history – Page 8 – Empowering women through fiction and history.

Celebrating American Nurses During World War I

I have a special place in my heart for nurses because my mom was a nurse back in the 1980s. She worked in the ER of our local hospital for a while and then became a home healthcare nurse. Though she retired from the profession when my parents moved back to Israel, she still to this day uses her medical expertise to advocate for family members and friends and help them maneuver through the Israeli healthcare system.

So today, on Veteran’s Day, it seemed fitting to honor war nurses. I wanted to take a look especially at World War I since this war is in the time frame of my Adele Gossling Mysteries (well, not yet, but it eventually will be.) Although called the Great War, it’s more like the Forgotten War these days (usurped by World War II).

Photo Credit: Nurses in Rouen, France during World War I preparing to go to the front lines, from Good Housekeeping, Oct 1918: Picryl/Copyright: No known restrictions

World War I saw a lot of bloodshed and tragedy (if you want to read more about this war, you can read this blog post) and even though Americans didn’t get into the battle until about a year and a half before its end, American soldiers still saw plenty of fighting and nurses did plenty of healing. Sadly, many of these nurses didn’t get the honor and credit they deserved.

Linnie Leckrone was one of these. She was a nurse in one of the toughest situations during wartime: She was part of a unit that helped soldiers who were under constant artillery attack. She helped many soldiers under gas and shock in the most frightening conditions. However, where many men who came home from the war received a hero’s welcome, Leckrone got nothing when she came back to her hometown of Portage, Wisconsin. However, all is not lost, as in 2007, Leckrone received a posthumous Silver Star medal for her bravery and courage, which her daughter accepted.

Unlike, Leckrone, Lenah Higbee did receive her due. Higbee actually joined the US Navy Nurses Corps in 1908 and endured a lot of caustic remarks for doing so. But Higbee, dedicated to her work, persevered, and eventually became the second woman superintendent of the corps. Her work during World War I helping wounded Navy soldiers earned her the Navy Cross and her name on a battleship!

Not all nurses during World War I worked on the front lines. Working behind the scenes was Anna Caroline Maxwell, who is often referred to as the American Florence Nightingale. Earlier in the 20th century, she helped establish proper training and education for nurses by establishing the US Army Nurse Corps, and during the war, she not only trained nurses in their duties but helped them prepare psychologically for the rigors of war. The French awarded her the Medal of Honor for Public Health for her work.

War isn’t just about the men. It’s also about the women who heal them, so let’s salute all veteran war nurses on this day!

If you love fun, engaging mysteries set in the past, sign up for my newsletter to receive a free book, plus news about upcoming releases, fun facts about women’s history and mystery, and more freebies! You can sign up here.

Tragedy and Survival: The Ohlone of California

Today is Columbus Day, a day many of us in America learned about in school. When I learned about it (I won’t tell you how long ago that was…) teachers only talked about Columbus but not about the people already inhabiting America or about their suffering and their strength. Luckily, we live in much more enlightened times and kids today are also taught that this is also Indigenous Peoples’ Day, a celebration not just of Columbus but also of the Indigenous people who were already on American soil.

Photo Credit: A modern Ohlone family in traditional Ohlone dress, taken 21 February 2-15 and displayed in the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, CA: Noahedits/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 2.0

I came across the history of the Ohlone of California after doing research for Book 5 of the Adele Gossling Mysteries (coming out next year). I was interested in Native American tribes that settled specifically in the Bay Area and the Ohlone interested me. Calling the Ohlone a “tribe” is actually incorrect. These people indigenous to the Bay Area actually made up at least fifty tribes with different languages, practices, and cultures. The Ohlone population decreased with rapidity during the years Mexico owned California for several reasons, including infant mortality, plagues, and persecution. By the mid-nineteenth century, the Ohlone population had been reduced by almost ninety percent.

That was also the time when the already dwindling Ohlone population suffered more tragedies at the hands of the new American government, as California became a state in 1850. Massacres took away more of their people and the government took away much of the land that had been theirs. By the turn of the century, there were less than fifty Ohlone people left and the majority of them lived more of a Mexican than an Ohlone life.

We can be thankful that today, the diverse tribes of the Ohlone have been recognized and the culture of these tribes revitalized and celebrated.

So happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day!

The Separate Sphere Advantage: Lizzie Borden

I love historical true crime and I love family crimes. That’s one of the reasons why Book 3 of my series uses one of the staples of mystery fiction: The family gathering at the family mansion for the holidays (though usually, the mansion is haunted, which isn’t the case in my book). So it’s no surprise that I, along with many other people, have always been fascinated by Lizzie Borden and the Borden family murder.

There have been countless films, TV shows, and mini-series devoted to unraveling the Lizzie Borden case. I dug up an older movie recently, a made-for-TV film dating back to the 1970s. The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975) stars Elizabeth Montgomery (aka, Samantha in the 1960s Bewitched series) and follows the events of the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden (Lizzie’s father and stepmother) and trial and acquittal pretty much as many sources report them. The film adds another element, though — it gives a theory (that has been accepted by many) of how the crimes were committed.

Photo Credit: (Elizabeth Montgomery (as Lizzie) and Katherine Helmond (as Emma, Lizzie’s older sister) from a scene from The Legend of Lizzie Borden, where women are picketing in front of the courthouse in support of Lizzie. 10 Feb 1975, Paramount Television: 995577823Xyn/Wikimedia Commons/PD US no notice

The film also takes a definite stance as to whether Lizzie was guilty or not. Keep in mind that, technically, the case is still unsolved. There’s also a lot of controversy over whether the evidence really shows Lizzie’s guilt. This film takes the stance that Lizzie was guilty because she had all the necessary requirements that point toward guilt: means, motive, and opportunity.

But this film brings in also another element to the motive piece I found especially interesting. It didn’t really surprise me, considering the film was made at the height of the second-wave women’s movement in the 1970s. Part of the movement’s purpose was to bring awareness to women’s oppression in the past. We already know the 19th century was not exactly a time of freedom for most women. They were dominated by the ideology of the separate spheres which kept them confined to certain areas of life (home, family, children, church), and venturing outside of that was considered transgressive.

For a young woman of Lizzie’s social standing (small town high society), those confines were present and oppressive. She and her older sister often complained to their father about not being able to go where they liked or do what they liked and of being chained to the house. Both unmarried, they lived with their strict father and stepmother with little or no money of their own and were expected to fulfill household duties assigned to them. The film doesn’t fail to bring this out in some scenes between the family and also in one interesting scene between the prosecuting attorney (who is dead-set on convicting Lizzie) and his own wife (who, much to his chagrin, shows sympathy for Lizzie’s situation).

But could it be the separate spheres actually worked in Lizzie’s favor during the trial? This is a theory many sources put forth and the one the film supports. Since Lizzie was a well-respected, well-to-do young woman, active in her church and high society, and, of course, a woman, she couldn’t possibly have committed such horrendous crimes as to chop up her father and stepmother. Many believe Lizzie was acquitted not based on the evidence but based on who and what she was and the jury’s refusal to believe such a woman could commit murder.

If you want to know the ins and outs of the Lizzie Borden case and weigh in on your opinion on whether she did or did not commit the crimes, I invite you to join my mailing list. In honor of the release of Book 3 of my series, Death At Will, I’ll be talking all next month about the Borden case, bringing forth the details like the crime itself, the victims, the perpetrator, and the trial. But you only get access to those emails if you’re on my list.

Oh, and did I mention you also get a free book if you sign up? If you don’t want to miss out, you can join here.

The Poison With The Pretty Name: Belladonna

As a mystery writer, I’m always looking for interesting murder weapons. I’m sure the internet gods would be shocked if they saw my browser history with all the research I’ve done on poisons for my books!

Poison is tricky because it’s easy to give readers the sense of “been there, done that”. When you look at the immense plant life on this planet and how many species are poisonous to humans (about seven hundred out of more than fifty thousand), there just aren’t that many a mystery writer can choose from (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing if we’re talking about human life).

*Now doesn’t that look like the ripest, plumpest berry you’ve ever seen?*

Photo Credit: Tinieder/Depositphotos.com

The Atropa belladonna has always fascinated me but I didn’t know its history until I started doing research on it for the third book of my series, Death At Will. It is indeed a pretty plant with a pretty name. The typical belladonna has a reddish-blackish berry similar to a cherry and is actually sweet when eaten. This is one of the things that makes it so dangerous, as it isn’t bitter like many poisonous plants. There’s no real indication it’s poisonous when you put it in your mouth.

Interestingly, the belladonna has a long history with the beauty industry (if you can call it that). In the Middle Ages, it was used as a beauty remedy. The juice of the berry made women’s cheeks redder (a sort of precursor to commercial blush powder or cream). Women sometimes rubbed the berry and leaf on their skin as a sort of skin enhancer to give it a blueish tint. Women also used a tincture of berry juice in an eyedropper to dilate their pupils. We can be thankful our ideas of beauty have changed since then!

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the belladonna was used for something else: healing. It might seem odd that poison could be considered medicine but consider we didn’t have the scientific and medical knowledge we have now about plant life nor did we have the synthetic drugs we have now so we had to rely more on Mother Nature. There was also no awareness of the long-term health effects of certain substances (think about arsenic being added to paints and wallpapers of the time). Belladonna plasters (i.e., band-aids with belladonna on them) were thought to help relieve pain and even cure tuberculosis. These plasters were sold in drug stores over the counter, an idea that makes us shudder today.

But in my book, Nin Branch, Adele’s sidekick who also happens to be a skilled herbalist, is well aware of the dangers of the Atropa belladonna. She has an argument with one of the characters about using herbs and plants responsibly or it could lead to disaster (which is pretty much what happens in the book).

Only a little over a month to go until Death At Will comes out! But you can get it here at a special discount on preorder now!

An Ugly Page Out of California History: Eugenics and the Latino Community

Today marks the beginning of Hispanic Heritage Month. Having lived in San Francisco’s Mission District for a time, I always loved the cultural vibe of its large Latino population. I remember taking a walk one day during Hispanic Heritage Month and seeing the parade on Mission Street with the amazing display of pride and beauty of Latino culture.

Photo Credit: One of the many amazing murals in San Francisco’s Mission District, The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, San Francisco, CA, taken 23 February 2012 by Wally Gobetz: wallyg/Flickr/ CC BY NC ND 2.0

But in addition to the joy, we also have to acknowledge the shame that those of us who are not Latino share in the history of oppression and persecution. As much as I love California, it is not a state free of this shame. My intention for this blog post was to write about Latina women in the early 20th century (which I will still do at some point). But my research led me down a much darker path in California’s history: When the law of eugenics was embraced in 1909 and led to the sterilization of many Latino women and men.

Eugenics, for those who might not be familiar with the term, refers to the idea that it’s possible to create a perfect society (a super-society, per se) by taking measures and putting in laws to prevent those considered “undesirable” from creating more “undesirables.” If it sounds uncomfortably like something Hitler and the Nazi party would embrace, it’s because this is exactly what they did. To this end, one of the ways the Nazi party put this law into action was by legalizing sterilization. In the courtroom drama Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), there is a heartbreaking scene where Montgomery Clift’s character takes the stand and attests to the trauma and shame of being forced to be sterilized (you can view the scene here). This was a reality in Nazi Germany, but sadly, it was also a reality for the Latino community in California in the first part of the 20th century.

In 1909, the government passed a law legalizing sterilization of “undesirables” and California embraced this law, targeting non-white men and women, but especially its large Latino population. The theory was crime and poverty would decrease if these people were limited in procreation (sounds like something out of a bad sci-fi movie, doesn’t it?) In the first half of the century, nearly 60,000 people were sterilized in the United States, mostly in mental institutions and asylums where doctors had the decision-making power for those under their care. Many of these people were told sterilization was reversible to help persuade them to cooperate. About a third of these were in California and the majority of those were Latino men and women.

The Latino community in California began to fight back. For example, ten women in Los Angeles filed a lawsuit to gain compensation for being manipulated and coerced by hospital staff to get sterilized in 1975, though, sadly, they lost. Thankfully, the law was repealed, though not until 1979. In 2021, California set aside a budget of $7.5 million dollars exclusively to compensate families whose members had fall victim to the eugenics program.

If you’re looking for more of a glimpse of California history (the good, the bad, and the ugly), check out my Adele Gossling Mysteries series. Book 1 and Book 2 are both out and you can preorder Book 3 (coming out on October 29) here.