The Attempted Drowning of Live Theater

By Kathy Kovach

Throughout the years since its inception, live theater has gone through its ups and downs. From exquisite performances, delightful to the literary ear, to irreverent political entertainment, offensive to the elite.

In an effort to control the narrative, the London Licensing Act of 1737 became the enforcer. It served to censor plays that parodied prominent figures, in particular Sir Robert Walpole, the de facto first Prime Minister of Great Britain (1721-1742).

Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London c1900

By the 19th century, only three patent theaters were approved through the Lord Chamberlain. For winter, Covent Garden and Drury Lane, and for the summer months, the Haymarket. Still under censorship, every play had to be approved. Three main areas were under scrutiny.

• Political themes: No parodying of government issues or political figures.

• Religious content: Nothing that challenged beliefs or morality.

• Social issues: Poverty, class struggles, and gender roles were often sanitized or omitted.

The office of Examiner of Plays was created in the early 1700s. This person was given immense power over the playwright and answered only to the Lord Chamberlain. The Examiner would visit theaters to evaluate their safety and comfort. He saw to it that the rules were followed to the letter. Often, he’d appear when a law case regarding licensing needed to be enforced. As of 1911, he was required to read plays, examine playbills, and write a Reader’s Report to be turned in to the Lord Chamberlain.

One notorious examiner, George Coleman, used excessive slashing of anything he personally deemed inappropriate. Because of his actions, the House of Commons appointed a select committee to review the licensing laws and censorship in 1823.

Novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton chaired the committee which moved to abolish censorship and remove the office of examiner. It was all for naught as Parliament rejected the motion. So firm was the ruling, that the Examiner and the authority of the Lord Chamberlain remained in power until the Theater Act of 1968, also known as the Theatres Regulation Bill, which abolished both roles.

Until then, the Lord Chamberlain’s wings were clipped somewhat, and he could only prohibit the performance of plays that were likely “to do violence to the sentiment of religious reverence”—in other words, to be indecent—or “to be calculated to conduce to crime or vice” *. Where before he had full autonomy, he would now occasionally consult the Archbishop of Canterbury. A copy of the play’s script and the Reader’s Report were held at the Lord Chamberlain’s office, and they are still housed by the British Library.

In all, between 1738 and 1968, there were a total of 21 Examiners of Plays.

Creative expression could not be curtailed, nor could the playwrights’ opinions. Unlicensed theaters popped up. They often escaped surveillance by performing in pantomime, using music during the action. Thus, melodrama became popular.

The Reform Bill of 1832 essentially gave the power back to the people, or the middle class. A new system was established called the Theaters Act of 1843. Now, “free theater” could explore what had been squelched before, breaking free of the patented theaters. However, the expected flood of new building didn’t happen for sixteen years. This was attributed to the plethora of illegal theaters already operating.

The creative heart had to fight to survive, nearly drowning in suppression. However, it fought valiantly and continued to bobble to the surface until it became the dramatic entertainment we enjoy today.


* Shellard, Dominic; Nicholson, Steve; Handley, Miriam (2004). The Lord Chamberlain regrets: a history of British theatre censorship (1. publ ed.). London: The British Library. ISBN 978-0-7123-4865-2.

Titanic: Legacy of Betrayal

A TIME-SLIP NOVEL

A secret. A key. Much was buried on the Titanic, but now it's time for resurrection.

Follow two intertwining stories a century apart. 1912 - Matriarch Olive Stanford protects a secret after boarding the Titanic that must go to her grave. 2012 - Portland real estate agent Ember Keaton-Jones receives the key that will unlock the mystery of her past... and her distrusting heart.

To buy: Amazon

Kathleen E. Kovach is a Christian romance author published traditionally through Barbour Publishing, Inc. as well as indie. Kathleen and her husband, Jim, raised two sons while living the nomadic lifestyle for over twenty years in the Air Force. Now planted in northeast Colorado, she's a grandmother and a great-grandmother—though much too young for either. Kathleen has been a longstanding member of American Christian Fiction Writers. An award-winning author, she presents spiritual truths with a giggle, proving herself as one of God's peculiar people.

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Dahlonega: The Gold Rush Boomtown That’s Now a Hallmark Film Location

by Denise Farnsworth

Folks in North Georgia visit the mountain town of Dahlonega because of its adorable square where you can shop for locally made goods, fudge, Appalachian string instruments, and of course, sip coffee. In fact, it’s so cute, Hallmark has filmed movies there. You can take a carriage ride or visit the University of North Georgia. But if you do, you’ll notice something unique. Gold adorns the steeple of Price Memorial Hall on the university campus. And the brick courthouse in the middle of the square? The gold museum. Then there’s Consolidated Gold Mine near Wal-Mart where you can descend into a drippy mining tunnel. Visitors can dig into the area’s rich history as the heart of the 1830s Georgia Gold Rush.

This history serves as the backdrop for my Twenty-Niners of the Georgia Gold Rush series. You’ll remember articles about Auraria here on HHH, which featured the first boomtown, Auraria, just south of Dahlonega, the setting for The Songbird and the Surveyor. The Maiden and the Mountie highlighted Canton. And book three, The Schoolmarm and the Miner, releasing next month, brings 1839 Dahlonega to life.

Consolidated Gold Mine

In the summer of 1833, Aurarians thought their town would be the seat of the newly formed Lumpkin County. Then it was discovered that the lot Auraria sat on had been drawn fraudulently in the land lottery, and eyes shifted north to the little settlement where gold had first been discovered, then known as Licklog (for the hollowed log put out for the livestock of said discoverer of gold, Benny Parks) or Talonega (Cherokee for gold).

An 18x32 log courthouse was soon erected, with a door so low a tall man had to stoop to enter. Harrison Riley built Dahlonega’s first store. Watch for a future article on this “town founder,” also known as “the meanest man in the mountains” and the mastermind behind a brutal family murder. That might hint that early Dahlonega was a rough place.

Colonel W.P. Price, a lifelong resident, wrote, “Gambling houses, dancing houses, drinking saloons, houses of ill fame, billiard saloons and tenpin alleys were open day and night. Water Street where there is now no street and not a house standing, but where many stood fifty and sixty years ago, was the street where hundreds of miners and other people gathered, especially on Saturdays and Sundays, and made night hideous by fighting, cursing and swearing. Women were almost as numerous as men, and equally as vile and wicked.” Indeed, the tan yard at the end of Water Street was known as Sprawl’s Hotel. Drunken miners were escorted to an open vat and thrown in. This process was called “oozing out.”

Other early residents and Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian church members soon sought to bring a more civilized influence to Dahlonega. John and Mary Ann Choice built the Choice Hotel with stables in the rear. A black man by the name of James Bosclair, known as “Free Jim,” opened a cake and fruit store, then bought a mine and ran the largest general store. The current brick courthouse was constructed in 1834, and by 1838, the newly completed Dahlonega Mint brought a government-appointed staff...and a lot of in-fighting. The boxy, two-story, white-framed Dahlonega Academy overlooking town from a western hill offered education for the citizens’ children.

It’s to this setting that the heroine of The Schoolmarm and the Miner repairs to salvage her hopes of a teaching career squandered by her father. Little is she prepared for twin bullies, a haughty board president, and a widower who’s given up his career in law enforcement to raise his mischievous daughter. https://www.amazon.com/Schoolmarm-Miner-Twenty-Niners-Georgia-Gold-ebook/dp/B0GMRS3Q88/

Denise Farnsworth, formerly Denise Weimer, writes historical and contemporary romance mostly set in Georgia and also serves as a freelance editor and the Acquisitions & Editorial Liaison for Wild Heart Books. A wife and mother, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses.

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Fix My Teeth in Comfort . . .

By Suzanne Norquist

 

. . . Yeah, right.

One constant in dental offices today is the style of the chair. I can go anywhere in the United States and rest in comfort while I have my teeth cleaned or filled (or worse). I stretch my legs out and recline my head to a height where the dentist or hygienist can work while sitting.

Until the late 1700s, specialized dental chairs didn’t exist. Before that, a patient usually sat on the floor, often with their head held between the practitioner’s knees while he extracted a tooth. Few other procedures were available.

Otherwise, a dentist might use a regular chair. Perhaps a rocking chair with a log to block it into a reclined position. Or maybe a fancy upholstered armchair, which would convince the patient of the dentist’s competence. Who wouldn’t feel confident in a plush chair with eagle’s head carvings?

Josiah Flagg, a Boston dentist, is credited with inventing the first dental chair in 1790. He modified a simple wooden Windsor writing chair with a padded headrest. Then he added a tray for storing tools of the trade. It would have looked similar to the one below. I doubt this would have been more comfortable than the floor.

It would be another forty years before Englishman James Snell designed a chair with an adjustable seat and back. As a dentist, he found the inconvenience of a regular armchair frustrating. His design had a seat that would go up and down, a back that would tilt backward and forward, and a footrest. Leaning back in the chair would raise the footrest. It even included a table to hold a candle so the patient wouldn’t have to.

This chair didn’t move smoothly, and adjustments were limited. Many improvements were required before chairs resembled the ones we see today.

In the 1840s, with the introduction of nitrous oxide and ether for anesthesia, dentists could perform longer procedures, making a stable chair a necessity. Samuel Stockton White began manufacturing dental tools and furniture in the S.S. White Manufacturing Company. He jumped on each new innovation.

Various dentists made improvements. However, most were clunky.

Dr. James Beall Morrison patented a design in 1867 that included a ball socket and joint with a foot pedal, the ability to tip in any direction, and a vertical adjustment of over three feet. This allowed the dentist to stand or sit while working. The chair was constructed with iron for durability. The dentist would crank the chair into position.

In 1877, Basil Manly Wilkerson added hydraulic adjustments to the chair. Instead of cranking to situate the patient, the dentist could simply use a lever. The S.S. White Company manufactured and sold these chairs. 

The small print on the advertisement says, “You can pay a higher price, but you cannot get a better made chair at any money than the Wilkerson. It is built to endure the use to which it is put. It will last almost a lifetime. There are plenty of them still in good form after more than twenty years of active service. It has all the movements which go to making operating easy for the patient and the operator. At its price, also, it is the cheapest chair at the service of the dentist.”

By the early 1900s, most chairs were metal for cleanliness. And in the 1940s, electric motors drove the lifts. Since then, they haven’t changed much.

Next time I visit the dentist, I’ll try to be grateful for the ergonomic chair instead of complaining about the other things that happen during the visit. 

***

 

Love In Bloom 4-in-one collection

“A Song for Rose” by Suzanne Norquist

Can a disillusioned tenor convince an aspiring soprano that there is more to music than fame?

“Holly & Ivy” by Mary Davis

At Christmastime, a young woman accompanies her impetuous younger sister on her trip across the country to be a mail-order bride and loses her heart to a gallant stranger.

“Periwinkle in the Park” by Kathleen E. Kovach

A female hiking guide, who is helping to commission a national park, runs into conflict with a mountain man determined to keep the government off his land.

“A Beauty in a Tansy”

Two adjacent store owners are drawn to each other, but their older relatives provide obstacles to their ever becoming close.

Republished from Bouquet of Brides

Buy links: https://books2read.com/u/bOOx8K

https://www.amazon.com/Love-Bloom-Mary-Davis/dp/B0FPLFYCXR/

  

Suzanne Norquist is the author of two novellas. Everything fascinates her. She has worked as a chemist, professor, financial analyst, and even earned a doctorate in economics. Research feeds her curiosity, and she shares the adventure with her readers. She lives in New Mexico with her mining engineer husband and has two grown children. When not writing, she explores the mountains, hikes, and attends kickboxing class.

 

The Midwives and Miracles of the Marsh

 By Tiffany Amber Stockton

There was no hospital on the island and no doctor within easy reach. Just a woman who knew what to do.

She Knew What Grew in the Marsh

When I started digging into the history of isolated coastal communities for this series, I learned a bit about midwives. When someone got sick, or a baby was on the way, they called on a woman. Usually older. Trusted by everyone within a day's travel. And she was the closest thing to a doctor most of those communities ever had.

Midwives along the Eastern Shore weren't trained in any formal school. They learned from the woman who came before them, who learned from the woman before her. They knew which plants to gather from the marsh and the kitchen garden. Mullein for coughs, plantain leaf for wounds, bayberry bark when a fever climbed too high.

A lot of that knowledge had roots in the traditions of the region's original peoples—the Powhatan and Accomack—passed along through generations of living side by side.

And they weren't just called for births. They mixed tonics, dressed wounds, sat with the dying, and managed the everyday medical crises that had no other solution when the nearest doctor was miles away across open water.

More Than Herbs and Remedies

Here's the part I find most interesting. Faith was woven directly into how these women worked.

Prayer wasn't something separate from the remedies. It was part of the care. A midwife might pray over a laboring woman, gather neighbors from the local church to stand in prayer when a fever refused to break, or whisper Scripture over a child in the night. There was no hard line between what she knew how to do and what she trusted God to do. She worked right up to the edge of her knowledge, and then she handed it over.

That resonates with me. Psalm 139 says God knit each of us together in our mother's womb. The women who spent their lives welcoming new life into those salt-air rooms knew that better than most. They had too much experience of what lay beyond human hands to believe they were ever truly in charge of an outcome. They were instruments. And they showed up anyway.

The Ones Who Went Unrecorded

The hard part of researching this topic is learning most of these women were never written down.

As professional medicine became more formal through the 1800s, midwives and folk healers got pushed out of the official record. Their knowledge was dismissed, their contributions went undocumented, and what they knew often died with them or survived only in family memory that eventually faded too. Finding their specific names and stories takes real digging, and sometimes you come up empty.

What I did find is they were trusted by their neighbors in the most vulnerable moments a person experiences. They carried knowledge no book recorded. And they were faithful, showing up in the middle of the night when someone needed them.

Desmond Doss: the True Story Behind Hacksaw Ridge

by Martha Hutchens

Image by Deposit Photos, @ kamila_koziol

Last month I wrote about Alvin York, the man behind the movie Sergeant York. This month, I want to write about another unlikely hero, Desmond Doss. Desmond was the hero portrayed in the modern film Hacksaw Ridge. Once again, I was surprised at how much the movie got right.

At first, I thought most of the story of Desmond’s childhood was dramatized. I didn’t find much mention of it in interviews with him. However, when I went to the Encyclopedia of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, I found that his father was indeed an alcoholic, and there was violence in his household. In fact, his father aimed a gun at Desmond’s uncle, and his mother got between them. She took the gun and gave it to Desmond to hide. So while the scene in the movie that shows Desmond pointing a gun at his father to protect his mother was dramatized, there was some basis for it.

Desmond went on to get a job at the shipyards. This position in a major wartime industry would have guaranteed him deferment. I have seen references to him being drafted, and others that say he volunteered. I think the confusion comes from the fact that he did not request deferment. But he did face one major problem.

During that incident in his childhood, Doss swore to God that he would never touch a gun again.

Image from Deposit Photos, @ zhukovsky

Doss volunteered as a conscientious objector and wanted to train as a medic. However, Army policy at the time expected even conscientious objectors to undergo weapons training, and Doss could not do that. Much of what was portrayed in the movie really did happen. He was verbally and physically abused. He faced a Section 8 discharge, where it was claimed he was mentally unfit for service. He fought this classification. I have not found any record of an actual court-martial, though the threat of one appears to have been real.

Doss persevered and graduated basic training with his unit. He then married Dorothy Schutte. From what I can find, the movie’s portrayal of love at first sight is not historically accurate. Instead, their relationship appears to have developed over time.

The 77th Infantry Division had some specialized training stateside before being sent to jungle warfare school in Hawaii. By early 1944, Doss’s commanders were still considering leaving him behind. The warfare in the Pacific was so brutal that even medics often carried weapons.

But Doss remained with his unit and deployed to Guam in July of 1944.

This is one place where I think the movie does him a disservice. The film implies that Doss faced combat for the first time at Okinawa. In reality, he had already seen combat at both Guam and the Philippines. He had already proven himself over and over by running into fire to retrieve his wounded brothers. He had already been awarded the Bronze Star. And, perhaps more importantly to him, he had already begun leading prayer services before going into combat.

Nonetheless, Doss is best known for his actions on Okinawa. His unit was sent to take the Maeda Escarpment—later known as Hacksaw Ridge—a 400-foot rise with a near-vertical face of about 50 feet.

Image by Deposit Photos, @ kuzmire

Doss said of the first day: 

“Japanese had been there for years. They had that mountain honeycombed and camouflaged to look like natural terrain. That’s what we had to face. There were eight or nine Japanese positions we destroyed before we contacted A Company. And when the day was done, I didn’t have a single man killed.” (He held up his hand to make a circle for zero.)

Of the next day, he said: “The next day, we thought the big job was done. Instead, everything we tried this day went wrong.”

By the end of that day, the only men on top of the escarpment were the wounded, the dead, the Japanese—and Desmond Doss.

Doss said, “I had these men up there, and I shouldn’t leave them. They were my buddies. Some of my men had families. And they trusted me. I didn’t feel like I should value my life above my buddies’. And so I decided to stay with them.”

But Doss did more than stay. He lowered those men over the cliff, one at a time, all while under fire or the threat of fire. According to the Encyclopedia of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Doss believed he rescued no more than 50 men, while his commanding officer believed it to be closer to 100. They agreed to record it as 75, and that is the number listed in his Medal of Honor citation.

Doss said, “So I just kept praying, ‘Lord, please help me get one more… one more…’ until there were none left. And I was the last one down.” (His smile as he said that last sentence was absolutely beautiful.)

The movie goes on to show Doss being wounded, which was accurate. What it does not show is that when he was being carried off the field, they passed another man whom Doss believed to be more gravely wounded. He crawled off the stretcher and insisted that the litter bearers take the other man instead.

Image by Deposit Photos, @ iakovenko123

Doss did, in fact, carry a Bible into battle with him. It was given to him by his wife. He lost it on the battlefield at Okinawa, and his fellow soldiers searched for it and returned it to him.

Doss faced one more battle after the war. He lost one lung and five ribs to tuberculosis, yet continued working a small farm with his family. He appeared on the television program This Is Your Life in 1959, where he was surprised with additional land and equipment. But the moment I remember most was simple. The host leaned over to Doss’s son and said, “We sure surprised your dad, didn’t we?”

The boy grinned from ear to ear and said, “We sure did.”

Desmond Doss was the first conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor. He was not the last. His example would be followed by others who chose to serve without bearing arms. Click here to learn about two medics in Vietnam who received the same award.

Best-selling author Martha Hutchens is a history nerd who loves nothing more than finding a new place and time to explore. She won the 2019 Golden Heart for Romance with Religious and Spiritual Elements. A former analytical chemist and retired homeschool mom, Martha occasionally finds time for knitting when writing projects allow.


Martha’s debut novel, A Steadfast Heart, is now available. You can learn more about her books and historical research at marthahutchens.com.

When his family legacy is on the line, rancher Drew McGraw becomes desperate for someone to tame and tutor his three children. Desperate enough to seek a mail-order bride. But when the wrong woman arrives on his doorstep, Drew balks.

Heiress Kaitlyn Montgomery runs straight from the scandal chasing her toward a fresh start on a secluded ranch. She strikes a bargain with Drew—a marriage convenient for both of them.

But the more Kaitlyn adapts to ranch life and forms a bond with Drew’s children and their enigmatic father, she realizes that this ranch is where she is meant to be. And then her past catches up with her…

Women Homesteaders: Mollie Dorsey Sanford 1857-1866

Women Homesteaders: Mollie Dorsey Sanford 1867-1866

By: Izzy James

Mollie and her sister, Nan. Mollie is on the left.

Of all the homesteaders I’ve read about, I think Mollie is my favorite. She’s continuously upbeat and tells so much of life as she experienced it. Always looking for God she found Him.

On March 27th 1857 Mollie and her family left Indianapolis on the 9 o’clock train and arrived seventeen hours later in St. Louis, Missouri. They spent 29 March purchasing supplies. Spring bonnets, and a cook stove. A whole barrel of sugar and other provisions. Her father booked passage for his family on the paddle steamer “Silver Heels” and on the 30th of March at sunset they set off for the Nebraska Territory.

“We have a motley crew, persons of every form, size , and color. Fussy old ladies with their poodle dogs. Anxious mamas in mortal terror let their youngsters should fall overboard; giddy young girls, frolicksome children, fascination young gents, and plenty of bachelors, who fly to their staterooms to hide from the females, and romping children.”

As young girls often do, Molly made a friend and the two of them had a marvelous time.
Two weeks to the day they arrived in Nebraska City—“nice name, but not much of a city…”

“Here there are nothing but rude cabins and board shanties not even plastered. I see such lots of men, but very few ladies and children. I heard one fellow shout, ‘Hurrah for the girls’ as father marched his brood into the hotel parlor, and Mrs. Allen, our landlady said, ‘I’m glad to see the girls.’ She is quite gossipy and has already told us more than we can digest in a month. She says the place is full of gamblers, topers (drunkards), and roughs of every description, and we will have to be very discreet. So I suppose we will hardly dare poke our noses outside the door for fear of contamination.”

After a short sojourn in Nebraska City, Mollie’s father completed a small log house on the Little Nemaha. Her father named it “Hazel Dell” Mollie and her family settled into life on the prairie. Her father worked in town as a carpenter. They welcomed travelers and neighbors to their little home. After a slow and steady romance with Byron Sanford, twelve years her senior, she became engaged to be married.

During their long engagement Mollie would go to town and work for various families sewing, sometimes nursing, and teaching. Byron, By as she called him, visited often. In between these jobs she would go home to Hazel Dell. She was always happy to be among her family working along side them aiding them in whatever way most useful.

Byron and Mollie on the left. Her son and his family on the right.

On Monday, February 13th 1860 Byron and Mollie’s brother Sam went to Tecumseh to get a marriage license for the wedding was to take place the next day. Turns out the newly appointed County Clerk was absent in order to procure more of those forms. Sam rode home to tell the family and Byron waited for the clerk. The family watched for Byron the rest of the day. The following morning all was set for the wedding. Guests gathered. Food prepared. No Byron. Mollie excused herself every so often to weep and pray, always coming back in with a smile as family members commented. Some were kind, some not so much. Her grandfather went so far as to suggest that Byron’s sole purpose may have been to steal her grandfather’s horse. At eight o’clock her grandfather went back home to bed, Mollie walked with him there to make sure he was settled in.

On her way back home,

“I heard the sound of horse’s hoofs, and rushing to the roadside, I saw in the bright starlight my truant lover. His first exclamation was: ‘My gracious, Mollie, what do they think?’
I said, “What do you suppose I think, Lord Byron?’”

After colluding with her brother Sam and her aunt and uncle, (who was to perform the service) to keep Byron’s arrival a secret. They sprung a surprise on their guests. Mollie and Byron let the family think he’d not arrived and that Mollie had given up on her wedding for that day. Hiding in a different house they got themselves dressed once their preparations were complete they signaled her aunt, who marched into the parlor.

“We will not wait for Mr. Sanford any longer,” declared her aunt. “Come out to prayers.” All marched solemnly into the kitchen. At a signal, the door opened, and stepping in, the ceremony was immediately begun, and Byron N. Sanford and Mary E. Dorsey were made man and wife together…”
“And we were married in the kitchen! Start not! Ye fairy brides. Beneath your veils and orange blossoms, in some home where wealth and fashion congregate, your vows are no truer, your heart no happier, than was this maiden’s in the kitchen of a log cabin, in the wilderness of Nebraska.”

Eventually Mollie and Byron made their home in Denver. They had three children. Two survived into adulthood. Byron was employed by the United States Mint for forty years. He died in November 1914, Mollie died three months later.

The Sanford Home in Colorado

My book Liberty's Promise is about an enterprising young woman just like Mollie.

 

It's book two in the Homesteading Liberty series. This time town founder, Willis Ogden, meets his match.

Willie is pretty open to new ideas, he even hired a lady doctor for the town of Liberty, but when the Union Pacific sends a woman telegrapher, he's got questions. He's heard stories about women on the rails and he doesn't like what he's heard.

 

It’s taken years for Sadie Joan Hill to earn her way up the ranks as a first class telegrapher, and now she's been offered the job of station master at Liberty. A small outpost to be sure, but it’s a step up Sadie cannot afford to miss. Imagine. A station of her own.
 

It figures the town would be run by an old-fashioned man who cannot see beyond her pretty pink coat. No matter, Sadie has plans and she’s not going to let a man with his mind in the past destroy her future.

Izzy James lives in the traces of history in coastal Virginia with her fabulous husband in a house brimming with books. Born with a traveling bone and an itch to knit. Izzy travels to every location where her books take place, from Williamsburg to Wyoming, popping in yarn stores along the way.
 

Connect with Izzy through her website at izzyjamesauthor.com and sign up for her monthly newsletter.

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References:

The Journal of Mollie Dorsey Sanford in Nebraska and Colorado Territories 1857 -1866
Introduction and Notes by Donald F Danker
Introduction to the new Bison Books Edition by Lillian Schlissel
University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln/London, 2003

https://www.museum.littletonco.gov/Research/Littleton-History/Biographies/Sanford

Women of Resistance: Sonja Wigert

 

Would you do anything to save your family? Norwegian actress Sonja Wigert agreed to become an Allied spy (code name Bill) to secure the release of her father from a Nazi prison. Born in the lakeside town of Notodden, Norway to a military family, Sonja began acting as a child on stage. She transitioned to film at the age of twenty-one, then relocated to Sweden in 1939 to further her career. She would eventually star in nearly three dozen movies until her retirement.

Sonja was sent back to Norway where her assignment was to uncover information about the German officers stationed there. She was specifically instructed to get close to Joseph Terboven, the Reichskommissar of occupied Norway. His fascination with actresses made him an easy target, and he was quickly enamored with her beauty and intelligence. She convinced him that she could use her contacts to spy on Sweden, and he took her up on the offer, thereby solidifying her role as a double-agent feeding him controlled disinformation.

Her father was eventually released from Grini concentration camp, along with several other political

prisoners. Her work for the military continued, and she managed to identify the Gestapo’s highest-ranking operative and the networks of German agents stationed there. Additional reports from her included the exposure of leaks in Swedish security that enabled the German infiltration. She collaborated with the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (precursor to the CIA) in their attempts to expel Nazi agents from Sweden.

By 1944, the Nazis had determined that Sonja was only providing information approved by the resistance. In retribution, they spread the word that she was a collaborator. Despite repeated efforts to clear her name, the public could not be convinced. After the war was over, she returned to the movie industry, but her reputation was besmirched, and she was never as successful as her pre-war career. She would later say in an interview, “All of it was horrible. It was torment to go on the stage and to make films whilst this farce was ongoing. However, the worst thing was the icy coldness I felt from my friends.” Sonja completed her last film in 1960 and withdrew from the industry. She moved to Spain in 1969, passing away in 1980.

Sadly, she would not receive vindication until 2005, twenty-five years after her death, when the Swedish Intelligence agency released its war archives to the public, and her activities and loyalties revealed. Based on historian Iselin Theien’s biography Sonja Wigert: A Double Life, Swedish director Jens Jonsson’s dramatized biopic, The Spy, was released in 2019.

_______________________

Linda Shenton Matchett writes happily-ever-after historical Christian fiction about second chances and

women who overcome life’s challenges to be better versions of themselves. A native of Baltimore, Maryland, she was born a stone’s throw from Fort McHenry (of Star-Spangled Banner fame) and has lived in historical places all her life. She is a volunteer docent and archivist at the Wright Museum of WWII. She now lives in central New Hampshire where she explores the history of this great state, immerses herself in the imaginary worlds created by other authors, and drinks copious amounts of tea.

 
Norwegian Nights

Can their marriage endure a debilitating injury, a devastating loss, and a world war?

The second anniversary of Germany’s occupation of Norway has passed with no end in sight, so Gustav Westgard and his wife are still exiled on Shetland. He’s convinced Oda’s miscarriage would have been prevented back in Norway and decides he must return to his homeland to do whatever possible to rid the country of its invaders. Will he live to see liberation?

Grieving the loss of her baby, Oda turns toward her heavenly Father as Gustav retreats inside himself. Rather than try to stop him after she discovers he plans to join the Norwegian resistance, she stows away onboard the ship taking him home. Can she convince him that they are better united in a cause than apart?

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Sources:
https://skbl.se/en/article/SonjaWigert
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonja_Wigert
https://www.filmreviewdaily.com/all-reviews/the-spy
https://grokipedia.com/page/Sonja_Wigert

Photo Credits:
Sonja Wigert: By Nostalgia - Swedish publicity/press still, photographer unknown, Public Domain.
Sonja Wigert still from the 1941 movie Love and Friendship.
Movie Poster: imdb