I did a giveaway for a pair of glasses for 39dollarglasses.com here.
I used random.org to pick a number and it chose...
...number 44, which is Becca Ann! Congrats!
I do have another giveaway going on at the moment. You can win $250 worth of office supplies here.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Five Minute Friday - What Momma Did That Made Her Mine
Five Minute Friday is a bit different this week. It is still five minutes of uninterrupted writing but the topic has a history. You see this week four friends have shared unique memories of their mothers with the readers of Lisa-Jo's blog. Today’s our turn. What did your mama do that makes her your mama? Let’s unpack those memories today. Let’s trace our fingers along the lines of the unexpected. The ordinary beauty in a day of motherhood. The food or the laughing or the dancing or the story telling. Where is your memory buried?
GO:
My momma loved to dance. When she was young she actually danced in USO shows for troops. She danced at parties, reunions, home, with my dad, with friends, she even danced in the nursing home after she went to live there. The nurses loved it when she would hear music and grab one of them and whirl them around the halls of Adams Nursing Home. She danced. My children all learned to dance the Boogie Woogie, Swing, you know the dances of the WWII era. She was an amazing dancer. I have video of her dancing in her black taffeta dress with red dots...and still have the dress. I loved to hear the sound of the taffeta brushing against the slip part. I loved it when she would grab my hands and sing and dance with me.....it is one of my fondest memories of my mom. I danced with my children when they were babies. If one of them was feverish or fretting I would hold them close and sway with them to a song I would sing softly. It worked like a charm. I did not inherit my mom's dancing abilities but I did inherit her singing ability. I came from a family of singers and that is another of my favorite memories. I loved to hear my mom sing to me....and to my children. Irish Lullaby, Sweetest Little Rosebud, Amazing Grace were all songs my mom would sing me to sleep with. I loved the lilt of her voice as she sang Irish Lullaby. Kat loved them too and Sweetest Little Rosebud was HER special song. I have a tape of my mom, my aunt Shirley, cousin Amanda and I singing at my mom's church. The song was He Looked Beyond My Fault and Saw My Need. There are times in the song when you cannot tell who is singing. Amanda's sister Missy made us a copy for Christmas one year. I cry every time I hear it. We were a family from a long line of music. When we got together the guitars would come out, the voices would warm up....and my mom would be right in the middle of this.....singing and dancing. My mom died April 11th, 2011. She was buried on my dad's birthday. Through my tears as we gathered to celebrate her life.....with music of course....I almost laughed out loud because I could see her, my aunt Shirley and my dad....looking down....singing along....smiling with delight and dancing.
STOP
(Caught dancing in the front yard to Sentimental Journey)
In just five minutes. Tell us all about what your mama did that made her yours….{and don’t forget to spend some time commenting on the post of the person who linked up just before you}GO:
My momma loved to dance. When she was young she actually danced in USO shows for troops. She danced at parties, reunions, home, with my dad, with friends, she even danced in the nursing home after she went to live there. The nurses loved it when she would hear music and grab one of them and whirl them around the halls of Adams Nursing Home. She danced. My children all learned to dance the Boogie Woogie, Swing, you know the dances of the WWII era. She was an amazing dancer. I have video of her dancing in her black taffeta dress with red dots...and still have the dress. I loved to hear the sound of the taffeta brushing against the slip part. I loved it when she would grab my hands and sing and dance with me.....it is one of my fondest memories of my mom. I danced with my children when they were babies. If one of them was feverish or fretting I would hold them close and sway with them to a song I would sing softly. It worked like a charm. I did not inherit my mom's dancing abilities but I did inherit her singing ability. I came from a family of singers and that is another of my favorite memories. I loved to hear my mom sing to me....and to my children. Irish Lullaby, Sweetest Little Rosebud, Amazing Grace were all songs my mom would sing me to sleep with. I loved the lilt of her voice as she sang Irish Lullaby. Kat loved them too and Sweetest Little Rosebud was HER special song. I have a tape of my mom, my aunt Shirley, cousin Amanda and I singing at my mom's church. The song was He Looked Beyond My Fault and Saw My Need. There are times in the song when you cannot tell who is singing. Amanda's sister Missy made us a copy for Christmas one year. I cry every time I hear it. We were a family from a long line of music. When we got together the guitars would come out, the voices would warm up....and my mom would be right in the middle of this.....singing and dancing. My mom died April 11th, 2011. She was buried on my dad's birthday. Through my tears as we gathered to celebrate her life.....with music of course....I almost laughed out loud because I could see her, my aunt Shirley and my dad....looking down....singing along....smiling with delight and dancing.
STOP
Biography - Henrietta Benigna Justine Zinzendorf von Watteville (1725-1789) Moravian Educator
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Henrietta Benigna Justine Zinzendorf von Watteville (1725-1789) Moravian educator, a key figure in the beginnings of Moravian Seminary & College for Women, Bethlehem, Pa., was born in Berthelsdorf, Saxony. She was the 1st daughter & 2nd of 12 children, of whom only 4 reached maturity, of Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf by his wife, Countess Erdmuthe Dorothea von Reuss. Her father, founder of the Renewed Moravian Church, was of an old family of the Austrian nobility that had migrated to Germany. Her mother was of the nobility of Thuringia. Reared in the 18th-century Moravian Church, Benigna lived & achieved as a devout Pietist.
Her father’s banishment from Saxony, when she was 11, marked the beginning for her of a much-traveled life. With him she came to America for the first time in December 1741, for a stay of 14 months, chiefly in the newly established Moravian communities of Pennsylvania.
On May 4, 1742, at her father’s suggestion, the 16-year-old countess, with 2 assistants, opened a girls’ school in the Ashmead house in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Here 25 pupils were instructed in reading, writing, religion, & the household arts in what was probably the first boarding school for girls in the 13 British American colonies. Seven weeks later the school moved to Bethlehem; & in 1745, to nearby Nazareth, returning permanently in 1749, to Bethlehem, the center of the Moravian Church in America.
Moravian Young Ladie's Seminary and Church, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
On July 27, 1742, Count von Zinzendorf and his fellowship crossed the Blue Mountain into Cherry Valley, and on July 28 they finally emerged from the endless forests at Meniolágoméka -- "The Fat Land Among the Barren" -- present-day Kunkletown. Von Zinzendorf's 16-year-old daughter, Benigna, upon meeting the Indian children at the settlement, decided that the girls should have the opportunity to go to school just like white boys.
The same year she founded Moravian Seminary in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Shortly thereafter it was moved to Bell House in Bethlehem, and Lady Benigna invited all the Indian girls to come. Moravian Seminary was the first boarding school for girls in the New World, and over time it gained a superb reputation -- so much so that 50 years later, while he was President, George Washington personally petitioned for admission of his great-nieces. Eventually the school's charter was expanded, and it became Moravian College and Moravian Academy, both of which remain to this day.
In the summer of 1742, Benigna Zinzendorf interrupted her teaching to accompany her father on 2 of his 3 trips among the Indians of Pennsylvania & New York, preparatory to establishing missions among them. The Zinzendorfs returned to Europe the following winter.
In 1746 Benigna was married to Baron Johann von Waterville (de Watteville), a Moravian clergyman & her father’s secretary, in a ceremony performed by Zinzendorf at the new Moravian settlement in Zeist, Holland. Consecrated a bishop the following year, Watteville, aided by his capable wife, became out outstanding leader of his church.
The couple came to America on church business in September 1748 & remained a year. On this visit Benigna de Watteville had a hand in the return of the girls’ school to Bethlehem, its consideration with schools in the outlying Moravian congregations, & the enlargement of its curriculum.
Thirty-five years later, en route to America a 3rd time, she was shipwrecked with her husband on the rocks off the Leeward Islands in February 1784. Reaching Bethlehem in June, they remained for 3 years. Again Countess Benigna was on hand to help direct a reorganization of the girls’ seminary, which in 1785, now opened to pupils from outside the Moravian Church, became a largely new institution, known for many years as the Bethlehem Female Seminary.
The Moravian philosophy of education was the rearing of children in a controlled Christian environment under consecrated teachers. Because of the worldwide mission commitments of the Church, many parents were abroad, with their children left behind in the care of the home community. Moravian teachers, therefore, tried as nearly as possible to serve as substitute parents. Both as a parent & as a devout church member, Benigna de Watteville kept this ideal in mind.
She had four children of her own: Johann Ludwig (born 1752), Anna Dorothea Elizabeth (1754), Maria Justine (1762), & Johann Christian Frederick (1766). The older son died while a missionary in Tranquebar, India, in 1780, & the younger son died at nineteen as a student at Herrnhut, the church headquarters on his grandfather’s Berthelsdorf estate. The younger daughter, who never married, served as a worker in the church. The older daughter married Hans Christian Alexander von Schweinitz (later changed to de Schweinitz) in Bethlehem, Pa., in 1779. One of their children was the distinguished American botanist Louis David de Schweinitz, & de Schweinitz descendants have for four generations been prominent in American educational & professional life.
Benigna de Watteville died in the place of her birth at the age of sixty-three, a year after her husband. The Bethlehem seminary, incorporated in 1863 as the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies, became in 1913, Moravian Seminary & College for Women & in 1953, a part of the coeducational Moravian College at Bethlehem.
This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
.
Henrietta Benigna Justine Zinzendorf von Watteville (1725-1789) Moravian educator, a key figure in the beginnings of Moravian Seminary & College for Women, Bethlehem, Pa., was born in Berthelsdorf, Saxony. She was the 1st daughter & 2nd of 12 children, of whom only 4 reached maturity, of Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf by his wife, Countess Erdmuthe Dorothea von Reuss. Her father, founder of the Renewed Moravian Church, was of an old family of the Austrian nobility that had migrated to Germany. Her mother was of the nobility of Thuringia. Reared in the 18th-century Moravian Church, Benigna lived & achieved as a devout Pietist.
Her father’s banishment from Saxony, when she was 11, marked the beginning for her of a much-traveled life. With him she came to America for the first time in December 1741, for a stay of 14 months, chiefly in the newly established Moravian communities of Pennsylvania.
On May 4, 1742, at her father’s suggestion, the 16-year-old countess, with 2 assistants, opened a girls’ school in the Ashmead house in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Here 25 pupils were instructed in reading, writing, religion, & the household arts in what was probably the first boarding school for girls in the 13 British American colonies. Seven weeks later the school moved to Bethlehem; & in 1745, to nearby Nazareth, returning permanently in 1749, to Bethlehem, the center of the Moravian Church in America.
On July 27, 1742, Count von Zinzendorf and his fellowship crossed the Blue Mountain into Cherry Valley, and on July 28 they finally emerged from the endless forests at Meniolágoméka -- "The Fat Land Among the Barren" -- present-day Kunkletown. Von Zinzendorf's 16-year-old daughter, Benigna, upon meeting the Indian children at the settlement, decided that the girls should have the opportunity to go to school just like white boys.
The same year she founded Moravian Seminary in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Shortly thereafter it was moved to Bell House in Bethlehem, and Lady Benigna invited all the Indian girls to come. Moravian Seminary was the first boarding school for girls in the New World, and over time it gained a superb reputation -- so much so that 50 years later, while he was President, George Washington personally petitioned for admission of his great-nieces. Eventually the school's charter was expanded, and it became Moravian College and Moravian Academy, both of which remain to this day.
In the summer of 1742, Benigna Zinzendorf interrupted her teaching to accompany her father on 2 of his 3 trips among the Indians of Pennsylvania & New York, preparatory to establishing missions among them. The Zinzendorfs returned to Europe the following winter.
In 1746 Benigna was married to Baron Johann von Waterville (de Watteville), a Moravian clergyman & her father’s secretary, in a ceremony performed by Zinzendorf at the new Moravian settlement in Zeist, Holland. Consecrated a bishop the following year, Watteville, aided by his capable wife, became out outstanding leader of his church.
The couple came to America on church business in September 1748 & remained a year. On this visit Benigna de Watteville had a hand in the return of the girls’ school to Bethlehem, its consideration with schools in the outlying Moravian congregations, & the enlargement of its curriculum.
Thirty-five years later, en route to America a 3rd time, she was shipwrecked with her husband on the rocks off the Leeward Islands in February 1784. Reaching Bethlehem in June, they remained for 3 years. Again Countess Benigna was on hand to help direct a reorganization of the girls’ seminary, which in 1785, now opened to pupils from outside the Moravian Church, became a largely new institution, known for many years as the Bethlehem Female Seminary.
The Moravian philosophy of education was the rearing of children in a controlled Christian environment under consecrated teachers. Because of the worldwide mission commitments of the Church, many parents were abroad, with their children left behind in the care of the home community. Moravian teachers, therefore, tried as nearly as possible to serve as substitute parents. Both as a parent & as a devout church member, Benigna de Watteville kept this ideal in mind.
She had four children of her own: Johann Ludwig (born 1752), Anna Dorothea Elizabeth (1754), Maria Justine (1762), & Johann Christian Frederick (1766). The older son died while a missionary in Tranquebar, India, in 1780, & the younger son died at nineteen as a student at Herrnhut, the church headquarters on his grandfather’s Berthelsdorf estate. The younger daughter, who never married, served as a worker in the church. The older daughter married Hans Christian Alexander von Schweinitz (later changed to de Schweinitz) in Bethlehem, Pa., in 1779. One of their children was the distinguished American botanist Louis David de Schweinitz, & de Schweinitz descendants have for four generations been prominent in American educational & professional life.
Benigna de Watteville died in the place of her birth at the age of sixty-three, a year after her husband. The Bethlehem seminary, incorporated in 1863 as the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies, became in 1913, Moravian Seminary & College for Women & in 1953, a part of the coeducational Moravian College at Bethlehem.
This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Just My Imagination....Once Again
(my mom made every outfit I have on)
....and so did my Barbie(I had some amazing clothes for her made by my Aunt MaeBelle and momma).....but I was a child...and did not understand....I wanted store bought. I had to become an adult/mother to finally grasp the love and care that went into this. I would wear my homemade clothes and imagine that my outfits came from Burdines....where Villager dresses were sold. Yep...it was just my imagination....once again....running away with me. My life was far from idyllic. My mom had a breakdown when my brother died. On the outside for the world to see....my life was perfect.....but within the walls with just my mom....life was very imperfect....but once again....my imagination ran wild. I took all the wonderful traits from my friends moms....and build them into my mom...so nobody would know. My daughter was in her twenties before she actually saw my mom turn from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde and it frightened her. I have to laugh now...because as Kat came unglued with the display....she told me that she did not know how I managed not to be an alcoholic or drug addict. I have wondered that same thing myself. I guess God watches out for his tiniest of sheep....and if they are lucky....they develop vivid imaginations. There is no book that comes with child rearing...no "How-To" manual....it is all done by trial and error. Sometimes we are spot on....other times we are off the course. I was not a perfect mom.....but I was a mom with a vivid imagination....and I believed if you can dream it...you can achieve it. I have three very successful(though not always perfect) children today that I am extremely proud of......and that my dear readers is reality....not my imagination running wild. That is a Fact! Thanks for letting me ramble. Have a blessed day!
Things That Annoy Me Thursday: My Boy Growing Up
This isn’t an annoyance per say…
But.
Okay, well I have a son. And he keeps coming home with papers about…gulp…MIDDLE SCHOOL.
Yes, he’ll be in middle school next year. Well, THIS year technically.
And I am so not ready for it.
He came home with information about joining the middle school band and a lump immediately formed in my throat. It was happening. He’d be in middle school.
“So you want to join band?” I asked him.
“No. Not at all,” he answered.
Oh.
Well, I’m not surprised. He’s not interested in things like that. No, he loves learning about the weather, George Washington, Mario (as in, video game Mario..)
“You can do string, percussion, choir…” I continued. “I did choir in middle school. I was awful at it though. I’m tone deaf, as you know, but I decided to try it. And sometimes the teacher would call on each of us to do a solo and I swear, he’d wince when I did mine. It was—”
I realized Tommy had left.
Oh.
Then he came home with an entire BOOKLET on what to expect in middle school. I almost panicked when I saw all the different classes. Math. Social Studies. World Geography. English.
How would he know where each class was?
What if he got lost?
What if someone pushed him in his locker?
What if he COULDN’T OPEN HIS LOCKER?
His fine motor skills aren’t the greatest. He struggles with tying his shoes. How would he manage twisting a lock to the appropriate number?
Then he came home with another paper where he could pick his electives. ELECTIVES!
Naturally he picked Hands On Science and something about historical figures.
I just don’t feel ready for this.
I mean, wasn’t he just this:
And now he’s off ot middle school? Where there are…DANCES! (Although he says he will not go to dances because he says A) he can’t dance and B) girls make him nervous and talk funny.)
This is a whole new ballgame. And the fact that he has Aspergers is going to make things a little more difficult. I don’t want him to get swallowed up. He has meltdowns when he’s confused. I do not want him to break down and cry and get teased. He can’t NOT cry. He’s a crier. That won’t ever change, I don’t think.
I seriously feel like I want to breathe into a paper bag sometimes when I see all these middle school papers surrounding me. I wish we were still at our last base where sixth grade was still considered elementary school. Then I’d have one more year to collect myself.
But no.
It’s coming.
Soon.
And I’ll have to prepare myself.
But.
Okay, well I have a son. And he keeps coming home with papers about…gulp…MIDDLE SCHOOL.
Yes, he’ll be in middle school next year. Well, THIS year technically.
And I am so not ready for it.
He came home with information about joining the middle school band and a lump immediately formed in my throat. It was happening. He’d be in middle school.
“So you want to join band?” I asked him.
“No. Not at all,” he answered.
Oh.
Well, I’m not surprised. He’s not interested in things like that. No, he loves learning about the weather, George Washington, Mario (as in, video game Mario..)
“You can do string, percussion, choir…” I continued. “I did choir in middle school. I was awful at it though. I’m tone deaf, as you know, but I decided to try it. And sometimes the teacher would call on each of us to do a solo and I swear, he’d wince when I did mine. It was—”
I realized Tommy had left.
Oh.
Then he came home with an entire BOOKLET on what to expect in middle school. I almost panicked when I saw all the different classes. Math. Social Studies. World Geography. English.
How would he know where each class was?
What if he got lost?
What if someone pushed him in his locker?
What if he COULDN’T OPEN HIS LOCKER?
His fine motor skills aren’t the greatest. He struggles with tying his shoes. How would he manage twisting a lock to the appropriate number?
Then he came home with another paper where he could pick his electives. ELECTIVES!
Naturally he picked Hands On Science and something about historical figures.
I just don’t feel ready for this.
I mean, wasn’t he just this:
And now he’s off ot middle school? Where there are…DANCES! (Although he says he will not go to dances because he says A) he can’t dance and B) girls make him nervous and talk funny.)
This is a whole new ballgame. And the fact that he has Aspergers is going to make things a little more difficult. I don’t want him to get swallowed up. He has meltdowns when he’s confused. I do not want him to break down and cry and get teased. He can’t NOT cry. He’s a crier. That won’t ever change, I don’t think.
I seriously feel like I want to breathe into a paper bag sometimes when I see all these middle school papers surrounding me. I wish we were still at our last base where sixth grade was still considered elementary school. Then I’d have one more year to collect myself.
But no.
It’s coming.
Soon.
And I’ll have to prepare myself.
Biography - Sophia Wigington Hume (1702-1774) South Carolina Quaker Minister & Religious Writer
.
Sophia Wigington Hume (1702-1774), Quaker minister & religious writer, was born in Charleston, SC., one of the children of Henry Wigington (Wiginton), a prosperous landowner & colony official, & Susanna (Bayley) Wigington. Henry Wigington was an Anglican; his wife had been brought up as a Quaker by her mother, Mary Fisher, who had been a minister in England before settling with her second husband in Charleston. Sophia Wigington was reared an Anglican & given an education fit for a young lady of fashion. She was married in 1721, to Robert Hume, a lawyer, landowner, & public official. Two of their children lived to adulthood: Susanna Wigington, born in 1722, & Alexander Wigington, 1729.
Though her mother returned to Quakerism before 1719, & tried to lead her children in that direction, Sophia Wigington Hume for a time remained a faithful Anglican. By her own account she practiced “the art of japanning with Prints,” lived books & music, delighted in plays & balls, passionately enjoyed fine clothes & jewelry, & walked aristocratically “with mincing Steps & outstretched Neck.” During two illnesses, however, she came to believe that these frivolities endangered her soul. The second crisis, which took place about 1740, three years after her husband’s death, led to a conversion that preoccupied her mind for the rest of her life. Believing that God would spare her only if she would forsake vanity for Quaker simplicity, she burned “the most vile” of her finery, but being a widow in reduced circumstances could not resist the temptation to sell her “Watch & Equipage chased with Heathenish Devices, as also Diamond ornament etc.” Shortly after her recovery she moved to England, where she lived in London near her daughter & finally joined the Society of Friends.
Sophia Hume became a public figure reluctantly in 1747, when she felt a divine call to return to Charleston to reprove the self-indulgences of the inhabitants & call them to repentance. She obeyed the call, even though it meant humiliating herself on the scene of her former elegance. Arriving near the end of the year, she carried out he mission at public meetings in spite of some rude interruptions. She also inspired the city’s small Quaker group to reviver regular worship. To spread her message farther, she wrote An Exhortation to the Inhabitants of the Province of South-Carolina &, to get it printed quickly, took the manuscript to Philadelphia. She spent several happy months in that city & in travel to attend nearby religious meetings & was entertained by leading Friends, who also raised money to publish her book. It was printed before the end of 1748 (& in five later editions in England & America); the author arrived home in London in December or January.
Though she preached publicly in South Carolina & Pennsylvania, Sophia Hume did not receive recognition as a minister from her monthly meeting in London until later, possibly not until 1763. As early as 1752, though, her utterances settled on two topics: decrying luxury & warning its devotees of their dangers; & exhorting Friends to renew sectarian strictness, a theme which probably explains the increasing respect for her ministry as zeal for this goal spread during the 1760’s. Her writings, while always frankly advocating Quaker principles, for the most part developed the first of these topics & were addressed to Christians at large. The Exhortation, with its parade of long quotations from the learned & its extensive examinations of Scripture, actually conveyed a fairly simple appeal for repentance & reformation, its strength derived from Sophia Hume’s lifelong gift for strong phrases & intense, incantation prose.
A Caution to Such as Observe Days & Times (published in its final form c. 1763) was briefer & better organized; though first written to denounce religious festivals, in the later editions it proceeded to offer incisive remarks on a number of theological & social topics. The social ethics were largely traditional, but she expounded a Quaker view of conversion with an unusual emphasis on the "rational pleasure & divine delight” produced by the irradiation of the believer by Christ’s light & the benevolence to all mankind that resulted from true love of God.
Among Quaker women of her day, Sophia Hume had an extraordinary knowledge of the arts, literature, & theology-to some extent the product of her years as an Anglican. Although conversion curbed & guided her intellectual pursuits within limits approved by Quakers, she yet found it hard to justify erudition in a woman-& harder to justify her public life-by her own principles. The result was a paradoxical career: as minister & write she upheld the traditional view that woman should lead a secluded life devoted to home & church; as a Quaker bluestocking she expounded Scripture & culled quotations from ancient & modern Christian writers to defend her sect & its tenet that the indwelling spirit of Christ is the most reliable source of religious truth.
She felt a divine call to service in Charleston again in 1767. The situation was dire: the fellowship of Friends there had dwindled to one, the old wooden meetinghouse was dilapidated, & a backslider claimed to own the land on which it stood. Though often compelled to rest her slight & ailing body, Sophia Hume managed to revive interest in Quakerism by preaching to large public meetings, & tried to persuade London & Philadelphia Friends to replace the old structure with a brick meetinghouse that would stand until God might gather a church to use it. Unable to win support for this plan, she embarked for England in April 1768. She died in 1774, presumably in London, of a seizure described as apoplexy. Her body was interred in Friends’ Burial Ground near Bunhill Fields.
This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
.
Sophia Wigington Hume (1702-1774), Quaker minister & religious writer, was born in Charleston, SC., one of the children of Henry Wigington (Wiginton), a prosperous landowner & colony official, & Susanna (Bayley) Wigington. Henry Wigington was an Anglican; his wife had been brought up as a Quaker by her mother, Mary Fisher, who had been a minister in England before settling with her second husband in Charleston. Sophia Wigington was reared an Anglican & given an education fit for a young lady of fashion. She was married in 1721, to Robert Hume, a lawyer, landowner, & public official. Two of their children lived to adulthood: Susanna Wigington, born in 1722, & Alexander Wigington, 1729.
Though her mother returned to Quakerism before 1719, & tried to lead her children in that direction, Sophia Wigington Hume for a time remained a faithful Anglican. By her own account she practiced “the art of japanning with Prints,” lived books & music, delighted in plays & balls, passionately enjoyed fine clothes & jewelry, & walked aristocratically “with mincing Steps & outstretched Neck.” During two illnesses, however, she came to believe that these frivolities endangered her soul. The second crisis, which took place about 1740, three years after her husband’s death, led to a conversion that preoccupied her mind for the rest of her life. Believing that God would spare her only if she would forsake vanity for Quaker simplicity, she burned “the most vile” of her finery, but being a widow in reduced circumstances could not resist the temptation to sell her “Watch & Equipage chased with Heathenish Devices, as also Diamond ornament etc.” Shortly after her recovery she moved to England, where she lived in London near her daughter & finally joined the Society of Friends.
Sophia Hume became a public figure reluctantly in 1747, when she felt a divine call to return to Charleston to reprove the self-indulgences of the inhabitants & call them to repentance. She obeyed the call, even though it meant humiliating herself on the scene of her former elegance. Arriving near the end of the year, she carried out he mission at public meetings in spite of some rude interruptions. She also inspired the city’s small Quaker group to reviver regular worship. To spread her message farther, she wrote An Exhortation to the Inhabitants of the Province of South-Carolina &, to get it printed quickly, took the manuscript to Philadelphia. She spent several happy months in that city & in travel to attend nearby religious meetings & was entertained by leading Friends, who also raised money to publish her book. It was printed before the end of 1748 (& in five later editions in England & America); the author arrived home in London in December or January.
Though she preached publicly in South Carolina & Pennsylvania, Sophia Hume did not receive recognition as a minister from her monthly meeting in London until later, possibly not until 1763. As early as 1752, though, her utterances settled on two topics: decrying luxury & warning its devotees of their dangers; & exhorting Friends to renew sectarian strictness, a theme which probably explains the increasing respect for her ministry as zeal for this goal spread during the 1760’s. Her writings, while always frankly advocating Quaker principles, for the most part developed the first of these topics & were addressed to Christians at large. The Exhortation, with its parade of long quotations from the learned & its extensive examinations of Scripture, actually conveyed a fairly simple appeal for repentance & reformation, its strength derived from Sophia Hume’s lifelong gift for strong phrases & intense, incantation prose.
A Caution to Such as Observe Days & Times (published in its final form c. 1763) was briefer & better organized; though first written to denounce religious festivals, in the later editions it proceeded to offer incisive remarks on a number of theological & social topics. The social ethics were largely traditional, but she expounded a Quaker view of conversion with an unusual emphasis on the "rational pleasure & divine delight” produced by the irradiation of the believer by Christ’s light & the benevolence to all mankind that resulted from true love of God.
Among Quaker women of her day, Sophia Hume had an extraordinary knowledge of the arts, literature, & theology-to some extent the product of her years as an Anglican. Although conversion curbed & guided her intellectual pursuits within limits approved by Quakers, she yet found it hard to justify erudition in a woman-& harder to justify her public life-by her own principles. The result was a paradoxical career: as minister & write she upheld the traditional view that woman should lead a secluded life devoted to home & church; as a Quaker bluestocking she expounded Scripture & culled quotations from ancient & modern Christian writers to defend her sect & its tenet that the indwelling spirit of Christ is the most reliable source of religious truth.
She felt a divine call to service in Charleston again in 1767. The situation was dire: the fellowship of Friends there had dwindled to one, the old wooden meetinghouse was dilapidated, & a backslider claimed to own the land on which it stood. Though often compelled to rest her slight & ailing body, Sophia Hume managed to revive interest in Quakerism by preaching to large public meetings, & tried to persuade London & Philadelphia Friends to replace the old structure with a brick meetinghouse that would stand until God might gather a church to use it. Unable to win support for this plan, she embarked for England in April 1768. She died in 1774, presumably in London, of a seizure described as apoplexy. Her body was interred in Friends’ Burial Ground near Bunhill Fields.
This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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Wednesday, February 20, 2013
123print.com $250 Office Supply #Giveaway!**CLOSED
**CLOSED! Winner posted here**
I love office supplies.
I’m not sure why, but pens, post its, and paper excite me.
Again. I’m not sure why.
If office supplies excite you, well, good news. A wonderful website called 123print.com has a bunch of them.
From business cards to invitations to address labels, 123print.com has it all. I really like the address labels because my hand can sometimes cramp up when I send a bunch of cards at once. I also love business cards—perfect to pass out at blog conferences!
123print.com is offering a lucky reader $250 worth of office supplies.
Contest Rules:
--Must be 18 or older
--Must live in the US
Mandatory Entry
--Go to 123print.com and tell me what you would spend the $250 on if you won.
Extra Entries:
LIKE 123print.com on Facebook
FOLLOW 123print.com on Twitter
Blog about this giveaway
Tweet about this giveaway
I will run this contest for two weeks and will pick a winner on March 6th.
Good luck!
I love office supplies.
I’m not sure why, but pens, post its, and paper excite me.
Again. I’m not sure why.
If office supplies excite you, well, good news. A wonderful website called 123print.com has a bunch of them.
From business cards to invitations to address labels, 123print.com has it all. I really like the address labels because my hand can sometimes cramp up when I send a bunch of cards at once. I also love business cards—perfect to pass out at blog conferences!
123print.com is offering a lucky reader $250 worth of office supplies.
Contest Rules:
--Must be 18 or older
--Must live in the US
Mandatory Entry
--Go to 123print.com and tell me what you would spend the $250 on if you won.
Extra Entries:
LIKE 123print.com on Facebook
FOLLOW 123print.com on Twitter
Blog about this giveaway
Tweet about this giveaway
I will run this contest for two weeks and will pick a winner on March 6th.
Good luck!
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