Tag Archives: healing

Book Review: The Dressmaker’s Gift

9 Apr

Dressmaker is a term that is no longer in our contemporary vocabulary.  A century ago, it was a profession with formal training.

The American College of Dressmaking in Kansas City published The American Dressmaker textbook in 1906.  I assume this instruction became part of Home Economics curriculum some decades later.

I digress… the title The Dressmaker’s Gift understates the powerful story of women in Paris during WW2 resisting the domination and occupation of Nazi Germany.

From making custom dresses/gowns in Paris, to being held at a location for political prisoners (Fresnes), then transferred to Dachau…shocking!  In 2012, I was on the grounds for a walking tour.

Dachau Prison
Prisoner labels, Dachau, Munich 2012

The author accurately related the horrors of life in the concentration camp.

Read for yourself how it is possible to reconcile the trauma, not only for one’s self but also one’s children and grandchildren decades later.

 

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Book Review: A Drop in the Ocean

11 Aug

Jenni Ogden skillfully juxtaposes:  University based health care research scientists and Wildlife researchers in the Great Barrier Reef.

Perhaps one could say Jenni developed a matrix juxtapositions of scientists and researchers in settings of…

Island life where supplies are delivered every two weeks…no utilities or ground transportation in the Southern Hemisphere contrasting with one of the oldest communities in Europe…Unst, the northern most inhabited island in the British Isles.

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Book Review: The Alice Network

3 Oct

Brought to my attention by Qanon @llcoolja17.

 

Ladies, Ladies, Ladies:  The Alice Network by Kate Quinn is extraordinary, compelling, historical, revealing, healing…

The narrative of The Alice Network alternates between 1915 and 1944 chapter after chapter skillfully telling the story of female spies in WW1 and WW2 in Europe with an amazing amount of historical accuracy.  Europe did not have a chance to recover from WW1 before they were reliving the tragedy of another war.

My husband and I had the opportunity to go to four reunions with Marines who survived Iwo Jimo (with Dave’s Dad before he passed in 2018).  There are many layers to war stories.  It is personal for veterans.  To also have the insights of women patriots as told in the The Alice Network is a blessing.

As a second personal note, 2015 was the 100th anniversary of Allison Transmission where I worked for 36 years…2015 was also the 100th anniversary of Tennessee Tech University where I graduated in Industrial Engineering…2015 was also the 100th anniversary of the town of White Pine TN where my parents have lived for the past 40 years…2015 was also the 100th anniversary of the Norfolk Naval Shipyard near where we lived in the early 1970s.  Many enterprises, schools, communities, government facilities do not last 50 years (or lost their original identities).  

So… four entities I am very familiar with were all founded in 1915…that is before World War I.  What an interesting coincidence!  I added a web page with a tab above because I was unaware of this common denominator until 2015.

 

 

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