| 12-14 TABLE of CONTENTS:
The incredible story of two old women...
Daughter of the Nile
DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and
EVENTS
QUOTE by
Rosalyn Tureck.
Etta Shiber and Kitty Beaurepos
At the time of the
German invasion of France, Etta Shiber, American author of Paris Underground
(1943), then in her 60's, lived in Paris with her good friend Kitty Beaurepos.
They had met in a dress shop on a trip Shiber had made to Paris in 1925.
Yearly, Shiber visited
Beaurepos in Paris and when Shiber's husband of 35 years died in 1936,
she moved to Paris to live quietly with KB. In 1940, they resisted fleeing
Paris until there was no hope and then they joined the jam of refugees
fleeing south.
Her book graphically
describes the confusion and fear felt by the refugees on the crowded roads,
some on foot carrying what possessions they could, others in dog- or horse-drawn
vehicles, and some like Shiber-Beaurepos in automobiles - all subject to
being machine-gunned and bombed from German planes - and there was no food
left anywhere.
The two old women stopped
at an inn to search for food and found, instead, a British aviator who
failed to get evacuated at Dunkirk. They hide him in the trunk of their
car and when the Germans caught their refugee column and turned them back
to Paris, the aviator - undiscovered - went with them. They hid him in
their apartment, finally making contact with the underground to get him
out.
They were told there
were nearly a thousand starving British soldiers hiding in the woods around
Concy-sur-Conche and Shiber-Beaurepos and the underground brought groups
of four of the Brit soldiers to their apartment to house them while they
prepared false papers and made arrangements to get them through German
lines. In all they helped more than 150 English soldiers escape, but inevitably
the Gestapo discovered their underground.
KB was sentenced to death
- she was English and had had a French husband - and Shiber (the U.S. was
not at war with Germany yet) was sentenced to three years at hard labor.
On May 17, 1942, Shiber, ill and half-starved, was exchanged for Johanna
Hoffman who had been convicted of espionage for the Germana in the U.S.
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Doria (Ahmad) Shafik
Born 12-14-1919, Doria
(Ahmad) Shafik, founder and president of the Egyptian "Bent El Nil"
(Daughters of the Nile). She campaigned for women's suffrage, and elimination
of forced illiteracy for women, and polygamy.
In 1951 she led 1,000
"Bent El Nil" women in storming the Egyptian parliament to gain
women's suffrage. Her mother was kept in Moslem seclusion and her father
kept a many-women harem and Shafik had been subjected to sunni mutilation
at an early age.
She held a Ph.D. and
edited three Egyptian magazines. She was influenced by Madame Hata Charaovi,
Egypt's Susan B. Anthony. Shafik's doctoral dissertation showed that Islam
did not oppose the emancipation of women.
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12-13 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and
EVENTS
B. 12-14-1883, Jane Cowl, writer and actor
who collaborated with Jane Murin under the name Alan Langdon Martin after
an earlier play of theirs folded. The "male" authored play ran
1170 performances. Her stage career lasted until 1948. During World War
II she was co-director of the Stage Door Canteen in New York.
B. 12-14-1885, Ethel Browne Harvey, cell biologist,
embryologist, most noted for her findings about cell division. Being
a woman, she had difficulty in getting support for her work and for most
of her life, she was an independent researcher. Her lesser known husband
was a Princeton professor. Except for one small grant, EBH NEVER received
any funds - a common enough situation for women in science in those days.
Her studies brought her international fame. Using
sea urchins, she was able to excite cell division without maternal or paternal
nucleus. Harvey speculated that her parthenogenetic meogones might mean
that fundamental characteristics of living matter (such as cell division)
were cytoplasmic, while genes controlled later, more specialized characteristics
(like eye color).
B. 12-14-1897, Margaret Chase Smith,
first woman to serve in both houses of Congress.
Elected to the Senate in 1949, Smith was the first woman of a major political
party to have her name placed in nomination for the presidency of the United
States by a major political party and received 27 votes when the Republican
Party nominated Barry Goldwater in 1964. MCS was instrumental in passing
the Women's Armed Services Integration Act of 1948 and was voted the most
valuable senator for 1960.
B. 12-14-1914, Rosalyn Tureck, renowned interpreter
of J.S. Bach, pianist, harpsichordist, and teacher. First woman to
conduct the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in a subscription concert (1958),
conducted major orchestras world-wide, including the Philharmonic Orchestra
of London, the Collegium Musicum of Copenhagen, and the Israel Philharmonic.
Formed International Bach Society (1966). Chicago-born, she lived in England
most of her life.
B. 12-14-1916 (?19), Shirley Hardie Jackson,
novelist and short-story writer best known for "The Lottery"
(1948) and We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
B. 12-14-1960, Catherine Coleman, NASA mission
specialist on STS-73, the second United States Microgravity Laboratory
mission. According to her official NASA biography, in addition to assigned
duties, Dr. Coleman (Ph.D. in polymer science and engineering) was a volunteer
test subject for the centrifuge program at the Crew Systems Directorate
of the Armstrong Aeromedical Laboratory. She set several endurance and
tolerance records during her participation in physiological and new equipment
studies.
Event 12-14-1970, the National Press Club finally
voted to admit women members.
Event 12-14-1985, Wilma Mankiller takes the
oath of office as the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma,
the first time since since the European annexation of Amerindian lands
and rights that a woman has been recognized as the head of a major American
native Indian tribe. All four of her daughters are active in politics,
AIDS awareness, social programs, etc.
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QUOTES DU JOUR
TURECK, ROSALYN:
"I
[had] done so much research in the field of Bach that I felt I could conduct
and get results more quickly at rehearsals and with more validity than
conductors who had not made Bach their specialty. I walked out to my first
rehearsal, lifted my hands, brought them down for the downbeat and by God
they all came in. The first sound that came with the downbeat was the most
thrilling moment of my life and the series of four concerts was a great
success. No one realized that it was the first time I had conducted."
-- Rosalyn Tureck, 1956.
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