Today in history

[Emily Hahn]

My parents didn't get me either the monkey or the bike I wanted for my birthday, so I had to keep borrowing my sister's. This was difficult, as they were inseparable.


Dead Ladies Show

Fortunately I had a great life anyway.

Her granddaughter Alfia Vecchio Wallace remembered Hahn at her funeral: “Chances are, your grandmother didn’t smoke cigars and let you hold wild role-playing parties in her apartment. Chances are that she didn’t teach you Swahili obscenities. Chances are that when she took you to the zoo, she didn’t start whooping passionately at the top of her lungs as you passed the gibbon cage. Sadly for you... your grandmother was not Emily Hahn.”

[Charlotte Brontë]

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day, as dear Papa had brought home a velocipede which looked so hideous it was promptly nicknamed 'Rochester'. When one of my sisters, I forget which, pointed out this was not far removed from walking, she was severely frowned upon by the rest of us, though secretly I thought she had a point. The day ended in tragedy when Branwell ran over a bird.