short post on Russian names

Some Russian names began to be given in Britain in the early 20^th century, due to increased socio – political contact with Russia, upper and middle class Britons seeing the Bolshoi Ballet etc.  The Empress of Russia from 1894 was the former Princess Alix of Hesse, Queen Victoria’s granddaughter.. and her husband Nicholas was the nephew of Queen Alexandra of England.

Russian names were somewhat exotic, often derived from Greek, and became better known in the UK in the Edwardian age.

 One name that was occasionally used was Tatiana, the meaning of which is unclear.  However it has also been used in the Russian abbreviated form of Tanya… and was very popular for a time.

Another name that was liked was the Russian Sonya.  Russian names often have abbreviations – and Sonya was an abbreviation of Sofia.. which is a name used in the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches and which means “wisdom.”

Tatiana was the name of one of the ill-fated Grand Duchesses.  The others were Olga, Marie and Anastasia. 

Olga which means Holy was also used in England.. and so was Anastasia.. The name is a Greek one which means “resurrection” and was popular in the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches..  However it became shortened to Stacy, and more popular in that form.

Another royal and Russian name is Xenia, which comes from the Greek for “hospitable”.  It has not proved so popular but a variant “Zena” is occasionally used.

 Alexis is a name given to boys and girls, and is from the Greek based on the word for “defend”.  It was the name of the Czar’s son and was used in the UK…

Another male name that came into British usage was Boris, which comes from a word meaning fight or struggle.

Nature Names

In modern times names based on vocabulary words have become more common.  A favourite theme is names culled from Nature...and natural objects.   Many of these are girls’ names, such as “Autumn”, the name of the season... or Dawn, referring to early morning.  There are some names that are used by boys and girls, such as Glen (the Scottish word for valley).

 In the USA, there is Glen Campbell the country singer and also Glenn Close, the actress.

Other season names are Spring and Summer, though I don’t think Winter has ever been used. Sky is occasionally used and so is Star (though other versions such as Stella or Estelle are quite common).  Sunshine was something of a “hippy” name sometimes used in the 1960s or 70’s.

Brooke is the name of the actress Brooke Shields and it is also occasionally used as a boys’ name.

Eartha is based on the word “earth”, and is the name of the singer Eartha Kitt.

Tempest is sometimes given to girls, and is based on the word for a severe storm…and Storm itself  is used at times for boys and girls....

More bible names

Ira meaning watchful is a Bible name that is mostly seen in the US.  There is Ira Gershwin, the songwriter and Ira Hayes, a Native American soldier, who was one of those who raised the flag on Iwo Jima... Ira Hayes sadly was traumatised by war and the deaths of his friends and he hated his fame as part of the well-known photograph. He felt used by the Government sending him on promotional tours.  So he  turned to alcohol and died of alcohol poisoning.  He is commemorated in Johnny Cash’s song “Ballad of Ira Hayes.”  The name isn’t all that commonly used but it is short and simple.

Jordan is a name that used to be given to boys, but now is mostly a girl’s name.  It means “flowing” and refers to the waters of the River Jordan. It used to be given to children baptised with Jordan’s water.
Samuel means Name of God, and is nowadays usually shortened to Sam.

A name which is very unusual but which I like appears in the New Testament - “Damaris”.  It is the name of an Athenian convert, known to St Paul and may mean calf or heifer which signifies gentleness.  Another Greek woman’s name which appears in the New Testament is Dorcas which means doe or Gazelle.  In Aramaic -the name is Tabitha which is still occasionally used.  She was a woman who did charitable deeds and St Paul raised her from the dead… In England, there were “Dorcas societies” in the 18^th century of women doing charity work…

Martha is another Aramaic name, which means “lady” – though the Martha who was a friend of Jesus, was more of a housewifely woman, busy with preparing meals and practical work…

 Another bible name for women which has been very popular is Naomi, which means pleasure or delight.  Naomi was the mother in law of Ruth, in the Book of Ruth and she and Ruth had a loving friendship.

 Joel is not a very popular name for boys, but more recently, female versions of it have become more popular, such as Joelle or Joely.  It means “”Yah is God”… Yah or Yahweh being a Hebrew name for the Lord.

Joachim means “exalted by God” It’s not that popular in English speaking countries but there is a Spanish version- Joaquin... Joaquin Phoenix is a well-known actor and brother of River Phoenix.  Joaquina is a feminine Spanish version.

 These are just a few random “bible names” that I find interesting.  More may follow!

Bible and Virtue Names

I haven’t ever blogged about bible names, though I like many of them.  These names are not so common in the UK as in America, where there is more of an interest in the Bible.  Some well-known American heroes have had bible names and that has meant that the names  were given to children.. and became popular.  One such is Ethan.  Ethan Allen was one of the leaders of a famous militia, in colonial times, called the Green Mountain Boys..  His troops defended Vermont, and later were part of the army in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.   The name became popular and nowadays it is well known in America and also in Australia.  It is even given to children in England.   The name means firm and long lived.

In Puritan times in England, there was a trend towards using Bible names and virtue names for boys and girls, because people were starting to read the Bible in English... Previously, children had been called by saint’s names.  But in the 17^th century saints’ names were not considered because they did not have Bible authority.  Bible names became more popular. 

Over time, as the Puritan influence faded, it was more likely to be poorer people – who might read little other than the Bible, who  were going to choose bible and virtue names.  Virtue names were usually given to girls, such as Charity, Modesty, Patience, Prudence, Clemency, Faith, Hope, Grace, Mercy etc. although sometimes males were given a virtue name, such as Honesty....

Some bible names like David and Daniel or Sarah, Rachel or Mary for girls have become so popular that they have drifted away from their religious origins. So have Philip, Paul, Peter, Thomas, Timothy, James Joseph, or Elizabeth…

Others like for example Zachary or Adam  seem to me to still have the feel of “biblical” about them.  Zachary is reasonably popular in the USA, often shortened to Zak.  It means “God has remembered” and is the name of John the Baptist’s father. Adam means “earth” and is based on the name of the first man, whom God created out of the earth…

I hope to add a few more blog posts about Biblical names….

Poldark Novels

I have just been reading Bella Poldark...which is the last of the series of novels about 18^th and 19^th Century Cornwall.   The Poldark series has been enormously popular.  
Winston Graham (1908-2003) was a novelist…who moved to Cornwall as a young man and lived there for many years.  He was interested in Cornish history.  He  was a prolific  author who wrote thrillers and other novels (including Marnie, which was later filmed by Hitchcock)….but in 1945 he published his first Poldark novel, Ross Poldark... which started off the series. 

It was popular and he wrote 11 more novels over the rest of his life.  The first novel was about Ross, the son of a Cornish squire, who had a small estate and a mine… in the late 18^th century.  Ross's father is a younger son, his father Joshua only had a modest fortune, and an estate which is little more than a large farm.  Ross went into the army and is now returning from the wars in America, only to find that his fiancée Elizabeth, thinking he had died, has become engaged to his cousin Francis.  This event sets off many of the problems in his life, which make up the story.    Elizabeth is a highly strung refined delicate girl who has always been a little afraid of Ross, who has had a reputation for wildness.  He is angry with his cousin Francis and it creates a rift in the family.

Ross is something of a maverick, politically somewhat left of centre (though he later becomes an ally of the Tory radical Canning).  He sympathizes with the poor and working class of Cornwall and tries to help people in trouble.  However he finds that on his return that his father has died, his estate is run down and he is left with 2 drunken and useless servants, the comical Jud and Prudie Paynter.  He has to try to set the estate to rights, and to provide work for the poor, with his mines… but times are hard, and mining is an uncertain business.

Ross’s feelings for Elizabeth continue to torment him, though she is something of a cold woman, emotionally and sexually.  She marries Francis but she does retain some feelings for her old admirer -which makes for problems.  In addition, Ross makes an enemy of George Warleggan who is from a nouveau riche family who has become very prosperous... by banking and mining. . 

George is conscious of his own “lower class” origins and resents the Poldarks for being gentry and he is a harsh man who sees no reason to sympathize with the poor as some of the more genteel families do.   He is also one of the richest men in the county and he and Ross are soon at loggerheads.  

Ross while trying to improve his estate, meets with and rescues a young girl, a miner’s daughter, who has run away from home, and takes her into his house as a servant.  Demelza becomes devoted to him and when she is 17, they become lovers.  Ross  does not wish to exploit one of his servants and he decides to marry her, rather than keep her as a mistreess. 

 Demelza then has to try to learn to fit into Cornish society as his wife.

The Poldark series starts with Ross as a young man just home from the Wars and continues until the final volume which is set when Ross is around 58 – 1818-20 or so.   He is by then the father of 5 children... He and Demelza have had a long and stormy but happy marriage... Over the series, we learn about the history of Cornwall, the Wars with France, politics, mining and the early days of steam engineering (a subject I’ve always struggled with!).. Cornish industry centered on mines, fishing and sea faring…  Cornwall was something of a “Wild West” at times, with a lot of smuggling and law breaking going on, due to the war with France.  There was also some “wrecking” or stealing of goods from ships that ran aground. 

Ross and Demelza's marriage at times reaches crises due to infidelities, on each side... Ross always retains a fondness for Elizabeth, and he all but forces her to have sex with him, in anger, when he hears she is going to marry George Warleggan. Demelza feels alienated from him and has a brief romance with a young man called Hugh Armitage.   

The conflicts between the Poldarks and Warleggans continue, with Demelza's brother Drake falling in love with Morwenna, Elizabeth's cousin.  

 Bella, the final volume  -was written towards the end of Graham’s life... and I found it interesting because while it is still based in Cornwall, the focus is on Bella, Ross and Demelza’s youngest daughter, who has a beautiful voice and who wishes to become an actress and singer.  There is a good deal about the history of music, opera and theatre in the Regency period.   Some of it is a bit badly written with rather modern language –and attitudes but it is an entertaining read…

The Poldark series has now been televised in 2 different adaptions, though it has not covered all 12 novels.  The first series was on TV in the 1970s and was very popular, with Robin Ellis as Ross and Angharhad Rees as Demelza.  It was not a fully satisfactory adaptation and in some ways annoyed Winston Graham, because he felt that it was historically inaccurate and he did not like the way they portrayed Demelza in the early episodes.  That  adaptation only covered the books up to 1800.  The later novels had not then been written.   The more recent adaptation has so far only covered the earlier novel... It has been on TV in the past few years and has also been very popular...

Land of Spices Part II

When the novel starts, we learn that Mother Helen is increasingly unhappy working in Ireland... and one day, she is drawn to the little Anna, when the child seems to like one of her father’s favorite Poems…”My soul there Is a country..” 

For many years Helen has used her vocation, genuine though it is, to avoid the messiness of human love.   Over time she came to forgive her “pagan minded” father for his love for men, but she still can’t bring herself to love other people.  Gradually however she becomes fond of Anna, who is highly intelligent and unusual.  She tries to avoid showing any favoritism toward her….but encourages her to learn English poetry.  

Over several years, she rules the school and convent.   She tries to steer a middle course between  tolerating the snobbery of many of the older nuns, who are proud of their upper class background and who cling to the European based ways of the past, and the younger nuns and parents who are in favor of Irish Nationalism, which Mother Helen regards as narrowing and limited.

  Anna grows older – and shows a talent for reciting poetry and for literature.  Her family however has many problems… Her father is drinking more heavily, and the farm is not doing so well. 
Anna’s mother is forced to turn to her own domineering mother for financial help.

Mother Helen remains in touch with her father, who still lives in Belgium, but she gives up the idea of a transfer and does her best with living in Ireland.  She still feels something of an alien there, but has developed an attachment to the place springing from her fondness for Anna.  She knows that religious vocation does not mean a withdrawal from human affections but her hurt over her father’s illicit love for men made her shy away from showing and feeling human love.

 As Anna grows older, she does well at school, but is distressed by the strains of home life.  Then a tragedy occurs.  Her brother Charlie, the one person she has always loved and been close to, drowns while swimming, on a summer holiday.   She is distraught, and coupled with the family’s money troubles, her life becomes very difficult.  Her grandmother is rich but arrogant and does not believe in women’s education.  She is unwilling to help her granddaughter to find a career. 

Her grandmother feels that it is up to Anna to take some kind of “ladylike” job, to add to the family’s income... but that it is a waste of time to educate girls because it costs too much and they only marry.   However Anna wins a scholarship and attracts the admiration of the Bishop, and Mother Helen uses this to persuade and push her grandmother into agreeing that she should take up the scholarship and be able to train for a career.   

Mother Helen’s father has just died in Brussels, and she reflects that she is glad she had come to an acceptance of him before he died but now, even if she goes back to Belgium, he won’t be there.  She is pleased that she has been able to do some good for Anna, and helped a young girl on a path to an independent career.  

This is always a very important theme in Kate O’Brien’s fiction.  Even in her love stories, there is an emphasis on women being educated and having some work to do.   Flower of May ends with Fanny and Lucille, the 2 young women of the book, also preparing to go to University and get an education which will enable them to work at something better and more meaningful than an ill paid “ladylike job”.   

 In “As Music and Splendor”, the 2 co heroines, Rose and Claire are professional opera singers…

At the time O’Brien was writing – and even more so because she set some of her novels in the Victorian past - the careers available to women were relatively few, most notably teaching and writing...

 But she did focus on the idea of work for women...   By setting some  of her books in convent schools, she was able to depict nuns as professional teachers and women who ran an enterprise, (such as the lay sisters managing the convent’s farm) rather than as housewives or idle socialites.    One of her early works,   "Mary Lavelle" is a love story, but the love is between Mary and a married man and  it ends after one day of love making.  Mary’s job as governess to the Spanish girls is not very demanding but she decides to go home to Ireland, to take her small inheritance and go away, to find some other kind of work…

In “Land of Spices” there is no love interest at all.  The only love affair in the book is the briefly mentioned one of Helen’s father and his young male student…Mother Helen, the main character is a nun, and Anna is very young and not interested in men as yet.  She sympathizes with Votes for women, and wants to have a career, but there is no sign of any romance for her.   Growing up in school, she is in a world of women... who do form a supportive network for each other. The book ends with Anna preparing to go to University and Mother Helen being told that she has been elected Mother Superior of the Order... Which will entail a return to the main House in Brussels. 

Land of Spices Part I

Land of Spices (published 1941) is another of Kate O’Brien’s novels about Ireland.  Most of her novels are about the Irish middle or upper classes.  Most of Ireland’s landed aristocracy was “Anglo Irish” and Protestant, but there were some Catholic Gaelic families that had managed to hold onto some of their ancestral land or to buy up estates.   Her own family had come to wealth and prominence in the 19^th century in Limerick, having set up a prosperous business, trading horses. 
In one of her later novels, "The Flower of May", the heroine’s family owns a small estate, in the country, and her aunt leaves it to Fanny, the heroine, to give her financial independence.

     In O'Brien's books she called Limerick “Mellick”.  Her first novel Without My Cloak was set there, in a Forsyte like middle class rather smothering family.   It is based partly on her family history...

 Many of her heroines are educated, as she was, in a convent school.   She went to school as a boarder at the age of 5 because her mother had died and her father wanted her to be looked after.  The convent gave an excellent education and Kate was able to go to University.  There was also training in “politeness” and good Catholic  ladylike behavior.

In "The Land of Spices," the heroine Anna Murphy goes to school as a boarder, at a very early age. 
In her case the reason is that her father, a gentleman farmer, drinks and seems to be having an affair with his children’s governess… Her mother is a rather silly woman, who complains continually. So  Anna goes to the school, though she is much younger than the other pupils, and misses her favourite brother, Charlie...

 The Headmistress of the School Mother Helen Archer is an Englishwoman, who feels out of place in Ireland at this particular time.  It is Edwardian Ireland, when the Gaelic League had come into prominence.  She finds the narrow emphasis on nationalism, on the Irish language, and the Irish nuns'  dislike of English ways off-putting.  The Irish sisters and priests whom she works with however are not fond of Mother Helen, and they think of her as typically English, cold and arrogant.   She is not popular and at the beginning of the novel, she is seriously considering asking for a transfer from her convent, to go to Europe where the order has houses. 

We learn gradually what drew Helen Archer into being a nun, and what has happened in her life to make her seem cold and withdrawn.  She is the daughter of an English teacher, who married.  He loved English literature and culture –but he and her mother settled in Brussels. where he worked as  a tutor.
 Helen was sent to a convent school but was not at first interested in being a Nun.  However in her teens –she discovered why her father has settled abroad and why his marriage to her mother has not been very successful.  She comes home from the convent one day, unexpectedly  -and finds her father in an embrace with a young man who is his pupil and protégé.   The shock of this drives her into withdrawing from human love and deciding to go into a convent.

Mary Lavelle and Kate O'Brien

Mary Lavelle is one of Kate O’Brien’s novels, (published 1936) and set in Spain.  Like another Irish writer, Maura Laverty, Kate spent some time as a young woman, in Spain, working as a governess to a rich Spanish family.

   Maura Laverty found the life restricting and managed to get out of it; she became a secretary instead.  She gradually got into journalism and became a full time writer.  Her alter ego, Delia, in No More than Human, also gave up being a governess and learned shorthand and typing, so that she could get a job in a business setting, which gave her more independence. 

Kate O’Brien seems to have enjoyed it, and learned a good deal form her time in Spain.   She disagreed with her employer’s family however later on, because she was sympathetic to liberalism and the cause of reform in Spain and they were conservatives.. who sympathized with Franco.
O'Brien's books were banned in Franco’s time .     And while while she loved Spain, she was unhappy when the country became a right wing fascistic dictatorship.   (She was also unhappy with Ireland in the post-Independence period, because the culture became extremely conservative and clericalist, with a focus on narrow puritanical Catholicism.  For long periods of her life, She lived in England).

The novel is the story of Mary Lavelle, an Irish middle class girl, who is engaged to a young man in her home town.  They can’t afford to marry as yet, and her father is a doctor, not very well off. 
Dr Lavelle is a disappointed lazy man who has little affection for his children.   So Mary decides to go away and support herself in a job for a year or 2 until her fiancé is able to marry her.   She feels that it would be good for her to get some experience of the world, outside the narrow confinement of provincial Irish life in the 1920s.  Ironically, while the Irish people hated British rule, the connexion with England and the British empire gave  Irish people some connextion with a wider life.  Many Irish middle class people became officers in the British Army, or moved to London to work...  However after Ireland secured independence it became more provincial, narrow and isolated...and rigidly Catholic....
Mary soon grows to love Spain, unlike many of the other Irish women in her job.  These governesses and chaperones are unhappy with the country, but lack the initiative to give up and find other employment.   They are usually lonely in Spain, since they are not considered the equals of the Spanish upper classes who are their employers, nor of the English colony of engineers and business managers who had also come to Spain in the 20s to work.    Mary finds the company of the other Irish “misses” a bit oppressive, because they are largely concerned with complaining about Spain or trying to find a husband.  
She feels that they are also pathetically snobbish, trying desperately to insist on their status as “ladies” albeit poor ones.  However Mary is more tolerant and when the “Misses” are shocked and angry when Rose O’Toole, one of them, marries a Spanish shop keeper... she is happy for Rosie and visits her.

Mary, being pretty and young and already engaged, is more willing to learn about Spain and to enjoy her time there.  She is interested in the politics and art of Spain, though she never learns to appreciate “Moorish Spain”.   Her employer Don Pablo is a liberal, who has devoted much of his time and money to workers' education and similar causes.  His son Juan is an up and coming reformist politician and he is married with a small baby. 

Mary begins to grow up during her time there; she has not realized that she does not really love her fiancé, John, nor does she find him sexually attractive.   

She begins to be attracted to Juan, who is handsome, charming and intelligent... and he returns her admiration. He loves his wife, but she and he are a little at odds because he is devoted to his liberal political career and she is more of a socialite.

He and Mary are sincere Catholics, and don’t want to end up in an affair.  Divorce is not a possibility either in Ireland or Spain.  Eventually Mary decides to return to Ireland, to get away from the difficult situation… but she and Juan make love.  She realizes that she must end her engagement to John, and she decides to go back home and tell him of this – and to go away then and find another job.   Like many of Kate O’Brien’s heroines, (perhaps reflecting the times they lived in) she does not have a focus on a particular job or career – but all the same, her world is not completely bounded by the idea of marriage or men. She does want to work as well as love, and she is interested in the political situation in Spain...

In “Land of Spices” Anna Murphy, the heroine is only 17 when this book ends and she wants to go University and get an education, rather than go into a “ladylike” job, in a bank as her impoverished family want.  But it’s not clear what sort of work Anna will take up... Her focus is on the getting of an education.
 O’Brien’s last novel “As Music and Splendor” has 2 heroines, Rose and Claire who are both opera singers, so they are career women, but in the world of the performing arts where women are “allowed” to work and to have romantic lives. Even so, they are for many people considered outside of “respectable” society.

In another late O’Brien novel, “The Flower of May”,   the novel centres on 2 young girls, Fanny (who has just left school) and Lucille a Belgian aristocrat, who also wants an education.  Fanny’s aunt, Eleanor, has a small estate, which she makes over to her niece, so as to give the girl enough money to go to University and learn... and to prepare herself for some kind of career.  There is an emphasis in O’Brien’s  books on women supporting each other, while they still allow themselves to have relationships with men.  At times, I think that she uses adultery, usually set in a foreign context, as a transgression which “stands in” for lesbian love, which she did not usually write about.   

However in Mary Lavelle, she does have an explicitly lesbian character, Agatha Conlon, the book was banned in Ireland)...  Agatha is aware that her feelings for Mary are considered wrong in the Catholic faith, but Mary is more tolerant of them, since she too has a “forbidden love” for a married man.  (It was because of the lesbian character and Mary's affair with Juan that the book was banned in Ireland). 

“Mary Lavelle” ends rather sadly, with Juan’s good hearted elderly father dying from his secret heart condition..and with Mary and Juan feeling guilty that he and Mary were together when his father was so ill.    The lovers part, but they have their special memory.  And Mary has been freed from the conventional relationship with John which would probably have never made her happy.   She has grown up, in a way she would not have done had she stayed in Ireland.

I hope to write some blogs about other O’Brien novels in the near future.

Louisa M Alcott

As a young girl, Louisa  was forced to take jobs, to help the family’s finances.  Her mother also took paid employment which was unusual at the time…but Bronson seemed to be unable to take on the usual male role of breadwinner.  Louisa could see that if she and her sisters did not do soemthing, the family would go on in dire poverty.   She was devoted to her family,  and wanted to keep them all together and to look after her Mother. 

She had a passion for writing though and was always “scribbling.”  She took jobs as housemaid, governess and seamstress. But she hoped to make some real money at her writing.

During the Civil war she was a nurse, but her health failed and she had to give it up.  She did produce a book in 1863, called Hospital Sketches about her nursing experience, which got her some attention.  She wrote a novel “Moods” which also sold but it wasn’t till a few years later in 1868 that she wrote “Little Women” which gained her the popularity and financial rewards that she had hoped for.   She followed up with 3 more books about the March family which was loosely based on her own family. 

Her sister Lizzie had died (as Beth had) but in 1870 Louisa and her sister May (the original of Amy) took a trip to Europe. 

May was artistic and wanted to study European Art. 

Louisa continued to write and to look after her aging parents… trying to make her mother’s life more comfortable.   She herself was often ill due to mercury poisoning; she had been given calomel during her illness during the War and it contained mercury.  She worked hard at her writing, which was still very popular.  She grew a bit tired of the March family but continued to write the March novels.  She also was an ardent supporter of Votes for Women and (like Jo March) Temperance Reform, since she disapproved of drinking alcohol.

Later on, in the late 1870s, May March fell in love with a young man whom she married, but she died after the birth of her baby, Louisa May Nieriker (called Lulu). Louisa Alcott undertook the care of her little niece and brought her back to Boston to live. 

Louisa M Alcott and Bronson Alcott

Louisa May Alcott was born in 1832 to Bronson Alcott, a teacher and philosopher and his wife Abigail May.   Her father was a big influence on her thinking and on her lifestyle.

Bronson was a leading member of the American Transcendentalist philosophy movement.   This was a mixture of Romantic beliefs in the primacy of the individual…that individuals are at their best when self-reliant, and that society tends to corrupt. They believed in individual liberty and were usually anti-Slavery and also they believed in the goodness of people. Bronson was also a proponent of women’s  rights and he favoured a very liberal method of educating the young. He rejected punishments and was at odds with traditional social beliefs. He took several jobs as a teacher but ended up in conflict with parents of students and soon found himself unemployed.  His Abolitionist beliefs and his insistence on having an African American child in one of his schools led to more disputes.

 He had married in 1830, and he and his wife produced 4 daughters and a son who died at birth.  The 4 daughters (Anna, Louisa, Elizabeth and May) were the models for Louisa’s famous children’s novel Little Women.  In 1840 the family moved to Concord, Massachusetts, near to Boston.

 Bronson was not a practical man.  He tried an experiment in communal living called Fruitlands which went bankrupt in a few months, partly because much of the land was not arable.  The inhabitants refused to use leather, nor to wear cotton silk or wool on the grounds that they were the products of slave labour. Abba, increasingly unhappy at her husband’s lack of practical sense, threatened to leave with the children.

When the experiment failed, the family returned to Concord.  Bronson tried to publish his philosophical writings but they were considered incoherent and silly. He farmed a small tract of land, and Abba came into some money, which gave them modest financial security.  They lived again in Boston and then returned to Concord. They went on supporting the Abolitionist movement in the years before the Civil War.

Louisa grew up in this high minded but materially poor atmosphere….and while she absorbed some of her father’s idealistic thought; she was distressed by the family’s poverty and wished for financial security. 

Charlie Daniels....

Charlie Daniels was born in Wilmington, North Carolina.  In his teens, he was already a skilled musician. And he formed a band…which mostly played rock and roll. In the early 60s, he was working as a session musician in Nashville.  He married his wife Hazel in 1964 and they had a son, Charlie Daniels Junior.

He worked as a session musician on albums by Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen…

In the 1970s, he worked on country and Southern Rock music, and he had his biggest hit, the Devil went Down to Georgia.  It’s a brilliant fiddle song where the Devil and a young man have a fiddling contest…. the song was a huge crossover hit and appeared on the sound track of the film Urban Cowboy.

He began to perform gospel songs and produced several gospel albums and enjoys country sports like hunting.  He also likes fishing and snow mobiling…and has a farm in Mount Juliet, Tennessee.

Beds and Blue Jeans on Amazon

Beds and Blue Jeans –a realistic contemporary Romance about a young man and woman who find they have to get to know each other, after they have got together. Sam is a handsome young man who has a band, and finds that there are plenty of girls who want to sleep with the lead singer.  Pattie never quite expected to become a housewife.  She is stormy and difficult…  But the 2 of them come to learn that love is about learning to compromise, working out the best way to do things and growing to love each other.   

http://www.amazon.com/Beds-Blue-Jeans-everyday-mayhem-ebook/dp/B01370SMFO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1443265304&sr=8-2&keywords=nadine+sutton

Classical Names

I haven’t blogged on names for a while, so today I’m going to write a bit about names from the classics.  For centuries, the British upper and middle classes were educated largely by studying the classical languages of Rome and Greece.  The British admired the Roman Empire, and studied its history and literature.

Particularly form the 18^th century onwards, upper class children were often given Latinate Names.   Augustus or Augusta means majestic and was a title given to Roman Emperors starting with Octavian… The name was quite common among the British upper classes and was the name of one of George III’s sons – Augustus Duke of Sussex.   His older sister was Princess Augusta.  

Another name was Claudius, which was anglicised as Claud, and the female version was Claudia. (There are also French versions such as Claudine and Claudette).

The famous writer and philosopher Marcus Aurelius was well known... and the name Aurelius means golden.  It never became popular as a male name, but the female version, Aurelia, is occasionally used. Camilla (from Camillus) has also been used at times, mostly an upper class name. 
Hortensius comes from the Latin for Garden, and Hortense is an occasionally used name.. and it was the name of Napoleon’s step daughter…

The Roman General Quintus Fabius Maximus gave his name to the Fabian socialist society.  His name was not much used in England, but Fabia occasionally was and as Fabiola, it is the name of the late Queen of Belgium.

Felix was a nickname in Rome, meaning happy or lucky, and it has been used in England, together with the feminine version of Felicity or Felicia.

Lucius comes from the word for light.  It is popular and common as Luke, and female versions include Lucy, Lucia, and Lucilla….

Marcus probably derives from the Roman god of War, Mars.. and has become quite common.  The female versions are Marcia, or Marcella.  Another male version is Mark.

As the British also studied the Greek classics and history, Greek names came into English naming.

Alexander is one which has become very popular in Europe and means Defender of the people.  The best known bearer of the name was Alexander the Great. 

Andrew, with the female version Andrea, means “manly” and is the name of the patron saint of Scotland.

Chloe which means green shoot, was a very popular girls name in recent years. Daphne has also been very popular and means Laurel….

Theodore means “gift of God”.  Its feminine version is Theodora which has never been much used.  However, the reversed version of the name is Dorothea or Dorothy, which has been extremely popular.
George means farmer and is the patron saint of England.. it has several female versions, such as Georgina, Georgette and latterly Georgia.

Philip means “lover of horses” and has the female version Philippa.. sometimes shorted to Phil or Pippa.

 Just a few names, here among the many.  I hope to return to this some other day…