Cherry Potts, Writer

Category: The Historical Birthday-Tea Party

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 16th

    And today, let’s put on our glad rags and celebrate Rosa Bonheur March 16th 1822 – May 25, 1899 Oh my dear sir, if you knew how little I care for your sex you wouldn’t get any ideas in your head. the fact is, in the way of males, I like only the bulls I…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 15th

    No official candidate for today so lets skip ahead a day and celebrate with Caroline Herschel 16 March 1750 – 9 January 1848. Caroline was born in Germany and moved to England at the age of 22 to keep house for her older brother William, having been brought up by her mother to effectively be…

  • The Historical Birthday-Party March 14th

    Sylvia Beach was born on March 14, 1887 in  America. She studied French Literature at the Sorbonne in 1917, discovered a bookshop La Maison des Amis des Livres and fell in love with its proprietor  Adrienne Monnier and lived with her for the rest of her life, apart from when she was interned during WWII.…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 13th

    Today we raise a glass to Janet Flanner, March 13 1892 – November 7 1978. Janet was a journalist, writing for the New Yorker, and as a war correspondent. She lived in Greenwich Village and there met and fell in love with Solita Solano (Sarah Wilkinson). Janet and Solita featured as Nip and Tuck, a pair…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 12th

    If not a fellow traveller,  today’s birthday belongs to someone who was definitely and definitively a traveller . Hester Stanhope 12 March 1776 – 23 June 1839. Hester was delightfully eccentric. She moved from being hostess for her uncle, Prime Minister William Pitt the younger, via a dramatic shipwreck at Rhodes, to become an archaeologist,…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 11th

    No particular birthday today, so going back to that 8th March that was choc-a-bloc, lets share cake with Una Troubridge 8 March 1887 – 24 September 1963. At the tender age of ten Una lost her heart to a splendaciously ample and properly upholstered principal boy… whose sex was never for a moment ambiguous ……

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 10th

    We’re going back to one of our birthday girls for the 8th March today: Louisa M Hubbard 8 March 1836 – 5 November 1906. Louisa was a tireless and practical woman who put her back into creating opportunities for women. She did not do so for political reasons, and made a lot of effort not to…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 9th

    Raise your glasses, it’s the birthday of Vita Sackville-West 9 March 1892 – 2 June 1962 writer, gardener and serial womaniser. Vita’s relationship with Violet Keppel (later Trefusis) is detailed in Portrait of A Marriage, by her son Nigel Nicholson. They met at school and at one point eloped to France. In her autobiography Violet…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 8th

    International Women’s Day, and I have three birthday girls to choose from. So I’m going with the oldest, and we can catch up with the others later. Anne Bonny, 8 March 1702 – 22 April 1782 born in Ireland, emigrated to America at a young age, where her father did very well for himself. Anne…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 7th

    Today’s birthday girl is Lorena Hickok March 7, 1893 – May 1, 1968 known as ‘Hick’. Hick was a journalist, working in the 1920s on the Minneapolis Tribune when she met and lived with fellow reporter Ella Morse for six years. The combination of Hick’s diabetes and Ella’s elopement with an ex-boyfriend lead to Hick’s…