There has been LOTS happening on the ranch, between animals, projects, the slumped oil field, and fertility news. I'm working on some pieces to catch everyone up on what's been happening.
But in the meantime, I've been reading!
This is no small feat, in the middle of grading papers and reading for my Master's program, but I have really trying to be vigilant about reading, both Young Adult books for my library and books for myself as well.
Whew!
Over Easter break, when Hubster and I flew to the San Francisco Bay area to visit my family, I read Philomena by Martin Sixsmith. Despite the fact that the book is a few inches thick, it was a fast read. Fast and heartbreaking.
In December of 2012, Hubster and I attended a play called The Magdalene Whitewash, which was put on at our local community college. The play is about the Magdalene Laundries, work houses run by Catholic convents in Ireland to house "fallen women," most often girls who became pregnant out of wedlock.
I was fascinated and horrified by the true background to the play, and when I began researching the story, I became even more drawn in. These laundries were in operation into the 1990s, and were only disbanded when a mass, unmarked grave was discovered at a convent in Ireland.
Over the years that the Magdalene Laundries operated, thousands of women were essentially made into indentured servants, working to pay off their sins. They gave birth at the convent and then their babies were taken away from them. Some women were able to work off the cost of their stay and were released. Some women were kept in the laundries for rest of their lives, dying in anonymity and buried in unmarked grave.
So the story of Philomena is nestled in the history of the Magdalene Laundries. When Philomena Lee became pregnant out of wedlock in the 1950s, her family sent her to the convent. She and her baby boy lived at the convent until the little boy was three years old.
It was then that the little boy was adopted by a family in America, along with another little girl from the convent.
Philomena was later released from the convent. She went on to marry, have children, and never say a word about her first child.
Until one Christmas, when Philomena imbibes a bit at a party and tells her daughter about the son that was taken from her.
Then Martin Sixsmith, a journalist, helps that daughter and Philomena track down the son she lost.
And the book also tells the story of the son, a man who rose through political circles to be quite prominent, but always haunted by the fact that he was taken from his birth mother.
What a sad and moving story.
I would highly recommend it, despite the intensity and sadness that the story contains.
In 2013, a film staring Dame Judi Dench was released based on the novel, and Hubster and I have it on our "to watch" list
Check out Philomena, and if you're interested, look here or here (and these are just a few of the articles you can find) for more information about the Magdalene Laundries.
Check out the Philomena Trailer below:
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