Siblings

Here I am with my siblings, recently gathered together to celebrate my brother Kip's 60th birthday. An electrician, builder, golf course owner, Kip--in the yellow shirt--is building a new house--note, background--for his family on the shores of Lake Chautauqua in Bemus, NY. That's where we gathered; the first time we were all together in eleven years. For those of you who are familiar with the picture of Cam at about age 3 in Girls: A History of Growing Up Female in America (back cover, page 161), there is she all grown up. Cam is now a successful realtor. (See earlier entry about Cam's & her husband's long road trip to Alaska.) Readers of Thanksgiving: The True Story will read about Vin and the family tradition he started--"Toilet Bowl" football game on Thanksgiving. (p. 100) (Vin and I are eleven months apart to the day--9/2 & 10/2; meaning right now we're "twins". ) He is also the managing director of The Granger Papers Project, an excellent web site

http://www.nh.ultranet.com/~granger/index.shtml re the life and work of our great
uncle the renown paleontologist Walter Granger. I write about Walter & his wife Annie
in Adventurous Women (Author's Note).   Readers of Corpses, Coffins, and Crypts: A History
of Burial know that we had a brother Jon, who died in 1966. Our father died in 1969 and
our mother in 1997 (there's a reproduction of one of her paintings & a story about it in Corpses,
Coffins, and Crypts).  They all still live in our hearts and memories.

Perhaps because I write women's history, some people have asked me what I think about Sarah Palin. Using the lens of the words/lives of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony--since that's what I'm writing about now--I respond that there's minimal congruence between their worldview and her's.