Womenfolks: Growing Up Down South

Synopsis

From a childhood spent leaning on the back of a wooden porch chair while the womenfolks peeled peaches, Shirley Abbott learned about life. Womenfolks is about that life, about growing up female in the South in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Shirley Abbott's South is red dirt and country people, back-breaking chores and roof-raising revival meetings--a far cry from the Gone With the Wind images of plantations, magnolias, and mint juleps on the verandah. In Womenfolks, Shirley Abbott examines one kind of Southern heritage, as reflected in her family, her experience, and the history and mythology of the South as it filtered through to her-and she captures the strength and wisdom of the women of the South. There is Grandma Lizzie Ethridge, who has heard mountain lions scream at night, who has watched a milk snake drink from a cow's udder in the light of dawn, and who has been saved by the Lord Jesus and baptized in a running stream; Lavisa Eugenia, who ran a self-sufficient farm and mothered two families; Velma, who broke tradition and moved into town to marry a gambling man; and Aunt Laura, who, though eighty and living in Oregon, was an eyewitness to many years of Southern history and wonders now, "What is this special thing we know? Who were these women we remember?" In her search for the answer, Shirley Abbott gives us a vivid account of a vanishing rural culture, at once historical and very personal. Womenfolks is honest, vibrant, and revealing--a remarkable evocation of a piece of American life.

Copyright:

1983

Book Details

Book Quality:

Excellent

Book Size:

210 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780899191560

Publisher:

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

Date of Addition:

08/28/19

Copyrighted By:

Shirley Abbott

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs, Social Studies

Submitted By:

Terry Gorman

Proofread By:

Terry Gorman

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.