Yesterday we celebrated the Fourth of July by going to a baseball game that was followed by a fireworks display.
It was wonderful fun, but it was not conducive to working on the vinx which is my front burner design project, and while I love designing new things, it requires that I take copious and accurate notes as I move forward, delete them as I frog, and then rewrite them as needed.
Because of that, it is not what I think of as either a mindless or portable project, so most of Monday, I simply reveled in the holiday.
Today, I had to hit the ground running to catch up on all of the things that needed doing, but once the things that needed doing were done, I was able to find a moment to sit quietly and get back to the project I think of as a “Vinx for Flora.”
Born in Los Angeles in 1913, Flora was both a woman of and ahead of her times.
Unlike her mother or my grandmother, Flora never married. Instead, she held a series of jobs with increasing responsibility, and embraced every opportunity life brought her way.
Like her mother, Flora tended toward the prim and proper wearing skirts, suits, and at least a modest heel, she belonged to a service sorority, and she was an avid reader having joined the book-of-the-month club.
Flora lived with her mother most of her life (excepting the brief foray to Sacramento noted in my previous post), and helped her mother navigate the new world in which she had found herself in her early teens.
Flora did so by driving her mother to do the shopping and to any other necessary appointments, keeping up with family correspondence, and paying bills.
Flora “leaned in” before Sheryl Sandberg made it a thing, and she did it without a Harvard education or a husband, and she did it despite a major blow to her health in her late twenties when she came down with rheumatic fever, the effects of which contributed to her death in 1959 at the at the relatively young age of 46.
So it is this quiet, determined spirit that I am hoping to capture in this project:
As is clear from this picture, I have many stitches to go before I succeed, but I will work as I always do, one stitch at a time.
You mentioned that Flora belonged to a service sorority. Was she a Beta Sigma Phi? They’re a great international bunch of service oriented women. I’m a member & currently on leave of absence, due to health & moving. I’m sure if Flora belonged to Beta Sigma Phi, she was busy doing good for others.
That, Jane, is a box I need to sort through.
If you don’t have time to sort through, it might be fun to check out Beta Sigma Phi. I believe International has a Facebook page or you could maybe try Google. You might find it interesting.