Hi, I’m Judith Ashley, author of The Sacred Women’s Circle series, soul nourishing romantic women’s fiction with light paranormal elements. My stories show you what life could be like if you had a place like The Circle where you are unconditionally accepted, supported and loved. And where, with this support, you make choices to overcome the darkest nights of your life to choose love and light.
Who knew that what Sarah
McDermed and I started on May 1st, 2011 would still be going and now
celebrating our Lucky 13th Year? I know I didn’t.
Perhaps hoped, but in
those days I’d not yet finished much less published The Sacred Women’s Circle series much less anything else. In fact,
if my memory serves, my first blog post was for Romancing the Genres in that
long ago May.
I thought I’d take a
trip down memory lane and share a bit about my Lucky 13.
It was November 1954 when I celebrated my 13th birthday. I
lived at home with my mom and dad and two brothers. I had recently (when I was
10 or maybe 11) learned that being the oldest did not mean I could always rule over my brothers. Jim, 3 years
younger than I, taught me that lesson but once. I’m was a fast learner at that
time. I loved school and was a good student. I think, even then, I wanted to be
a teacher…turns out I was not suited to teach in the public school system.
However, I have always “taught” in some form in everything I’ve done. Currently
I’m on the teaching faculty for The William Glasser Institute and write a
monthly blog post for The Glasser Institute for Choice Theory – US. Here’s a
link to my most recent post: Growing with Choice
Theory© | GIFCT (wglasser.com)
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Although not necessarily
relevant, we got our first television during my 13th year. No color,
just black and white with shades of grey for images. Prior to that huge change,
we listened to the radio or played records…the long playing kind. We also had a
piano and that allowed for sing-a-longs as well as the dreaded piano practice.
Of course, being a girl, I played the piano while my younger brother got to
play the drums.
Backtracking a bit, I didn’t
want to be just any teacher. I wanted
to teach History. I loved history. At one point I read everything I could find
about The United States’ Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and The Third Reich. And in
high school I participated in Oregon’s Mock United Nations. What a thrill!
From a historical perspective let’s look at how the number thirteen as impacted our country.
13
colonies formed the nucleus for what are now 50 states and territories
Rhode
Island was the 13th colony to ratify the United States Constitution
on May 29, 1790. When it did, the Crown Colony of Rhode Island and the
Providence Plantations became what we now know as Rhode Island, the 13th
state. In case you are wondering, Delaware was the first state to ratify the
Constitution thus becoming the first of our fifty states.
Millard Fillmore became the 13th President of the United States when President Zachary Taylor died. Fillmore was his Vice President. He served as President from 1850 – 1853. He is the last President not affiliated with either the Republican or Democratic political parties. What else is he noted for? The Compromise of 1850 is seen as one of his accomplishments. Why? At the time there was a push to expand the practice of slavery as the country expanded. Because of the Compromise of 1850 aka The Missouri Compromise, a brief truce ensued.
Who
was the 13th First Lady? Abigail Fillmore was born in 1826 and died
in 1853 so she was married to Millard while he was President. If you want to
learn more about First Ladies from Martha Washington to Michelle Obama, I
highly recommend the First Ladies series. I watched it on CSPAN during the
middle to later part of the Obama presidency. What I found the most fascinating
was the additional insight it gave to the men who had held the title of President. Of course there
have been two additions to the role of First Lady since the Obama presidency.
If asked, I’d advocate for the series to be updated with those additions and
run again.
I hope you’ve enjoyed
learning a bit more about the history of number 13.
One last comment: while
I love history and reading historical novels, I will admit as the years pass,
some of my own life is now considered historical
and that’s a bit disconcerting.
What I find interesting in
my own life is that when I
started writing stories, the ones that appeared, flowed from my fingers onto
the computer, were contemporary. The characters in these books haunted me day
and night until I sat down and wrote their stories, using their words. Yes,
auditory and visual hallucinations were a definite part of my life for several
years!
Take a moment to think about Lucky 13 and how it has impacted your life.
And do leave a comment with your thoughts. We always enjoy hearing from our
readers.
Learn more about Judith's The Sacred Women’s
Circle series at JudithAshley.net
Check out Judith’s Windtree Press author page.
You can also find Judith
on FB!
© 2024 Judith Ashley
6 comments:
On April 13, 1956 I became engaged. We were married in July of that year and are still married 67 years later.
I was an English major with a minor in history. I taught Language Arts and Social Studies to 7th graders for ten years. I love historical novels.
Interesting and fact filled post, Judith!
I never thought of 13 being a lucky number. I love history too.
I just found out that scenes from "Gone with the Wind" were filmed right here in Paradise.
What is really interesting to me are old coins. I have some silver dollars dated back in the 1820's up to 1926. When I hold one I think about all the different decades that coin has survived and how many different hands have touched it. What were those people like, what were their occupations, did they earn or find that silver dollar? ETC.
Wow Barb...I knew you and Jim were well over 50 years married. Didn't remember you were coming up on 67. I would think you'd see the number 13 as pretty lucky since you two were engaged on that date.
I ended up with a Major in English and took enough Journalism and French to have teaching credentials there also. My college advisor said I'd never get a job teaching history in high school as those positions always went to the men who were coaches. Whether that was true everywhere or not, I never knew. It had been my personal experience in the schools I attended.
I enjoyed teaching Junior English and advising the school's newspaper. I did not enjoy the politics in that school at all so the principal and I agreed it wasn't a good match and I left.
Diana, my dad had a coin collection that was split up between my brothers and me when my mom died. I have my coins in my safe deposit box. After reading about how you think of the old coins you have, I just might get some of them out.
Fun post, Judith! Our 13-year friendship is one of my Luckiest 13s!!!
Agreed, Sarah. Without your support, I'd never have made it to even being a BQ!
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