Tuesday Tidbits: JINGLE BELLS

Jingle Bells is one of the quintessential Christmas carols and probably the best known one around the world. It was originally titled One Horse Open Sleigh and is a standard at Christmas. The season wouldn’t be the same without it.

BUT . . .

 

Jingle Bells wasn’t written as a Christmas song. Nope. It was written for Thanksgiving. That makes it a Thanksgiving carol. However, it’s not even really about Thanksgiving. It’s about horse racing and dating. LOL!

 

Though the author of this time-tested carol is not in question, when and where it was written is.

 

Let’s roll back time to 1850. James Lord Pierpont was a young man of twenty-seven. (I won’t get into some of his less desirable traits.) His father and older brother were both ministers of Unitarian churches.

 

In 1850, James’s father asked him to write a song for the upcoming Thanksgiving celebration, or so the story goes. At that time, Thanksgiving wasn’t a national holiday. It was celebrated sporadically since 1789. It wasn’t until 1863, when President Lincoln declared a national day of thanksgiving to be observed on the last Thursday in November, that it became consistent across the country. Controversy surrounded which Thursday to observe this celebration, moving to different Thursdays in the month at the current president’s discretion. In 1942, Thanksgiving finally had a permanent home on the fourth Thursday in November.

 

Now, back to 1850 in Medford, Massachusetts. James was struggling with what to write for a Thanksgiving song when he saw some children sledding. He went out and joined them for over an hour, racing down the hill on a borrowed sled. His time in the snow brought back memories of when he was a teen racing horse-drawn sleighs with his buddies. At the end of the races, the winner would receive a hug from one of the girls watching. Which meant, they were racing for hugs and for the admiration and respect of girls. Things haven’t changed much.

James Lord Pierpont

James, being a bit of a rebel, penned verses of those younger years, racing horses to impress girls. He thought that was something to be thankful for. The song was a hit at the Thanksgiving service causing people to hum the tune as they left, and they asked for it to be performed again at Christmas. The repeat performance was received equally as well. Out-of-town visitors at the Christmas service enjoyed it so much, they jotted down the words and memorized the tune.

 

When James Pierpont headed down South in 1857, he took his Thanksgiving song with him. Oliver Ditson and Company published it in that same year in August, and James got it copyrighted a month later on September 16. This is what leads to the confusion of when and where it was penned. Both Medford, Massachusetts and Savannah, Georgia lay claim to the origin of this little ditty.

Back to this being a racing and dating song.

 

Line one of verse one — “Dashing through the snow”. Dashing denotes speed or a race.

 

In verse 2 (lesser well known) — “And soon, Miss Fanny Bright was seated by my side”—the narrator has a girl in the sleigh, and then proceeds to drive either at a great speed or in a reckless manner to end up in a snow bank and tipped over—“He got into a drifted bank and then we got upsot.”

 

Then in verse 3 (also lesser known) — He falls in the snow and a rival laughs at him.

. . . I went out on the snow,

And on my back I fell;

A gent was riding by

In a one-horse open sleigh,

He laughed as there I sprawling lie,

But quickly drove away.

I think they were racing because he says “on” the snow, not in the snow.

 

Last but not least, in the final verse — the narrator tells another fellow to pick up some girls, find a fast horse, then go racing with the fast horse.

. . . Take the girls tonight;

. . . Just get a bobtailed bay

Two forty for his speed

Hitch him to a sleigh

And crack! You’ll take the lead.

Two forty was a horse that could run a mile in two minutes and forty seconds or 22.5 mph.

 

Regardless of how this beloved carol began, over the decades, recording artists—such as Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Bing Crosby, the Andrew Sisters, and many others—have put their stamp on the tune and turned it into a Christmas favorite. Also, the lyrics and pacing have been tweaked since James Pierpont’s original version.

 

So special is this carol that Jingle Bells was the first song to be performed in outer space. On December 16, 1965, the crew of the Gemini 6 played it on harmonica backed up by sleigh bells. Both of which they smuggled aboard before liftoff.

Gemini VI

THE LADY’S MISSION (Quilting Circle 5)
2023 SELAH Award Finalist

Will Cordelia abandon her calling for love? Cordelia Armstrong wants nothing more than to escape the social norms for her station in society. Unless she can skillfully maneuver her father into giving up control of her trust fund, she might have to concede defeat—as well as her freedom—and marry. Every time Lamar Kesner finds a fascinating lady, her heart belongs to another. When a vapid socialite is offered up as a prospective bride, he contemplates flying off in his hot air balloon instead. Is Lamar the one to finally break the determination of Cordelia’s parents to marry her off? Or will this charming bachelor fly away with her heart?

MARY DAVIS, bestselling, award-winning novelist, has over thirty titles in both historical and contemporary themes. Her latest release is THE LADY’S MISSION. Her other novels include MRS. WITHERSPOON GOES TO WAR, THE DÉBUTANTE'S SECRET (Quilting Circle 4) THE DAMSEL’S INTENT (Quilting Circle 3) is a Selah Award Winner. Some of her other recent titles include; THE WIDOW’S PLIGHT, THE DAUGHTER'S PREDICAMENT, “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in The MISSAdventure Brides Collection , Prodigal Daughters Amish series, and "Bygones" in Thimbles and Threads. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.
Mary lives in the Rocky Mountains with her Carolina dog, Shelby. She has three adult children and three incredibly adorable grandchildren. Find her online at:
Books2Read Newsletter Blog FB FB Readers Group Amazon GoodReads BookBub

Sources

Stories Behind The Greatest Hits Of Christmas, by Ace Collins

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingle_Bells

https://www.grunge.com/285218/the-history-of-jingle-bells-explained/

https://www.liveabout.com/jingle-bells-history-2456082

https://www.history.com/news/8-things-you-may-not-know-about-jingle-bells

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(United_States)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lord_Pierpont

Tuesday Tidbits: A FORGOTTEN RECORD-BREAKING AVIATRIX

“I would like to think those flights of mine have a small corner in the history of achievement.” Lores Bonney

 

Maude Rose “Lores” (Rubens) Bonney

 

One would think with all those names that a person would be remembered. One would think that setting flying records would afford a person to be remembered. But alas, Lores Bonney faded into obscurity for most of the rest of her life.

 

Born Maude Rose Rubens on November 20, 1897 in Pretoria, South African Republic, her parents moved to England when she was four, then to Australia two years later in 1903. She didn’t like her given name so adopted the name Delores, which was shortened to Lores (pronounced Lor-ee).

 

“To put it bluntly, I was a rebel.” Lores Bonney

 

Her German-born father sent her to a German finishing school in 1911 to rein in her unruly behavior. She learned German, French, and became an accomplished pianist. While performing her first concert for Kaiser Wilhelm’s sister, she got a serious case of stage fright, feigned a nosebleed, and ran off the stage. Her first and last performance.

 

In 1917, while working for the Red Cross during WWI, she met and married Harry Bonney, nineteen years her senior. Though they wanted children, their marriage bore them none.

 

In 1928, she met Bert Hinkler, her husband’s first cousin once removed. He was an acclaimed pilot, having been the first to fly solo from England to Australia earlier that year. He took Bonney up in his Avro Avian biplane.

 

“It was the answer to my dreams. I adored birds, and there I was literally feeling like one. There and then I decided then to become a pilot.” Lores Bonney

 

But not merely to fly, she wanted to break records. She secretly took lessons while her husband golfed, because she didn’t know if he would approve. Her first lesson was on August 6, 1930. Within a year, she earned her private pilot’s license and confessed to her husband. His response was to buy her an airplane, a de Havilland DH.60 Gypsy Moth, which she named My Little Ship.

 

The first record she broke was in 1931 when she flew from Brisbane, Australia to Wangaratta, Australia. She spent Christmas with her husband, but wanted to have supper with her father the next day. She took off at 4:30 am and landed at 7:20 pm in time for supper. The longest one-day flight by a woman.

 

The second record was being the first woman to circumnavigate Australia’s mainland by air in 1932.

 

The third record was in 1933 when she was the first woman to fly from Australia to England, taking off on April 10, 1933. She wanted to make the same flight Bert Hinkler had set a record for. As with any of these kinds of early records, the trip was fraught with difficulties.

 

Lores Bonney overhauls her machine, April 11, 1933

 

With Victoria Point, Queensland, Australia only 50km away, Bonney ran into a terrible storm but felt she could fly through it. The clouds darkened and lightning cracked around her. The strong winds buffeted her about, and she feared the wings were going to get torn off, so she turned back to an island she had flown over.

 

She needed to make an emergency landing before the rain engulfed the island. With the tide out, she spotted a strip of wet, firm sand to land on. She made a smooth landing rather than her usual kangaroo-hopping ones, with no one there to witness it except a lone buffalo in her path. She turned to miss the beast, causing the aircraft wing to hit the water, flipping the plane. Bonney was trapped in the cockpit underwater part of the time when the waves rolled in. The harness release pin was bent, inhibiting her frantic efforts to free herself.

 

“What an inglorious finish — to be drowned in my cockpit, upside down.” Lores Bonney

 

After some struggle, she freed herself and got out of her wreckage. The wings, rudder, propeller, and tail fin were all smashed, only the fuselage and engine were relatively undamaged. After six days on the island, she and her aircraft were taken to Calcutta where it took a month to repair. Undeterred, she continued on to England on May 25, 1933 and touched down in England on June 21, 1933.

 

Then in 1937 came her fourth record when she was the first to fly from Australia to South Africa. She flew her newly acquired German Klemm L32 monoplane, named My Little Ship II. She ran into many difficulties along the way; torrential rains, sandstorms in the Middle East, bureaucrats, stranded during a bush landing, and heat so hot she couldn’t touch the throttle with her bare hands. Also, the glue on the soles of her shoes melted from the hot rudder pedals.

 

Though repairs took only three weeks in Khartoum, she decided to wait another three days for Amelia Earhart so she could meet her fellow aviatrix. Earhart and Fred Noonan were on their infamous ’round the world flight and due to stop in Khartoum any day. Hearing no word of where the pair was, Bonney decided she could wait no longer and took off on July 10, 1937. Earhart and Noonan landed two days later. Unfortunately, they disappeared shortly thereafter, and Bonney never got to meet her.

 

It took her another five weeks, including several repairs and a broken altimeter that nearly led her into the side of the mountain, before she finally landed in Cape Town, South Africa.

 

After WWII, she hung up her wings, partly due to age and diminished eyesight.

 

“I always liked to say I traveled the world with a Gipsy [sic].” Lores Bonney

 

She died in 1994 at age 96 of pneumonia. In 2017, an electoral district was created and named after her in Queensland, and in 2019, the Lores Bonney Riverwalk was opened in Brisbane, Australia.

 

~~I know it's been a while. Life has been super busy with painting my fence and building another section of it--also the never-ending battle with weeds. Then there are the mice in my garage I'm trying to get rid of. I hope to get back to consistently posting.

 
MRS. WITHERSPOON GOES TO WAR (Heroines of WWII series)
3rd Place 2023 SELAH Award

A WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) flies a secret mission to rescue three soldiers held captive in Cuba.

Margaret “Peggy” Witherspoon is a thirty-four-year-old widow, mother of two daughters, an excellent pilot, and very patriotic. She joins the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots). As she performs various tasks like ferry aircraft, transporting cargo, and being an airplane mechanic, she meets and develops feelings for her supervisor Army Air Corp Major Howie Berg. When Peggy learns of U.S. soldiers being held captive in Cuba, she, Major Berg, and two fellow WASPs devise an unsanctioned mission to rescue them. With Cuba being an ally in the war, they must be careful not to ignite an international incident. Order HERE!

MARY DAVIS, bestselling, award-winning novelist, has over thirty titles in both historical and contemporary themes. Her latest release is THE LADY’S MISSION. Her other novels include THE DÉBUTANTE'S SECRET (Quilting Circle Book 4) THE DAMSEL’S INTENT (The Quilting Circle Book 3) is a SELAH Award Winner. Some of her other recent titles include; THE WIDOW'S PLIGHT, THE DAUGHTER'S PREDICAMENT, “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in The MISSAdventure Brides Collection, Prodigal Daughters Amish series, "Holly and Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection, and "Bygones" in Thimbles and Threads. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Rocky Mountains with her Carolina dog, Shelby. She has three adult children and three incredibly adorable grandchildren. Find her online at: Books2Read Newsletter Blog FB FB Readers Group Amazon GoodReads BookBub

 

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maude_Bonney

https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/history-culture/2017/03/lores-bonney-the-forgotten-aviatrix/

https://www.historynet.com/lores-bonney-australian-female-pilot/

https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bonney-maude-rose-lores-27042

CAT'S CRADLE

 

Though adorable, not those kinds of cats.

This kind.

As a child playing Cat’s Cradle, I never realized it was an ancient game played in many cultures.

Cat’s cradle is a string game involving various figures with a loop of string made on the hands. Versions can be played by either one or two people, sometimes more. Each figure created has a different name.

Variations of this game have been found independently in cultures around the world; some of these are Africa, the Americas, the Arctic, Australia, Eastern Asia, and the Pacific Islands.

 

In other countries this game goes by different names.

         France — crèche

         Japan — ayatori

         Korea — sil-tteu-gi

         Russia — the game of string (but in Russian)

         China — fan sheng (turning rope)

         Israel — Knitting Grandmother

         In some regions of the U.S. — Jack in the Pulpit

So, who created this attention absorbing game and when?

No one really knows, but it is found around the world.

 

Though the origin and name of this enduring game is debated, it may have begun in China and has likely existed for centuries. Even so, the earliest mention of it in literature isn’t until 1768 in a novel titled The Light of Nature Pursued by Abraham Tucker under the pen name Edward Search.

“An ingenious play they call cat's cradle; one ties the two ends of a packthread together, and then winds it about his fingers, another with both hands takes it off perhaps in the shape of a gridiron, the first takes it from him again in another form, and so on alternately changing the packthread into a multitude of figures whose names I forget, it being so many years since I played at it myself.”

However, Cat’s Cradle isn’t the only game nor is it the only use of a loop of string to create figures. People have been manipulating string for as long as there has been string.

 

The first known written account of manipulating string was by first century Greek physician Heraklas where he describes surgical knots and slings. His figure called the “Plinthios Brokhos” was used to set and bind a broken jaw. With the string doubled, the shape consisted of four corner loops with a hole in the center. The chin would be placed in the middle hole while the four loops are pulled up near the top of the head and tied. This figure is known as “The Sun Clouded Over” to the Aborigines in Australia.

 

The extinct woolly mammoth is a figure the Inuits have. So, their culture had been playing with string for a very, very long time to have knowledge of an animal that no longer exists.

And like so many things, there are Guinness Book of World Record holders. In August 1974, a trio of California girls, Geneva Hultenius, Maryann Divona, and Rita Divona played Cat’s Cradle for 21 hours, making 21,200 changes between them. They were in the 1975 and 1976 editions of Guinness Book of World Records. But they didn’t hold their title for very long. In August of 1976, a pair of Canadians, Jane Muir and Robyn Lawrick, also played for 21 hours and completed 22,700 changes, dethroning the California trio. So many questions go through my mind of how they managed this, but I keep coming back to someone having to had counted all those exchanges while not losing track, not to mention bathroom breaks and eating.

 

In 1963, the game was the inspiration for Kurt Vonnegut’s novel aptly titled Cat’s Cradle where a character surmises that the invisible cat in the game symbolizes all the nonsense of life.

Did you play Cat’s Cradle or other string games in your youth?

 

Here’s a video if you want to refresh your memory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpHTPnrYLzQ

 

THE WIDOW'S PLIGHT ~ A sweet historical romance, Book 1 in the Quilting Circle series

The Quilting Circle series Book 1
Washington State, 1893
    

When Lily Lexington Bremmer arrives in Kamola with her young son, she’s reluctant to join the quilting circle, however, the friendly ladies pull her in. She has a secret and hopes it doesn’t come to light. Widower Edric Hammond and his father are doing their best to raise his two young daughters. Lily resists Edric’s charms but finds herself falling in love with this kind, gentle man and his daughters. Lily stole Edric’s heart with her first smile. Will her secret cost her a bright future? Can Edric forgive Lily’s past to take hold of a promising chance at love?

MARY DAVIS, bestselling, award-winning novelist, has over thirty titles in both historical and contemporary themes. Her latest release is THE LADY’S MISSION. Her other novels include THE DÉBUTANTE'S SECRET (Quilting Circle Book 4) THE DAMSEL’S INTENT (The Quilting Circle Book 3) is a SELAH Award Winner. Some of her other recent titles include; THE WIDOW'S PLIGHT, THE DAUGHTER'S PREDICAMENT, “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in The MISSAdventure Brides Collection, Prodigal Daughters Amish series, "Holly and Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection, and "Bygones" in Thimbles and Threads. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Rocky Mountains with her Carolina dog, Shelby. She has three adult children and three incredibly adorable grandchildren. Find her online at: Books2Read Newsletter Blog FB FB Readers Group Amazon GoodReads BookBub

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpHTPnrYLzQ

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%27s_cradle#References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_figure

https://www.beano.com/posts/cats-cradle-facts

ELIZABETH KENNY'S FIGHT AGAINST POLIO

 

Elizabeth Kenny 1950

I read about Elizabeth Kenny a couple of decades ago when I was doing polio research for a novel. I was impressed with her approach to treating infantile paralysis (a.k.a. poliomyelitis or polio).

 

First, let’s look at the disease in the years before Kenny’s treatment.

Polio has been around for thousands of years, but it had little to no effect on populations until the middle of the 1800s. Before this time, outbreaks were so limited that they either weren’t recognized or weren’t recorded. Numerous people contracted polio unawares with flu-like fever and aches, and—BAM—their immune systems created antibodies. Many didn’t even have any symptoms. Some progressed to temporary or permanent paralysis. While others had respiratory failure, which was why Philip Drinker and Louis Shaw developed the iron lung in 1929, saving many lives.

 

Iron Lung

The earliest notable outbreaks occurred in Europe in the mid-1800s besides one in Louisiana. In 1894, the first recognized US epidemic was in Vermont. With increasing frequency and higher numbers of people infected, the polio epidemics became wider spread and growing numbers of people died. What changed to cause polio to go from an occasional, disregarded illness through the millennia to epidemics suddenly sweeping around the world?

 

Sanitation!

 

Surprisingly, the increase of more sanitary conditions created a ripe environment for polio to spread. Yes, you heard that right. Sanitary conditions made people more susceptible to polio. Of course, no one knew that at the time. In trying to clean things up to get rid of other killer diseases like typhoid, cholera, and dysentery, polio was able to bloom and spread. How could this be?

 

If a mother had been exposed to and fought off polio, she developed antibodies that temporarily protected her baby in the womb as well as with the first breast milk. Before sanitation became a thing, a newborn would have been exposed to polio in its unclean environment while being protected by its mother’s antibodies. When exposed, the baby could fight off the disease and develop its own antibodies with minimal to no symptoms. No one would have likely noticed that the baby was even ill. Most people were “immunized” very early in life. Only those with poor or weak immune systems reached the second (often paralyzing) phase of the disease.

 

Therefore, if a baby, in this new, cleaner environment, isn’t exposed to polio while protected by its mother’s antibodies, then it could contract it later on when it doesn’t have the benefit of its mother’s antibodies. And if that child grows up without ever being exposed and has a baby, that next generation wouldn’t have a mother’s antibodies to protect them and to help fight the disease. This was why so many babies were stricken and paralyzed.

 

Enter Elizabeth Kenny, born in Warialda, New South Wales, Australia on September 20, 1880, during a time when polio was on the rise. At age seventeen, she broke her wrist and convalesced in Toowoomba under the supervision of Dr. Aeneas McDonnell. While there, she became interested in how muscles worked and studied McDonnell’s anatomy books and model skeleton. McDonnell became her lifelong mentor. She later trained at a private hospital in Sydney, graduating in 1911.

 

Kenny 1915

She started her own nursing practice, traveled by foot, horseback, or buggy to the bush country, and charged no money. One of her patients, in 1911, had contracted polio, the first case Kenny had come across. She wrote to McDonnell, asking advice on how to treat the disease. Not much could be done at the time, so he advised to treat the symptoms. Which for the wider medical community meant complete immobilization with casts and heavy splints. Being a bit outside this community and unaware of the standard treatment, she interpreted the advice the best she could by putting warm, wet compresses on the limbs and passive movement of the muscles. The girl recovered.

 

Soon, Kenny served as a nurse for the Australian forces during WWI on a hospital ship. After her time in service, she went back to treating polio and cerebral palsy. In the 1920s and 1930s, she built several polio treatment clinics around the world.

 

Brisbane Clinic 1938

Rockhampton Hospital 1939

Kenny’s unorthodox method didn’t sit well with people who ascribed to the generally accepted medical care for polio—immobilization. The belief at the time was that this disease was in the nervous or spinal system. Kenny believed the key to polio lay in the muscular framework. Her regiment of hot, wet compresses for pain and passive movement of the limbs to reduce spasms reflected that.

 

A royal commission in 1935 studied her methods. Their report was unfavorable. At nearly the same time, a London inquiry came to a similar conclusion.

 

Kenny in her garden with her secretary

However, she visited the US in 1940 and was received with enthusiasm. A medical committee of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis deemed her basic methods and practices in alignment with them in 1941. In 1942, she became a guest lecturer at the Minnesota Medical School, and an Elizabeth Kenny Clinic was opened in Minneapolis. After that, clinics with her name popped up across the US. She was showered with praise as well as degrees. Even though more than 85% of her over 7,000 patients at the Minneapolis clinic recovered compared to only 13% with the conventional accepted method, medical opinion remained divided. However, all of the people Kenny helped have to be grateful for her treatment.

 

Kenny in 1952, shortly before her death

Fortunately today, we don’t have to go backward to unsanitary conditions to protect ourselves from polio. We have a vaccine that can wipe out this devastating disease. However, a viable vaccine didn’t come in Kenny’s lifetime. She passed away in Toowoomba, Queensland on November 30, 1952.

 

Do you have a polio vaccine scar? Or did you get a sugar cube to help the medicine go down?

 

 

NEWLYWED GAMES

A "little white lie" grows into a very big problem. Meghann Livingston invents a husband to soothe her dying mother. But when her mom miraculously recovers and comes to visit, Meghann is hard-pressed to explain her "husband's" absence! Before Meghann can come clean, her handsome, elusive boss, Bruce Halloway, inadvertently steps into her romantic charade...and to Meghann's shock and horror, insists upon playing along. The masquerade's success depends upon them playing their newlywed games extremely well. When they do, both Meghann and Bruce—even as they struggle to overcome the consequences of their deceptions—find themselves falling in love...for real!

 

MARY DAVIS, bestselling, award-winning novelist, has over thirty titles in both historical and contemporary themes. Her latest release is THE LADY’S MISSION. Her other novels include THE DÉBUTANTE'S SECRET (Quilting Circle Book 4) THE DAMSEL’S INTENT (The Quilting Circle Book 3) is a SELAH Award Winner. Some of her other recent titles include; THE WIDOW'S PLIGHT, THE DAUGHTER'S PREDICAMENT, “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in The MISSAdventure Brides Collection, Prodigal Daughters Amish series, "Holly and Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection, and "Bygones" in Thimbles and Threads. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Rocky Mountains with her Carolina dog, Shelby. She has three adult children and three incredibly adorable grandchildren. Find her online at: Books2Read Newsletter Blog FB FB Readers Group Amazon GoodReads BookBub