Uncovering herstory

Seven Brave Women

by Betsy Hearne; illustrated by Bethanne Andersen

I was in my mid-20s when I took my first women’s history class, and it was both a revelation and a comfort. Before then, history courses focused on wars and the lives of the wealthy, ruling class – a bunch of dead, white guys. Seeing the past through the eyes of women who accomplished great things and the many more who lived unremarkable lives let me see it was my story too.

In Seven Brave Women, a young girl – daughter of the author – recounts the stories of seven women in her family, each depicted in a vibrant, two-page oil painting, starting with great-great-great-grandmother Elizabeth, who traveled to America in a wooden sailboat with two very young children and another on the way. Each woman lived during wartime – from the Revolutionary War through Vietnam – but each, it is noted, “did not fight.”

Some of the women accomplished undeniably remarkable things, like the great-grandmother who moved to India and opened a hospital for women. Others’ accomplishments are mundane – a great-great-grandmother lived on a farm and made “candles and soap and bread and butter and jam and everything else that now you can buy at the store.”

For the most part, the accomplishments of these women are not the type that make it into history books, but Seven Brave Women reveals their true significance. They are among the great and heroic acts that helped create our country, our way of life, that the men fighting in all those wars longed to come home to.

The book ends with the narrator, who is still a child but knows she will make history as her foremothers did. “There are a million ways to be brave,” she says.

“Seven Brave Women” is a lovely introduction to history told through individual stories as opposed to major world events. And it just might spark an interest in genealogy. It’s got me interested in writing about the women in my family, just for my own kids. I’ll do it someday, when I discover some free time. Until then, I’m happy to have this book to share with my daughters.

Note: reviewed by Deb Clark.

Rating: *\*\*\*\

Comments

[Anne]

What a very cool idea for a book. I can go back as far as my great-great-grandmother on both sides. I apparently come from a long and undistinguished line of Polish peasants. :-)

[Louise]

I might track this one down - thanks for the review. It's a great idea for a book. On my mother's side of the family we have a "China Dog" that gets passed down from mother to daughter and has been for about 150 years. My grandmother gave it to my mother when I was about 16 and sent me the story of how the dog got to us in Canada. That sparked my interest for geneology.

Thanks,

Louise

[brettdl]

Most of my known family history is in Ukraine. That part of the family was pushed out by Russian anti-semitism and the Plague, I think.

[Deb Clark]

Wow, love the "China Dog" tradition -- how absolutely lovely. I wish we had something like that in our family. I come from a long line of farmers who came here from Germany, mostly. I've toyed with the idea of writing historical fiction set in Zoar, a 19th-century Ohio commune founded by about 300 German religious separatists, including some of my ancestors, who followed some pretty strict rules -- including enforced celibacy to keep the population down (although they gave that up after about a decade). Now I'm thinking the first step would be to do the geneology for my kids in the style of this book.

[brettdl]

It sounds fascinating.