Nine For Hillary A 2016 Union

Standard versions of American history, as Howard Zinn wrote in his People's History of the United States, "forget half the population of the country." No offense to Colonel Truden, of the 1960s high school history department in Duxbury, Massachusetts, but many classmates, and this author of Nine, do not recall that classroom experience fondly. For one thing, as Zinn says, "The explorers were men, the landholders and merchants men, the political leaders men, the military figures men." The girls, as the colonel would have called them, finally have a chance to weigh in, after telling their stories in Nine for Hillary. Life involves so much more than the wars, the generals and those forty-four male commanders-in-chief. Nor need it be viewed as a never-ending list of battles on the field. Instead, let’s play Annie’s game, choosing one L word for life, and then look at the nine ladies’ true stories, through that lens. Only the presence of these women, waiting to see 2016 election results, is not real. Or is it? Looks. Luck. Love. Language. Learning. Laughter. Loyalty. Lust. And sometimes Lies. Those were the word choices of Martha, Alice, Lily, Sina, Mariah, Annie, Margaret, Allie, and Mary. After narrating her fellow visitors’ tales, while telling her own story, Allie concludes, “It was love that mattered, more than anything, even the Great Depression. And more than war. Especially more than war.” Love matters. And lust, she adds, without which there would be no life. But love and life are highly complicated, as these nine tales reveal. And much more interesting than standard histories, don’t you think? Well, you’ll have to read what the ladies have to say, to answer that question. They arrived on an imaginary visit, to help tell their compelling American stories. How did they do? What do YOU think? Please let us all know, in a review of Nine for Hillary: A 2016 Union of American Ancestors. As for Hillary, all nine would vote for her if they could. But Martha was born 1840; Alice 1854; Lily 1865; Sina 1863; Mariah 1862; Annie 1868; Margaret 1867; Allie 1863; Mary 1853. In Delaware; Boston; Alabama; Kentucky; New York; Ireland; Ireland; Boston; Williamstown, MA. The last of them to die, Allie, went to her grave in 1940. This twenty-first century visit allows them to see how much has changed, and how much remains virtually the same. For starters, there has never been a woman president. Will leadership by a woman who is both tough and gentle make a difference? After Living History as First Lady, serving eight successful years as Senator from New York, and making Hard Choices as Secretary of State for the first black president, the ladies want to see America choose this fully-prepared female candidate, in November 2016. Do you feel differently? Meanwhile our visitors wait, with (imaginary) bated breath. Their own stories might serve as a welcome distraction, while the world waits along with them. Alice had three ancestors, by blood or marriage, who signed the Declaration of Independence. Franklin, Hancock, and Adams agreed, “men are created equal.” Not blacks. Or women. When Abigail asked John to “remember the ladies,” he replied, “We know better than to repeal our Masculine systems.” Alice’s family friend and 3rd cousin Oliver Wendell Holmes could not convince doctors to wash hands after attending childbirth. He had to “beg to be heard in behalf of the women whose lives are at stake, until some stronger voice shall plead for them.” Victoria Woodhull, neighbor and colleague of Alice’s New York cousins, ran for president in 1872. In the face of trumped-up charges of obscenity, Victoria was jailed on election night, for revealing a famous preacher’s extramarital affairs in her weekly periodical. That same preacher had seduced Lucy Tappan Bowen, daughter of Alice’s Great Uncle Lewis Tappan. A century-and-a-half later, our nine ladies reminisce about these American stories, and more, as they wait to hear a female voice in the Oval Office.