There are, as we know, two sides to every story. We all know about poor Cinderella and her wicked stepmother and ugly stepsisters, but her stepmother, Agnes, is here to tell her side of the story. Agnes had to leave home as a young girl to go work as a laundress in the manor house after her mother dies. She was clever and pretty, and managed to finagle a better position for herself at a nearby abbey. There she meets and falls in love with a messenger boy named Fernan, and becomes pregnant. Forced to care for her, Fernan takes her to a nearby village and rents her a room in an alehouse, and even though they don't marry they live together as man and wife. She has three daughters and learns to brew ale, and takes over the alehouse when the woman who owns it dies. It's a hard life, but Agnes is content with her lot. Then Fernan dies of the pox, the same pox that scars who middle daughter, Matilda, and kills her youngest, Catherine. The alehouse reverts back to the abbey and Agnes is forced to return to the manor house to be nursemaid to the new baby, Ella. Parted from her daughters, Agnes does the best she can to be a good nurse and later, stepmother, to the strange little girl. It was charming and well written.
It took me forever to finish this biography of Prince Philip's mother, Princess Alice of Greece. Not because it wasn't interesting, but because everyone has the same name, and it was really hard to keep track of all the different Victorias, Alices, and Louises. Couldn't someone name their girl Betsy or Marilyn or something? Geez. At any rate, Alice was born at Windsor, her mother Victoria was a favorite of her grandmother, Queen Victoria (see what I mean?). She met Andrew, a prince of Greece, and they married and Alice moved to Greece. She was born with hearing issues but learned to compensate for her deafness by becoming a proficient lip reader. She and Andrew were happy and she had four daughters before finally giving birth to Philip. The Greek country was in constant political turmoil, and Andrew's family was run out. The family fled, moving about Europe, staying with whichever relatives would put them up. Alice always considered Greece her home, and even though she and Andrew no longer lived together as man and wife, she returned whenever she could. She fed children during the war and nursed wounded, she even hid a Jewish family. Alice went through periods of tragic mental illness and lived in hospitals. She spent her last years in Buckingham Palace with her son and daughter in law and grandchildren, and many years after she died her final wish of being buried in Jerusalem came to pass. Fascinating life.
I read one of Nancy Segal's other books on twins, "
Born Together, Reared Apart", and it was quite interesting. I don't know why twins fascinate me so much, I don't even know any twins, but I've always been curious about them, and apparently it's not uncommon. The case Segal writes about in this book is like something out of a movie or a work of fiction: two sets of identical twin boys were born in Colombia, and one boy from each set was switched. William went home to rural La Paz with Wilbur instead of going home with Jorge to Bogota. Carlos ended up with Jorge instead of going home to La Paz. Both sets grew up thinking they were fraternal, and their upbringing was very different: Jorge and Carlos had an education and got to go to college, while William and Wilbur left school at a young age to work on their family farm. A young woman who worked with Jorge went into the butcher shop where William worked and was stunned by the resemblance to her coworker. At the age of twenty-five the four men met up and the twins were reunited with their identical brothers. It's an amazing story, and it's rather scary to think of how common it is that babies go home with the wrong parents. Identical twins are sometimes discovered, but what about singles? At any rate, it was riveting.
I've really enjoyed all of Oliver Potzsch's Hangman's Daughter series. As usual, this one was well written and covered a lot of territory. Simon, Magdalena's husband, takes their oldest boy, Peter, to a town twenty miles away so he can study with his former teacher, Georg. As the grandson of the hangman, Peter isn't allowed an education in his own hometown (it takes place in 1670). When Simon gets to the town, he discovers there's just been a grisly murder: the young man who was playing Jesus in the upcoming Passion Play was crucified. Since the town's doctor recently died and they haven't found a replacement yet, they ask Simon, who is a medicus, to investigate.
And finally, the heartbreaking story of Robin Williams, and his life cut short. Like most people, I was heartbroken when I heard about Robin's suicide in 2014. Then the news came out that he was suffering from Parkinson's, and it made more sense. Still, terribly tragic. He brought so much joy and laughter to so many people throughout his 30+ years in show business. He actually had a pretty normal upbringing: his dad was a high level executive at Ford and his mother was a socialite. He had two older half-brothers from his parents' first marriages. He attended an elite boy's school before his dad moved the family from Detroit to California when he was a teen. Robin found his calling in acting and worked the stand up circuit before finding success when he was cast as Mork in an episode of "Happy Days". That led to the spin off that he starred in with Pam Dawber, and he spent the rest of his life working in film and TV. He married (three times) and had kids (three) and made many, many friends along the way who spoke kindly of him. It was touching and made me cry.
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