Nov 12

Ami McKay’s The Virgin Cure

Ami McKay’s debut novel The Birth House was inspired by the former midwife’s home she and her husband bought in Nova ‘Scotia near the Bay of Fundy. Her 2011 novel The Virgin Cure also has a real-life inspiration — McKay’s great-great grandmother was a woman doctor who ministered to the poor in the 1870s in New York’s Lower East Side. Dr. Sarah Fonda MacKintosh was in the first graduating class of the medical school founded by Emily and Elizabeth Blackwell, the first women ever to practise medicine in the U.S.

Nova Scotia writer Amy McKay says she is always looking for women’s stories from the past. (Ian McKay)

Her graduating thesis was on syphilis in young girls and she moved directly into residency at the Blackwell sisters’ infirmary for the poor in Manhattan. The Blackwells’ infirmary was the only hospital that would accept a woman doctor at the time — the medical field considered too crude for ladies. At the time, that part of Manhattan was home to waves of immigrants and destitute people of all backgrounds, and the hospital would have dealt with waves of diphtheria and cholera that killed the very young as well as venereal diseases that blighted the lives of those not much older.

McKay models her character Dr. Sadie on the women doctors of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children, but the crusading doctor doesn’t make an appearance until half-way through her new novel. The Virgin Cure is essentially a young girl’s story — of what it was like to grow up poor in a Manhattan teeming with homeless children. McKay told CBC she tried writing about this time, just after the Civil War, from the point of view of her great-great-grandmother. But the voice that emerged was not of an educated woman with a mission among the poor, but an almost illiterate girl who has grown up without love or care.

Portrait of Dr. Sarah Fonda MacKintosh

“I tried writing from a first- or third-person perspective and even from her point of view primarily, and it just … wasn’t hanging together the way I really wanted,” McKay said in an interview in Toronto. “I thought about her role in all of this and how selfless she must have been and then, when I started to think about what role would she want to take in telling this story, I realized the stories she was chasing after in her own life were of these children.”

‘We hear that and it’s in sub-Saharan Africa and it’s around AIDS and we think it’s far from ourselves — it’s easy to dismiss it. But I found it’s part of our history as well.’ —Ami McKay, author of The Virgin Cure

The protagonist is Moth, who is sold into domestic service by her mother the year she turns 12. Cruelly treated by her mistress, she is warned by the kindly butler Nestor to leave the house before the return of the master, who has a taste for young girls. Nestor helps her steal and fence some jewelry, but once the money from that has run out, she is wholly desperate. McKay gives a vivid picture of life on the Lower East Side — the packed tenements, the filth on the streets, the gangs of toughs hanging out together and the complete lack of options for abandoned children.

Moth — her name is from Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost — is used to being hungry, to fending for herself and to innovating in the face of want. But she’s also a child, prone to daydreaming of a better life, charmed by pretty things or fascinated by a dime museum of freaks and oddities. She knows she will eventually have to barter her body, though she’s far from sexual maturity, but is content to live in the present, postponing that day as long as she can. Her bleak predicament is offset with short selections from ladies’ magazines and etiquette guides, highlighting the fashions of the day and expected demeanour of young ladies. The picture of the all-American girl created by these excerpts contrasts with the paucity of Moth’s life.

Selling young bodies big business

She falls into the hands of an “infant school,” a brothel specializing in selling off the virginity of young girls. The madam invests both time and money in feeding her, dressing her and teaching her comportment and it is a reputable house, where the gentlemen are checked for disease before they are allowed access to the girls. Moth meets other young girls in training, though she doesn’t seem to make close friends as one would expect with a child so starved for affection. As loathsome as the business seems to modern readers, it was in fact spelled out in great detail in travel guidebooks of the period, which McKay found in New York archives. “It was a big machine in the city at the time. Everyone worked to keep it going — the age of consent was 10, that is astounding to me — that doesn’t change for another decade,” she said.

New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children and Women’s Medical College

The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay is the story of a girl raised in poverty in 1870s Manhattan. The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay is the story of a girl raised in poverty in 1870s Manhattan. Which brings us to the virgin cure — the title of the book refers to the belief, prevalent at the time, that intercourse with a virgin could cure syphilis or gonorrhea. Moth is aware of the bodies of young girls found in poorer parts of the city, raped and killed. Belief in the virgin cure leads to one of the climactic scenes of the book, and helps set the course of Moth’s life. It’s a sordid and wrenching subject, and not even Moth’s matter-of-fact point of view makes the scene easy to read. McKay is forcing readers to face an unpalatable fact of 19th-century life that she herself discovered by combing through archives of the period.

The parallel with the myth, circulating in the developing world today, that sex with a virgin can cure AIDS, is one of the touchstones of McKay’s story. “We hear that and it’s in sub-Saharan Africa and it’s around AIDS and we think it’s far from ourselves — it’s easy to dismiss it,” McKay said. “But I found it’s part of our history as well.” McKay said she herself refused to believe the practice was so prevalent in the 1870s, until a doctor at the downtown hospital that replaced the Blackwells’ infirmary pointed out the significance of the title of her own great-great-grandmother’s thesis. McKay has no diaries or letters from Dr. Sarah Fonda MacKintosh, nor does she have the thesis itself, only the title. If the crusading doctor had been writing about congenital syphilis, she would have studied both boys and girls, and if she had been talking about prostitutes, her title would have been syphilis in young women. But Dr. MacKintosh wrote about syphilis in young girls — girls used and discarded and faced with a bleak, unhealthy future because there was no cure.

Pot-boiler of a read

As in The Birth House, McKay uses spritely storytelling to draw readers into this world. Her dialogue is true to the period and her description enough to quickly paint scenes without an excess word. The Birth House became a best-seller by word of mouth — passed from mothers to daughters to grandmothers and snapped up by book clubs. The author says that success bought her time to write this book. Despite its gruesome subject, The Virgin Cure is a quick pot-boiler of a read and will appeal to the same audience — people interested in the real world of women 140 years ago.

McKay said she is fascinated with women’s stories from history. “There are so many accounts of men’s lives, men’s work. There are accounts or diaries and you can find them easily. Whereas with women’s lives, I felt a real sense of having to track them down and then I found there are a lot of missing pieces. That’s where fiction came in, filling in those gaps,” she said.

Links: Find-A-Grave

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Jan 25

Faith & Finance: A Boom in Religious Funds

SmartMoney Magazine by Daren Fonda, Published December 22, 2009

What if Jesus were a stock picker?

It’s a question more investors seem to be asking these days. At a time when investors’ confidence in the markets has been shaken—even after the big rally of 2009—experts say a growing number of Americans are integrating their faith with their finances. The number of religious mutual funds has tripled over the past decade, to more than 90—with one now available for almost every flock, from evangelical Christians to Mennonites and Muslims.

Religious funds now control more than $27 billion in assets, up from $10 billion in the late 1990s, making it one of the hottest sectors in the broader category of socially responsible funds. “People are waking up and saying, ‘What I do with my money ought to reflect my values,’” says David Miller, a scholar at Princeton University’s Center for the Study of Religion.

Socially responsible funds have been around for years, of course, attracting both diehard followers and critics who see their stock-screening methods as a drag on returns. But the faith-fund boom is part of a growing hunger among religious people for financial guidance. While some financial planners specialize in estate planning and others claim an expertise in taxes, more and more are claiming the label of Christian financial adviser. Churches are also getting into the act, setting up workshops that dispense financial advice. And just this month, five new religion-based exchange traded funds were launched.

While most mutual fund managers place a laser-like focus on financial measures such as earnings per share and balance-sheet debt, managers of faith-based funds first check whether they think a company violates scriptural teachings. But injecting morals into financing is not without its share of controversy. Catholic funds typically draw a line at companies they believe support abortion or contraception; the evangelical Timothy Plan bans stocks of companies deemed supportive of a “gay lifestyle.”

Personal beliefs aside, each fund’s interpretation of scripture is open to criticism. “Why single out companies that provide same-sex benefits when they also provide benefits to employees who are greedy or venal or in other ways immoral according to biblical teaching?” asks Gary Moore, an investment adviser and founder of the nonprofit Financial Seminary in Sarasota, Fla.

Of course, just because a fund claims to have God on its side doesn’t mean investors will be blessed with top returns. Diversified U.S. religious stock funds are up an annual average of 2.27 percent over the past five years, just below the 2.34 percent return for all diversified equity funds, according to Morningstar. Religious funds tend to have expenses above the industry average, and because they often screen out certain sectors, they can be handcuffed when market sentiment shifts to an industry they’ve excluded. To find the best options, we looked for funds with solid long-term records and managers who have been at the helm for at least three years. (more at site)

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Nov 04

Freeport Says “No” to City Manager Referendum

WIFR.com – November 4, 2008

Freeport Boys and Girls Club

FREEPORT, IL – Freeport voters weighed in Tuesday on the city manager referendum and the numbers from Stephenson County show the measure failed.

A look at the numbers show 6,063 said no and 3,278 said yes to this ballot question. Supporters wanted someone trained in professional government running the daily city hall affairs and not Mayor George Gaulrapp. They say that’s a more efficient way of operating.

But opponents like Gaulrapp and didn’t see the need to hire someone else to do his job. The mayor says he’s glad to keep that job to continue a solid system at city hall under his leadership, but referendum supporters said the potential was there to make it even more solid.

“It works very well, it really does, it works well. You look both inside and outside this community and you see a changed city. You see a city on the move; a city working together.”

Dave Fonda says, “If we do a successful job in this community of transforming the government into a managerial form of government we’re going to be in a lot better footing than we are now.” Fonda was the man leading the charge for the city manager referendum. Going forward, he says he’s considering a possible bid for mayor in the next election.

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Jan 01

This is a duplicate of the listing on the fonda.org website.

  1. Abraham Osterhout Fonda; Teacher of Mathematics at Washington Seminary in Claverack (later Hudson River Institute) where he instructed Martin Van Buren, General Van Ness and Robert Morris; Revolutionary War Officer (Captain); born 18-Jan-1744, died 1834 at 90 years of age; b. Claverack, Columbia, New York; d. Morgansville, Morgan, Ohio; m. 1st Rachel Van Valkenburg (1748-), dau. of John and Gertruy (Delameter) Van Valkenburg, having 3 children; and m., 2nd, Margaret Grimes, of Baltimore, who had nursed him in sickness; while in Baltimore he reportedly taught math to Jerome Bonaparte, Napoleon’s brother; DAR Patriot Index Centennial Edition.
  2. Alexander Paterson Fonda; Auditor, Revolutionary War Soldier; born 28-Apr-1793, died 3-Aug-1873 at 80 years of age; b. Wallkill, Orange, New York; 1870 US Census, Paterson 3-Wd, Passaic Co., New Jersey; d. Paterson, Passaic County, New Jersey; attended Union College in Schenectady in 1833, law degree incomplete; auditor of the Hudson River railroad, and Freemason; War of 1812, Pliny Adams’ Regiment New York Militia, Corporal.
  3. Anthony Cornelius Fonda; Teacher, Civil War Soldier; born 6-Apr-1818, died 20-May-1893 at 75 years of age; b. Boght-Becker Dutch Reformed Church, Colonie, Albany, New York; a graduate of Union College in Schenectady in 1839, Latin Salutatory; 1850 U.S. Census, Mississippi, Tallahatchie, Subdivision 12; Company I, 2 Partisan Rangers, Mississippi, Sergeant Confederate; 1880 US Census, Beat 3, Tallahatchie, Mississippi; d. Charleston, Mississippi; inc. Tennessee DAR GRC Index.
  4. Cornelia Dockstader Fonda; Auditor, Librarian; Cornell University Graduate; Auditor of Hotel Johnstown, Librarian of Frothingham Library, Fonda, New York; born 16-Jul-1883, died Jul-5-1980 at 96 years of age; b. Fonda Farm, Town of Mohawk (near Fonda), Montgomery, New York; 1930 Census, New York, Montgomery, Mohawk, District 44; SSDI Fonda, Montgomery, New York; d. Johnstown Hosp., Johnstown, Fulton County, New York; bur. Evergreen Cemetery, Sand Flats, New York
  5. Erwin Roselle Fonda; Railroad Engineer, Civil War Soldier; born Oct-1844, died Aug-23-1919 at 74 years of age; b. Fulton, Oswego, New York; 1870 US Census, Wyoming, Lee, Illinois; 1880 United States Census, 4th Ward, Council Bluffs, Pottawattamie, Iowa; enlisted in the 147th New York and caught Typhoid Fever and was severely wounded as well. He went home to Illinois, then returned to the War as a Secretary to a Quartermaster. After the war he became an engineer with the Union Pacific and was headquartered at Omaha as of 1881. Service Record: Promoted to Full Corporal; Enlisted as a Private on 25 August 1862 at the age of 18; Enlisted in Company D, 147th Infantry Regiment New York on 23 September 1862. Mustered out Company D, 147th Infantry Regiment New York on 07 June 1865 in Washington, DC.
  6. Garret T. B. Fonda; Freight Agent New York C.R.R., Lawyer; middle name Teunis Briese; born 5-Apr-1808, died 7-Aug-1880 at 72 years of age; b. Reformed Protestant Dutch Church Of Caughnawaga, Fonda, Montgomery, New York; 1860 Census Records, Mohawk, Montgomery, New York; 1880 United States Census, District 2, Mohawk, Montgomery, New York; bur. Old Caughnawaga Cemetery, Fonda, New York.
  7. George Farrell Fonda; Fire Chief, Apothecary, Bank Director; born 6-Nov-1858, died Jun-19-1943 at 84 years of age; b. Augusta, Hancock, Illinois; 1880 United States Census, Boulder, Boulder, Colorado; 1930 Census, Colorado, Boulder, Boulder, District 47; res. Boulder, Co. where he was Fire Chief for many years, under volunteer and paid departments; sectaries for more…
  8. Gertrude L. Fonda; Real Estate Agent; born 1883; b. New Rochelle, New York; 1910 Census, New York, Westchester, New Rochelle, 4th Ward; 1930 Census, New York, Westchester, New Rochelle, District 249; had been engaged in 1904 to Daniel F. Tieman, 3rd, grandson of ex-Mayor Tieman of New York; engagement broken by mutual consent.
  9. James Robert Fonda; Blacksmith; born 29-Oct-1816, died 19-Jul-1891 at 74 years of age; b. West Troy, New York; res. Fulton, Oswego, New York; 1880 US Census, Wyoming, Lee, Illinois; res. Paw Paw Grove, Lee County, Illinois; James Robert Fonda was an orphan at 9 years old and became a Blacksmith. He married Alzina Bacon in December, 1837. She died on May 1st, 1852, leaving him with six children. He remarried to Jane E. Hendricks, the daughter of John Hendricks of Wayne County, New York.
  10. Mary Alice Seymour Fonda; Author; born 1837, died 1892 at 55 years of age; American Women. A revised edition of [Woman of the Century,] A comprehensive encyclopedia of the lives and achievements of American women during the nineteenth century. Two volumes, 1897; Women Novelists, 1891-1920. An index to biographical and autobiographical sources, 1984.

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