| Show II hi MWii 4-- Herald JournalCache Sunday June The B 1984 Quilts recorded the lives of women describes in this book It is too bad that the daily lives and contributions of women are so conspicuously absent from most of our history books but research into the lives of women can be very difficult explains Lipsett Prior to 1850 “only the names of ‘heads of families' were listed in government census records and a woman's name was listed in the census only if she herself were the head of the household generally due to the death of her husband A region's vital records for a certain period of time may not exist due to storage problems fires or floods or simply because they were not kept as in the case of the state of New York which did not record births and deaths until 1880 Genealogies and county and town histories written usually in great detail listing persons living in that place during the time of publication or in the recent past rarely mention a man’s wife Only his successes and virtues are lauded It is often only in the family Bible that a woman’s name was recorded but that usually was passed down to descendants and is often difficult if not impossible to locate if it does indeed still exist By Susan Allen “Remember Me: Women and their Friendship Quilts" by Linda Otto Lipsett is a remarkable work of meticulous historical research into the lives of seven women Though other books have told us about the loneliness of pioneer life the Civil War typhoid and the death of children LipselTs research la unique As a collector of “friendship quilts" which first became popular in the 1840s and 1850s Lipsett began her research with the names dates places and verses inscribed on these quilts to go back and recreate the lives of the women who made the exquisite quilts in Llpsett's collection “In the early 70s" says Lipsett “I found my first friendship quilt hanging on a rack at the Rose Bowl Flea Market in Pasadena Calif In perfect condition the quilt was composed of 30 blocks of the “Chimney Sweep” pattern each embroidered in red cotton floss with a person's name his or her relationship to the quiltmaker a town and state a month and a year (ranging from 1891 to 1894) The quiltmaker had not included her name on the quilt but from the relationships indicated I determined that her maiden name was Cord her married name Harris and I hoped to find out her first name soon" Thus begins one of the chapters in Lipsett’s book describing the life of Francis Malinda Cord Harris who made her friendship quilt in Golden Kansas between 1891 and 1894 Fannie was quite a character who led a long and productive life Lipsett lovingly recreates this life for us with anecdotes from family members and friends beautiful glossy photographs of Fannie's ouilt along with black and white photographs of Fannie and her family “Fannie was a little bit of a woman" recalled one of her descendants when interviewed by Lipsett “She was a little fast quick Irish woman She never walked in her life — she always ran She’d just fly with her feet" “When Fannie was in her 90s” recalled another family member “she'd get up the ladder to get the eggs and baby chickens m the hayloft Manford (one 19th-centu- ry full-col- or fall that he took the ladder down Then she just had an awful time to get the eggs She tood a rope and threw it over the rafters She fixed her some boxes or improvised somehow and climbed up there and got the baby chicks She was real strong Manford just laughed and laughed when of her sons) was so worried she’d he got home Here he thought he would keep her from falling by taking the ladder down but she got up there anyway” Lipsett tells us many wonderful stories about Fannie and about the other six women whose lives she “Generally the most lasting record of a woman’s existence is her gravestone but even that may have been worn by storms and time and vandalism until her name is erased or the stone fallen and slowly buried removed or lost With that stone any record of her existence is forever gone “It was not woman’s desire however to be forgotten And in one simple unpretentious way she created a medium that would outlive many of her husband’s houses barns and fences: she signed her name in friendship onto cloth and in her own way cried out ‘Remember me"' I am grateful to Linda Lipsett for sharing with us the beautiful quilts these ordinary wonderful women made and for her thorough research into their previously neglected remarkable lives “Remember Me: Women and their Friendship Quilts" by Linda Otto Lipsett is available for checking out at the Logan Library Books By United ' Press International California Dreamln’ by Michelle Phillips (Warner Books 194 pp $1695) Papa John by John Phillips with Jim y 4 76 pp Jerome her many affairs inspired John to write “I Saw Her Again” and “Go Where You Wanna Go” two of the Mamas and the Papas' biggest hits In keeping with the lack of substance in the book Michelle chooses to end in $1795) 1968 how two of (Dolphin-Doubleda- The legacy of the Mamas and the Papas will always be divided between their important contribution to rock in the 1960s and their private lives that often became public in the worst way It's been a little more than 20 years since the group first hit it big with “California Dreamin'" To mark the d Mama occasion the Michelle Phillips and Papa John Phillips have come out with autobiographies that are filled with sex and drugs but not enough rock and roll Then again their lives were filled with enough indiscretions to make the National Enquirer blush Early on Michelle’s tome has the We makings of a trashy find out her mother had an affair with a boarder whose fiancee took care of Michelle and her sister after the mother died One of her stepmothers was a teenager and Michelle helped her best friend attempt suicide And that's just chapter one To compensate for her vapid writing once-marrie- mini-seri- es Michelle pumps up "California Dfeamln"' with juicy anecdotes like mm when the group began to fizzle out This precludes any mention of her violent marriage to actor Dennis Hopper and legal battles with John who more than picks up the slack in his book a fascinating if overly long look at how the rock 'n' roll fantasy ran amok John always had a tormentor on his tail In his younger days it was his abusive alcoholic father or the nuns at his military school Later on he was haunted by the spectre of what he had let himself become Phillips didn’t notice until it was too late that he had degenerated from a superstar to a pathetic drug addict Phillips’ book is a copious tour guide of his descent into hell where he injected and swallowed everything except the Physicians’ Desk Reference What a long strange trip it is Too long It's one long nightmare that could have been summed up in a neater six-da- y 15-ye- ar package But Phillips is insistent on painting an unsympathetic picture of himself and he succeeds on all accounts You don’t like him in the end and he is inclined to feel the same "Papa John" is an anti-dru- mm m g' primer of the first order Both books are so steeped in personal trials and tribulations that little is said about the legacy of the Mamas and the Papas a group that was the first to successfully meld folk and rock and whose harmonies were always special The music is definitely not the Phillips’ message and that's a shame Steven Gosset(UPI) Monkeys by Susan Minot (Dutton 159 pp $1595) “Monkeys” is a short novel of nine interrelated stories spanning about 15 years in the life of the Vincent family a brood of seven children blue-blood- who live in New England Reminiscent of JD Salinger's family of prodigious Glass children (“Franny and Zooey" and “Nine Stories") “Monkeys" is a charming and colorful portrait of a large family Writer Susan Minot while drawing her characters less flamboyantly than Salinger does render them sweet yet human Who could resist kids with nicknames like Chicky and Churly? Or lines like these: ‘“Churly’s on the debating team’ said Uncle Charles ‘"I certainly am' said Churly 'Anyone want to argue?"’ But beneath the comfortable ’existence of a close and dynhmic family mmm life there lies dramatic counterpoint There’s an alcoholic father who although he's usually with the family remains mostly a shadow There’s a courageous mother in unrequited love with a dashing family friend breezily shepherding her seven children through life until she is killed in a train accident Some painful episodes take place but they are usually told in a calm controlled manner that some people might find unbelievable There is the story in which several grown children confront their father the morning after they have had to carry him home from a party For all the pain and fear such an episode would cause everyone involved this has an unusually poised controlled tone as the children tell their father he has to stop drinking and he agrees in a matter-of-faway The book is much more captivating when the children are young probably for the simple reason that children are more captivating than adults Throughout these touching amusing and colorful stories Minot draws rather precise pictures for her readers creating physical details that less careful writers would omit She has a particular gift for capturing the way real people actually talk not one line of dialogue sounds false ct Janice Fuhrman (UPI) |
