Barbara France
Managing Editor
bfrance@lassennews.com
Nov. 9, 2010 — I love reading. Every night I read no matter how tired I am. My daughter has often turned off my bedside lamp and taken my glasses from my face and laid my book or Kindle aside. I tend to enjoy light reading late at night because after a day at work, helping with homework and reading several newspapers, I want to escape into a world that suspends reality. My favorite reading material is mystery/suspense without a lot of blood and gore.
However, this fall and winter, I plan to explore the autobiography genre, again. In high school I read a lot of biographies and autobiographies. I became fascinated with the lives of celebrities. I am not fascinated with celebrities any longer. I rarely watch TV, and movie stars bore me. But, I do want to read the recently released “Autobiography of Mark Twain.” I loved his novels when I was growing up, and Hannibal, Mo. isn’t very far from my hometown of Moline, Ill., that sets on the Mississippi River.
Barbara France
Managing Editor
bfrance@lassennews.com
Nov. 2, 2010 — I received an e-mail from my parents a few weeks ago reminding me to vote today, Nov. 2. It wasn’t the typical e-mail on whom I should vote for or how it was a privilege to vote. It was a summary on what some of the women of the suffrage movement endured to get the Congress to pass the 19th Amendment.
I was surprised at what I was reading and decided to do more research. Many of the women who were called the Silent Sentinels endured the Nov.
15, 1917 Night of Terror at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia. I still am trying to figure out why I never learned about these women in high school or college.