Cherry Potts, Writer

Tag: History

  • 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-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 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 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 27th February

    No birthday girl today so another one from yesterday Mabel Dodge Luhan February 26, 1879 – August 13, 1962. Much married New York Salonist, her memoir (so we are told, I’ve not read it) Intimate Memories (1933) details relationships with several women. She knew Natalie Barney and was a friend of Gertrude Stein and Alice…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 24th February

    No birthday for today, so guess where we are headed. Yep! Eliza Fowler Haywood, born around 1693 died 25 February 1756, so it seems appropriate to give her a February party. Eliza was an actress, and a prolific novelist, playwright, poet, translator and editor – and made quite a success of all of them. She…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 17th February

    Today we bake a cake for Dorothy Canfield Fisher February 17, 1879 – November 9, 1958. Dorothy was a great friend of fellow writer, Willa Cather, they wrote great quantities of letters, which in the main we cannot read as Cather’s will forbade the publication of, or quotation from her letters. (Apparently the way to…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 15th February

    Right, back to the history (and as an aside I’ve realised what I’ve been doing here – echoing Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls, a play in which various female icons from history and myth – Isabella Bird, Pope Joan, Lady Nijo, Dull Gret, Patient Griselda – gather together for a meal.) Today’s birthday belongs to Susan…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 11th February

    Karoline von Günderode 11 February 1780 – 26 July 1806  romantic poet, her works often had strong heroic women in the central role, and was critical of traditional gender attitudes. I have to say she behaved a bit like an opera heroine, and this doesn’t strike me as entirely a good thing – Jane Austen…

  • The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 5th February

    Today we are blowing up balloons to celebrate Marie Rabutin-Chantal de Sévigné 5 February 1626 – 17 April 1696 Romantic friend of Marie de Lafayette and obsessive writer of letters (mainly to her daughter). Member of Paris intellectual circle, spent a lot of time at Versailles. The heart has no wrinkles When I step into…