It’s been over a century (101 years to be exact) since Miriam Josefsohn of Blue Thread fame attended her last class at St. Mary’s Academy in Portland. A lot has changed at the school since then, especially the extra-curricular activities. I’m sure that Miriam would have liked to join the Politics without Borders Club, and the SciFi/Fantasy Club, and the Human Rights Club. I suppose if her friend Florrie Steinbacher were still enrolled with her, the two might have considered SMA Cruisers. Here’s a photo of the 2011 team. Can you imagine them racing along the Willamette River in dragon boats?
In 1912, dragon boats were as unheard of as an SMA activity as the Harry Potter Club. But humans have been racing long-boat canoes for at least 2,000 years. Dragon boat racing gained international attention in the 1970s, and may one day have a place of its own at the Olympics. If you want to follow the sport, check out the International Dragon Boat Federation and its June 1, 2013, Paddle for the Planet. Portland held races in June, too, as part of the Rose Festival. Surely Miriam and Florrie would have gone to the Rose Festival back in 1912. Would they have wanted to race in dragon boats? I wonder.
I was on vacation on May 23rd, ten time zones away from home. I had no idea that the United Nations, after years of discussing and planning, had declared May 23, 2013, as the first-ever International Day to End Obstetric Fistula. Countries around the globe participated. Yes!
Horse racing was in the news this past weekend, when Palace Malice, who finished 12th in the Kentucky Derby, beat out favorites and won the Belmont Stakes. Almost exactly a century ago, suffragist Emily Wilding Davison attended Epsom Derby, the most prestigious race in Great Britain. Toward the end of the race, she stepped in front of the horse owned by King George V. In an instant, she was trampled by the horse and died of her injuries four days later on June 8, 1913.
The First Balkan War officially started on October 8, 1912. By then, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro had formed the Balkan League to force Turkey to give up control of nearly all of its territory in Europe. The Ottoman Turks had captured Constantinople in 1453, renaming the city Istanbul. Over the next two hundred years, the Ottomans had expanded their empire to include large territories in Asia, Europe, and the northern coast of Africa. The Ottomans referred to the Balkan territories that they controlled as Rumelia, meaning the land of the Romans. But empires, whether they are Roman or Ottoman, don’t last forever.
The United States entered World War I in 1917, after Germany declared submarine warfare against all commercial ships supplying Great Britain. Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress, voted against entering the war. She was a representative from Montana, elected at a time when some women in the United States still didn’t have the right to vote. Of course, as you know from Blue Thread, the women of Oregon did.
A couple of years back, Patricia Zanger was selling hats in 
nlike the Osborne sisters, Patricia does not use toxic dyes in her hats. She buys the best materials and imports ribbon from France. She hails from New York City, not Chicago, and has owned shops for about 20 years. It takes several days to steam, shape, and stitch a hat, and then to add the finishing touches. Like the Osbornes, Patricia will sell you a ready made hat or personalize one.
friends their foibles. At the start of my story, Miriam misses Florrie fiercely.
She hasn’t said a word to you, has she? I mean about being away for a few weeks and pretending to blog just as if she were at home. Well, if Ruth Tenzer Feldman thinks she can get away with that, she has another think coming!
Wegener didn’t give up. By the 1920s, more scientists began to take him seriously. Not many, though. Wegener was determined to convince them that his hypothesis was correct. In 1930, he went to Greenland to collect data. Wegener, age 50, never returned. Friends found his body buried in the snow. Apparently Wegener’s guide, Rasmus Villumsen (on the right in this photo), buried Wegener and died soon afterward.
The actor we know as Charlie Chaplin (Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin) is probably most famous for his image of a man with a small mustache and a derby hat. That was not the Chaplin who appeared in “A Busy Day,” the silent film that Keystone Studios released on May 7, 1914. Growing up impoverished in Britain, Chaplin was just starting his career as an actor in the United States. “A Busy Day” is one of his lesser known films, and with good reason!
Here’s an image of Charlie Chaplin in “A Busy Day.” And here’s a 
I don’t think that there’s a definitive answer about the origins of the maypole, although the tradition of dancing around a maypole seems to have been with us since forever. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Miriam Josefsohn and her friends danced around a maypole in 1912, although the earliest photograph I’ve seen from Portland comes from a few years later. It shows children dancing around a maypole in front of the Kennedy School in 1916.
The celebration continues, thanks to the Maypole Dancers from the Laurelhurst School. Here’s a recent snapshot of them performing in front of the Kennedy school (now a McMenamin’s hotel and restaurant). 
My name is Ruth. I write books and articles for children and young adults. Blue Thread is my eleventh book, and the first one in which I have knowingly stretched the truth.