Meet Bethaney Veney

 

A friend sent me information about Bethany Veney for my book 501 Remarkable Unrecognized Women the research and writing of which has consumed me for the last year. 

 

The original idea was to do it as a one woman a day calendar but the unevenness of the number for each date, one-nine, made me change the focus to category. There were too many inspiring women to limit the number to 365.

 

The book will include sections for doctors, lawyers, spies, botanists, revolutionaries, soldiers, even witches and pirates and many more. The women broke through the boundaries of their times and places to accomplish what was impossible for the majority of their gender. Most have been totally ignored or ignored outside of a limited sphere.

 

I'd spent almost a year in research and am now condensing up to 3000 words of notes on each one to around 150 words more or less containing the essence of the woman's stories. I've done about 300.

 

Yesterday, before I got the email I'd wrestled for hours cutting down the story of the first woman fighter pilot who had the audacity to ask the then Turkish president to adopt her. He did. 

The story of Bethany was different. The words flew into my laptop almost writing themselves. The first paragraph says, "During one slave auction, Bethany Veney put baking soda in her mouth to appear sick. She would be sold and resold several times before being freed. 

She had dictated her story to a white woman, known only by her initials. Moving was how she described one of her owners as "kind" because he fed and clothed his slaves well. He was in contrast to the owner who beat her, leaving her lame for life.

Once freed, she earned a living selling blueing and was able to buy a house and reassemble her family in Massachusetts.

Her story has been issued in an audio book. I wish I had known about it when I was researching slavery for my mystery, Murder in Caleb's Landing.

Like the other women I've found, I would like to sit down and talk with these women, maybe hold a conference with them all. I imagine them exchanging their stories, asking questions about how they accomplished what they did against odds.