More than just a store!

The hardware section

“Good day” the country merchant would say upon each customer’s entry into his store. For in 1830 the term “hello” was not yet in common use. The country store–the term general store wouldn’t become popular for another couple of decades–was the hub of life in a town. It wasn’t just a place to buy goods, but also the post office and a gathering spot for town’s folk to learn the latest news and gossip.

The country store was run by a merchant or shopkeeper and his entire family. Work in the store was unending. It would open early in the morning and close late at night, six days a week. The storekeeper spent his days serving customers. His wife would help with customers and bookkeeping. His children would do chores before and after school and all day Saturday. They would be given jobs such as sweeping the floor, stocking shelves, polishing brass, grinding coffee and sugar, weighing items, and wrapping purchases. When he left for buying trips into the city, typically twice a year in the fall and spring, his wife would take over his responsibilities.

House wares (womens shoes and ribbons)

The store was a well kept place. It was typically a large open room, with a smaller back room used for bookkeeping and storage. Long wooden counters stretched along both sides of the store, with base cabinets and upper shelves extending to the ceiling, lining the back walls and displaying the merchant’s wares. The counters would show off expensive items such as pens, perfumes and jewelry contained in glass cases. In the center of the store, large wood bins sitting on the floor would hold such items as spices, ground sugar, coffee, flour and seeds. Filling the room were the smells of spices, leather, coffee and kerosene.

The items sold in a country store could be classified into four categories: groceries, dry goods, house wares and hardware. Groceries included items such as tea, coffee, sugar, and spices. Dry goods were the largest selection if goods and included items like woolen broad cloth, cotton textiles, linens, silk, head ribbons, bonnets, ready made clothes, women’s shoes, books and paper goods. House wares, also popular, included everything from dishes, flatware and china, to pots and pans, brooms and mops. And finally, hardware would offer items such as tools, window glass, shot (for guns), garden seeds and dyestuff. Purchased items were sometimes packaged in wooden barrels and cloth sacks, though most often customers supplied their own containers.

Odd Scraps for the Economical

Poke-root, boiled in water and mixed with a good quantity of molasses, set about the kitchen, the pantry, in large deep plates, will kill cockroaches in great numbers, and finally rid the house of them. The Indians say that poke-root boiled into a soft poultice is the cure for the bite of a snake. I have heard of a fine horse saved by it.

…presented to you from The American Frugal Housewife – Dedicated to those who are not ashamed of economy, by Mrs. Child…

Book Review: Betraying Season

Betraying Season
Marissa Doyle
YA Historical Romance/Fantasy
Ages 14+
336 pages

Last July I was delighted to learn I’d won a contest on NineteenTeen, the historical blog shared by authors Marissa Doyle and Regina Scott. My prize: an ARC (Advance Reading Copy) of Betraying Season, Doyle’s most recent novel set in 19th Century Great Britain.

I was excited, not only because I’m one of those “never win anything” people, but also because the book was the follow-up to Bewitching Season, a novel I’d really enjoyed. Both of these books contain some of my favorite ingredients for a story–magic, romance, and history.

In Betraying Season, Penelope Leland, feeling a lesser witch than her sister, travels to Ireland with her former governess, Ally, to study magic. She soon becomes acquainted with Lady Keating, whose social invitations and handsome son, Niall, distract Pen from her studies. But Pen is unaware that Niall has been ordered to pursue her. Lady Keating, who is also a witch, needs Pen’s growing magic to implement an evil plan.

While Pen deals with the Keating family, including a growing attraction to Niall, she must also attend tutorials with young men uncomfortable with women studying magic. She has no support from the recently married Ally, who’s suffering from acute morning sickness. Pen must handle confusing and tricky relationships, for the most part, on her own. She does so with both great strength of character and naiveté, making her all the more real. Niall develops true feelings for Pen, and when he learns exactly what his mother has planned, he must find some way to protect Pen.

As the plot deepens, there are betrayals–or the possibility of betrayal–on many different levels. Doyle has deftly woven twists and turns in the story, several of which took me by surprise. (Don’t you love being surprised?) This was one of those books that I re-read, watching for all the ways Doyle planted motivation or information that was vital for the last fourth of the book. She accomplished it seamlessly.

Out this month, Betraying Season is a satisfying read. I recommend it for anyone who loves YA historical fantasy.

Winner of Lynn Salsi’s Books

The winner of Firefight on Vietnam Brown Water, our featured book by Lynn Salsi, is Jeff Barber!  And the winner of Lynn’s latest picture book, Jack and the Dragon, is Tina!  Please send us your snail mail addresses to damselsinregress [at] gmail [dot] com so we can get you the books.

Pictures from the Past: Tricia

1963 — Facts About Me

• I’m pretty sure this was my kindergarten photo and I was five years old.

• We lived on a US air force base in Germany.

• I was the fourth of five kids and very shy at the time. (No laughing Damsels!)

• We had periodic air-raid drills where those in the apartment-style housing had to gather in the basement of the buildings.

1963 — World Events

• January 11: The Beatles release their single “Please Please Me” and on the flip side “Ask Me Why.”

• July 1: ZIP Codes are introduced for United States mail.

• August 8: Great Train Robbery in England, 2.6 million pounds ($7.3 million) stolen.

• August 28: Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., delivers his “I Have a Dream” speech before an audience of 250,000 near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.

• Sept. 30 to Oct. 8: Hurricane Flora left over 7,000 people dead in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba, making it one of the five deadliest hurricanes in Atlantic history.

• November 22: US President John F. Kennedy assassinated.

Pictures from the Past: Emilie

1984—Facts About Me

 • This picture was taken at Christmastime 1984, so I was thirteen months old.

• I lived in Van Wert, Ohio, where both my parents had grown up.

 • At the time, I was an only child, and the only granddaughter on both sides of my family.

• The Raggedy Ann doll I’m holding was given to me by my paternal grandmother, Gloria Bauer. She later gave me a Raggedy Andy doll to match.

 • In this picture, my mom was a year older than I am right now…scary thought!

1984—World Events

• Apple introduced the first Macintosh computer.

• At the Sarajevo Winter Olympics, British ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean scored twelve perfect 6.0 marks for their free program and became the first non-Soviets to win the gold medal in ice dancing.

 • The Soviet Union boycotted the Los Angeles Summer Olympics.

 • Ronald Reagan was elected to a second term of office.

• A leak from a Union Carbide plant in India killed more than 2,000 people.

 • Several of Britain and Ireland’s most popular musicians formed a group called Band Aid and recorded the song “Don’t They Know It’s Christmas” to raise money for a famine in Ethiopia that killed more than one million people by the end of the year.

Pictures from the Past: Jennifer

Pictures from the Past
Occasionally we like to change things up a little and do a fun post here and there. So this week we present to you “Pictures from the Past”. We’ll each take a picture of us as a child, state the year and list some facts about us from the year the photo was taken and then list some facts that were happening in the world that year.

Jennifer and her mom

1981 – Facts about Me

• We were living in Worms, Germany.
• I was about 2 years old.
• My grandmother gave me the dress I was wearing.
• My parents had bought the rug in the picture second hand from someone who was moving.
• The statue in the background is a Morano dolphin that my parents got on a trip to Italy.
• I’d just returned from my first camping trip vacation in Italy.

1981 – It happened this year in history

• January 20: Ronald Reagan takes the oath as the 40th President of the United States. His inauguration speech was the first live broadcast to use closed captioning for the deaf.
• March 5: Scott Hamilton of the U.S. wins gold at the World Figure Skating Championship in Hartford, Connecticut.
• March 10: The U.S. Postal Service announces an increase in first class postage from 15 to 18 cents.
• July 29: Lady Diana Spencer marries Charles, Prince of Wales.
• August 12: The IBM PC, an early personal computer, is introduced
• September 25: Sandra Day O’Connor was the 102nd Justice sworn in as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, the first woman to hold the office.

Contest: Firefight on Vietnam Brown Water

Lynn Salsi has graciously offered to let the Damsels give away not just her novel Firefight on Vietnam Brown Water, but also a copy of her new picture book!  That means two winners, but just one contest to keep things simple.

In honor of Lynn’s efforts to write about a time in history she and her husband both experienced, and the anniversary of the biggest event of my lifetime, the contest question will be as follows: what “historical” event in your life do you think would make a compelling story?  How would you tell such a story, or have you already?  Let us know either by commenting on this post, or by emailing us at damselsinregress [at] gmail [dot] com by Sept. 18 (one week from today).

Interview with Lynn Salsi

Today we are excited to have an interview with author Lynn Salsi.  Lynn was a Seton Hill classmate of ours and is the one and only person who was a critique partner of all three of the Damsels while we were at school.  She is probably the most diverse author we’ve had the privilege to interview so far, writing fiction for children and young adults in novel, short story, and picture book form, as well as nonfiction for adults, specializing in histories of the Carolinas, where she has called home for many years.  We’re going to talk mostly about her YA novel, Firefight on Vietnam Brown Water, which was her master’s thesis.

1. What drew you to this era, the Vietnam War?

I’ve long wanted to write about the Vietnam War. The war was a huge threat when I was in my teens. By the time I graduated from high school, there was a definite fear for the lives the the guys I had grown up with. I grew up in a small town with only one high school. Most of the kids I attended school with lived in my neighborhood, attended the same church, sang in the youth choir. Some of us also participated with youth groups and scout troops in other churches. Many friends from my neighborhood served in Vietnam. A few attended West Point and one attended the Naval Academy. Most did not want to be drafted and attended college and still ended up serving in Vietnam. When you’re 18 or 20 and learn that your friends have been killed, it changes your life.

2. How did you research for this project?

My research began and I didn’t realize I was writing a book. I completed a book of essays based on oral histories of elderly people whose ancestors were among the first people to settle on the chain of islands known as the Outer Banks. My husband and I were discussing how lucky I was to meet these people and how the struggle of their families living in a hostile environment in the 1700s and 1800s made us appreciate how we lived today. Burke said, “I’ve been thinking that I need to tell you about some of my experiences in Vietnam so our children will know how I was a part of history.” I purchased a black and orange hardcover notebook and kept it in the car. For the next few months, Burke talked about Vietnam as we drove to various places throughout North Carolina promoting books. Then, the natural connection was attending Navy reunions. I sat for hours listening to former Navy men talking to one another about where they were and what they did in Vietnam. As they talked, I took notes. As time went on, they got used to me hanging around and gave me their phone numbers in case I wanted to ask further questions. All of this required a trip to Norfolk, Virginia, two trips to San Diego, and two trips to Texas. When I realized I had more material than I could handle, I put it all away in a large Rubber Maid container in the foot of the closet and spent time mulling over how I could write just one story.

Further research came when I started writing the book and consulted Bob Shirley, a World War II and Vietnam scholar. He had been an OinC on a Swift Boat and answered many of my questions concerning detail. Obviously, my husband provided much of this information, but when writing a novel requiring vast detail, it is necessary to have many experts. I was also lucky that my husband was in contact with his OinC, Tom Hovland, and several crew members. I spent hours with Tom in Greenville, South Carolina, and talked with Bill Kelly in Washington, D.C. All of these men were available to me by phone as well.

Book Review: Firefight on Vietnam Brown Water

Jennifer and I had a hard time reviewing this book because we were both honored to read it when Lynn, like us, was in her first term at Seton Hill University.  Tricia also read further drafts as Lynn’s critique partner in a later term.  We have seen many revisions since then, particularly new beginnings as Lynn strove to develop her main character apart from her husband, on whom this story is based.  Since others reading this book didn’t get the “insider” view that we did, at least not from the very beginning, we’ll try to be as objective as possible.

~~~

Firefight on Vietnam Brown Water
Lynn Salsi
Historical
Age 14+
230 pages

A story about Vietnam and the SWIFT boats.

Al Lupo is a college football player who gets drafted during the Vietnam War.  He joins the Navy and after training finds himself on a SWIFT boat in the waters near Vietnam.  While serving, Al faces enemy fire, interpersonal conflicts with his fellow crew members, and living conditions void of nearly all creature comforts.  He grows up tremendously while in the Navy, including learning his own self-worth and being able to look past his father’s gruff exterior to see that he’s finally earned his respect.

This book is targeted at young men, as the protagonist himself is only eighteen at the start of the book and twenty-two by the time he gets out of the Navy.  It is a chilling reminder how young many soldiers and sailors are, and provides a role model for young men in terms of courage and doing one’s duty the best one can.  Life also goes on at home for Al’s family, friends, and girlfriend, and Salsi does a good job showing how hard it can be to settle back into “regular life” after coming home from the front.

Firefight is not technically historical fiction because the Vietnam War did happen during Salsi’s lifetime.  However, since she was not a member of a SWIFT crew, Salsi has done more than her share of research to create this richly-detailed setting, and it comes through in this book from start to finish.  She also does a nice job with research on the East Asian setting, particularly when Al gets a week-long leave in Bangkok.  That chapter provides a much-needed break for both Al and us of the conflict in the Mekong Delta and lets us see this part of the world as a place worth visiting.