thebegats:Welp, I finally got my hands on some of the columns written by Maude Newton Simmons, my
thebegats: Welp, I finally got my hands on some of the columns written by Maude Newton Simmons, my mysterious self-given namesake whose writing ambitions were a complete surprise to me when I learned of them a few years ago, and my fears came true. I can’t bring myself to post screenshots of the truly offensive things she wrote, though I’m sure I’ll get into it all in my book. Let’s just say it’s definitely a lesson in being careful which long-dead barely-known relations you fetishize. Because Maude/Maud* was almost the Emily or Molly or Haley or Sophie or Jennifer or Betty of its day, I have another great aunt Maude, too. I would like to think I slightly resemble her, if only because she looks amazing in a sexy lacy black dress that I would totally wear. She’s standing next to my great-grandfather, Zone, the guy with the umbrella, aka the self-declared Texan communist. I don’t know much about Maude Johnston Baldwin except that according to the census she worked as a seamstress in a dress factory and according to my mom she and her mom and the rest of her siblings “dipped snuff.” (“I remember each Johnston carried a can around to spit in and after a meal we all would sit in the living room and each one would spit from time to time and argue and fight,” says Mom. “Zone’s family was a striving, hell-raising bunch!! I hated being there.”) * I prefer the unornamented form of the name. Genealogy = Pandora’s box. -- source link