Women Who Dared

I took last week off. Pre summer break. I'm back!

Still thinking about unsung heroes. One of mine, a contemporary, is Corina Luna Dea, is a brilliant author and visionary. She has authored a book, Archaeology for the Woman's Soul. A fantastic little book. I highly recommend it.

From her Introduction, shared with permission. "Like our Great Mother Earth, we have the innate pull to create and re-create, give birth and make anew what needs to be re-born from the ashes of pain or destruction. Everything we generate in this world in all areas of our lives flows from this place of knowing that our essential tendency is to love, protect, nurture and give of ourselves for the sake of others, for the sake of life itself. Yet, as women, we are vulnerable in sharing ourselves, often not appreciated for who we are. The danger is that we can't be realm others cannot mirror themselves in our strength."

That is the whole purpose of my writing about women in history, whether in a book, in my monthly column in the Free Press, or here. Sharing the lives of women so that others will know their strength and find role models.

They Roard, shines the spotlight on some of these women. Helen Kirkpatrick was born in Rochester, New York, in 1909. She attended Smith College and earned a degree in International Law from the University of Geneva. Helen worked for several major news outlets both here and abroad. She was a cutting edge journalist. In 1939 after reporting throughout Europe she applied for a position at the Chicago Daily News. The editor told her, in no uncertain terms, “We don’t have women on the staff.” Kirkpatrick briskly replied, “I can’t change my sex. But you can change your policy.” She was hired and continued her career as a journalist around the world.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, I think this picture captures Helen's spirit beautifully!

Margaret Phelan Taylor was born in a pioneer log cabin on September 20, 1923, on her family’s farm just outside of Emmertsburg, Iowa, and grew up on that farm. She flew as a WASP. Somewhere between Arizona and California, she noticed smoke in the cockpit. Not a good sign, she thought. They trained her to bail out if anything went wrong. She had hours of rigorous training and knew how to bail to safety. The caveat here was that her parachute was way too big for her. They were fitted to the male pilots, who, in most cases, were big strapping guys! “They weren’t fitted to us,” she says. “The force of that air and that speed and everything. Why, that just rips stuff off you. You’d slip right out.” Not good either! She faced a scary and defining moment. “I thought, ‘You know what? I’m not going until I see flame. When I see actual fire, why, then I’ll jump.’ ‘‘ The problem was a burned-out instrument. There never was flame, and she lived to fly again.

I hope these teasers whet your appetite to read the book when it is release, or at least look them and others up yourself. Once you get started it will be difficult to stop!

Have a wonderful week. Wishing you all peace, love and joy.