Marlene Wagman-Geller

"As far back as I can remember, it was always on my bucket list, even before the term bucket list was coined,
to be a writer. It was a natural progression to want to go from reading books to writing one."
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Divine Affection

Divine Affection
Dec 25, 2024 by Marlene Wagman-Geller

“Art is a tyrant. It demands heart, brain, soul, body…I wed art.” 

–Rosa Bonheur

 

Château de Rosa Bonheur (opened 2017)

Thomery, France

 

 

As she lay dying, Queen Victoria whispered for Turi, her Pomeranian, to be brought to her bed. Another nineteenth century woman who worshipped animals was a French painter. To view her canvasses, to learn about a road less travelled, proceed to the Château Musée Rosa Bonheur.

Much Will be Required (1867)

Much Will be Required (1867)
Dec 23, 2024 by Marlene Wagman-Geller

“I got my start by giving myself a start.” –Madame C. J. Walker

 

In William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 29,” the speaker bemoans, “I all alone beweep my outcast state.” In contrast, rather than indulge in a pity party, Sarah Walker turned her misfortune into a fortune, and in the process, she became America’s first female, self-made millionaire.

Mr. Darcy

Mr. Darcy
Dec 16, 2024 by Marlene Wagman-Geller

Jane Austen’s House (opened in 1949)

  Chawton, United Kingdom

 

Jane Austen’s nephew observed of his aunt, “Of events her life was singularly barren, few changes and no great crisis ever broke the smooth current of its course.” Although Jane may have had a seemingly placid existence–she never left England–she nevertheless had her share of sunshine, of storm. 

                

Semper Fidelis

Semper Fidelis
Dec 11, 2024 by Marlene Wagman-Geller

                                                                                                     Semper Fidelis

Lois Wilson

 

 

“Hearts understand in ways our minds cannot.”—Lois Wilson

 

Stepping Stones (opened 1988)

62 Oak Road, Katonah, New York 10536

 

Visitors migrate to Katonah, New York, for its intriguing name or to scratch a historical itch as the region is dotted with sites ranging from pre-Revolutionary gristmills to Gilded Age mansions. Stepping Stones serves as a shrine to Lois Wilson, the First Lady of Sobriety.

Lois revealed that alcoholism is a cancer that also ravages the addict’s loved ones. The remarkable individual was born in 1891 in Brooklyn Heights, the eldest of six children of Dr. Clark and Matilda Burnham. The family were members of the Swedenborgian faith which counted amongst its followers Helen Keller and Robert Frost. The children attended the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, one of the first American schools to offer kindergarten (German for “Children’s garden”), followed by enrollment in the Quaker Friends School. The Burnhams spent summers in Manchester, Vermont, where the siblings played with Abraham Lincoln’s grandchildren. Robert Todd Lincoln had constructed Hildene, a twenty-four-room mansion, converted to a home museum. In her memoir, Lois Remembers, she described her childhood as “idyllic.”

While summering in Vermont, Lois met a friend of her younger brother, Rogers. Bill Wilson felt that the rich city girl viewed him with condescension. To impress Lois, who spent afternoons sailing on Lake Emerald, Bill outfitted his grandfather’s rickety rowboat with a bed-sheet sail. A gust of wind flung him overboard; caught in the sheet, he looked like a water-borne mummy. Lois rescued Bill—the beginning of a life-long pattern.

 

Dance All Night (1928)

Dance All Night (1928)
Dec 10, 2024 by Marlene Wagman-Geller
Chutzpah is the Yiddish word for guts-the equivalent of the Spanish cajones and the English balls. Whatever the vernacular, it is what an octogenarian with a thick accent possesses in spades.

Thinking Makes It So

Thinking Makes It So
Dec 03, 2024 by Marlene Wagman-Geller

“Reject hatred without hating.”—Mary Baker Eddy

 

Mary Baker Eddy Historic House (opened 1931)

8 Broad Street, Lynn, Massachusetts

 

The most famous bath in history led the ancient Ancient Greek Archimedes to discern whether jewelers had added base metal to King Herod II’s gold crown. After his discovery, Archimedes ran naked through the streets of Syracuse crying, “Eureka! I found it!” Another aha! moment that originated from a watery discovery occurred when Mary Baker Eddy slipped on a patch of ice. An intriguing destination is the Mary Baker Eddy Historic House.

There's No Place

There's  No Place
Nov 30, 2024 by Marlene Wagman-Geller

“I am constantly having to make an upheaval for some reason.”

–Sarah Winchester (in a letter to her sister-in-law

 

How the West was won–or lost– depending on one’s perspective, was determined by who wielded the Winchester Repeating Rifle. The heiress to the company’s fortune, Sarah Pardee Winchester, had a life bookmarked by guilt and guns.

                 

The Shackle of Shanghai

The Shackle of Shanghai
Nov 20, 2024 by Marlene Wagman-Geller

As for what other people think of me, I could worry about that every day, but choose not to.” –Wendi Deng Murdoch
 

 In 1972, the group Hall and Oates released their song that carried the refrain, “You can rely on the rich man’s money.” The lyric could have applied to Wendi Deng whose “old man” was billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Their relationship could have made copy in the Austrian aristocrat’s tabloid.

The Beautiful and the Damned (1922)

The Beautiful and the Damned (1922)
Nov 17, 2024 by Marlene Wagman-Geller
 In the opening scene of The Graduate, a family friend offered Benjamin Braddock advice, “I just want to say one word to you. Just one word: plastics.” While Mr. McGuire suggested the synthetic held the key to the success for the family of the inventor of plastic, the substance molded a fate that could have sprung from the hand of Hades.

Heidi: Bid Time Return

Heidi: Bid Time Return
Nov 17, 2024 by Marlene Wagman-Geller

Literary orphans are associated with their respective locales: Jane Eyre with England, Dorothy with Kansas, Anne of Green Gables with Prince Edward Island. The paradigm holds true for Heidi and her Swiss homeland. The Johanna Spyri Museum affords visitors a glimpse into the author’s life while its environs provide a postcard of pastoral perfection.

I Did Invent It (1914)

I Did Invent  It (1914)
Nov 13, 2024 by Marlene Wagman-Geller
The bra, once kept tightly under wraps-both literally and figuratively-came out of the closet in the 20th century. In The Graduate, cougar Mrs. Robinson’s black, lace creation seduced the young Benjamin Braddock. Coo-coo-cachoo indeed. In Star Wars Princess Leia’s gold metal garment steamed up the cave of Jabba the Hut. Victoria Secret’s $10 million jewel encrusted treasure would make for a sweet ransom. These items of lingerie have become iconic, but the woman who launched the modern bra is shrouded in shadow. 

Sita's curse (1886)

Sita's curse (1886)
Nov 10, 2024 by Marlene Wagman-Geller

“But we had the money, or rather it had us. We were held fast in its clutches.”

- Evalyn Walsh McLean in her memoir, Queen of Diamonds.

 

 

The mystery behind James Cameron’s 1997 Titanic centers on why Rose tossed “The Heart of the Ocean” into the waves above the sunken ship. A theory is Cameron based his celluloid jewel on “The Hope Diamond”: both were priceless blue gems, entangled with tragedy.  Evalyn Walsh McLean would have been a forgotten footnote of a fabulous fortune had her path not crossed that of the fabled diamond.

Order in the Court

Order in the Court
Oct 21, 2024 by Marlene Wagman-Geller
The Old Testament extols the biblical king renowned for wisdom. His contemporary counterpart is Queen Solomon who dishes out justice and acerbic comments in equal measure, threatening to cut the baby in half to determine the real mother.  As befits the times, the act is carried out from a television screen, not a throne, and publicists-rather than prophets-hail the diminutive septuagenarian.

Round Midnight (1913)

Round Midnight (1913)
Oct 10, 2024 by Marlene Wagman-Geller

 

          While viewing the Palatial Chateau Ferrilres outside Paris, Wilhelm I commented, “Kings couldn’t afford this. It could only belong to a Rothschild!” The anecdote illustrates the wealth of the family whose coffers surpass that of royalty. In a move that shocked her milieu, one of the dynasty’s daughters turned her back on her rarified life seduced by a siren song.

It Tolls For Thee

It Tolls For Thee
Oct 04, 2024 by Marlene Wagman-Geller
RANT TIME. Customarily, my Facebook posts concern the women I write about in my books that are on the platform of women’s studies. However, on some occasions, I am prompted to discuss different topics when I feel passionate about a subject. The last time I was moved to do so was the mandate that state run schools in the South were required to post the Ten Commandments on every classroom wall. For those who know me, there is little doubt where I stand on the issue. I will leave a link at the bottom of the page for my blog on the cohabiting of religion and state. This morning another topic sounded my interior alarm bell.

Black and White Gold

Black and White Gold
Oct 03, 2024 by Marlene Wagman-Geller

     

(Being a great photojournalist is) “a matter of getting out on a damn limb and sawing it off behind you.” –Lee Miller 

 

Farleys House & Gallery (opened 2006) 

East Sussex, England 

 

 

William Shakespeare in his play As You Like It wrote, “One man in his time plays many parts….” And one woman who played many parts was Lee Miller whose intrepid spirit lives on in her country retreat, a music box that recalls its chatelaine and the era of surrealism is a Sussex setting.   

       

 

Any Thing But

Any Thing But
Sep 30, 2024 by Marlene Wagman-Geller

Louisa May Alcott

 

“I would rather be a free spinster and paddle my own canoe.”—Louisa May Alcott

 

Some of America’s greatest authors, Hawthorne, Emerson, and Thoreau, slumber in Sleepy Hollow, a Concord cemetery. A notable grave belongs to the mother of young adult fiction, Louisa May Alcott. If, in Spoon River Anthology fashion, Louisa spoke from the afterlife, her story would involve her family, immortalized in her novel, Little Women.

The Bumblebee (1916?)

The Bumblebee (1916?)
Sep 13, 2024 by Marlene Wagman-Geller
Pink is the signature color for a number of celebrities: the plastic princess Barbie, the too-cute feline of Hello Kitty fame, the teenaged ladies from Grease. Yet, one lady predated these bright hued females, and her relationship with pink left her rolling in the green.

Beautiful

Beautiful
Sep 12, 2024 by Marlene Wagman-Geller

Casa Guidi (opened 1995)

Florence, Italy

 

An immortal sonnet begins, “How do I love thee?/Let me count the ways.” Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s grande amore was her husband, Robert, and their Florence home. To tread the halls of the literary couple, take a gondola ride to Casa Guidi.

                

A Little Footprint (1970)

A Little Footprint (1970)
Sep 06, 2024 by Marlene Wagman-Geller
Since the dawn of civilization, there has always existed a bond between man and horse: the ancient Greeks and the centaur, Emperor Caligula and Incitatus, the Confederate Generals and their steeds. A magical connection also exists between a woman and a horse as illustrated by the life of Diane Crump, the first female jockey to compete in the Kentucky Derby.