Parliament website also notes:

“Conscientious objectors – men who objected to fighting on moral grounds– were also exempted, and were in most cases given civilian jobs or non-fighting roles at the front.

A second Act passed in May 1916 extended conscription to married men.”

This could lend itself to speculation. Was Frederick not close with his father at this time? Did they perhaps have a falling out between 1911 and 1915? Did his parents not approve of the union to the younger woman? Was his marriage one of convenience to avoid going to war, remaining in his carpentry job on the ships to assist in the war from home?

It doesn’t appear that Theresa was a pregnant bride, either, since their son, Frederick Jr. wasn’t born until April 1916. However, Frederick and Theresa resided at the same address when they got married. It was just the beginning of the mysterious era of Frederick’s life, to an equally mysterious woman. Her life, I will explore in the next post before leading up to Frederick’s death.

Please feel free to subscribe to my newsletter for details on all of my writing!

Sources

Victorian London

https://www.npr.org/2015/03/12/392332431/dirty-old-london-a-history-of-the-victorians-infamous-filth

English heritage

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/story-of-england/victorian/daily-life/

Running water: https://www.museumofthehome.org.uk/explore/stories-of-home/a-brief-history-of-running-water/#:~:text=In%20modern%20Britain%20we're,the%20wealthiest%20sections%20of%20society.

Education reform

https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/livinglearning/school/overview/1870educationact/

Victorian children

https://www.representingchildhood.pitt.edu/victorian.htm

Hansom Cabs

https://www.motorcities.org/story-of-the-week/2018/a-brief-history-of-taxicabs-1907-1968

UK Parliament website

https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private-lives/yourcountry/overview/conscription/#:~:text=Conscription%20introduced&text=In%20January%201916%20the%20Military,certain%20classes%20of%20industrial%20worker.

Records and photos from my own collection and Ancestry.com.

Book review – “In Satan’s Shadow” by John Anthony Miller

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5 stars

No spoilers.

I don’t typically read spy or World War II era fiction, but this one drew me in by the title and cover. And then it hooked me with a riveting opening. Right away, our hero, British spy Michael York proves to be daring, thoughtful, and passionate. Each risk he takes is calculated. Michael finds himself in Berlin, Germany, on a high-risk mission – and finds himself immersed in a whirlwind romance just as life-threatening, if not more.

There’s a sense of ominous foreboding that hangs over the story, even in the slower scenes. High tension and unpredictability. Readers not only explore York’s life, but we get a glimpse into the lives of good people stuck in troubling and terrifying times, each with their own story. It separates the country and culture of Germany away from the notorious Nazis. Even during this tumultuous and horrific time, real humans lived in Germany. Miller also brings 1940s Berlin to life in his descriptions. Sometimes the setting descriptions went on for a little too long, in my opinion, but it didn’t rob much from the story. I found it fascinating to be immersed in such a time of history.

Violinist Amanda Hamilton becomes not only an inside source of Nazi information, being married to one of the higher ups in the organization, but she also steals Michael’s heart. Readers get a glimpse into her loveless, cruel, and heartbreaking marriage to a narcissistic Nazi while she and Michael, realizing no one else will help them, plan a daring escape from the ruins of war. Does the woman who lives in Satan’s shadow escape to find happiness? Can the man who finds himself in too deep and facing a traitor that had his predecessor killed make one last escape for his life, and the others he tries to rescue along the way?

I did guess who the traitor was partway through, but I attribute that to how well set up the plot was overall. By the end, everything made sense. The reader anticipates a climax that will either devastate or delight. The climax could have gone so many ways based on the plot setup. It was the escape where whatever could go wrong, did.

My only other critique of this story is that it did far more telling than showing, and there were many spots where I felt showing would have made more of an emotional impact. I felt like it skipped over a few scenes that were important, and the ending post-climax felt a tad rushed. Otherwise, I enjoyed this story of survival, beating the odds, and love persevering over evil.

UK Mother's Day: A Celebration of Heritage

Intergenerational trauma is a topic that has spanned a few of my posts lately between here and Medium. But today, Mother’s Day in the UK, is an opportunity to take a different perspective on my British heritage. I saw a meme ages ago on Facebook (sadly lost in an abyss now, I don’t have it saved) that said something about how we need to not only heal intergenerational trauma, but also celebrate the strengths of our ancestors, because they didn’t pass down only the bad.

Profound. Our ancestors were raised during times when family toxicity and abuse wasn’t discussed openly or even acknowledged. Many of our grandmothers or great-grandmothers weren’t even viewed as humans. They were possessions to men. Only in 1928 could women over twenty-one vote in the UK. Canada preceded this in 1922 by giving the right to vote to white and black women, though Indigenous and Asian women remained excluded. Full suffrage to these women wouldn’t come until 1960.

Hell, women weren’t even allowed to file for divorce in the UK until 1923. Here in Canada, women didn’t have full equal rights in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms until April 17, 1982, extending this to Indigenous women in 1985. This came about after women’s unequal rights in divorce proceedings were exposed in the 1970’s when Irene Murdoch, an Albertan farm wife, was given a mere $200 a month upon her marriage ending, while her husband was granted the entire farm. She’d spent twenty-five years doing hard labour on that farm only for the court, and her ex-husband, to render it all worthless. She’d receive a lump sum later on, but her case exposed that just because women could file for divorce, didn’t mean they would be viewed on equal grounds.

Women of the past endured years of silence, abuse, marital rape, and endless child bearing and rearing, all because they were viewed as possessions to be handed off from their fathers to a husband. Before the world wars, it was almost impossible for a woman to live on independent means. Men had the jobs, made the money, and women stayed home to raise children. Marriage and motherhood were to be all the emotional fulfillment a woman needed in life. She didn’t need hobbies, or individual thinking, or a job.

The Victorian Era, the particular sliver of time in which I’ve been researching my family, brought about the beginnings of societal change for gender roles. Queen Victoria was a feminine icon, with her doting husband and surrounded by her children, but this didn’t represent every woman. The generic blanket thrown over women with no thought to their individuality is mind-blowing today. Back then, it was a norm.

Men were able to pursue business and career aspirations on the back and heart-breaking labour of women. Wives and mothers ran the house, cleaned, cooked, raised kids, pleased their husbands, remained devoted to religion, and kept up the appearance of the ideal Victorian woman: domestic, busy, diligent, devoted, and loving. They set aside their wants, emotional needs, dreams, and ideas because society deemed their life’s path and place: in the home. They swallowed every piece of their individuality for the sake of conforming to these boxes.

(Image by Prawny from Pixabay )

There is a fierce independence in that. A willpower. This would have been such a repetitive lifestyle. Cleaning a house back then wasn’t like it is today. There were no vacuum cleaners or fancy Roombas or dishwashers or electric washers and dryers. Children were viewed as household help, but really, how many of these mothers were going back to re-clean something her kids didn’t do properly? Not to mention, someone still had to shop for groceries and prepare meals and take care of the kids. This was also a time when one in three infants died before their fifth birthday. Mothers faced high infant mortality rates, and the emotional trauma that came from losing their babies to rampant sickness and then being blamed by society for their maternal shortcomings. Through all that, they still had to appease their husbands and keep up appearances. Middle-class families took on servants, but low-income families lacked that option.

Women who rejected marriage and motherhood were figures of pity, dissatisfaction, and a life unfulfilled. They were seen as failures. When she could work, a Victorian women got paid much less than men, or had to resort to illegal means like prostitution. Many lower class young women in Britain became servants to middle-class families. According to the BBC:

“Family budget evidence suggests that around 30-40 per cent of women from working class families contributed significantly to household incomes in the mid-Victorian years.”

A woman’s wages could contribute to her household, but not hold it up alone. Domestic service made up most of these jobs, followed by textile and clothing sectors. Women also did plenty of behind the scenes work in family-owned shops, like bookkeeping, and would carry on the business when her husband died. Again, we see women serving as the backbone to her husband’s home and business life.

The Victorian Era gave way to first-wave feminists who wanted better living conditions for women: better working conditions and wages, and the right to vote. These were the first women who began fighting for what we have now: voting rights, equality, working rights, the ability to choose whether we become mothers, birth control, laws around marital rape and domestic violence, the ability to establish credit and purchase homes and land, and much more. There was a time when we had none of that. When we were no longer usable for child bearing, sex, cleaning up after men and children, or serving as cheap labour to exploitative employers, we were basically useless to society.

Many of these women began fighting against that norm. The female figures in my history were feminists. I come from a line of women who rejected religion and societal norms. My grandmother broke the cycle of toxicity in her own family to marry my grandfather and have what was, for the most part, a happy family in a small coastal Canadian town. My own mother was big into activism when she was young, and remains passionate when it comes to human rights. She has remained glued to the news over the Russian invasion of Ukraine, voicing her sadness over Ukrainians, and anger at both Russia and how to go about stopping them. She raised us to make sound decisions about who we are and what we want. There was never pressure to be in relationships (in fact, quite the opposite) or to have kids.

(Image by Jackson David from Pixabay )

Strength. Resilience. A will to survive adversity. Activism. The need to help others. Viewing others as equal, frowning upon racism, homophobia, or abuse and discrimination of any kind. Always able to extend friendship and compassion even when you have nothing else. Learning from your mistakes and doing better. Setting boundaries and enforcing them. No longer being a doormat for others to walk all over. The women in my family were peacemakers, good friends, hippies, lovers, sisters, a steady hand to those in need, fighters, and activists, willing to fight for independence and freedom, both politically and personally. They are where I learned to stand up every time I was knocked down, staying ready for another round. They were, and remain, so much more than just mothers and wives. And when we understand what it took for them to survive, we can also understand why they donned some of their toxic traits, and continue breaking those cycles while celebrating their strengths.

This is the legacy of women in my heritage. But what about yours? Where did the women of your family’s history descend from? What adversities did they face that passed down strength and resiliency onto you? What can you learn and take from their lives to improve your own? There so many countries and so many different types of people around the world. Cultures, lessons, beliefs abound. Despite the intergenerational traumas of these women, what about them can you also celebrate?

Sources

CBC Equal Under the Law

BBC History: Victorian Britain

BBC History: Women’s Work

My Medium account

Musings: Mortality and Sunsets

A friend of mine lost her husband recently. A wonderful man. Kind, compassionate, funny. They’re both the types of people emitting loving and fun vibes, the exact types the world needs more of. Looking around, standing in a room of people I didn’t know except for her, was a glimpse into just some of the lives he touched. Friends and family discussing his humour, his love for his wife, his personality. Favourite memories. I found the only other loner in the room, a woman around my age, and we shared a discussion about the same topics. She worked at the shop they owned. I frequented there. Sadly, the shop, like many, didn’t survive the pandemic.

I drove around for a while down streets that hold so many memories from my own past. Blasting music. The sun shone despite the nagging sensation of loss and sorrow, golden light spilling over the city a bizarre contrast to the harrowing sadness.

When I pulled into my driveway, and got in my door, I stood there, unable to stay within those walls. I took a long walk. Smoked some weed. Thought some thoughts. Soaked in the sunshine like the depressed houseplant I am, and listened to the birds sing. I can’t remember the last time I stopped to listen to it.

Life is so short.

Image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay

And how much of this life do I spend inside my own head? For a long time, I haven’t felt or been terribly present in the lives of others or for myself. Days look the same. Work is always work. Writing is always writing. I fill my time and ignore the loneliness seeping in after years of isolating mental illness and a pandemic that’s kept people apart for the last two years. Even before the pandemic, I’d go long periods not talking to people. Sorely out of touch with what happened in their lives. Lost in my head, obsessed with trauma recovery and journalling and writing. I went from having no will to live, to hanging onto frays of meaning, to enjoying my solitude and being at peace with my past. The next logical step, of course, is to find my way back into a social circle and engage.

Yet, with the world reopening despite COVID still being rampant, I remain hesitant to step out into the social scene. Struggling to reconnect. Many people I’ve known for years feel like strangers I no longer know how to approach. Being at the celebration of life hammered home how badly I’ve isolated myself. It made me question what I am sure everyone questions after a death: who will remember me when I am gone? How many lives have I personally touched? Will it matter?

My relationship with time and death is unsteady at best. Having survived a suicide attempt, death feels both distantly inevitable and still helplessly soon. And when I meet the notion of death again, it reminds me of two things: there isn’t enough time and I am alone. Or at least, that’s what my mental illnesses tell me. I’ve sought to discover why this panic lives beneath my skin permanently. The trauma? Is it knowing that despite so many of us seeking a grander purpose than mediocrity and repetitiveness, we will die as mediocre at best? What will we be remembered for? What happens after our name is spoken for the last time in history? And if we’ll be dead anyways, why does it matter?

So many social media posts try to encourage us to live outside of our comfort zones lest we never be great. Inserting into our minds the notion that we need to be noticed and seen, that we must do something worthy of being remembered for. As a suicide attempt survivor, I too rue the notion that my life may never have any brilliant meaning beyond writing.

We are so pressured into being astounding that we no longer allow ourselves to be astounded and simply exist.

Existing is mundane, but is it always bad? To simply work and be with friends and have random adventures and moments we don’t always have to post online. Is the reason so many people are unhappy because we are constantly comparing someone else’s online life to ours offline? How hard should you push yourself to be TikTok famous or get a ton of followers or sell a bunch of books, instead of soaking in your current moments?

How hard are we trying to create the perceived better future, living in that vision, that we are no longer living in the current?

I have no answers. Only thoughts and questions. If all this wasn’t enough, a random old couple saw me talking to a random cat who trotted up to me, meowing loudly. I mindlessly stopped to chat with the fluffy black kitty and pet it, eliciting a chuckle from the lovely couple walking by. A perfectly normal moment where my mind is thinking on a weird, grander scale seemingly beyond my comprehension.

All I do know is that I am tired of never being present. Of being the suicide attempt survivor who doesn’t know how to live. My brain always feels like it is somewhere else, either in the past or in a future that isn’t even certain. Solutions aren’t so simple. But there’s got to be something more than a wandering mind and feeling so lost I’m never there for anything.

Life is so short. We face our mortality someday. Some of us for a second time, maybe more. The sun will set for us and we will face the permanence of death. I guess maybe all that matters is that we saw the light for what it was while we could still enjoy bathing in it.

Image by Jim Semonik from Pixabay

Book review: "Dead Ends" by Joseph Michael Reynolds

Dead Ends: The Pursuit, Conviction and Execution of Female Serial Killer Aileen Wuornos, the Damsel of Death

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5 stars)

This one was.... wild. I knew a bit about Aileen Wuornos but the full story is a train wreck. With that being said, the author reconstructed this horrific true story with objectiveness, evidence, respect to the victims; a journalistic approach that reads like a thriller or mystery novel. Reynolds recaptures the controversial road to capturing Wuornos and the dramatic trial, without inserting personal opinion. The reader is left to form their own opinion on Wuornos and her motives. A must read for anyone interested in this case.