Day 16 of Blogging from A to Z. Today’s
letter is P
P is
for Praise of Penned Paeans
praise
for the paeans penned
by
women through time gifting
us our
history
© Perle
Champion
Perusing
the southern history room of Birmingham’s Linn Henley Library
downtown is an
experience that I savor.
The collection
contains diaries, letters, photographs, financial records, news clippings,
slave records and other materials documenting several generations of
unembellished real life of the families that make these United States what they
are today.
Much of the
correspondence and journals were generated by the women of the family. It is
here that we can fill in the blanks omitted as unimportant by the writers of
our history books.
One
quote that shines in my memory was from a young wife’s diary. Long before MLK was born, she wrote, “Free at
last, free at last – thank god I’m free at last.” She wrote this on the day the first trolleys
hit the streets of Birmingham. Now she
could go about her errands without waiting for her husband to drive her. I kick myself daily for being in such a hurry
that day that I did not write down her name or get a copy of the entry. Turns out the diaries were on lone by a
family and had been returned. Hindsight.
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