Happy New Year, my old and new friends. I wish you all well. May 2014 be one of the best years of our lives.
Write me and tell me more about yourselves.
Happy New Year
May 2014 be one of the best years of our lives.
Tag: Friends
Kate Stone’s Civil War: A charming little woman
Stone’s visitors brought her gloomy confirmation that the Northern states hardly felt the effects of a war that brought so much devastation and deprivation to her once-luxurious life.
From 2012 to 2015, Stillness of Heart will share interesting excerpts from the extraordinary diary of Kate Stone, who chronicled her Louisiana family’s turbulent experiences throughout the Civil War era.
Learn more about Stone’s amazing life in 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 1865 and beyond. Click on each year to read more about her experiences. You can read the entire journal online here.
Stone’s visitors brought her gloomy confirmation that the Northern states hardly felt the effects of a war that brought so much devastation and deprivation to her once-luxurious life.
Dec. 19, 1863
Tyler, Texas
Mamma, Mrs. Carson, and the little girls are off looking for a house to rent for Mrs. Savage. They are now on their way to Tyler and wish to have a house rented by their arrival. They expect to reach here by Christmas, and we will all be overjoyed to have them again as neighbors. We have not seen them for just a year. If Julia could come too, we would be pleased. She keeps us in kind remembrance. She has just sent me “the Rebel headress” and some visiting cards. Texas will not seem so desolate with old friends around us.
It has been intensely cold for some days, but the norther has at last blown itself away. We went out this morning to see Mrs. Prentice, fearing she has been lonely. We found Mrs. Hull and Mrs. Clark with her. Mrs. Hull is just back from Shreveport, going there to meet some St. Louis friends lately banished from the state. They say there is no prospect of peace. The North is more prosperous than ever before. Traveling through the states, one would hardly know there was a war going on. How different from our own suffering country. Mrs. Hull is a charming little woman. I would like to know her well. Mrs. Levy and Mrs. Wells beg us to come out and stay some with them, but we have not the heart to visit now, only to see some refugee in trouble. Refugees must be good to each other. …
We are sewing and reading some dull, dry books. Mamma spent nearly a thousand dollars while in Shreveport buying clothes, five or six dresses. Everything is so enormously high … a velvet mantle or poplin dress cannot be bought for less than $1,500. She did not indulge in one of those.
Tell your friends!
Kate Stone’s Civil War: A fear of bad news
Stone’s first standard for even considering spending a significant number of days anywhere in Texas was its number of Louisiana war refugees living nearby. Tyler, Texas, suited her just fine.
From 2012 to 2015, Stillness of Heart will share interesting excerpts from the extraordinary diary of Kate Stone, who chronicled her Louisiana family’s turbulent experiences throughout the Civil War era.
Learn more about Stone’s amazing life in 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 1865 and beyond. Click on each year to read more about her experiences. You can read the entire journal online here.
Stone’s first standard for even considering spending a significant number of days anywhere in Texas was its number of Louisiana war refugees living nearby. Tyler, Texas, suited her just fine.
Note her anxiety over simply the possibility of receiving any news from the outside world. It made her “sick with apprehension.”
Nov. 7, 1863
There are some changes in our household. Mr. Kaiser has left us after his school left him. He has gone seven miles in the country to open another school. May it prove more successful than this attempt. We have forgiven him for his desertion of Jimmy. He cannot help being a coward. He remarked pathetically to Mrs. Carson, speaking of the big boys of the school, that he felt he was on the mouth of a volcano. We have no teacher and no prospect of one.
Mamma is speaking seriously of going on to live in Gilmore to put Jimmy in school, but I hope she will not. There are so many refugees here that we may like Tyler after a while, and the next school the boys may be able to attend. …
Several letters this week. One from Uncle Johnny at Austin. He secured his situation but says everything is very high, wood $40 a cord. A letter from Sarah Wadley just as they were leaving for Georgia. Hope they succeeded in running the blockade and crossing the river in safety.
I do not wish for letters. Have such a fear of bad news. The sight of a letter turns me sick with apprehension.
Tell your friends!
Recommended reading / viewing / listening
Cut back on non-friends / What Obama knew / Future of OWS / New treasures in Istanbul / Why do we yawn?
Most of these great items come from my Twitter feed or Facebook news feed. Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook for more fascinating videos, articles, essays and criticism. Read past recommendations from this series here.
1. Unfriend Everyone
By Sam Biddle | Gizmodo | Jan. 20
“You have too many Facebook friends. You’re following too many people on Twitter. You’re connected to too many people who don’t care too much about you. Get rid of them. Get rid of all of them.”
2. Courts Moving Too Slow for April Primary Elections
By Ross Ramsey | The Texas Tribune | Jan. 20
“The Democratic and Republican political parties hold their state conventions June 7-9.”
3. Italy Finds a Heroic Foil for Its Scorned Captain
By Elisabetta Povoledo | The New York Times | Jan. 19
“Easily adapting to the national propensity for dualism, Italians have got themselves a hero to play against their antihero, a champion to their villain …”
4. Obama warned about skyrocketing debt before he took office
By Donovan Slack | Politico 44 :: Politico | Jan. 23
“Economic advisers warned President Obama before he took the oath of office that he would have to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to help right the economy and such spending could run up the highest national debt since World War II. …”
5. What Future for Occupy Wall Street?
By Michael Greenberg | The New York Review of Books | Feb. 9
“Occupy Wall Street’s expansion to many other cities seems to have been preordained, but at the time it caught even its most committed supporters off guard.”
6. After Being Stricken by Drought, Istanbul Yields Ancient Treasure
By Jennifer Pinkowski | The New York Times | Jan. 23
“In the last dig season alone, the archaeologists uncovered port walls, elaborate buildings, an enormous cistern, a Byzantine church and stone roads spanning more than 1,000 years of occupation.”
7. Too many tests? Routine checks getting second look
By Lauran Neergaard | Associated Press | Jan. 23
“The worry: If given too often, these tests can waste time and money, and sometimes even do harm if false alarms spur unneeded follow-up care. It begs the question: Just what should be part of my doctor’s visit?”
8. Confident Obama Knows Wild Cards Can Loom Large
By Jackie Calmes | The New York Times | Jan. 23
“Democrats are enjoying the show, though mindful that much could change in the nine months before Election Day — as it often has in Mr. Obama’s term, and not for the better. ”
9. This Much I Know: Robert Duvall
By Tony Horkins | The Observer | February 2010
“The Hollywood legend, 79, on football, Brando and the tango”
10. The Yawning Gap
By C. Claiborne Ray | Q&A :: The New York Times | June 2011
“Do people yawn when they are asleep? Why do they yawn in the first place?”
Stillness of Heart 
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