Marlene Wagman-Geller

“Few such moments of exhilaration can come as that which stands at the threshold of wild travel.” –Gertrude Bell

Cleopatra, the Queen of the Nile, left her mark as the femme fatale who seduced Roman greats Julius Cesar and Marc Antony. Gertrude Bell, the Queen of the Desert, contribution was to birth a country-no mean feat for a daughter of Queen Victoria’s empire.

“The people need a role model…especially in the dark of night.”

–Imelda Marcos

Santo Niño Shrine and Heritage Museum (opened 1979)

Tacloban, Philippines

If a Grimm’s brother princess possessed the ability to write, her message would read, “A new pair of shoes can change your life-Cinderella.” A former First Lady of the Philippines would have wholeheartedly agreed. To partake of a dwelling of fairy tale proportions, enter the estate of the Santo Niño Shrine and Heritage Museum.

“The people need a role model…especially in the dark of night.”

–Imelda Marcos

Santo Niño Shrine and Heritage Museum (opened 1979)

Tacloban, Philippines

If a Grimm’s brother princess possessed the ability to write, her message would read, “A new pair of shoes can change your life-Cinderella.” A former First Lady of the Philippines would have wholeheartedly agreed. To

One sits uncomfortably on a too comfortable cushion.”

         In 1968, country singer Jeannie C. Riley sang of the hypocrisy of her hometown who pointed fingers at the widowed Mrs. Johnson although they were guilty of worse transgressions. Sixteen years before, a playwright had socked it to a more powerful body than the Harper Valley P. T. A.

“I didn’t want to spend my life at home with a baby under my apron every year.”

The British film, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, set in 1910, revolved around the early days of aviation. When Lord Rawnsley forbid his suffragette daughter to pilot a plane, her fiancé conceived the idea of an air race from London to Paris. In a similar vein, American Annie Cohen Kopchovsky-a magnificent woman in her variation of a flying machine- set out to become the first woman to traverse the globe on a bicycle. As Annie Londonderry and astounded the world with her derring-do.

No episode of Downton Abbey rivaled the caustic cauldron of intrigue that riddled the Abbey’s nonfictional counterpart, Highclere Castle, home of the elite of Edwardian England. Even Lady Cora Crawley, the tempest-tossed titled main character, did not have a life as dramatic as its ancestral heroine whose life was a boubaillaise of adultery, abortion, and illegitimacy with the added twist of a mummy’s curse.

“I was a no one, nobody from Nowheresville, until I became a drag queen.” ~Marsha P. Johnson (sister who fought for transgender rights)  

Kermit the Frog rued, “It ain’t easy being green.” Marsha P. Johnson would have related to the quote: It was not easy being black, transgender, and destitute. However, rather than throw herself a pity party, Marsha, the “Saint of Christopher Street” became a battering ram who dedicated her life to the transgender community.

“I believe in the idea of the rainbow. And I’ve spent my entire life trying to get over it.”

 –Judy Garland

Judy Garland Museum (opened 1994)

Grand Rapids, Minnesota

In Frank L. Baum’s novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy tells the Scarecrow, “There is no place like home.” For Judy Garland, the star of the movie adaptation home was in the picturesquely named city of Grand Rapids. To pay tribute to the actress and to the childhood classic, one can follow the yellow brick road to the Judy Garland Museum.

Matilda Joslyn Gage

“The government of the people, by the people, and for the people should be changed to a government of rich men, by rich men, for rich men.”—Matilda Joslyn Gage

After her realization that the Wizard of Oz was a humbug, Dorothy informed him that he was a very bad man. His response, “Oh, no, my dear. I’m a very good man. I’m just a very bad wizard.” In contrast, Matilda Electa Joslyn Gage, the woman behind the curtain of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, was both a good woman and a good wizard.

 Forrest Gump, sitting on a park-bench, has a one-sided conversation with a disinterested

nurse when he told her, “Momma always says there's an awful lot you could tell about a person

by their shoes. Where they're going. Where they've been. I've worn lots of shoes.”

“We are the breakers of our own hearts.”

–Eudora Welty  

Eudora Welty House & Garden (opened 2006)

Jackson, Mississippi

Although her home was where Eudora Alice Welty did her writing, it never went by a literary name, as did Virginia Woolf’s Monk’s House, Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House, or Jane Austen’s Chawton House. Eudora referred to her residence as, “Tudor style with some timbering, you know, à la Shakespeare.” To learn about the literary landmark, set your compass to the Eudora Welty House & Garden.