Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Ms. Fanny

Beautiful, brilliant, & brave Fanny Kemble

       So, please, if you're reading this, do check out this link and read about Fanny Kemble, who appears to have been a remarkably gifted and admirable woman. A celebrated British actress, author, and abolitionist who fell in love a dashing, wealthy American slaveholder and married him, but not for long. Her story reads like a romance novel and not w/o tragedy [given the laws of her time, Fanny lost custody of her daughters to the man who proved to be a jerk,] not that I'm given to reading such fare. Give me a murder mystery any day.  Still I think her memoir, Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838~1839, would be WELL worth reading. It's on my list. [according to amazon, you can get the book for free on your Kindle if you have one of these nifty devices: good to have whilst standing in line at the post office] And, by the by, Ms. Fanny was born 203 years ago today, 27 Nov 1809, when Lincoln and Chas. Darwin were each 9 months old, that age when babies are in full flower. 
Ms. Fanny shares a birthday with Caroline Kennedy [1957], just for you to know; Howdy Doody's buddy, Buffalo Bob Smith [b. Robt. Schmidt in 1917], and Jimi Hendrix, who'd be 70 years old today, in a kinder, better world. Neat it would have been to have seen and heard what he might have done in these past 40 years or so, no? As long as I'm wishing, would that I could have, even from afar, seen the woman who wrote these words:

"I want to do everything in the world that can be done."
Frances Anne Kemble Butler )1809 ~ 1893) 


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