Era Mothers Who Wrote History's Pages, With Thanks

JPK Huson 1863

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Joined
Feb 14, 2012
Location
Central Pennsylvania
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They all did. And thank you, this Mother's Day. Some famous names whose deeds are well known have ' Mother ' in their bios somewhere in a final paragraph. Or we do not know they were mothers. If we could go back and ask, better believe those bios would be rewritten, and in a big hurry.

620,000 mothers lost sons from 1861 to 1865. Certainly, out of over half a million some who died had already buried her. With creeping up to three million mother's sons fighting the war, that many hearts constricted when news of battle reached distant homes. By war's end, all had paragraphs, not mere footnotes in History's long tome. We salute all of them.


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Elizabeth Keckley
, one of History’s less recognized geniuses. Not merely Mary Lincoln's dress maker, Keckely and Lincoln met because Elizabeth was already at the top of her game- dress designer ' to the stars '. Her story is incredible. Intensely private about her only child, a son lost to the war, scant mentions of him in her book reduce you to tears. Impacted History? From captive to Duchess through sheer talent, dignity and unimaginable, long hours spent year after painful year. Link to her own writing.

http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/keckley/keckley.html



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Dr. Esther Hill Hawks , armydoc. Dr. John Milton Hawks, husband.Graduated New England Medical College for Women in 1857. Abolitionists, headed Hilton Head providing medical care and running a plantation set up for freed slaves along the coast of South Carolina. She was contract physician in General Hospital Number 10, for black soldiers in Beaufort, South Carolina. Hawks cared for soldiers from the 54th Massachusetts after Morris Island . Post war, she opened a home for orphaned black children- which was also her school. These were her children.

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April 1, 1865. " My Beloved Son - taken from me "

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Cont'd.......


And Happy, Wonderful Mothers Day From Ladies Tea.
 
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Left to right: Harriet Tubman; Gertie Davis [Tubman's adopted daughter]; Nelson Davis [Tubman's husband]; Lee Cheney; "Pop" Alexander; Walter Green; Sarah Parker ["Blind Auntie" Parker] and Dora Stewart [granddaughter of Tubman's brother, John Stewart]. NYPL


Araminta Ross, our Harriet! She did not just impact, she blazed across History. Goodness. Our North Star, she was concentrated moral force of immense power. A tiny, enslaved woman used the North Star insisting ‘ Freedom ‘ was inborn, our right as humans on the planet. Her adopted daughter is above, with her. Another daughter is speculative- but it doesn't matter. We are all her children, could we but inherit her compass.


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A favorite, this milliner insisted on her daughter in this occupational photograph. The doll? Wearing a hat. Pinterest.

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Union soldier, perhaps wishing to leave his pregnant wife with a family portrait.

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She lost 3 children- 4, really. ( no Mary snark, please ). And her husband.

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Hidden mother photos may be creepy and funny- but typical ' Mom '. In the background, always making children the focus. These are extremely symbolic, really.

Cont'd.....
 
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