Blogging – and women’s history

Blogging – and women’s history

blogging and women's history

People ask me what my blog is about, and every time I pause. I know I’m supposed to have an elevator speech prepared, I guess it’s time I start thinking about that.

This blog has been through so many iterations. I started the first CoffeeJitters blog on LiveJournal back in 2001. It’s hard to believe it’s been more than ten years since that first blog post. A lot has changed over that decade.

CoffeeJitters has been a single girl making her way in the world blog, a wedding blog, an infertility blog, a photography blog, a quitting my job and going back to school full time blog, a wow! I’m pregnant! blog, a mommy blog, a cancer blog, and a relearning how to dream after cancer blog.

Mostly, it’s a love letter to my daughter and husband, and an ongoing autobiography. It is my story, and my practice honing my voice. It is my chance to be heard.

I think in a way, that’s what a lot of us bloggers are doing. I keep picturing all the bloggers of the world at their computers furiously typing away in a clackity-clack version of the Whos that Horton heard, yelling at the top of their lungs, “We Exist!”

Blogging allows us to make our mark on the world. To show that we exist. To have a voice and have it heard. To contribute to the ongoing story of the human race.

My studies recently have centered a great deal around women’s history throughout the world, and the difficulty involved in truly understanding what a woman’s life was like. Mens stories were recorded, by men. Women’s stories… not so much.

I look at blogging in comparison to that and I think: what a gift we are leaving for future generations. Is there any comparable resource in history to the wide range of women’s stories now available? Sure, there’s a good deal of exaggeration. That also exists in our history books. But there is so much more variety of stories and lifestyles represented. I’m proud to be a part of this movement. I’m so happy that future generations will have such a wealth of information about their ancestors – us. (On second thought, maybe I’d better go clean up a few of my posts)

 

Ultimate Blog Party 2012

Vintage Postcards: Pike Place Market, Seattle

Vintage Postcards: Pike Place Market, Seattle

Once upon a time, I worked in an office on the back side of Pike Place Market and my apartment was just a couple blocks away. I lived in the market. I can’t begin to guess how many sandwiches I ordered from the walk-up window at Three Girls Bakery. And the cookies… oh, my the cookies. Come to think of it, it’s been a long time since I’ve set foot in Pike’s Place Market. It might be time to introduce my daughter to this Seattle landmark.

The Three Girls Bakery has been around since 1912, and was one of Seattle’s first legitimate businesses to be entirely owned by women, a Mrs. Jones and two of her friends.

Three Girls Bakery in Seattle's Pike Place Market

Three Girls Bakery in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, ca 1917. Source: University of Washington Libraries.

Here are a few more shots of Pike Place Market from back in the day:

Farmers' produce wagons at Seattle's Pike Place Market

Farmers’ produce wagons at Seattle’s Pike Place Market, ca 1910. Source: University of Washington Libraries.

 

Farmers selling produce at Seattle's Pike Place Market

Farmers selling produce at Seattle’s Pike Place Market, ca 1910. Source: University of Washington Libraries.

And nary a flying fish…

One Year Ago: Sunset

Meanwhile, Back at the McKinley Farm…

Meanwhile, Back at the McKinley Farm…

When my Grandfather moved to Alaska in the 40s, he needed to find a house big enough to hold his wife and seven children, and pronto. The Matanuska Valley had been colonized in the 30s as part of the New Deal. My Grandfather bought a nice little Colony House on a hefty bit of acreage from a family that just wasn’t able to cut it as colonists (nothing against that poor family, but winters in Alaska were probably a bit more than they had bargained for).

Then he set about expanding the house to make it big enough to fit his kids.

McKinley Farm in Alaska

It turned out plenty big.

McKinley Family Farm house in Palmer, Alaska

 

McKinley Farm

Lee (Doc) McKinley and Family at the farm

 

The picture above shows my Grandparents and mom with her brothers and sister. Notice the airplane out the window to the left. Grandpa was a dentist and he used that to commute to work in Anchorage. He would also fly out to the bush villages to treat the villagers, often for free.

The fireplace was built with river rocks. The second floor windows on either side of the chimney (below) were close enough to reach out and get a good toe hold on the chimney, yet far enough away that falling was a very real possibility. Of course, I know nothing of this because I would never consider sneaking out of the house.

Doc McKinley farm in Palmer, Alaska

The lower roof, right above the ground on the picture above, covered the cold room. Aside from being a dentist and a politician, my grandfather was also a very skillful butcher (that’s how he worked his way through college.) We didn’t just have a cooler for keeping meat, we had an entire 400+ square foot cold room. We didn’t mess around when it came to meat.

slide and swing set at the McKinley farm

In my mind, the crowing jewel of this home was the swing set.

It was the reason my friends came to play at my house. And on hot summer days, we would drag a water hose to the top of the slide and turn it in to a water slide.

(That’s me in front with the braids)

slide and swing set at the McKinley farm

My Dad took the following pictures from the top of the slide, then pasted them together. The two little buildings behind the van were very important as well. The white building was the chicken coop and the little log building beyond that was the pig pen.

McKinley Farm in Palmer, Alaska

I lived in that house for most of my childhood. It was a pain to clean, we lived in the delta between two glacier fed rivers so the fine dust of glacier silt was always passing through the walls. Vacuuming and dusting were never ending chores. As was mowing the lawn.

And lest you think it was a mansion of some kind, I want to be clear that the bedroom walls were plywood, and we woke up many times to find frost on the inside of our bedroom walls. Oh, and the roof leaked so much when it rained or the snow melted that walking down the hall was an obstacle course of buckets and drips. I miss that house.

My family sold the house a few years back and since then it has fallen into disrepair. It looks so sad now.

broken down farm house