Norma Watkins, a rare, brave, and entrancing human being, has written a uniquely Mississippi story about coming to terms with family, state, and tumultuous times---and discovering herself in the process. It is a great read, pure and simple."---Hodding Carter III "The Last Resort reminded me of why I started reading in the first place---to be enchanted, to be carried away from my world and dropped into a world more vivid and incandescent. Norma Watkins casts her spell with exquisite sentences and unerring, evocative details. She is a writer of inordinate compassion and formidable intelligence. This unsparing and unsentimental memoir documents a woman's struggle for independence over the course of her lifetime and took great moral courage and ferocious honesty to write. And let me add that this book is so much more than personal memoir. It is an eye on history. Norma Watkins puts us there at the white hot center of the struggle for racial equality in Jackson, Mississippi, in the turbulent fifties and sixties."---John Dufresne "What a book! What a woman! And what a life she has led ... touching upon all the major issues of our time. I was riveted from start to finish. Brave, honest, and open, Norma Watkins is a born writer through and through. The Last Resort is an absolute must---read for all southern women---and men, too---as she shines a light into some of the darkest, most secret and sacred areas of our culture. This is one of the best memoirs I have ever read."---Lee Smith "Norma Watkins takes her readers through one woman's journey toward understanding herself and the Mississippi in which she grew up. It is a soul-searching work, one with which many women will identify."--Kay Mills The Last Resort Taking the Mississippi Cure Raised Under The Racial Segregation that kept her family's southern country hotel afloat, Norma Watkins grows up listening at doors, trying to penetrate the secrets and silences of the black help and of her parents' marriage. Groomed to be an ornament to white patriarchy, she sees herself failing at the ideal of becoming a southern lady. The Last Resort, her compelling memoir, begins in childhood at Allison's Wells, a popular Mississippi spa for proper white people, run by her aunt. Life at the rambling hotel seems like paradise. Yet young Norma wonders at a caste system that has colored people cooking every meal while forbidding their sitting with whites to eat. Once integration is court-mandated, her beloved father becomes a stalwart captain in defense of Jim Crow as a counselor to fiery, segregationist Governor Ross Barnett, His daughter flounders, looking for escape. A fine house, wonderful children, and a successful husband do not compensate for the shock of Mississippi's brutal response to change, daily made manifest by the men in her home. A sexually bleak marriage only emphasizes a growing emotional emptiness. When a civil rights lawyer offers love and escape, does a good southern lady dare leave her home state and closed society behind? With humor and heartbreak, The Last Resort conveys at once the idyllic charm and the impossible compromises of a lost way of life.
Norma Watkins' award-winning memoir, The Last Resort, described coming of age during the civil rights movement--when black people, along with anyone white who disagreed with segregation--lived in fear. The book ends when she leaves Mississippi. The sequel, That Woman from Mississippi, opens with that flight and explores the consequences of exile. The nurturing mother is our model, and society does not easily forgive a woman who leaves her children. Partnered with the powerful and attractive civil rights lawyer who carried her away, Watkins tries to balance the love she feels for him, and for graduate school and teaching, with guilt over that loss. In the face of betrayal, she realizes how ridiculous it was to free herself from one man by fastening herself to another. Humorous and discerning, the book shows how excruciating it is for women to do what men take for granted: find a harmony in love, work and parenting"--Back cover.
Few women have had a more significant impact on the development and growth of Lawrence, Kansas, and the University of Kansas than Elizabeth Miller Watkins. Elizabeth Josephine Miller was born in Ohio in 1861 and moved with her family to Lawrence when she was a child. She attended the University of Kansas’s preparatory school in the 1870s but could not complete her education when a family financial crisis forced her to seek employment. She started working at the J. B. Watkins Land and Mortgage Company in 1887 as a secretary and in 1909 she married the company’s founder and owner, Jabez Watkins. Together the Watkinses dedicated themselves to philanthropy and were committed to giving all their wealth, as Elizabeth said, “for the good of humanity, chiefly here in Lawrence.” Jabez died in 1921, leaving Elizabeth to manage the family fortune alone. Elizabeth wished to give women the opportunity for higher education that she herself had never received. In 1925, the Kansas Board of Regents approved her request to have a women’s scholarship hall built at KU. Watkins Hall, named in memory of her late husband, was constructed close to Elizabeth’s home—now the chancellor’s residence—and was followed a decade later by the construction of Miller Hall in 1936. As two of the twelve scholarship halls at the University of Kansas today, Watkins and Miller Halls are home to a vibrant cohort of young female scholars and an active alumnae community who continue the philanthropic vision of Elizabeth Miller Watkins. In 1929, Elizabeth donated $200,000 for the new Lawrence Memorial Hospital to be built at 3rd and Maine, where it remains today. She also established the first on-campus healthcare provider, Watkins Memorial Hospital, at the University of Kansas (now Twente Hall) in 1931. In this engaging biography, Mary Dresser Burchill and Norma Decker Hoagland’s extensive research successfully paints a portrait of a remarkable woman whose generosity endures at KU and in Lawrence and brings to light the astonishing legacy of one of the city’s leading philanthropists.
A desperate late night phone call from Trilby Watkins embroils Annie Kirk in a fifty-year-old disappearance. Trilby, a friend from her college days, is trying to rejuvenate a health spa located in Oregon s High Cascade Mountains.Yet someone is determined to scare her off and she calls on Annie for help. When Annie, a successful mystery author, agrees to conduct a series of writing workshops at the resort, she is confronted by a maelstrom of the unexplained.What s behind chilling screams in the night and strange lights in the sky? Most perplexing of all, what s the connection between a mysterious rock sculpture in the backwoods and the decades old disappearance? Annie merges the past with the present to find answers.
This true story being told happened in New England between 1912 and 1948. Many interesting things happened in this time period: Two World Wars, a major depression and the consequences of these events. The stories of these times as recalled from the memory of Norma are not in great detail, but come together to show how life and times affect one’s destiny. Small incidences in the area of religion seem to start out and come to the front of the story. The detailed conclusion of the story pulls everything together in a way that shows a probable design which can only be seen as time permits. An interesting part of the story is the contrast between the life of a grandmother and the life of grandchildren who seem to live in a different world. And so, destinies are still taking shape.
Few women have had a more significant impact on the development and growth of Lawrence, Kansas, and the University of Kansas than Elizabeth Miller Watkins. Elizabeth Josephine Miller was born in Ohio in 1861 and moved with her family to Lawrence when she was a child. She attended the University of Kansas’s preparatory school in the 1870s but could not complete her education when a family financial crisis forced her to seek employment. She started working at the J. B. Watkins Land and Mortgage Company in 1887 as a secretary and in 1909 she married the company’s founder and owner, Jabez Watkins. Together the Watkinses dedicated themselves to philanthropy and were committed to giving all their wealth, as Elizabeth said, “for the good of humanity, chiefly here in Lawrence.” Jabez died in 1921, leaving Elizabeth to manage the family fortune alone. Elizabeth wished to give women the opportunity for higher education that she herself had never received. In 1925, the Kansas Board of Regents approved her request to have a women’s scholarship hall built at KU. Watkins Hall, named in memory of her late husband, was constructed close to Elizabeth’s home—now the chancellor’s residence—and was followed a decade later by the construction of Miller Hall in 1936. As two of the twelve scholarship halls at the University of Kansas today, Watkins and Miller Halls are home to a vibrant cohort of young female scholars and an active alumnae community who continue the philanthropic vision of Elizabeth Miller Watkins. In 1929, Elizabeth donated $200,000 for the new Lawrence Memorial Hospital to be built at 3rd and Maine, where it remains today. She also established the first on-campus healthcare provider, Watkins Memorial Hospital, at the University of Kansas (now Twente Hall) in 1931. In this engaging biography, Mary Dresser Burchill and Norma Decker Hoagland’s extensive research successfully paints a portrait of a remarkable woman whose generosity endures at KU and in Lawrence and brings to light the astonishing legacy of one of the city’s leading philanthropists.
Raised under the racial segregation that kept her family's southern country hotel afloat, Norma Watkins grows up listening at doors, trying to penetrate the secrets and silences of the black help and of her parents' marriage. Groomed to be an ornament to white patriarchy, she sees herself failing at the ideal of becoming a southern lady. The Last Resort, her compelling memoir, begins in childhood at Allison's Wells, a popular Mississippi spa for proper white people, run by her aunt. Life at the rambling hotel seems like paradise. Yet young Norma wonders at a caste system that has colored people cooking every meal while forbidding their sitting with whites to eat. Once integration is court-mandated, her beloved father becomes a stalwart captain in defense of Jim Crow as a counselor to fiery, segregationist Governor Ross Barnett. His daughter flounders, looking for escape. A fine house, wonderful children, and a successful husband do not compensate for the shock of Mississippi's brutal response to change, daily made manifest by the men in her home. A sexually bleak marriage only emphasizes a growing emotional emptiness. When a civil rights lawyer offers love and escape, does a good southern lady dare leave her home state and closed society behind? With humor and heartbreak, The Last Resort conveys at once the idyllic charm and the impossible compromises of a lost way of life.
A Genealogy of the Tucker Family and Also the Families of Allen, Blackistone, Chandler, Ford, Gerard, Harmor, Hume, Monroe, Skaggs, Smith, Stevesson, Stone, Sturman, Thompson, Ward, Yowell, and Others
A Genealogy of the Tucker Family and Also the Families of Allen, Blackistone, Chandler, Ford, Gerard, Harmor, Hume, Monroe, Skaggs, Smith, Stevesson, Stone, Sturman, Thompson, Ward, Yowell, and Others
This copiously documented volume sheds new light on one of the earliest families to settle in Virginia, that of Captain William Tucker of London, and on a number of allied families whose progenitors figured in the early history of the Virginia and Maryland colonies.
Worcester County is nestled along the Atlantic Ocean between Delaware and Virginia. Traversed by Capt. John Smith and inhabited by European settlers as early as 1642, Worcester County boasts a rich history and continues to be both a rural paradise and an exciting tourist destination.
Detective Inspector Eddie Cotton dashes to the scene. The brutal killings unnerve his sergeant. The bodies of two young women dressed as brides. One disfigured. Detective Inspector Seamus Doyle in Ireland is investigating a similar murder. The au pair is missing. Detectives find the initials WJ on her mirror. Her mutilated body is found. A man's body is found in a garden. In Ireland, interviews with former workmates uncover strange tales of depraved behavior. The hiding place is discovered by a postman. Seamus foolishly goes it alone and is left in a pool of blood.
The book draws together writers from different backgrounds and interdisciplinary interests and research methodologies, as a consequence, the book provides a model of the way researchers can work together to illuminate an area and to provide multiple representations and interpretations of that area. Moreover the book demonstrates interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary and intradisciplinary approaches and collaborations. Kathleen Andereck, Ph. D., Arizona State University West Sue Beeton, Ph. D., La Trobe University Heather E. Bowen, Ph. D., George Mason University Kelly S.-
A sequel to the pioneering volume, Feminism and Art History: Questioning the Litany, published in 1982, The Expanding Discourse contains 29 essays on artists and issues from the Renaissance to the present, representing some of the best feminist art-historical writing of the past decade. Chronologically arranged, the essays demonstrate the abundance, diversity, and main conceptual trends in recent feminist scholarship.
Each one of us has a plan that God has allowed in our lives, which may include suffering, loss, disease, disabilities, abuse, hardship, rejection, and persecution, and you are left with asking God many questions: Why? How long? and Where are You? After your battle is over, and the dust settles, you will have your answers and even wonder how you are still standing in victory amid the scars and wounds you bare. Before endurance, we must have faith, and our faith is what enables us to endure. As believers, we may experience life events that seem to destroy us at the core of our being, causing us to faint and lose hope. As you read these chapters, your perspective of the events in your life, in the lives of your family and friends will change. You will be encouraged to have faith and endure every situation, knowing the Lord has never left you nor forsaken you. God's love for you is so great, which causes us to endure because His plans for us are good and our hope is in Him. aEURoeHow do you stand during the trials and tribulations that are experienced during the course of your life? God gives you endurance and encouragement so that you ultimately glorify HimaEUR (Romans 15:5aEUR"6, NIV). Authors: PATRICIA L. BROWN, VIVIAN G. CHRISTOPHER, INELL RICHARDSON CLAYPOOL, NORMA GUERRANT, VEARDEAN JACKSON, REGINA JOHNSTON, and SARAH N. MILLNER
Although most Americans associate earthquakes with California, the tremors that shook the Mississippi valley in southeast Missouri from December 16, 1811, through February 7, 1812, are among the most violent quakes to hit the North American continent in recorded history. Collectively known as the New Madrid earthquakes, these quakes affected more than 1 million square miles. By comparison, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake affected only 60,000 square miles, less than one-sixteenth the area of the New Madrid earthquakes. Scientists believe that each of the three greatest tremors would have measured more than 8.0 on the Richter scale, had that measuring device been in place in 1811. Vibrations were felt from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic coast and from Mexico to Canada. The quake zone was in constant movement during this period. Five towns in three states disappeared, islands vanished in the Mississippi River, lakes formed where there had been none before, and the river flowed backward for a brief period. Providing eyewitness accounts from people both on the land and on the river, Bagnall captures the fears of the residents through their tales about the smells and dark vapors that filled the air, the cries of the people, the bawling of animals, and the constant roar of the river and its collapsing banks. On Shaky Ground also traces the history of the founding of New Madrid and considers the impact of the earthquakes on population and land in southeast Missouri. Predictions for future earthquakes along the New Madrid fault, as well as instructions on preparing for and surviving a quake, are also included. Informative, clearly written, and well illustrated, On Shaky Ground will be of interest to all general readers, especially those interested in earthquakes or Missouri history.
Jagged Destinies" is heart warming. It's a story of a girl named Emily who's mother dies giving her birth. Emily is the only child in the family, and is raised by her cantankerous grandmother and an unemotional father, who is seldom home. The times are hard due to the depression. During her childhood, Emily goes through turmoil. Because of it, she promises herself that some day she will do well in her life. Her plan is to marry rich, be successful and have children. Many of her plans are fulfilled, but as time passes, situations change. There are pitfalls along the way. Along with the joys and pitfalls are the tragedies and deaths. Throughout the story, her mothers image appears from the shadows of her mind. Its Emily's confidence and determination that plays an important role in directing her destiny and of those she loves. She finds true happiness and love with the person she least expects, the one who loved her from the moment he met her. As we live our lives we experience many trials and triumphs. This book walks the reader through various stages of life. Although JAGGED DESTINIES is a novel, Norma has depicted several occurrences from her own life throughout the book.
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