Meredith Allard's Blog, page 17
January 25, 2020
How To Start a Story
This is how I begin writing a historical story, or any kind of story, really.
First, I notice when I have ideas that might become a story. The ability to recognize potential story ideas is a skill that most writers learn at one point or another. We all have random thoughts that float through our minds at any given time of the day, but for fiction writers these ideas are necessary for our sanity because they give us something to write about. Not every idea will become a short story or a novel, and there’s nothing wrong with playing around with different ideas to see if they sing to you. For a project to become a novel the writer has to be so in love with the idea that it becomes more painful not to write it than to write it. Not every idea will become a project. But you need to give yourself the freedom to experiment and see which ideas are just passing through, perhaps on their way to someone else, and which ideas have latched onto your heart and plan on sticking around. If an idea keeps you up at night, or if it keeps itching away at you during the day, then that idea may well be a keeper.
Second, I daydream. Daydreaming is necessary for fiction writers—for most artists, really. Or at least that’s what I tell people when I spend hours staring out the window, or at the wall, or anything else nearby. Sometimes, only occasionally, I may talk to myself. I don’t answer so it’s fine. For me, the daydreaming period is as important as the hours I spend actually writing the book. I need this time to allow myself to get a feel for who the characters are, how they respond in various situations, what it felt like to live during their time periods. Without imagination there is no land of make-believe, no living, breathing people to inhabit our stories, no sense of the time or the place where they live.
Next, if I’m still compelled by these characters after spending some time living with them in their worlds, at that point I’ll begin brainstorming my ideas for the story. I allow my imagination the run of the house during this time. Sometimes I’ll do a mind map of my various ideas for the story, filling up my page or screen with any and all ideas that come to mind. Sometimes I’ll do bullet points. Other times I’ll write out my ideas in my journal. However I brainstorm, I’ll write down what I think I know about the characters, what I think I know about the time period, and any story ideas I have so far. Notice I said what I think I know about the characters and time period because I’m continuing to learn about them throughout the writing process. This is also where I’ll do my preliminary research into the era. This first toe-dipping into the historical period allows me to picture my characters during this time and sometimes, as I learn more about the people and events of that era, I come up with new ideas about the characters and the plot of the story.
At this point, I’ll write an outline. You see all these quizzes online—are you a plotter or a pantster—and we’re supposed to fit neatly into one box or the other. If you’re not familiar with the terms, a plotter is a writer who plots out the story from the beginning and a pantser is someone who “flies by the seat of their pants” and goes with the flow, writing whatever part of the story they feel like without any plan. Most writers, I would venture to guess, fall somewhere in between. I certainly do. The logical part of my brain needs structure, at least to begin with, so I write an outline where I bullet point what I think will happen in the story. Again, I said what I think will happen because more often than not my outline changes as I continue writing. I’m not worried about a chapter by chapter breakdown at this point. I want a general feel for the story. More than the beginning, more than the middle, I’m looking for the ending of the story that makes me sit up and say yes, this is what this story is about. In other words, what I’m looking for first is the ending. Odd, probably, but for me, if I know how the story ends then I can create a map through the beginning and middle that brings me to where I want to be. Through trial and error and fried brain cells, eventually I’ll hit on the last line of the novel. Once I have that last line I can begin to construct a road map that will lead me, and the readers, through. A different way may work better for you. I know many writers who prefer to be surprised by the ending. I know many writers who work on the beginning first because it gives them a solid basis for the rest of the story. As with everything else to do with writing, experiment, try, fail, try again, and discover your own best way of uncovering your story.
Once I have a general outline then I’ll do my best to break down what I think I know about the story into a chapter by chapter outline. Even as I’m writing the chapter outline I know my ideas are fluid and the outline will change as I continue learning more about the characters and their stories. But you have to start somewhere, right? Once I have my chapter outline, then I’ll write my first draft.
I hate writing first drafts. There’s a reason why Anne Lamott and Ernest Hemingway refer to them as shitty first drafts. They are, in fact, shit. There’s also a reason why Dorothy Parker said, “I hate writing but I love having written.” As painful as it is, I know I have to push through the first draft because without it there’s no second draft and definitely no final draft.
January 20, 2020
Down Salem Way Giveaway
To celebrate the release of all four books of the Loving Husband Series for the first time as a box set I’m giving away five paperback copies of Down Salem Way. All you need to do is fill out the simple form below. The giveaway is open internationally. Winners will be announced on Monday, February 3, 2020.
[contact-form-7]
And here is an excerpt from Down Salem Way where Lizzie encounters Reverend Parris and the ailing Betty Parris and Abigail Williams. Enjoy.
* * * * *
These are the events of the day as related by Lizzie, which she repeated to me as soon as she arrived home. Lizzie is a keen observer and not much escapes notice of her attentive eyes.
The rains have stopped and the floods have dried enough to make the roads passable so Lizzie decided to bring firewood to the Parrises. I helped Lizzie and Patience load the smaller of our two wagons with the chopped wood. Since she was headed to the Village anyway, Lizzie thought to bring some firewood and candles to her father and Mary. Patience hitched Bethuda to the wagon, and together they drove along the Ipswich Road, past the chandler, the wheelwright, the cobbler, and the inn.
When they arrived near the Farms, Lizzie stopped at the parsonage since twas first on her way. Lizzie settled Bethuda near some wet grass outside. The horse doesn’t seem to mind the cold, used as she is to frigid winds, and the bay mare munched to her heart’s content. Patience gathered some firewood in her arms and followed Lizzie to the parsonage door. I have seen the Village parsonage and tis a respectable two-story dwelling about fifty feet long by twenty feet wide.
Lizzie knocked at the door but no one came. She stood, listening, and since she heard voices inside she peered through the window. Twas smaller inside than Lizzie expected, smaller than our house, certainly. The front room was dark with the lack of firelight but there, in the corner farthest from the window, was one small bed containing one small girl, and there, in another corner, was another small bed containing a slightly larger girl. Lizzie saw Reverend Parris standing between the two beds, his head turned upward, whilst his wife sat near the bed of the smaller girl, wiping the girl’s brow with a cloth. Nine-year-old Betty Parris’ head flopped to the side, her arms still, so much so that Lizzie was afeared she was too late. In the other bed was 11-year-old Abigail Williams, Parris’ niece. Parris turned toward the window, saw Lizzie’s concerned face, and he nodded at a dark-skinned woman to open the door.
As soon as Lizzie stepped inside she shivered, but not from cold, she thought. “Good day, Reverend Parris,” she said.
Parris condescended a nod in her direction. “Mistress Wentworth.” As he turned he noticed the chopped blocks of wood in Patience’s arms. “The Lord has blessed us with firewood this day.”
Lizzie knows Reverend Parris to be a determined man, powerful in his beliefs and firm in his actions. But something in him is changed. Perhaps tis his arguments with the Villagers. Knaves and cheaters, Parris calls them, and they call him worse. Lizzie remained near the door, searching for some understanding of the scowling man. His strong features are etched into a permanent mask of cantankerous impatience, his brow pressing down and his chin pressing up as though his face means to disappear altogether. He turned a smirk onto Lizzie, but his gaze softened when Patience shifted the weight of the wood from one hip to the other.
I have not taken much notice of the Reverend’s wife, but Lizzie describes her as frail. Twas an interesting scene, Lizzie said. Both Reverend and Mistress Parris hovered over their nine-year-old daughter’s bed so that Lizzie could see only strands of sweat-soaked hair near the top of the quilts and a hand as translucent as ice. The dark-skinned woman swept between the beds, stopping now and again to peer anxiously at Betty.
Across the room, also covered by several quilts but with no worried faces hovering over her, was Abigail Williams. Whether the Parrises had already given Abigail their attentions and were turned now to their daughter, or whether they did not care as much how Abigail fared, Lizzie did not know. She saw the sand-brown hair, also sweat-soaked, and the translucent skin, and Lizzie felt a motherly urge to tend the girl. Mistress Parris approached Lizzie with a bowed head and prayerful hands.
“Blessings on you, Mistress Wentworth,” Elizabeth Parris said. She looked toward her daughter.
Parris’ hair fluttered as he shook his head. “Christ hath placed His church in this world, as in a sea, and suffereth many storms and tempests to threaten its shipwreck whilst in the meantime He Himself seems to be fast asleep.” In that moment, Lizzie sympathized with the man Father calls the opposite of King Midas since everything Parris touches turns to shite. Parris is not an accomplished man. He did not finish his studies at Harvard College. He did not make a success of the family sugar plantation in Barbados. He did not succeed as a merchant. When he returned to the clergy the only parish that would have him was Salem Village, a hamlet of farmers, cantankerous farmers at that. Other reverends had been run out of the Village parish before him, so Parris must have known what he was taking on. In that moment, with his daughter and niece laying ill, perhaps even dying, Lizzie understood why Parris might think God had turned His back on his family.
In two long strides, Parris stood near his niece’s bed as though deciding what to do with the girl. A quick movement near the cauldron brought Parris’ attention to the dark-skinned woman.
“Tituba!” Parris’ voice boomed. “Take the wood! Light a fire so we can have some warmth in this house. Have you such thick hide you cannot feel the cold?”
Tituba did as she was bid. After she set the firewood aside, she lit the fire in the usual way, sweeping the cold ashes into the center of the hearth, laying the kindling and a triangle of logs over the ashes, then touching the flame of a lit reed round the kindling. With some encouragement, the flames blossomed and Lizzie stepped toward the warmth. Parris took two more long strides, this time toward the fire where he stared into the licking blaze.
Mistress Parris gestured toward the growing heat. “Look, Betty. Mistress Wentworth has brought us wood. Would you like to sit by the fire?” Betty showed no sign of understanding.
Lizzie stood near Abigail, still alone, her body limp and her eyes dark against her pale complexion. At first, the girl stared at the white winter sunlight streaking through the window. Then she gazed through Lizzie as though Lizzie was not there. Lizzie’s urge to tend Abigail dissipated under the strength of the girl’s glare. Whilst the Parrises tried to spark some life in their daughter, Lizzie backed toward the door.
“I’m sorry to see your girls so ill,” Lizzie said. “Please let us know if there’s anything else we can do.”
“You’re very kind, Mistress Wentworth,” said Mistress Parris. “We do miss seeing you about the Village. How is your husband?”
Parris scoffed. “The merchant? He is busy working for Profit, not the Promised Land. He is worried about Gold, not God.”
Lizzie thinks Parris is strict with his flock since he hands out public punishments for minor infractions and noncomformists are beaten into submission. But Lizzie says Mistress Parris has always been kind to her. From the day the Joneses arrived in Massachusetts, Mistress Parris offered Lizzie what helpful tips she could about how to make a life on the Farms. The Parrises have been here but two years themselves.
Mistress Parris’ lips pulled thin as she turned her eyes to the floor. “Tis good to see you, Mistress Wentworth. We appreciate the firewood more than you know.”
Tituba opened the door. As Lizzie walked past the threshold the ailing girls barked like dogs. Lizzie stepped back inside, unsure what to do. Mistress Parris wiped tears from her cheeks with an unsteady hand, but a glare from her husband dried her eyes.
“I’ll return with more firewood soon,” Lizzie said. “I hope to find the girls well when I return.” She looked again at Abigail. The girl’s eyes were closed now, her body prostrate once again. Then, as if pulled upright by a puppet master’s string, she jerked into a sitting position and began mumbling. What the girl said, Lizzie could not tell, but the straight back of Reverend Parris, and the worried mouths of Mistress Parris and Tituba, said enough. When Betty sat up in the same puppet-like manner, also mumbling, Parris stood stone-still between the two beds, looking from his daughter to his niece to his daughter again, his face blank.
January 11, 2020
Researching Historical Fiction
How I research historical fiction has changed a lot over the years. When I first started researching historical fiction I would check as many books about my chosen era as I could carry from the library, take meticulous notes, color code my notes with highlighters (blue for information about foods, pink for information about fashion, etc.), return those books and check out another pile, and so on until I had enough information to begin drafting my story. As I was writing, I knew exactly where to look in my notebook for the information I needed. If I were writing a dinner scene, I could easily find my notes about what foods people ate then. Pieces of information I referred to often, important dates or events that I kept mentioning, were written on index cards, also color-coded, for easier access.
These days I don’t do all my research before I start writing. Now I do some preliminary research by reading generally around my topic and then I outline my novel. Usually, through the process of deciding the progress of the story, I realize that specific bits of information I’ll need and then I’ll search specifically for those bits. I still use libraries for research, but I do a lot of my research online these days through library websites and scholarly articles that I can access through my university’s library website. To organize my information (for food, clothing, political life, historical figures, and anything else I’ll need) I create different folders on Scrivener where I type my notes along with annotations about where I found the information.
On a side note, I wonder if we’ve lost something by going digital. I have writer friends who still take notes the old-fashioned way—by handwriting them—and I wonder if they aren’t onto something. I won’t bore you with the details, but there’s research that says that we tend to learn better if we handwrite something. We certainly learn more by handwriting than cutting and pasting information. Yes, it takes longer to write something than it does to type it (at least it does for me), but if you really want to learn the information then you might consider taking notes the old-timey way with pen and paper.
Completing my research on an as-needed basis saves me hours of research I’ll never use in the story. That’s not to say time spent researching is wasted time. Even pieces of information that don’t find their way into my narrative are still valuable since it gives me new background into the story I wouldn’t have had otherwise. And sometimes those pieces of information end up in different stories. That’s especially true if you write different novels set during the same era. I did a lot of research into the Salem Witch Trials when I was writing Her Dear and Loving Husband. Since the novel moves back and forth between present-day Salem and Salem in 1692, I didn’t use all the research I gathered about the era. When I wrote Down Salem Way, the prequel to Her Dear and Loving Husband, I was able to incorporate a lot of that research into my new story.
I have an odd habit of writing historical fiction set in eras I know little or nothing about. I came up with story ideas about the Salem Witch Trials, the Trail of Tears, Biblical Jerusalem, New York City and Washington, D.C. during World War I, and the American Civil War, and for each of those stories I had to learn the history to write the novel. I don’t mind when it happens that way, though. I often get ideas for the plot from my research, so the research helps to make my novel even richer than it might have been without the historical background.
When It Rained at Hembry Castle was a different experience. Due to my love for Dickens and years of reading about the Victorian era, I was writing about a time I was familiar with. When I began writing Hembry Castle I realized that I could include aspects of my favorite TV show, Downton Abbey, to bring the story to life. The hero of Hembry Castle, the aspiring young writer Edward Ellis, became the focal point of the story, along with his love interest, Daphne Meriwether, but then I decided to include upstairs and downstairs elements of life during the Victorian era as well.
In order to write this novel, I started with the author I know best—Dickens. I’ve read all his novels, many more than once, some more than twice, so I started with the one I knew had the most in common with the story I had in mind for Hembry—Our Mutual Friend. From there, I went back to a few favorite books about the Victorian era—What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew by Daniel Pool and The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens’ London and Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England by Judith Flanders. I had read those books previously but reread them for a refresher course. While reading about the Victorian era, I discovered a new favorite historian, Ruth Goodman, who impressed me with the fact that she doesn’t just talk about Victorian clothing, she makes it and wears it. She’s tried out many elements of living in the Victorian era, which gives her work that much more authority. Her book, How To Be a Victorian: A Dusk-to-Dawn Guide to Victorian Life, is a must-read for anyone interested in life during the Victorian period. I also read The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in Regency and Victorian England From 1811-1901 by Kristine Hughes. Edward Ellis is loosely based on a young Charles Dickens, but I didn’t need to read anything specifically for that since I’ve read pretty much every biography about Dickens. It was nice to be able to use the information I had in my head for a change.
I realized that I needed to learn more about what the upstairs/downstairs world looked like in the 1870s. To my surprise, it wasn’t so different from the way it’s portrayed in Downton Abbey, which begins in 1912. While I picked up a lot about manor house living from watching Downton, as many fans of the show have, I felt I needed more specifics so I read Up and Down Stairs: The History of the Country House Servant by Jeremy Musson. I gleaned some great information from that book, and it provided a strong background for me so I could see how the country house servant evolved over the years. The upstairs/downstairs world isn’t part of our culture in America the way it is in England, and I wonder if that accounts for Americans’ fascination with Downton Abbey—it’s a glimpse into a lifestyle we weren’t familiar with.
As I stumble through my first draft of the story I get a sense of what information I need. As I was writing Hembry, I realized that if Edward was a political journalist then he would know politics (obviously). I needed to read about the political climate of the time, but it wasn’t too hard since I knew what I was looking for—events in British politics in 1870. I remember learning about Gladstone and Disraeli in a history class about Victorian Britain, and it was nice being able to put that knowledge to use as well.
I also realized that I needed information about Victorian etiquette. There were such specific rules for every aspect of life, and since part of Daphne’s struggle in the story is to learn to live in this upstairs/downstairs world, she had to learn those rules. I found The Essential Handbook of Victorian Etiquette by Thomas E. Hill, which was written for Americans during the Victorian era, but after a little digging I discovered that the rules were essentially the same in Britain so I used that book as my primary reference. I had a lot of fun writing those scenes because Daphne is rather amused by her grandmother’s nitpicking about how her manners aren’t refined enough for Society.
I was lucky enough to be able to visit England twice for research as I was writing Hembry. Most of the London locations in the story were chosen because they were places I’ve visited myself so I had seen what I was describing. I stood on the Victoria Embankment near the Houses of Parliament watching the Thames roll as Edward does. I’ve taken some of Edward’s walks through the city. Many of the buildings are different (I’m pretty sure The Gherkin wasn’t around in 1870), yet some of the buildings are the same, which is amazing to me. Here in Las Vegas buildings are imploded if they’re more than 20 years old.
In many ways, researching When It Rained at Hembry Castle was the easiest work I’ve done so far as a historical novelist because it was set in a time I was already familiar with. It’s always magical to me when I start to see how I can take this knowledge of history and weave it into the story I have in mind. What is even more amazing is when the history leads the story in directions I had never considered before. That, for me, is the joy of writing historical fiction.
January 6, 2020
Witches in Historical Fiction
Witches and witchcraft are popular themes in novels, especially historical fiction. I’ve done more than my fair share of reading and writing historical fiction set around witches, witch accusations, and witch trials. The key to remember, at least with three of these novels, is that while the characters are accused of witchcraft, they aren’t necessarily witches. The one that stands out in this crowd is Daughters of the Witching Hill by Mary Sharratt, where Mother Demdike and her granddaughter Alizon do indeed seem capable of casting spells.
Daughters of the Witching Hill
I was drawn to this book because it’s about a witch hunt in Pendle Hill that took place in late 16th and early 17th century England. Sharratt’s narrative style caught me from the first page. The novel has an interesting premise. What if those accused of witchcraft were actually witches who interacted with familiars? Sharratt’s main characters, Mother Demdike and her granddaughter Alizon, may suffer the consequences for their knowledge of magic.
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
I enjoyed reading this one because it’s similar to the Loving Husband Trilogy in that it goes back and forth between the past and the present. I read this while completing my own dissertation for my doctorate, so I could relate to Connie, a history graduate student, very well. Connie is working on her graduate thesis when she begins to have visions of a woman who was condemned for being a witch since she used healing herbs in Salem in the 1690s. Connie must unravel the mystery behind Deliverance Dane and her physick book to save herself and others.
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
I loved this book when I was a teenager and I still love it. Though Speare only wrote three books for young adults, each of the three are classics. More than any other book I read when researching Down Salem Way, The Witch of Blackbird Pond pulled me into life in a 17th-century Puritan colony. One of the things I had been struggling with was finding what day to day life in Puritan New England looked like. The Witch of Blackbird Pond helped me uncover that daily life in detail. Also, the main character, Kit Tyler, grows a lot during this story, as strong protagonists do.
Down Salem Way
I couldn’t have written Down Salem Way without reading the previously mentioned novels. Yes, it’s important to research the history when you’re writing historical fiction, but often other historical novels will bring the past to life in a more visceral way than nonfiction history books. Even though Daughters of the Witching Hill and The Witch of Blackbird Pond weren’t specifically about the Salem Witch Trials, they still dealt with how and why someone might be accused of witchcraft. The general story of what happens to Elizabeth Wentworth is already known to readers of the Loving Husband Trilogy. Uncovering the specifics of how and why Elizabeth is accused of witchcraft was the joy and the challenge of writing Down Salem Way. Reading other historical novels about similar times and similar circumstances helped to get my imagination rolling toward the answers.
If you’re writing historical fiction, by all means, yes, research the history behind what you’re writing. You must do that, or else why write historical fiction? But don’t forget to read other novels set during similar eras. Often the creativity of fiction will prompt your imagination to soar.
December 16, 2019
Christmas With the Wentworths
Since this post was so popular last year I thought I’d share it again. Here’s Chapter 10 from Her Loving Husband’s Curse.
Happy holidays!
* * * * *
A December storm broke over Salem, swinging the skeleton branches of bare-backed trees, dropping buckets of snow here and there—along the wide lawn of Salem Common, on the roof tops, covering the wooden House of the Seven Gables, hanging icicles from the Salem Witch Museum and Witch House—leaving Essex County a winter landscape fit for a North Pole postcard. The bay was flat and gray, reflecting the blotted sky and heaving clouds. It was Christmas Eve, and everywhere was decorated with Santas and reindeer and snowmen. Christmas lights, red lights, green lights, blue and white lights, rainbow lights, brightened the storm-darkened streets.
Sarah sat by the diamond-paned window in the great room watching the snow fall. Cinnamon-scented candles burned on the kitchen counter, and pine wreaths with red glass balls decorated the walls. The Christmas tree—Grace’s first, and James’ too—stood tall and green in the corner near the kitchen, decorated with rainbow lights and garland. The whole house glowed comfort and warm. Sarah thought of her favorite holiday song, “Silent Night,” and she hummed it, the lyrics fitting her mood: “All is calm, all is bright…” She thought of Grace, asleep in her crib, her golden curls framing her face like an angel’s halo. “Sleep in heavenly peace…” Grace was so like her father. Sarah smiled, and when she saw her reflection in the window she laughed out loud. She could see her own joy reflected back to her.
Life doesn’t get better than this, she thought.
The cauldron had been removed, leaving a screened-off fireplace, and a low fire burned, sending warmth into the great room. She turned on the radio and holiday music filled the space, the mellow tones of Bing Crosby’s voice lulling her. She checked the basket beneath the Christmas tree and saw that she had wrapped all her presents, for James and Grace, for Olivia and Martha, for Jennifer and Chandresh, for Timothy and Howard, for Jocelyn, Steve, and Billy. She would see them all the next night, Christmas night, when they would gather together in the wooden gabled house to celebrate. She went into the kitchen and checked the apple pies in the oven, then stirred the soup on the stove, crinkling her nose and closing the lid as quickly as she could. She realized she would do anything for her husband. When she heard the squeak of the front door as wood scraped against wood, she smiled. No matter how many times she saw him again, it was special.
[image error]Photo by Rodion Kutsaev from Unsplash
“Hello.”
“Hello yourself.”
She threw her arms around James’ neck and pointed up her chin. He kissed her, then brushed a few stray curls from her eyes. She took a step back, examining him, wondering.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I want to know how you know Chandresh from the Trail of Tears. I want to know what happened. And don’t you dare tell me another time, James Wentworth. I’ll scream loud enough to wake all of Salem if you tell me another time.”
“Another night?”
Sarah wasn’t amused. “Is it something bad? You shouldn’t be afraid of telling me something bad. I’m not that fragile, James. Chandresh told me you helped his family. Tell me how you met him. Tell me what you saw on the Trail of Tears.”
“It’s a long story.”
“We have time.”
James sighed. “You win,” he said.
“I always do.”
He went into the kitchen and made a pot of her favorite tea, Earl Grey. She sat on the sofa, watching him while he moved easily through the slick, modern kitchen. He wasn’t concerned when she remodeled, and he wasn’t upset when the cauldron was removed. “My life is now,” he said when the workers arrived to carry the heavy black pot away. “I don’t live in the seventeenth century anymore. We could get rid of it all, Sarah, the house and everything in it, and it doesn’t matter. You’re my home now.” As he brought her some tea, cream and two sugars the way she liked it, she realized she was amazed by him. He was so strong in every way.
She sipped her tea while he paced the great room, to Grace’s bedroom, to their bedroom, and back. He often paced when he spoke about the past. Finally, he said, “What would you like to know?”
“How did you meet Chandresh?”
“Chandresh lived near me when I lived in the Smoky Mountains in the 1830s.”
“The Trail of Tears happened in 1838,” Sarah said.
“Yes.”
“I thought you were in London in the 1830s.”
“I was, until 1837, when I came back here. I returned to London in 1843.”
“That’s when you tutored at Cambridge and met Dickens.”
James nodded. “When I returned in 1837, I came here to Salem for a while, but it was too hard. I kept wandering to Danvers to see the Rebecca Nurse Homestead, and I’d go to the Old Burying Point to spit on Hathorne’s grave. Not that I told Nathaniel I did that, though I suspect he wouldn’t have minded very much.”
“You knew Nathaniel Hawthorne?”
“I can’t say I knew him well. He was so shy he hardly said a word in company. If he said a complete sentence he was talkative that night.”
“There’s so much I want to know about you. But tell me about Chandresh.”
James stood near the window, looking at the mesh-like snowflakes fluttering down from the clouds. “He and his family were pushed off their land with the others.” His fingers tapped his legs as though he were typing out frustrated words. “It was more than losing their land. It was the unfairness of it all.”
“Unfairness shouldn’t surprise you.” Sarah patted the sofa, and James sat beside her. He leaned his head against the cushion and closed his eyes. His gold hair fell away from his face, and Sarah remembered why she was so taken when she saw him the first time, the very first time, in 1691. Sitting across from her at the supper table, he looked so thoughtful, so kind. So beautiful. And it was true. He was all those things. She stroked his face from his temple, down his cheekbone, over his lips, to his chin. He opened his eyes and smiled.
“What was I talking about?” he asked.
“Chandresh.”
“Right.” He closed his eyes again. “You were here in the 1690s. You know what the Europeans thought of the natives.”
“They thought the natives were inferior. Uncivilized.”
“European society centered around owning land. The more land you owned, the wealthier you were, the higher you were on the social ladder. But the native people didn’t believe in owning land. They believed land was meant to be shared. They worshipped nature, and they believed in a great spirit that created all life, and they believed all life was interconnected—the people, the rivers, the animals, the trees.”
“They believe all life is interconnected. They’re still here.”
“You’re right,” James said. “Then, the Europeans couldn’t understand the natives, their way of life, their way of thinking. The native people lived in the natural world, but the Europeans needed to separate themselves from nature. They built dams, cut down trees, built fences—this is mine, that’s yours over there. The native people’s creation stories emphasize having respect for all living things, not dominion over them. When the settlers realized the natives didn’t believe they owned the land, that made it easier to take it. It took years of wrangling, but finally the United States government got the land concessions it wanted from Cherokee leaders and pushed the people west to Oklahoma in the 1830s.”
“Was Chandresh forced to walk?”
“He was, along with his whole family. Nunna daul Isunyi, the Cherokee called it. The Trail Where They Cried. Chandresh didn’t know me when they began walking. He couldn’t see me then.”
“He couldn’t see you?”
“That part comes later.” James sniffed the air. “What is that? Not cookies?”
“Oh no.”
Sarah rushed into the kitchen, slid on the heavy cooking mitts, and pulled the browned apple pies from the oven. She turned off the burner and moved the soup pot to the cool side of the stove. James stood behind her.
“What is that?” he asked again.
“When I was writing the menu for Christmas dinner I remembered making blood soup when we were first married. I made blood pudding then too, but that’s a sausage and I didn’t think you’d like that as much. I found a recipe online, and…”
“And…?”
“I used some blood from one of your bags and added some spices.” She opened the lid and dipped a ladle into the soup. “Can you eat it?”
He leaned over the pot and inhaled deeply. “It smells good. I’m going to try some.”
Sarah pulled a bowl from the cabinet and ladled in some soup. She grabbed a spoon from the drawer and set the bowl and the spoon in front of James as he sat at the table. He looked eager to try it, which pleased her. When he brought the spoon to his lips, she watched his face.
James nodded. “It’s good, Sarah. The spices are different, but I like them.”
“Really?”
“Really. This is the first normal meal I’ve had in over three hundred years. Thank you.”
When James offered her a bite, Sarah wrinkled her nose.
“It’s all for you,” she said.
“You used to eat blood soup.”
“I used to eat a lot of things I find disgusting now.”
He ate a few more spoonfuls, nodding at each taste. “It couldn’t have been too pleasant making this.”
“I’ll do anything for you, James. I’ll even make you blood soup.”
[image error]Photo by Annie Spratt from Unsplash
Suddenly, James sat still, his head to the side, listening. Sarah knew his preternatural mannerisms well enough by now to know he heard something she couldn’t.
“What is it?”
“A smug, self-satisfied shuffle about five miles down the road.” James shook his head. “Geoffrey.”
“What about him?”
“He’s here.”
As if on cue, Geoffrey knocked an offbeat tune on the front door. When Sarah stepped away, James grabbed her arm. “Where are you going?” he asked.
“To let Geoffrey in.”
“Why?”
“Because I like him and I’m not leaving him outside on Christmas Eve.”
“You like him?”
“He’s funny.”
Geoffrey’s voice boomed through the door. “That’s right, James. I’m funny.”
“You’re not that funny,” James said.
“I’m funny enough.”
Sarah opened the door, and Geoffrey bowed. “Good evening, little human person. How is the littlest human person tonight?”
“Good evening, Geoffrey. She’s fine. She’s sleeping.”
“Very good. One night I’ll come round whilst she’s still awake. I’d like to see her again.” He dropped onto the sofa and stared at the Christmas tree as though he had never seen one before. “Bringing the outdoors indoors. And it’s all sparkly like. Interesting.” Then he sniffed the air. “What’s that?” He skipped into the kitchen. “It’s… it’s…” He stood near the stove and sniffed the soup, closing his eyes while he savored the acrid aroma.
James pulled the bowl toward him. “My wife made it for me.”
“What is it? You must tell me.”
“It’s blood soup,” Sarah said. “I made it for James for Christmas. Would you like some?”
Geoffrey sat next to James at the table. “Let’s have a go.”
Sarah pulled a bowl from the cupboard, ladled some soup into it, then set it in front of Geoffrey.
“You can celebrate Christmas with us,” she said.
“Did you really make this for James for Christmas?”
“I did.”
[image error]Photo by Ian Schneider for Unsplash
“That’s rather nice, actually. I forgot how pleasant it was to have a wife, someone soft and warm who thinks about things like Christmas and soups one might like to eat. My wife always went on about little things she could do for my comfort. She was quite the little homemaker she was.”
“I didn’t know you were married,” Sarah said.
“Oh yes. My Becky was plump and pretty, just the way I like them, but it was a very, very long time ago. Nothing to concern ourselves with now, though I seem to be thinking of her more and more these days, especially when I’m here. All the memories…” He looked at James and sighed.
“Try your soup, Geoffrey,” Sarah said.
He took a spoonful and nodded. “This is excellent, little human person.” He emptied the bowl in two bites and eyed the pot on the stove.
“Would you like some more?” Sarah asked.
“Please.”
While Sarah filled his bowl, Geoffrey eyed James with an odd intensity. “When is your birthday, James?” he asked.
“Why do you care about my birthday?”
“I was just wondering when your birthday was, that’s all. You needn’t be so huffity-puffity over a simple question.”
“His birthday is April 19,” Sarah said.
“How old are you?” Geoffrey asked.
“I’m more than 300 years old,” James answered.
“More than 300? Heavens, you’re old.”
“I’m younger than you.”
“That’s true enough.” Geoffrey’s eyes narrowed. “How old am I?”
“How do I know how old you are?”
“When were you born?” Sarah asked.
“I haven’t a clue. It was ages ago.”
“Did anything special happen the year you were born?”
“Don’t encourage him,” James said.
Geoffrey tapped his temple as though he were trying to jolt open some long-gone memory. “I remember Mother saying she named me Geoffrey Charles because I was born the same day as the future King Charles the First. Then there was something about the East India Company being granted a royal charter the month after I was born. She said she thought of naming me Geoffrey Shakespeare since I was much ado about nothing.”
James kept his mouth shut. He opened his laptop and searched the Internet. “1600,” he said. “King Charles the First was born on November 19, 1600.”
Geoffrey grasped Sarah’s hands and danced with her around the great room, swinging her around, arm in arm like an elegant line dance. He stopped dancing and looked over James’ shoulder, his eyes squinting at the words through the glare of the flat computer screen. “What is that with the words on it?”
“It’s a computer,” James said. “How can you be in the twenty-first century and not recognize a computer?”
“I am in the twenty-first century, James, I am not of the twenty-first century. I came of age in the days when bookbinding was an art. I am appalled at the state of what you call literature these days. In my time, we didn’t have electronic doodahs like iPigs. I prefer hardcovers that hurt your back when you carry them. That is a book. Though I suppose reading on a Snook is better than not reading at all.”
“On a Nook, Geoffrey,” said James.
“Whatever. It’s all nonsense. I’m from a courteous time when we had more eloquent forms of communication.”
“Town criers.”
Geoffrey turned toward James, his hands on his hips, his eyes slits, his lips pursed in annoyance with his vampling. “Do not mock a perfectly acceptable form of communication. A clean, simple way to get information, that. The town crier arrived, said his bit around town, and left us be to act on or ignore the news as we saw fit. You can’t pretend you don’t know things these days. Information is everywhere. When that story about vampires being real gets out it’ll be around the world in sixty seconds, let alone sixty days.”
“Who’s putting out a story about vampires?” Sarah asked.
James shook his head. “Don’t pay any attention to him.”
Geoffrey looked at James, at Sarah, then James again. He shrugged and tapped the laptop keys like a little boy trying to play the piano. “So what else does your magic box say about London in the seventeenth century? What else happened when I was born?”
James swatted Geoffrey’s hands away, typed seventeenth century London into the search engine, and scrolled through the results.
“Well? What does it say?”
“I don’t know,” James said. “I haven’t gotten there yet.”
“When did you start speaking like an American with that ridiculous accent?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re English.”
“I most certainly am not English.”
“You were born in London.”
“In 1662. A lot has happened since then, you know, a little something called the American Revolution.”
“Oh that.”
“Oh that?”
“A little misunderstanding turned into a major blowout because you children couldn’t be bothered to pay your taxes.”
James glared at Geoffrey. “I think it had something to do with taxation without representation.”
“Are you still blowing that old horn?” Geoffrey’s frustration showed as two pink spots on his white-blue cheeks. “You know perfectly well that whole taxation without representation shtick was a ruse. You had representation through the colonial legislature, yet you only paid one twenty-sixth of the taxes we paid. We were just trying to recoup some of our losses. You children were expensive to care for, needing protection from the natives over here and whoever else over there.”
“There wasn’t enough representation. Our votes wouldn’t have counted for anything.”
“Aha!” Geoffrey hopped from foot to foot, pointing at James, the glee everywhere in his bright eyes and wicked smile. “Finally, after more than two hundred years you admit you had representation. Taxation without representation my patooties.” Geoffrey paced the great room, propelled by his agitation. “You know the real problem? You didn’t care about the tax levied on tea. You cared that we undercut the price of tea from the smugglers. Surprise! Most of the colonial leaders were smugglers! And let’s not forget that the English agreed to stop stealing land from the Indians. That wasn’t good enough for you greedy, land-hungry colonists.”
“Don’t you dare call me a land-hungry colonist,” James said. He stood to his full height, eye to eye with Geoffrey. “I did everything I could to help the people after their land was taken. I even slunk as low as you.” He stopped short, unable to continue. Sarah didn’t know.
“I know what you did,” Geoffrey said. When Geoffrey saw the shocked expression on James’ face, the way James looked at Sarah to see if she noticed anything odd about the turn of their conversation, he backed away. He whispered so only James could hear. “She doesn’t know?” James nodded. “You keep a lot of secrets from your little human person.” James nodded again.
In a voice loud enough for the neighbors to take part in the conversation, Geoffrey said, “I think you need to write an essay admitting how you wayward American children had representation through the colonial legislature, there, Professor Doctor James Wentworth, and get it published in all those boring scholarly journals only academics read. It’s about time we get that story straight.”
“I think you should go around Massachusetts as a town crier and shout it out at all the public buildings,” James said. “You can start at Faneuil Hall in Boston. You can leave right now.”
“I think…”
Sarah pushed her way between them, arms out, keeping them on separate sides of the room like a teacher breaking up a fight on the playground. “Boys,” she said, “please, let it go. It was a long time ago.”
“Listen to your wife,” Geoffrey said. “She’s smarter than you.” He walked back to his corner by the kitchen. “What about you, Missy? When did you start speaking with that ridiculous American accent?”
“I was born in Boston,” Sarah said.
Geoffrey pointed at Sarah’s head. “You were born in Boston.” He pointed at her heart. “But you were born in England.” He looked toward the kitchen. “Can I have more soup?” he asked.
James shrugged. “Help yourself.”
After Geoffrey left, James stood outside making sure the annoying creature was gone. He looked perturbed, James, as if Geoffrey were an unfortunate relation you have to deal with maybe on Thanksgiving and Christmas or Easter, and then you don’t think about him the rest of the year. When James walked back into the house, Sarah took his hands.
“I don’t understand why you invited him to our wedding if he annoys you so much,” she said. “He thinks you’re friends now so he stops by sometimes.”
James shook his head. “I don’t understand it myself. I’m appalled and fascinated by him at the same time. I hate him for abandoning me after he turned me, yet I feel drawn to him, connected to him, like he has some answer I’ve been looking for. Perhaps it was the note.”
“What note?”
“After he came here the first time he left me a note saying he hadn’t abandoned me the way I thought he had. He kept track of me, he knew everywhere I was, everything I did, but since I was doing all right he stayed away.”
“Maybe he thought he was doing the right thing. Maybe he thinks creating vamplings is like being a mother bird who pushes her young from the nest—that’s how you help them fly.”
James shook his head. “There are other ways to help vamplings learn to survive. You help them by being there. Teaching them. Letting them know they’re not alone in the world.”
“Like being a parent.”
James smiled. “Yes,” he said.
Sarah brushed some stray gold strands from his eyes. “Geoffrey’s a link to your past.”
“I suppose he is.” James looked at the pot on the stove. “How about more of that soup?”
“I can do that.” Sarah ladled more soup into his bowl and set it in front of him “Look how normal we are,” she said. “A husband and wife together on Christmas Eve, the husband eating soup, holiday music in the background, a fire in the hearth, our daughter asleep in her crib getting ready for her first Christmas. We’re just like other families.”
“We were visited by Geoffrey and you think we’re like other families?”
“All families have a crazy relative. It’s mandatory.”
“Geoffrey a relative? God help us.”
James finished the soup and licked the spoon. “That’s one thing Geoffrey was right about,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“You’re smarter than I am.”
Sarah smiled. “I know,” she said.
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November 25, 2019
Posts on Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
It’s Thanksgiving week here in the U.S., with the official holiday this Thursday. To celebrate, I thought I’d share the links to my posts on life in Colonial Massachusetts. True, the Salem Witch Trials occurred in 1692, while the settlers we celebrate on Thanksgiving arrived earlier that century. True, most of what we know about “the first Thanksgiving” isn’t correct. Even so, the day can be meaningful if we take time away from the insanity to focus on what we have to be thankful for.
Enjoy the posts. Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends.
[image error]Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash
Christmas in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
Clothing in Colonial Massachusetts
Cooking in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
Daily Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
Food in Colonial Massachusetts
Goodwives in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
November 18, 2019
News and Updates
Greetings! I just wanted to share a few quick updates.
1. Down Salem Way
is getting great reviews.
The reviews are still coming in, but so far the feedback for Down Salem Way has been amazing. New five-star reviews are popping up every day. When I put Down Salem Way out into the world, I hoped readers would love this new insight into James and Elizabeth’s time in Salem during the witch hunts. So far, the answer is yes, they do. Thank you.
2. Down Salem Way
is on sale for 99 cents.
To celebrate the holiday season, Down Salem Way is currently on sale for 99 cents on Amazon and other online retailers. See the Buy My Books page for purchase links.
3. My World War I and Woman’s Suffrage Movement novel, Victory Garden, is back on sale.
Victory Garden is back on sale at Amazon for $2.99. The novel will be available on KDP Select through February 17, 2020. It’s funny to say the story is a good read for fans of Downton Abbey because that’s the same tag line used for When It Rained at Hembry Castle, but Victory Garden is a good read for fans of Downton Abbey. In my defense, I wrote Victory Garden 15 years ago, before Downton Abbey aired. Victory Garden takes place from 1917-1921 and follows Rose Scofield as she navigates life during World War I and the Woman’s Suffrage Movement.
If you’d like a review copy of Victory Garden, I’m happy to provide one. Please get in touch through the Contact Me link above.
November 5, 2019
Interview With Supernatural Central
Here’s my Short and Quick interview with Supernatural Central. You can see it on their site here, but since the words on the website are dark for some reason I posted the interview here for you to enjoy.
1. Tell me a little bit about your main character of this book.
The main character of Down Salem Way is James Wentworth, a
young man who left England with his father, John, in 1690 in hopes of
furthering John’s prosperous mercantile business in the American colonies. They
settle in Salem in the Massachusetts Bay Colony where James falls in love with
Elizabeth Jones, a farmer’s daughter. James wants to be a dutiful son and he
stays in Salem helping John with his business, but he’s torn because he wants
to return to England to his studies at Cambridge. Suddenly, the Salem Witch
Trials rear their ugly heads and James and Elizabeth find themselves caught up
in the madness. Really, it’s James’ love for Elizabeth that drives this story.
Down Salem Way is written as James’ diary as he and Elizabeth experience the
witch hunt hysteria in Salem.
2. Do you believe in the paranormal and if so, do you have an experience you can share?
I’ve had a lot of questions about whether or not I believe
in the supernatural elements of the Loving Husband books. I don’t believe that
vampires or werewolves actually exist. I don’t think it’s so much about
believing in Wiccans because they’re really there. There are many all over the
world who consider themselves Wiccan. Do they have magic powers like Miriam and
the other witches in the Loving Husband books? I know Wiccans cast spells, and
I’m not one to judge whether or not their spells work!
I believe that human beings are composed of body, mind, and
spirit. I believe we’re more than our earthly experiences and five senses show
us. I do believe our souls go on after our human bodies die, and I think it’s
possible that those souls go on to be reincarnated. Down Salem Way and The Loving
Husband Trilogy are fiction, and the reason I love writing fiction above
all else is because it allows me to explore the possibilities. Paranormal
events may or may not happen—I don’t know for sure one way or the other—but writing
these books was my way of wondering aloud what the paranormal world (and
vampires and witches) might look like if it was real.
3. What titles are you working on now that you can tell us about?
My next novel is going to be a Christmas book from my Hembry
Castle series. When It Rained at Hembry Castle is based on my love for Charles
Dickens and Downton Abbey, and it’s a sweet Victorian romance. Christmas at
Hembry Castle will be released Winter 2020. You can visit me online at
www.meredithallard.com to learn more about Down Salem Way, the Loving Husband
Trilogy, and When It Rained at Hembry Castle, and my future books as well.
November 4, 2019
Down Salem Way is on Tour!
Hooray! Down Salem Way starts its blog tour today. Please do stop by the blogs for interviews, guest posts, and reviews of Down Salem Way.
November 4 Other Worlds of Romance (Guest Blog)
Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Paranormal Romances
http://lindamooney.blogspot.com/
November 5 Supernatural Central (Interview)
http://supernaturalcentral.blogspot.com
November 6 Boundless Book Reviews
http://www.boundlessbookreviews.com
November 7 Authors’ Secrets (Interview)
https://www.tenastetler.com/category/authors-secrets-blog/
November 8 Fang-tastic Books (Guest Blog)
http://fang-tasticbooks.blogspot.com
November 11 Paranormalists
https://paranormalists.blogspot.com/
November 11 Roxanne’s Realm
http://www.roxannerhoads.com/
November 12 The Creatively Green Write at Home Mom (Guest Blog)
http://creativelygreen.blogspot.com/
November 13 Jazzy Book Reviews
http://bookreviewsbyjasmine.blogspot.com/
November 14 Sapphyria’s Books
https://saphsbooks.blogspot.com/
November 15 JB’s Bookworms with Brandy Mulder
https://jbbookworms.blogspot.com
November 18 SImply Kelina
http://simplykelina.blogspot.com
November 19 Booklikes
http://roxannerhoads.booklikes.com
November 20 Momma Says: To Read or Not to Read
http://mommasaystoreadornottoread.blogspot.com/
November 21 Books 4 Book Nerds
https://booknerdbooks.wordpress.com
November 22 The Book Junkie Reads (Guest Blog)
https://thebookjunkiereadspromos.blogspot.com/
November 25 3 Partners in Shopping, Nana, Mommy, and Sissy, Too!
http://3partnersinshopping.blogspot.com
November 26 T’s Stuff (Interview)
http://www.tsstuff.net
November 27 Don’t Judge, Read
http://dontjudgeread.blogspot.ca
November 29 Ogitchida Kwe’s Book Blog
http://ogitchidabookblog.blogspot.com
December 2 Lisa’s World of Books
http://www.lisasworldofbooks.net/
December 2 Exclusive Excerpt
https://www.bewitchingbooktours.biz/
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October 21, 2019
Goodwives in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
Those familiar with The Crucible, the Salem Witch Trials, or even life in Colonial America have heard the term Goody, short for Goodwife. The term Goody was meant in a similar way as Mrs. today since Goody indicated a married woman. In Salem in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Goody didn’t refer to every married woman; instead, it was a way to distinguish social classes. If a woman was Goody Whateverherlastnamewas, she was from the lower classes, perhaps a farmer’s wife. The wives of more prominent men were known as Mistress. Farmers were known as Goodman and merchants, lawyers, and others of the wealthier classes were known as Mister.
As I researched Down Salem Way, I became fascinated by the daily lives of women in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. What I discovered, which is what one often discovers when researching history, is that there is no simple answer to what life was like at any point in time. A woman’s lifestyle in seventeenth-century Colonial America was influenced by many factors, from the family she was born into, to the man she married, to whether or not she married, to how much money she had, or to her social status.
The ideal of how colonial women lived is often at odds with the reality of what really happened. We have this present-day idea that women only started working recently, growing in numbers and opportunities mainly since World War II. The truth is, women have always worked—working-class women, at least. Yes, it’s true, wealthier women didn’t work, as though their husband’s social status could be confirmed by how little his wife had to do.
The title “goodwife” shouts the importance of marriage for seventeenth-century women. Colonial society expected women to marry, raise children, and manage a household while being model wives, obedient to their menfolk. According to Abramovitz (2017), “…to be proper helpmeets, women each had to acquire a husband and a family and had to take up homemaking in her own home” (p. 40). Women were dependent on men for financial support. Widowed and divorced women were expected to remarry, and bachelors and spinsters were expected to live in an established household—one run by a married couple (Abramovitz, 2017). As Abramovitz said, “Unmarried women, in addition, faced social disapproval as dependent girls and incomplete women…newspapers and town gossips often characterized single females as unattractive, disagreeable ‘old virgins’ who were unable to catch a man” (p. 41).
Scholars such as Karlsen (1998) argue that it was the number of unmarried women in Salem in 1692 that lit the flame that spread the madness of the witch accusations. While some of the accusers, such as Elizabeth Putnam, were middle-aged, others such as Abigail Williams and Mary Warren were young women in their late teens or early twenties who, according to colonial society, should have already had establishments of their own. Since these young women were still single, working as servants for others, and possibly frustrated with their lives, the witch accusations gave them an excuse to begin acting out. Instead of being seen as old virgins who couldn’t catch a man, they were listened to and respected by the magistrates who believed their cries of invisible specters harming them in the night. While such a theory can never be proven, it’s an interesting one to consider.
In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, women had no religious rights and no legal rights, which were one and the same in a Puritan society. Women’s legal identities were taken over by their husbands when they married. Married women couldn’t enter into legal contracts by themselves. Wives handed over control of their property or anything else they brought to the marriage as their dowries to their husbands (Meyers, 2003).
Men didn’t believe that women were capable of handling their own matters. Women’s smaller statures were believed to be the result of frailer constitutions. Women’s smaller heads were believed to be the result of a less developed brain. Emotional outbursts from women were signs of a moral weakness that might prove problematic for any men under their spell (Meyers, 2003).
Men believed that women must be watched, and closely. Women must be under a man’s control since women were sinful by nature—hadn’t the Bible told them so? Puritan and other Christian theologians argued that Eve caused the Fall. She couldn’t avoid temptation from one measly snake, after all. Women were more susceptible to poor choices and blinding passions, so merely by proximity, they endangered their men’s very souls (Meyers, 2003). According to Meyers, such ideas about the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of women, the thought that women could not resist evil, played an important role in fueling the witchcraft hysteria in Europe and Colonial America. Women were the majority of those called out as witches since it was believed that women were more corruptible by the Devil (Barstow, 1994).
Women were believed to be weak creatures, so they weren’t supposed to speak out on their own behalf. During the Salem witch hunts, if a woman wanted to accuse someone of witchcraft, she had to send a man to do so on her behalf. A poor example, perhaps, but it is an interesting one. While the women’s accusations were believed by the magistrates and their word accepted as evidence, the women’s accusations were not heard until a man went to the court to register the complaint.
In colonial days the less wealthy women who didn’t have servants to do their every bidding, had plenty to do, mainly tending to chores around the house with cooking, cleaning, sewing, and mending, as well as birthing and caring for the children (Smith, 2008).
A goodwife was “expected to provide her mate with material, spiritual, emotional, and sexual comforts. She was expected to obey her husband, but…affection and mutual respect tempered obedience into support” (Volo & Volo, 2006, p. 178). Strict guidelines existed about “men’s work” and “women’s work,” but there were times when women helped their husbands in their trade (Volo & Volo, 2006). It would not have been unusual to find a woman serving patrons in her husband’s public house, especially if her husband were ill, away, or otherwise unable to work. Farmer’s wives might work the fields during planting or harvesting seasons. According to Volo & Volo (2006), Salem court records show wives farming corn, branding steers, and tending cattle whenever necessary.
According to Smith (2008):
Despite restrictions and prohibitions, some women did step outside of their usual roles to publish their work, to express religious beliefs, and to initiate court suits. Yet within their typical roles as wives and mothers, women were also important, as the early Chesapeake settlers found when there were few women in the settlement to cook, mend, and do laundry. The phrase ‘‘women’s roles’’ is somewhat misleading because it implies fixed positions and responsibilities for women, when, in fact, women’s roles in the seventeenth century were fluid and overlapping (p. 24).
Anne Bradstreet is one example of a woman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony who stepped outside her usual role to publish her work. Bradstreet’s poetry is still taught in American literature classes today. Fans of the Loving Husband Trilogy know how much I admire Bradstreet. I found the title for Her Dear & Loving Husband from one of Bradstreet’s poems. She stays true to her Puritan faith while still admitting to her earthly love for her husband and children. She is spiritual in her love for God and personal in her love for her family. For more information about Anne Bradstreet, read this post.
Yes, women in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, as throughout
the American Colonies, as throughout Europe, had many restrictions on their
lives based on false beliefs about women’s abilities. Despite the difficulties,
women in Colonial America helped to create a society that, while far from
perfect, did prosper.
References
Abramovitz, M. (2017). Regulating the Lives of Women: Social Welfare Policy From Colonial Times to the Present. New York, NY: Routledge.
Barstow, A. L. (1994). Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch Hunts. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Karlsen, C. F. (1998). The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: The Witch in Seventeenth-Century New England. New York, NY: Norton.
Meyers, D. A. (2003). Common Whores, Vertuous Women, and Loveing Wives: Free Will Christian Women in Colonial Maryland. Indiana: Indiana University Press.
Smith, M. D. (2008). Women’s Roles in Seventeenth-Century America. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.
Volo, J. M. & Volo, D. D. (2006). Family Life in 17th-and 18th-Century America. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.
* * * * *
Down Salem Way, the prequel to the Loving Husband Trilogy, is set during the Salem Witch Trials.
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How would you deal with the madness of the Salem witch hunts?
In 1690, James Wentworth arrives in Salem in the Massachusetts Bay Colony with his father, John, hoping to continue the success of John’s mercantile business. While in Salem, James falls in love with Elizabeth Jones, a farmer’s daughter. Though they are virtually strangers when they marry, the love between James and Elizabeth grows quickly into a passion that will transcend time.
But something evil lurks down Salem way. Soon many in Salem, town and village, are accused of practicing witchcraft and sending their shapes to harm others. Despite the madness surrounding them, James and Elizabeth are determined to continue the peaceful, loving life they have created together. Will their love for one another carry them through the most difficult challenge of all?