Month: June 2024

Meet Elizabeth Packard: Women’s Rights Activist

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

Elizabeth Wells Packard is not on the list of “25 of the Most Influential Women in American History” She’s not on the list of 41 women, 50, or even 125 women. But her name needs to be known. And you need to know what she did for you, your mothers, your wives, your sisters, and your daughters.

On a recent trip to Barnes & Noble, this title caught my eye:

After reading the blurb, I didn’t hesitate to purchase this gem of a biography. Kate Moore weaves an emotional and beautiful narrative of Elizabeth Packard’s strenuous life during the 1860s. A woman whose only crime was to have a different religious and political opinion from her husband. Such absurdity at the time was medically considered insane, imprisoning Elizabeth behind the walls of the Jacksonville Asylum. Elizabeth spent several years trying to get out, and once she was out, she was not done fighting. Her next goal was to get the laws changed that put her there. Ms. Moore writes in the style of narrative nonfiction, giving us the facts in the form of a story. My blood boiled for the majority of the book, but Elizabeth’s triumph made the emotional rollercoaster worth it.

So, let’s meet Elizabeth Wells Packard. (Note: Everything written below comes from what I learned in Kate Moore’s book. All credit for deeper research goes to her.)

Elizabeth married a man fourteen years her senior – which wasn’t a cause for raised eyebrows at the time, but certainly led to her husband’s erroneous belief that he could spend his marriage days controlling her. 

Theophilus Packard was a preacher, which allowed Elizabeth a religious education. Shouldn’t the preacher’s wife know the Bible? In her studies, Elizabeth went beyond her husband’s teachings and explored other philosophies (this is at the tail end of the Second Great Awakening, afterall). Elizabeth thought it would be okay to share her new thoughts in her Bible Studies class. What Elizabeth didn’t know was Theophilus was receiving pressure from his financial backers to preach certain agendas in the wake of the looming Civil War. (Isn’t communication in marriage a beautiful thing?) Those agendas were the exact opposite of Elizabet’s new beliefs.

As tensions in their home rose, Elizabeth left her husband’s church, and began attending a church across town. This was the final straw for Theophilus. He locked Elizabeth in the nursery, and got two doctors to sign a certificate stating that Elizabeth was insane. On the day he planned to move her, he sent their 6 children on different errands and to different babysitters so they would not see their mother cartered off, and so the older ones could not come to her defense. He then brought in several trusted minions to manhandle Elizabeth out of her home, to the train station, and onto the train. Elizabeth was smart. She knew if she fought, then the unintelligent society she lived in would believe her insane. So she remained calm, stoic, and gave her kidnappers her dead weight as they carried her through the town. 

Theophilus accompanied Elizabeth to the Jacksonville Asylum in Illinois, and after dropping her off, would not see her again for quite some time. Theophilius placed her in the hands of the resident doctor, Andrew McFarland.

Dr. McFarland was smarter than Theophilus. After meeting with Elizabeth, he led her to believe that he did not think her insane, and that she would be out in a few months. During those few months, Dr. McFarland met with Elizabeth every day, letting her talk herself into a deeper hole (unbeknownst to her). 

According to Dr. McFarland, Elizabeth was not insane due to her religious beliefs. She was insane because she hated her husband. A sane woman would obey her husband. A sane woman would love her husband. A sane woman would forgive her husband for putting her in an asylum and agree to obey him in order to be released from the asylum. Elizabeth would do no such thing, so she remained there for about three years. 

During her time there, Dr. McFarland tried to break her by preventing her letters being delivered (both written to and by her), taking away her nice clothes, books, and writing supplies, and eventually moving her to the worst part of the hospital for women: 8th Ward. While in 8th Ward, Elizabeth experienced emotional abuse from the staff, and physical abuse from specific patients (these were the only patients that Elizabeth truly believed were insane). She also witnessed horrible physical abuse given to the other patients. 

Elizabeth was really good at making friends. And so, over time she was able to convince staff members to sneak her reading and writing materials into her new room. And during this time she wrote two full length books. One was all about the sins of Dr. McFarland, the other about the problems of her modern-day mental health system, religion, and women’s rights.

Elizabeth requested a meeting with the Board of Trustees, and was surprisingly granted a presentation with them. Dr. McFarland came, and so did Theophilus. But just like with the other patients and staff, Elizabeth won the Board over, and they commanded Dr. McFarland to release her within the next few months. Her release date came and went, but Elizabeth continued to write and pester Dr. McFarland. 

Eventually, Dr. McFarland admitted she was more bothersome inside the Jacksonville Asylum than he could handle, and he released her. Theophilus dropped her off with her cousin and forbade her from visiting him and their children. Elizabeth planned to do no such thing, and took out a loan from her friends to take a train to her hometown. She walked right into her old house, and it was a giant mess. Her only daughter was forced to become a homemaker at 11 years old, and is now a traumatized 14 year old. Theophilus had brainwashed their children against her, and they would only obey their father. Elizabeth became an invisible nuisance in her own home. 

Theophilus locked her in the nursery again, and she discovered he’s preparing her a place in another asylum, this time, for life. If she enters those doors, she isn’t coming out until she is dead. Her friends got the legal help that was denied her three years prior, and her sanity was officially on trial in the county court. 

This is one of the most amazing court cases I’ve ever read. And I can’t do it justice. Just read the book. In the end, Elizabeth won. She won against all those men who wanted to lock her away for life. BUT she is only free in the state of Illinois, and Theophilus still has legal control over their children. Ever the sore loser, Theophilus took off with their children and moved to Massachusetts. 

Elizabeth would then spend the next several years lobbying state government after state government to get the laws changed across the country. After another showdown with Dr. McFarland, she was successful. And because of Elizabeth Packard, women cannot be placed in asylums just because their husbands wish it. Because of Elizabeth Packard, women received a huge step in progress to their legal rights over their mental health and personal property. Because of Elizabeth Packard, the treatment of mental health patients started the process of improving. 

Elizabeth would get reunited with her children, and begrudgingly, her husband. They never divorced, but they also remained in separate dwellings for the rest of their lives. They stayed cordial in order to both have access to their children. The two books Elizabeth wrote while imprisoned got published and she lived off the sales of those popular volumes and the charity of her adult children. She is an amazing example of determination, passion, and perseverance.

Have you read about Elizabeth Packard before? What are your thoughts on her accomplishments? What other biographies would you recommend? Let me know in the comments!   

What YA Stories Can Teach Us: The Haunted Purse

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

I’m currently reading the Junie B. Jones series to my 6 year old (I know the title says YA, I have a point, I promise), and my adult eyes view Junie B. in a whole new light. It makes me sad that almost every adult in her life is so impatient with her and jumps to punishment right away instead of finding the root cause of Junie B’s behavior. There are two adults who treat her well and actually listen to her: Principal, and Grampa Frank Miller, but talking about those two is for a different post. 

Like with fiction’s funniest kindergartener, I’ve had a different reading experience with YA stories now that I’m a parent and I teach high school. And I’ve started to see three common messages in the recent YAs I’ve read: how adults treat teenagers is important, see something-say something, and honesty really is the best policy. 

As I dive into these lessons, I would like to use The Haunted Purse by Kimberly Baer to dive deeper into these themes. 

First, let’s get you on board with the plot and characters of The Haunted Purse.

Libby Dawson is our main character. She is a 15-year-old Sophomore, and her story begins during the second half of the school year. She just purchased a new (to her) purse from her local thrift store, and her purse keeps making things disappear. After she sweats for an hour or so, her purse will magically return it. This Mary Poppins purse causes problems between Libby and her Physics teacher, and Libby and her mom. On the flip side, the purse also helps her overcome her bullies and protects her from an assault the school’s heartthrob has planned for her. 

Libby eventually figures out that the purse is not magic, it’s haunted. The ghost of the previous owner has possessed the purse, and she wants Libby to solve her disappearance and murder. One big problem: this is a cold case from over twenty years ago.

Libby’s best friend, Toni, gets to witness the purse in action and happily becomes Libby’s sidekick in solving the case. The two girls put themselves in dangerous situations, leading to Toni getting grounded for the rest of the summer, and now Libby has to finish the case by herself – which ends up being more dangerous than Toni’s ridiculous idea that got her grounded. 

Now that you’ve got a feel for the story, let’s dive deeper into our three messages.   

How educational professionals treat each student is important. 

The opening scene is Libby losing her position as her Physics teacher’s “favorite student”. An essay is due, and Libby has to tell her teacher, “My purse ate my homework.” Her teacher doesn’t believe her, and embarasses her in front of the whole class. At the end of the class period, the purse returns the essay to Libby, and she tells her teacher she found it and asks if she can turn it in. Her teacher says yes, but the damage is done. She stops treating Libby with respect and compassion. Libby is the narrator for her story and informs the reader that this teacher is obsessed with being the fun teacher for the popular kids, plus has a few prized academic students. Libby used to be one of those prized academic students, but after this one mistake, she’s now a peasant, especially since the popular kids already bully Libby. 

I had a teacher like that in high school. Not to the extent of bullying students, but he was focused on keeping the popular kids entertained, and it caused him to let the rest of us fall through the cracks. 

In another scene, Libby is planning the rest of her high school career with her school counselor, and he is very condescending about Libby’s socioeconomic status. He basically tells her that her only chance of going to college is to be a straight A student so she can get scholarships. While what he said was factually true, Libby already knew that about herself, his delivery was so gross and judgmental. 

So, the takeaway from these two scenes is that teenagers – and young people in general – are very aware of their surroundings. They can absolutely tell how adults feel about them. And adults who have a stewardship role over minors need to be a safe person.  

See something, Say something.  

A big part of Libby’s character arc is that she is “the girl who raised herself.” Libby’s mom, Misty, had her when she was a teenager, and Libby has never known her biological father. Misty did not want to be a mom that young, and resented Libby for taking away her young adult years. So when she meets a man who claims he doesn’t like kids (at least, that’s what Misty tells Libby – I have my own theory), Misty moves in with him and leaves Libby in their apartment. Misty stops by occasionally to give Libby money for groceries, rent, and other bills; but other than that, Libby is literally living by herself. The entire apartment complex knows this, and no one does anything about it. Libby doesn’t want to end up in foster care, so she is fine with everyone else’s silence. But no one caring about her whereabouts is going to be a problem when she finds herself at the mercy of the villain.

Obviously, the plot would not have gone the way it did if one of Libby’s neighbors called social services the minute Misty abandoned her daughter. But in real life, these kinds of situations are not okay.  

Honesty really is the best policy.  

Almost all of the characters lie at some point. Most of them are lies by omission. The one I want to highlight, I’ll have to be vague on because it’s part of the resolution. So one of the characters who was close to the ghost when they were alive blames themself for the victim’s disappearance. They knew the ghost (when she was alive) was doing something they weren’t supposed to, and kept their secret for them. Twenty years later, they’ve still kept that information a secret because they feel so awful. Like most blame plotlines, if they’d confided in at least one other person, they would have learned everything was all right, and they weren’t responsible. 

We all need at least one person whom we can be completely honest with. 

So with these common lessons in YA stories (and let’s be honest, most stories), the plots would not be as developed and the stories would be over too quickly if these types of mistakes weren’t made. But the lessons learned from them are great for real life.

And this is one of the many reasons that The Haunted Purse is a worthy 5 star read. The story is intriguing, the characters are realistic and relatable, and the lessons learned are applicable. 
Have you read The Haunted Purse? What were your thoughts on it? What other stories like it would you recommend? Let me know in the comments!

How to Put a Ghost in a Romance: Bound Across Time

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

Four years ago, I learned the rules of romance writing. There are two very important requirements for a story to be considered a romance:

  1. The main plot must center around the relationship between the love interests.
  2. It must end with a Happily Ever After or Happy For Now. 

I struggled with rule #2 for about a year (check out how I overcame that in a previous blog post), but once accepted, I had a big question: How do you make this work with ghosts? If one half of the couple is a living person, and the other half is a ghost, how are they going to have an HEA?

Part of my confusion came from reading an incorrectly labeled paranormal romance. First off, the main plot was not the relationship with the (ghost) love interest; that ended up being the side plot. Second, the main character is not reunited with their ghost love interest until decades after the main story ends when they die of old age (think the reunited scene of Jack and Rose in Titanic). That didn’t really feel like an HEA to me. 

So, like the emotional teenager I sometimes act like, I stayed away from ghost stories until Bound Across Time by Annie R. McEwen fell into my lap. This is a paranormal romance worth reading.

Let’s start with our living character, our female main character: Celeste Gowdie (a.k.a. CeCe). CeCe’s mother died when she was young, and she was raised by her aunts in the U.S. state of Georgia. CeCe doesn’t know who her father is (this is important for one of the reveals toward the end). She studied history in college, and is working in St. Rhydian’s castle in Wales when the story begins. CeCe wants to be taken seriously as a real historian, but she ends up being the American tour guide who gets to research and share ghost stories to the patrons. 

Patrick O’Loinsigh is the bastard son of one of the historic Lords of the castle. He was born in Ireland in the 18th Century, educated in Paris, and forced to move to his father’s castle during his early adult years. His father used him to do his dirty work since Patrick wouldn’t be inheriting the title. Patrick is murdered by his half brother, and his spirit spends the next few centuries hanging out in the in-between waiting for the living soul who matches a prophecy meant to free him.

Patrick and CeCe have a meet-cute of epic proportions. Patrick lures CeCe to the top of the tallest tower by turning on a battery operated candle. CeCe can’t lock up the castle and go home until all lights are turned off. So after a literal hike, CeCe comes across a handsome man in 1700s clothing. Patrick scares CeCe so bad that she faints. 

It takes CeCe several days to believe Patrick that he is the ghost of the handsome man in the gallery of the castle’s historic inhabitants. At first she thinks he’s a loiter pretending to be Patrick O’Loinsigh. But when she finally believes him, she falls, and she falls hard. 

The local witch coven gets involved, CeCe’s aunts get involved because… family secrets! (That I’m not going to spoil.) Everyone wants CeCe to stay away from Patrick for her own good. Of course she doesn’t listen, and she embarks on a passionate and steamy love affair with Patrick. 

Well, it turns out that when a living person spends that kind of time with a ghost, their literal being starts to disappear. So now, CeCe and Patrick have a difficult decision to make: go their separate ways to save CeCe’s life, or research if magic can help them. 

And that’s where I’m going to leave you with this story, because you’re just going to have to read it yourself if you want to know how it ends. But the ending is soooooo worth the emotional turmoil that Ms. McEwen is going to put you through. 

These kinds of stories always have to have “rules of magic” and the rules of magic that Annie created were very cool. When Patrick and CeCe meet up, the room they are in reverts back to the way it was when Patrick was alive. When Patrick leaves, the room returns to its modern-day look and feel. When they are together, they are neither in the past nor present – though they are closer to the present, because humans could hear CeCe if they came by the room. 

There also appears to be two different “types” of magic. There’s a traditional witch who can cast spells and make potions and such. Then there are people born with “gifts”. CeCe is born with a gift that allows her to see and hear Patrick in the first place. (For more details on that, read the book!)

And to finish off this review, here is a Q&A with the author herself:

In your planning, what came first: a story about witches? Or a story about ghosts?

Door Number Three: a story about a castle! Because, when I conceived the book, I was living in a small Welsh town that is graced by a very old and beautiful castle. I spent a lot of time thinking about the people who passed through those halls and gardens. Were any of them still there? So, yes, I suppose the ghosts came first and everything else followed. 

What historical people, places and facts are true? What did you embellish or fill in the holes?

The town, the witches, the historian who’s forced to resort to ghost walks since history doesn’t sell, the castle, the stone circle a few miles out of town, the Welsh coast almost within sight of Ireland, the family who kept secrets, the work of people – archivists, admins, docents, conservationists – at an historic site: all those are fact-based, along with the many casually dropped references to and stories about the past as viewed by both a modern historian and a ghost who died in the mid-1700s. Beyond and embracing those is the truth of protagonist CeCe’s life and work; just like her, I’m a career historian who lived in a small Welsh town and met the astoundingly warm and quirky inhabitants, worked in the local castle, visited the stone circle. The things I changed were the ghost (whom I never met, more’s the pity) and the names and actions of both CeCe and the locals. Oh, and the color-changing cat! Always wanted one of those but, alas, mine have all been the single-color variety. 

I’m guessing Aiofe’s story is next? Do you also plan on going back in time and also telling Gabrielle’s story?

Bound to Happen (Book Two of the Bound Series) does indeed follow Aoife/Fee’s story. It involves a radical change in setting, from a tiny Welsh town to London and, specifically, Covent Garden, where Aoife has a grant to research playwrights and poets of the 1600s. She’s lured to an abandoned theater by some urban exploring chums and…Well, you’ll have to read the novel to see what happens then! But in addition to new and very different secondary characters – Aoife’s Ghana-born flatmate and her ancestor priestess Mom, along with some skeptical folks in the National Trust and Museum of London Archeology – characters from Book One re-appear, like Jana Smithbury-Tewkes (and her new color-changing feline, Rumpelstiltskin.) Through them, readers learn more about Fee’s Savannah family (still keeping secrets, as families do) and her life growing up with leathling-souler parents in 18th century Paris. As to Gabrielle Gowdie: while bits of her tale are woven into Bound to Happen, it’s in Boundless (Book Three of the series), that we hear from an aging Helene Gowdie (oldest of the original five sisters who included Gabrielle) about why and how the secret-keeping of Gowdie family began.

What’s next for your writing career?

More writing, more publishing! I’m contracted with four publishers (one in the UK, the rest US-based) for nine books, five of which are written, the rest in progress. I’m eager to push ahead with my series for the UK publisher, Bloodhound Books; it’s Victorian working class romance centered on the lives and loves of four women who work in a London corset workshop. If you liked Peaky Blinders, you’ll love The Corset Girls! I haven’t left paranormal romance behind, though; I’ve got a spine-chilling vampire romance story in Rowan Prose Publishing’s horror anthology coming out later this year. And I’m finishing a time travel historical romance set in 1910 Boston, New Orleans, and Wales. Several other WIPs are nudging me for attention, including a Regency romance comedy about the lengths to which an impoverished heiress will go to avoid an inconvenient marriage, an 1880s romance set in New Orleans’ back streets, and a novel of smuggling and love on the Kent coast in the 1740s. 

Annie R. McEwen has written a beautiful romance that brings past and present together in the most captivating of ways. She kept me guessing until the very end how the problems would get resolved. Very captivating and well-earned five stars.