This tender and funny memoir traces Mary Helen's childhood from the age of eight to the beginnings of young womanhood at age 13. Combining a child's freshness of vision with adult irony, she conveys the poverty and prejudice she faced without sacrificing the memories of the everyday joys she experienced.
Winner of the 3rd Annual Miguel Mármol Prize from Curbstone Press, Mary Helen Lagasse's The Fifth Sun is an inspiring story of an immigrant who struggles valiantly for a better life for herself and her family. A young Mexican woman, Mercedes, leaves her village to work as a housemaid in New Orleans. This fast-paced novel takes us through her adventures in New Orleans, her marriage, her struggle to raise her children, her deportation, and her attempt to re-cross the river and be reunited with her children.
Although Blanca MuÐoz has known Sammy-the-Cricket all of her life, she never considered him boyfriend material until the summer she turned eighteen. HeÍs not particularly good looking, he doesnÍt drive a fancy car, he doesnÍt dance well, and he doesnÍt have a good job. Worst of all, he wears zoot suits and belongs to the Los Tacones gang. Blanca has always promised herself she would avoid guys like Cricket. But itÍs CricketÍs meanness that attracts Blanca the most. And before she knows it he proposes: ñYouÍre my old lady and weÍre gonna get hitched.î The chicks and pachucos in BlancaÍs barrio of Taconos outside of Los Angeles compete to put on the best wedding, even if it means paying off the expenses in monthly installments for years to come. Blanca works overtime for months prior to her wedding so she can afford everything, especially since Cricket refuses to help financially. The bride-to-be and her girlfriends obsess over the elaborate arrangements required of a Mexican wedding: who will be the maid of honor, ring bearer, and junior bridesmaid? What about the dress, the shoes, and the cushions the couple will kneel on during mass? The list of things to do is endless, and Blanca is more exhausted every day. On top of everything, Blanca finds herself feeling hungry all the time. Her expanding waistline means that her wedding dress wonÍt fit, but at least itÍs not a problem that a few safety pins wonÍt solve. Meanwhile, the guys are also interested in keeping up appearances. Cricket dreams of a wedding that outclasses all the others and raises his status with his buddies: a long line of souped-up, gleaming cars; guys decked out in the sharpest tuxedos; and most important of all, the best dance, where he and his friends plan to get high and rumble with Los Pachucos, the rival gang in the neighborhood. The wedding dance turns out to be the best party imaginable as the band plays on through a series of exciting moments: the maid of honor gets in a fight with a girl from ñup northî; the leader of Los Pachuchos and his buddies show up, determined to ñdanceî at CricketÍs wedding; and Blanca, after spending most of the evening in the bathroom, isunnoticed by most of the guestsfinally taken away in an ambulance. It was ñthe best wedding in all of Taconos,î she says right before passing out.
This collection of short essays delivers more joy than many books twice its size. Culled from two decades’ worth of Mary Helen Stefaniak’s “Alive and Well” column in the Iowa Source, each essay invites readers into the ordinary life of a woman “with a family and friends and a job . . . and a series of cats and a history living in one old house after another at the turn of the twenty-first century in the middle of the Middle West.” One great aunt presides over nineteen acres of pecan grove profitably strewn with junk. A borrowed hammer rings with the sound of immortality. Famous poets pipe up where you least expect them. Living and dying are found to be two sides of the same remarkable coin. What’s more, writing prompts at the end of the book invite readers to search their own lives for such moments—the kind that could be forgotten but instead are turned, by the gift of perspective and perfectly chosen detail, into treasure. The Six-Minute Memoir encourages people to tell their own stories even if they think they don’t have the kind of story that belongs in a memoir.
A moving and inspirational memoir of love, loss, and renewal, Promised by Heaven tells the amazing story of how one woman’s near-death experience and glimpse of heaven led her to discover her gifts of healing and share them with the world. In December of 1991, Mary Helen Hensley was involved in a car accident that changed her life forever. Upon impact, traveling at more than seventy-five miles per hour, she felt time stall and temporarily left her body. In those moments, Mary Helen was consumed with a sudden clarity. She realized she had the choice to either remain in her body or exit from the earth, allowing the remainder of the scene to unfold without feeling any pain. She chose to depart from her body—and enter heaven. In heaven, Mary Helen was welcomed by two angels who walked her through the place of light and encouraged her to go back to earth and help others. When she returned to earth, Mary Helen was suddenly struck with a desire to live a life of service and quickly set out on a journey into metaphysical healing. Her adventures took her to Ireland, where she went on to become a chiropractor, find love and new friendships, become a mother, and help numerous people with her gifts of communicating with the dead and seeing into the future. Promised by Heaven is a remarkable spiritual journey that questions everything we understand to be true. Describing in great detail her experience in heaven, meeting angels, and returning to earth a changed woman, Mary Helen Hensley offers an unforgettable account of her path to find her true calling.
This new history of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, focuses on the growth and evolution of the Congregation through the years 1944–1999. This book attempts to look at the Congregation, an ecclesial group of Catholic women religious, from the particular perspectives of spirituality, ministry, and governance. This history provides a view of the experience of women religious within a particular time and place. The Catholic in the pew and researchers alike will gain insight into the life of the Philadelphia Sisters of Saint Joseph in this important era of their transformation.
From a plantation ledger, an abandoned graveyard, a fragile manuscript, and old newspapers, author Mary Helen Griffin Halloran has raised the bones of her ancestors and made them come alive in this memoir that traces the history of five generations of her Mississippi family. In A Mississippi Family, Halloran has painted a backdrop to the life the family lived. The story begins with the life and times of three men: Jonas Griffin (17621815), his son Francis Griffin (1800-1865), and his son Judge John Bettis Griffin (18261903). It ends with portraits of two remarkable women, Judge Johns daughters, Mary Lane Griffin (18581942) and Helen Knight Griffin (18641949). The stories of these five people, whose fates and values shaped the lives of their children, capture the early history of the Mississippi Delta, Warren and Washington Counties, and the town of Greenville. Telling tales of river journeys and life on southern plantations, Hallorans meticulous research has provided a record of her fascinating family saga at a crucial period in the history of the county, state, and nation.
Eve Prince is done—with college, with her mom, with guys, and with her dream of fashion design. But when her best friend goes MIA, Eve must gather together the broken threads of her life in order to search for her. When Eve’s grandmother, Boop, a retiree dripping with Southern charm, finds out about the trip, she—desperate to see her sister, and also hoping to alleviate Eve’s growing depression—hijacks her granddaughter’s road trip. Boop knows from experience that healing Eve will require more than flirting lessons and a Garlic Festival makeover. Nevertheless, Boop is frustrated when her feeble efforts yield the same failure that her sulfur-laced sip from the Fountain of Youth wrought on her age. She knows that sharing the secret that’s haunted her for sixty years might be the one thing that will lessen Eve’s growing depression—but she also fears that if she reveals it, she’ll lose her family and her own hard-won happiness. Boop and Eve’s journey through the heart of Dixie is an unforgettable love story between a grandmother and her granddaughter.
As mysterious, complicated, and improbable as any real family, four generations are brought to vivid life in pages spanning the entire twentieth century, from the outer reaches of Siberia to the heartland of America.
A Catholic/Christian Grief and Loss Resource for Those Living with the Death of a Child Due to Miscarriage, Ectopic Pregnancy, Stillbirth, Or Early Infant Loss
A Catholic/Christian Grief and Loss Resource for Those Living with the Death of a Child Due to Miscarriage, Ectopic Pregnancy, Stillbirth, Or Early Infant Loss
In Loving Remembrance ... is a grief and loss workbook for couples, individuals, groups, & others encountering the death of a baby due to miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, stillbirth or early infant death. Your loss can be recent or years ago. The bio-psychosocial, spiritual, individual, couple and family components of grief, loss, and suffering, as well as scriptures, Catholic Church teachings, ways to memorialize your child, and resources are included. The workbook is designed for group or individual use, and as an ongoing accompaniment for your journey. The format is both interactive and reflective. It is also well suited for grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, other family members, friends, religious, students & counselors. You will have the opportunity to learn other approaches, normalize your experience, realize you are not alone in your suffering, advance in your growth, healing, hope, and relationship with God and others.
Navel of the Moon is a coming-of-age tale centering on Vicenta “Vicky” Lumiere, a resident of the Irish Channel neighborhood of New Orleans. By closely observing her neighbors and friends, often with a critical eye and a naïve interpretation, Vicky learns that the world fails to fall into discrete categories of good and evil, and that any attempt to assert authority over chaos is ultimately impossible. The characters that structure Vicky's world are intriguing, beginning with her Mexican grandmother, Mimy, whose claim to be from the "navel of the moon" baffles Vicky. Over the course of one summer, the heroine's attempts to understand the illusive nature of friendship captures the sorrow, the happiness, and the ordinary of one's humanity.
Mary Helen Rodriguez-Lonidier was born in South Texas in an economically distressed area and supported herself as well as her family of ten. She attended a county junior college and received several associate degrees. She is a prolific writer and carries a recorder with her wherever she goes to capture her thoughts as they occur to her. She is married and has a daughter, is a full-time mother and housekeeper as well as writer. She has been writing all of her adult life and continues to churn out poems, prose and short stories. Her hobbies are her writings, photography and making friends. She is a volunteer at her daughter's school and attends Resurrection of the Lord Catholic Church near her home in San Antonio, Texas. She currently lives in the Medina Valley area.
The true story of a family’s daring four-month Mississippi River journey—a tale of danger, childbirth, and a massive earthquake that “reads like a novel” (Publishers Weekly). In 1811, the steamboat New Orleans was the first to travel the Mississippi River in a four-month journey between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and New Orleans, Louisiana. The only people brave enough to embark upon the journey were Nicholas Roosevelt; his pregnant wife, Lydia Latrobe; and their young daughter. During the course of the trip, the brilliant but reckless Roosevelt led his family through navigational perils, hostile Indians, and fire aboard. The small, fire-engine-powered steamboat saw not only the birth of Roosevelt and Latrobe’s second child, but also the greatest earthquake ever to strike the eastern United States. That cataclysmic event, described in the book from firsthand accounts, destroyed villages, swallowed islands, and reversed the course of the Mississippi River. Mr. Roosevelt’s Steamboat is an authoritative account of a twenty-five-hundred-mile voyage that significantly contributed to America’s transportation revolution. The dynamic main characters share tender romance and great courage. Their incredible trip down the Mississippi assured the future of steam navigation—and the progress of the great westward movement. “A vivid, fast-moving story.” —New Orleans Times-Picayune “In a class by itself . . . Surges with excitement.” —Louisiana History “Well-researched, vividly told.” —Waterways Journal “Intriguing romance, [a] taut, suspense-filled story, cataclysmic drama . . . A whale of a book.” —Christian Herald
H. G. Catlett’s name is on land surveys throughout central Texas. This book, with never-before published letters and documents, tells his story—his work as a surveyor, service as a Texas Ranger, a courier for Zachary Taylor, an Army quartermaster, an expert on Indian affairs, and a proponent for a National Road (through Texas, of course.) Available at Amazon.com.
Stephen Crane was a prodigious American author whose bohemian ways seemed to contradict his conscientious upbringing. Drawing on little-known and unpublished documents by Crane's father, mother, and sister, and preeminent scholar Thomas A. Gullason shows how their vitality and versatility galvanized Crane's imagination, spurred his literary career, and affected his lifestyle. The Cranes emerge as a spirited and serious lot who were passionately concerned with social and cultural issues of the day. Newly discovered papers—from reflections on the Civil War to a funeral oration for Lincoln—paint Crane's pastor father as a man of sardonic wit whose obsession with alcohol would be mirrored in his son's work. Crane's mother is revealed to have had an eye for politics and an ear for dialogue that would vastly inform Crane's masterpiece, The Red Badge of Courage. His sister Agnes rounds out the portrait with recently recovered stories and poems. Replete with rare works and keen insights, this edition is a crucial reference for students of nineteenth century American literature and devotees of Stephen Crane.
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