Senior Women Web

  • Joan Fontaine

    Rose Madeline Mula: If You Can’t Stand the Heat

    Rose Madeline Mula Writes: “It was with considerable trepidation, therefore, that I entered the kitchen of my hostess, the legendary actress, Joan Fontaine, one long-ago Thanksgiving morning, to offer my assistance. Acting was not Miss Fontaine’s only talent. Not by a long shot. She was also a hole-in-one golfer, a prize-winning fisherwoman, a hot air…

  • An Undocumented Childhood by Rose Madeline Mula

    An Undocumented Childhood by Rose Madeline Mula

    Rose Mula Writes: Some people never leave home without their American Express card; I never leave home without a camera. Digitized pictures of the twenty-five countries and forty-plus states of America that I’ve visited since my first tour of exotic New Hampshire constantly flash on my computer monitors and digital frames throughout my home, helping…

  • Julia Sneden Wrote: Love Your Library

    Julia Sneden Wrote: Love Your Library

    Julia Sneden Wrote: My mind’s eye can still see the face of the Children’s Librarian, although I have long since forgotten her name. We will be wise to continue to back up our knowledge of history and literature and art and science with hard copy. She kept up with my reading level, suggesting writers and…

  • high heels

    Julia Sneden Wrote: If The Shoe Fits … You Can Bet It’s Not Fashionable

    Julia Sneden Wrote: My mother was a mini Imelda Marcos. She kept upwards of 40 pairs of shoes well into her 80’s, and was crushed when she had to give up high heels following a heart attack at the age of 89. Her sole criterion in buying shoes was style, not comfort, and she was…

  • Vintage jewelry, Wikimedia Commons

    Joan L.Cannon Wrote: A Family Inheritance: More Than ‘Things’ … Emblems of Our Lives

    Joan Cannon wrote: As one advances in years, one accumulates possessions the way a caddis fly larva accumulates grit. The glue that makes us carry it all along with us is in a way self-secreted as well. However, it’s psychic rather than physical — emotional rather than material. Perhaps the most obvious example is a…

  • ways to grasp a pencil

    Julia Sneden Wrote: Old Dogs, New Tricks

    Julia Sneden wrote: At the age of 37, I started a new career as a kindergarten teacher. My first day on the job, the lead teacher, who was in her 70’s and scared me every bit as much as she scared the children, watched me writing a note. “You’ll have to change the way you…

  • Captain Charles E. Yeager

    Joan Cannon Writes: Finding the Right Excuse; Committing Words to Paper Because …

    Joan Cannon Writes: Think of the poets and novelists and playwrights whose words sink into the consciousness of thousands and even millions and remain there, as emblems, guides, beacons of hope or warnings of disasters, and the excuse (as if one is needed) presents itself. Maybe there’s information or a revelation for some unknown viewer…

  • stack of books

    Joan Cannon Asked: What is a Book Club? An Old-Fashioned Book Report? A Program Given By an Author? What Is the Accepted Practice?

    Joan L. Cannnon wrote: A year or so ago, I was invited to attend a tea given by the combined membership of all the book clubs in the town where I now live. A presentation was scheduled for the proprietor of the much-loved local independent book store cum gift shop. She is a legend in…

  • Jo Freeman Reviews Undaunted: How Women Changed American Journalism by Brooke Kroeger

    In Undaunted the author tells the stories of numerous women who have made their mark on the profession of journalism. Reaching back to the early 19th Century, she begins with Margaret Fuller, who “unstuck the gate” in the 1840s. She carries that history to the current era, exploring several themes. Her own years as a…

  • Ferida Wolff’s Backyard: Mushrooms, Mushrooms, Mushrooms and An Observational Trek

    Ferida Woolf Writes: “I’ve been noticing that there are more mushrooms popping up on lawns recently. Brown ones, white ones, flat, round, and, well, traditionally mushroom-shaped. I looked up mushrooms and I think the ones I saw were like Giant Puffballs (Calvatia gigantea)… But whatever kind is local, they are so interesting to see. It…

  • Oppenheimer: July 28 UC Berkeley Panel Discussion Focuses On The Man Behind The Movie

    “A 25-year-old J. Robert Oppenheimer arrived at UC Berkeley in fall 1929 as an assistant professor, and over the next dozen years established one of the greatest schools of theoretical physics in the U.S. — one that continues to this day. He made UC Berkeley’s physics department the center of American thought about the new…

  • Some Facts About Drowning Prevention | CDC Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; https://www.cdc.gov, Drowning is Preventable

    “From the Editor: We’ve tried to replicate parts of the CDC Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s presentation of their Drowning Prevention information but urge you to go to their pages in effort to gain a organized way to compile as much information as you can. Tam Martinides Gray, Editor ‘…Drowning is a serious public…

  • Women’s Labor Force Exits During COVID-19: Differences by Motherhood, Race, and Ethnicity

    Abstract: While the descriptive impacts of the pandemic on women have been well documented in the aggregate, we know much less about the impacts of the pandemic on different groups of women. After controlling for detailed job and demographic characteristics, including occupation and industry, we find that the pandemic led to significant excess labor force…

  • National Institutes for Health Study Offers Insights Into How Cells Reverse Their Decision to Divide

    “A new study suggests that cells preparing to divide can reverse this process and return to a resting state, challenging long-held beliefs about cell division. If interrupted early in their preparation to divide, cells were able to halt the division process, known as mitosis. The finding, led by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI),…

  • IRS Newswire: Bookmark and Share, News Releases IRS: IRS, Security Summit Partners Warn Taxpayers of New Scam

    IR-2023-123, July 3, 2023 WASHINGTON ― The Internal Revenue Service warned taxpayers today to be on the lookout for a new scam mailing that tries to mislead people into believing they are owed a refund. The new scheme involves a mailing coming in a cardboard envelope from a delivery service. The enclosed letter includes the…

  • We’ve Pumped So Much Groundwater That We’ve Nudged The Earth’s Spin

    “Observing changes in Earth’s rotational pole is useful for understanding continent-scale water storage variations,” said Ki-Weon Seo, a geophysicist at Seoul National University who led the study. Seo said. “Polar motion data are available from as early as the late 19th century. So, we can potentially use those data to understand continental water storage variations…

  • A Square Peg In A Round Hole By Rose Madeline Mula

    Rose Madeline Mula Writes: “I haven’t been inside a store for two years. I don’t miss any of them. Not a bit. I am delighted to have Instacart deliver my groceries — and Amazon everything else I could possibly want — to my door on demand, without having to navigate aisle after aisle searching for…

  • Ferida Wolff’s Backyard: Awesome Goldfinches, Part of the Incredible Possibilities That Nature Might Offer

    Ferida Wolff Writes: “Outside our front door was a wonderful sight – a male goldfinch was sitting on one of our Astilbe plants. His beautiful gold color was startling. As we watched, a female goldfinch flew to one of the other Astilbe plants and seemed to be watching the male. He didn’t chase her away…