300 Unsung Women

 

A few years back, I had an idea. 

I would write a calendar book, where every day of the year had a short biography about a remarkable woman born on that date. All these women would never have received the recognition they deserved. 

It would be easy, I thought.

Wrong! 

There was no problem finding someone for January 1st. That wasn't true for other dates. As I continued researching, I discovered for some dates I had up to nine women. 

For other dates - nada, nothing.

I discovered there were women who excelled in the same fields such as inventions, aviation, veterinarian, architecture, spies, etc. Some women were unsung stars in many categories.

Instead of a calendar, I decided to select 300 women grouping them by expertise and cross listing them by field.

Women friends, who knew of my project, kept offering names to include. A Canadian friend, Isabelle Richard, found the most. Because I wanted to include birth and death dates, many of the First Nation women I didn't include because of lack of dates, but I really feel they should have a book of their own. 

Finding some women's lives was easy. Soon I might have almost 3000+ words of notes for a single women. The problem was to capture a woman's essence in 200 words of less.

Then there were so many details to make the book easy to read. I used the good old-fashioned alphabet to give it continuity and order wherever I could.

Readers can read it any many ways. Information, with a cup of tea, research, ideas for projects. Remembering what my ex-husband, a devoted reader, said whenever I tapped on our bathroom door, "One more chapter," it could be a bathroom book, delving into a few biographies when seated. 

It took almost two years from idea to publication, often frustrating. Some biographies flowed almost effortlessly, while others caused sweat and extra rewrites.

What I didn't expect when I started was to develop a great respect and caring for these women. I'd love to have a conference with them where we could sit down in small and large groups and discuss our experiences. It wouldn't matter what time period or country. 

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to share one woman from each field here in this blog. I hope if you take the time to read them, you will appreciate getting to know them, too. 

 

Spoiled Dog/ Chien Gâté

 

 

  

 

Sherlock is a fussy eater and more than once we've thrown dog food away.

Then I watched a video about how dogs in the wild hunt for their food. Dogs need challenges, the video speaker said.

Rick gave me one of these, "I'll humor her," looks when I said I want to put his supper in an egg carton. We have done it with treats but never with wet food.

Sherlock watched with great attention. He sat, barely unable to contain himself, but the nano second after I said "okay," he had the egg carton, and ran with it in his mouth, had it open and ate his dog food which any other time would have sat and sat and sat.

Yes, I know he is spoiled, a chien gâté in French.

Autumn/Fall

 

 

Americans call it fall, Brits autumn.

I call it my favorite time of year. 

The heat leaving me feeling sick has gone. As much as I might have enjoyed long, light evenings there's something cozy about being home when its dark early maybe in PJs, a book Netflix or a fire.

The leaves turn color. Here in Geneva they are mainly yellow. When the sun shines it's like gold hanging on tree branches. There are a very few red trees for contrast. I miss New England brilliant reds. If I haven't noticed a rare Swiss red-leafed tree, my husband points it out. 

November can be rainy. Today it was spitting rain A breeze caused many of the leaves to ride the wind to the ground, which was already yellow. 

Leaf-kicking weather is at its best on non-rainy days. There's a wonderful smell of the fallen leaves that doesn't exist during other seasons.

Two days ago, before the rain, I noticed a teeny tree next to the driveway. The leaves were green, yellow, red but in a stripe pattern. I meant to take a photo, but once inside other things caught my attention...a reminder to do it now, carpe diem. 

Today the five leaves from the teeny, teeny tree were on the ground. 

Too late for a photo I thought, but I noticed my husband instead of unhooking the dog or getting the bags out of the car was busy snapping photos. One is at the top of the blog.

 

 

I Didn't Know

 

When I interviewed for the PR Director post of Polaroid Credit Union, I thought it was a labor organization. Fortunately, I kept my mouth shut. It turned out to be a strange bank where all profits had to be returned to members by:

• Lower loan rates
• Higher saving rates
• More services
• Wow! That was better than any bank I ever did business with. 

I didn't know that credit unions were co-operatives and when I started the Digital Credit Union (now a billion dollar financial institution) with four others, I still didn't know it was a cooperative.

Years later, when I became the international correspondent for CU Times, although I knew about the founding of credit unions in Germany, I didn't know credit unions were cooperatives. 

Only when I started a weekly newsletter for Canadian credit union executives did I learn about the co-operative movement.

Okay, I'm a slow learner. 

Only after attending the annual conference of the International Cooperative Alliance www.ica.coop did I appreciate the importance and advantages of coops over traditional businesses.

"Profit isn't a dirty word."

"My boss at Polaroid's CU used to say "Profit isn't a dirty word."

It isn't, but when everyone from the janitor to the CEO, get a fair deal and when the users get a fair deal everyone wins.

Here are the stats: 

• There are 3 million coops in the world
• 280 million people are employed by cooperatives world wide
• There's US$2.8 trillion in turnover

To find out about coops in your country/area https://ica.coop/en/our-members/search-our-members 

The definition of a cooperative is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise."

I used to think that co-ops were some hippy-dippy thing with food being sold at lower prices in some basement where people took turns volunteering.

For those who think socialism, I think of protection, co-operation. It works for 12% of the world's population. The U.S. has onl 4.10

You may already do business with cooperatives such as Land o'Lakes. Think about that the next time you butter your toast.

Some examples: 

• Credit unions: 4,214 are federally insured with assets of $2,50 trillion as of June 2026.
• Agricultural cooperatives. Your dog may be a member indirectly when s/he eats Purina. 
• Electrical cooperatives. There's 900 of them. I didn't know my electricity was provided by a coop.
• Housing cooperatives
• Worker cooperatives                                                                              

Free Write- Comfort Zones

  

One of the great things about prompts is there is no right or wrong on what you write. And you can do anything with them: correct, polish, delete, turn them into a short story, novel or even a trilogy.   

Julia's Free Write 

Ah zones…the current discussions seem to center on zones.

In one country it was rezoning in the hopes of changing election results; in another it was changing the type of zone to allow for the construction of more housing; in many larger cities, and even heavily traveled villages, it’s the lowering speed limits for certain zones!

Then there are the zones of our lives: where we live, our style of life, our families and their eventual add-ons, our wider friendship circles.

So, the sign propped up on a piece of furniture was food for thought “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone”

Hmm... That led to more questions than I have answers: what is my comfort zone? How do I get out of it? How far do I have to go? how will I know if it has changed anything?

Then I think back on my long life and realize that I have left my comfort zone many times – and loved all the changes!

Ricks Free Write  

Comfort zone.

The place where you feel (almost) totally secure that nothing’s going to happen that you cannot handle.

Is it home? Surrounded by your loved ones?

And yet, comfort zones can be intruded.

A knock on the door. A neighbour with a gift of fresh-picked fruit… or a policeman with bad news.

A phone call. Telemarketing? Hang up. A friend you haven’t heard from in years? Or a report that a relative has died?

A notice in the mail of a speeding fine.

A story on the news of disaster or war.

A pipe burst. Electricity blackout. Computer/printer malfunction.

Suddenly the zone lacks the expected comfort.

So maybe the comfort zone is not a place.

It’s a feeling.

A sense of being loved and cared for. A bond that cannot be broken.

And maybe the zone is always around you, no matter what place you’re in.

 D-L's Free Write

Susie and Joanie were twins, fraternal twins. How they shared a womb and nothing else in common was amazing.

Susie played with dolls and ignored Joanie's blocks and crayons and vice versa. Their mother gave up trying to have them play together.

In high school Susie became a cheerleader and started a fashion club.

Joanie played sports. Susie at least went to her games. 

They went to different universities.

When they were home for Christmas, their parents said, "Enough is enough. Start sharing."

Joanie sat through a fashion show. Boring.

Susie watched a Celtics game. They lost. She liked the green of the uniforms.

They went out for a coffee together. It was good, they agreed. 

About the Free Writers 

Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices.com, a weekly newsletter reporting the airline industry  top stories . He is the author of The Robot in the Simulator. AI in Aviation Training.  

Visit D-L.'s website  https://dlnelsonwriter.com, She is the author of 15 fiction and three non fiction books. Her 300 Unsung Women, bios of women who battled gender limitations, can be purchased  at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/300-unsung-women-d-l-nelson/1147305797?ean=9798990385504 

Visit Julia's blog. She has written and taken photos and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/ 

 

 

 

 

Crest

 

 

Not the toothpaste but a small town in Southeastern France.

It's pronounced Kre.

We were driving home to Geneva with some trepidation. 

Would there be the predicted downpours? 

Would we be caught up in one of the demonstrations going on all over France? 

It was a beautiful sunny day as we drove up the Autoroute. Rick suggested we detour to Crest, which I'd never heard of. 

Why not go?

We passed through luscious farm fields and small towns on excellent roads. Some had roundabouts with sculptures. My favorite was one of a bronze farmer behind his bronze-colored horse plowing their field together in perfect harmony.

A garlic festival was advertised. We'd discovered in a major garlic-growing area. I never thought about the birthplace of my garlic which I chopped to add to my cooking. Now I will know that it was raised in farm country close to our second home.

Crest is a medieval town with a old tower built to protect the area. The attached castle was destroyed. The tower was once a prison.

We stumbled across a restaurant whose menu de jour was a tangine with a variety of veggies served by a single waiter who smiled and smiled even though he had far too many customers for one man.

What we didn't see, and we'll have to stop there again...an artisanal chocolate factory with an attached museum. 

I've often maintained there is something to see everywhere. Discovering garlic, sculptures and chocolate all in the area with a 900-year old village is just plain wonderful.  

www.plusbeauxdetours.com/tous-les-plus-beaux-detours/detour-par-crest-dans-la-drome/ 

Take A Ride With Me

I've been traveling the French Autoroute several times a year from Switzerland to Southern France and vice versa since 1990. 

Sometimes for a weekend. 

Sometimes for a couple of months or longer.

It's changed.

The 1990 toll booths and their cashiers have been replaced with funny little squares on my windscreen. I get a toll bill later. No worry about change or waiting in line while the person in the car in front to me drops his money.

The quality of the road has improved, but it was always good.

There are more Autoroutes these days. No longer do I get bogged down in Lyon. We can breeze around it.

Toilets no longer require my feet to dangle my body over a hole in the rest stops called Aires. Toilets are super modern, super clean, and many have red, yellow, green buttons so I can rate how the cleaners did as well as paper sheets showing the cleaning schedule. 

Not only can you park, you can picnic, maybe walk a bit looking at trees, flowers and sometimes snails. Some have exercise or play areas for humans and dogs.

Some have music, machine coffee and the internet. 

There's plenty of containers to throw your trash. There are routine clean ups for the slobs that don't. 

There's another kind of rest stop than the Aires. 

Those are places offering a variety from complete meals to sandwiches. French sandwiches have gone from an overly buttered baguette with a dry piece of ham to those with pretty good fillings. 

There was a period when McDonald's and Burger Kings flourished on the Autoroutes replacing the better chain Paul's, but I'm seeing Paul's coming back with less American chains. I can imagine the disappointment of someone taking one trip to France in their life to see Burger King or McDonald's.

There's also chain restaurants such as Autogrill which operates in 30 countries, that gives a traveler a chance for a good meal. They have a more French feel, even if they are Italian.

Mini stores allow a traveler to pick up food for anything from a snack or a simple grocery list for when you get home after their stores are closed. There's also regional souvenirs and books.

Some rest stops are mini museums to French performers such as George Brassens. Although not on the Geneva-Argeles route, on the aire to Toulouse, there's a history of Carcassonne visible from the Autoroute aire complete with posters. 

 

For the tourists traveling the Autoroutes, they can see posters usually in browns and yellows about what is important nearby. It could be the nuts of Grenoble, a chateau, a favorite composer or poet, special trails, bridges, the WWII French Resistance.

 

Over the last 50 years these signs have been increasing until there are at least 300 of them. Someday, we plan to take a trip and investigate each one between this or that place. It's a mini historic/cultural/natural tour of the country.

I'd love to get a coffee table, pictorial book of them all if one is ever printed.

 

 

 

Disgusting advert

 

 

Every November, I look forward to the John Lewis advert. Most are funny or heart warming or both. They capture the spirit of Christmas not the commercialism.

Not this year. Despite a star-studded cast, two brats are rude and greedy and reject their loving grandmother. The kids represent the worst of modern childhood.

Now if I were that grandmother, I'd be on my phone to my attorney to disinherit them. I would have any of my money go to kids who might need and appreciate it.

As for my daughter who raised them, I'd ask what I had done wrong in raising her that she would allow those brats to behave as they do.

I'd tell my daughter I wouldn't want those kids contaminating my home until if and when they can act as decent human beings.

The ad agency that created that advert missed the point.

To watch the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GT4DyMEYVI

 

I'm not a Capitalist but...

   

I may not be a capitalist, but that doesn't mean I'm a communist.

I am against unregulated capitalism where a very small percentage of the population on the planet hold all the wealth mostly gleaned from those that do the work. 

Jeff Bezos wouldn't have had his Indian wedding without hundreds of workers filling orders from customers. There is no reason that Amazon can't negotiate fairly with its workers.

I want regulations that don't destroy the air, water and soil. I want workers to be safe and fairly treated.

I believe business is necessary and it should be based on three factors: 

• capital
• workers
• customers

When any of the three are lopsided sooner or later businesses fail or cause damage that wasn't necessary,

Also good management is needed be it a small factory with talented management, a country with knowledgeable leaders or one employing hundreds of thousands of people all over the world.

For the last two days we've been watching U.S. elections alternating with the French demonstrations, which were started by students fed up with deteriorating buildings and too few teachers. 

The students have been joined by French unions, believing they should be rewarded fairly for their contributions.

 

The causes are the same although I have yet to see media from either country make a comparison. 

• Unequal distribution of resources
• Greed of a few who want it all, some of whom will lie and cheat to get it. 
• A lack of empathy 
• Ignorance 

This not a problem only in 2026. Think of Marie Antoinette's alleged "Let them eat cake" remark. There is doubt that she really said it, but the quote has gone down through the ages. 

Maybe a cave man plotted to have all the saber tooth tiger skins in his cave and then lied the other cave dwellers to fight the people in the next cave for theirs, which he will keep from himself. Greeks, Romans, rulers of countries or tribes in the rest of the world throughout time have played power games.

I celebrated the U.S. election. Perhaps someday once again I can go to Boston or Texas for Rick's and my daughters and his granddaughters without fear of being detained. Too many people we know have had problems entering the U.S.

Maybe someday there will be honest and sane leaders. 

Watching U.S. politics from abroad, I was unable to believe all the lies, the ignorance, the people bowing to a false god, the corruption in plain sight. Much is still there.

I couldn't believe the alleged leaders not seeing, hearing what was going on.

I see hope in some of the people elected will be able to bring to reality a better world or at least slow the drift to a world for a few not the most.

Maybe someday the three-legged stool of capital, workers and customers will have a better world.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Free Write - The Pool

This free write was very different. Julia is still in Switzerland, but D-L and Rick didn't go to a cafe. They did the ten minutes in their living room. Next week, if all goes well we'll be in the same country and back at Martel's tea room.

Rick's Free Write

Ever want to scream but don’t want anyone to hear it?

You can simulate a scream, open your mouth wide but with no sound.

But there’s nothing quite like a full-body wail that shakes your entire corpus, right down to the toes. Maybe even vibrates delicate pottery. Scares the dog or cat into hiding under the bed. Enough to make children cry and adults cringe. Trigger the neighbours to call the police because they think there’s a murder in process.

But you’re not looking for anyone else’s reaction. Just the satisfaction of venting, letting it all out. No sound, no questions.

So you find a place and time when you can rattle the rafters in private. Like the bottom of a swimming pool. In the shower, directly into the muffling water stream. Under the duvet. In the car when you’re alone. In the middle of the woods (sorry, bears).

The things that make me want to scream are often electronics. Computer. Mobile phone. Television. Car. Or people who do cruel things to others. Abuse or kill children. Deny medical care. Steal, especially legally. Absurdly restrict rights. Politicians mostly.

I tend to be a slow boil. I can slough off a lot of annoyances. But eventually I reach a point when the kettle whistles. Sorry, then, to anyone in range of my voice.

D-L's Free Write 

Jack zipped up his white puff jacket. It was cold sitting in front of the pool which was covered with red maple leaves. Why management hadn't drained the pool, Jack had no idea. 

Jack looked at the building. All the flats but his were boarded up for the winter, their owners and renters returning to their city job. 

His wife Helen, her real name, and Hélene, her chosen name, was away. She was an airline stewardess and when she got in late with an early morning turn around, she stayed in Boston rather than drive to the Cape.

Jack sometimes went into the city to meet her. The last time he did that, he spied Beth, Wife No. 1 for 32 years,. She'd been his high school sweetheart, and mother of his three daughters.

Only two of the girls still spoke with him, furious that he had left their mother for a woman he'd fallen in lust with. The third daughter, was just as mad, but she felt that the problems were between her parents.

Beth looked good. She'd taken off the weight that she'd added over the years and had a new haircut that took years off her life. Helen/Hélene  at 28 was younger than both Jack and Beth.

Boy had he messed up. He wished he'd never taken that flight where Helen/Hélene came on to him. Of course, he could have said no.

He jumped into the icy pool, no longer heated, and sank to the bottom. He remembered taking great gulps of water.

* 

The next thing Jack remembered was a nurse standing over him. 

"Welcome back," she said. 

Not far enough back, he thought.  

Julia's Free Write 

Somewhere the sun was shining: just not in her corner of the world.

Of course, she shouldn’t complain – after all she was the one who no longer appreciated seeing the sun every day when she was a young adult.

Bu then she hadn’t understood the meaning of “eternal gray” at that point either. Early November and her world sinks below a bank of high fog. This makes for glorious pictures of the “sea of fog” if one rises above it – around the 1’500 metre mark.

But not below.

So escape was her motto, if even only for a day.

And what a day – she found the sun, the fall colors and revived mentally.

OK, November in the alps is a dead season with almost everything shut in the small villages. Something to stave off hunger in one’s pack is a necessity.

That still doesn’t explain the nightmare the flowing night: a man iced over in a pool!

Shades of things to come?

About the Free Writers 

Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices.com, a weekly newsletter reporting the airline industry  top stories . He is the author of The Robot in the Simulator. AI in Aviation Training.  

Visit D-L.'s website  https://dlnelsonwriter.com, She is the author of 15 fiction and three non fiction books. Her 300 Unsung Women, bios of women who battled gender limitations, can be purchased  at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/300-unsung-women-d-l-nelson/1147305797?ean=9798990385504 

Visit Julia's blog. She has written and taken photos and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/