Kate and Great Grandma Eva

Kate Chopin has long been a favorite author. I think I shared before that my first exposure to her writing came when I was a junior at Mt. Vernon High School (yes, Kayla and Kevin--the Mt. Vernon west of Evansville) and Mrs. Kuhn had us read several of her short stories. I loved her writing and the fact that she was 'breaking ground' on a movement of women writers.

A few years later she was a featured author on the syllabus for the Women in Literature course that was one of my electives at Indiana State. That was the first time I read The Awakening. That novel fed my eagerness to read more of her works. Since that time I have taught several of her short stories to juniors ("A Pair of Silk Stockings" and "The Story of an Hour") and have shared The Awakening with some of the more mature seniors in my Novels classes as reading for extra projects.

I was thrilled to see more of Kate's short stories appear in the Norton. "The Story of an Hour" was also included in the text for ENGL 111 and I used it with my lesson on literary terms which led to the required essay test in the curriculum.

Why do I like her work? Maybe it is because my great-grandmother lived during that time period. I am fairly certain that Great Grandma Eva Cattell did not exercise her freedom of speech and take a stand against Great Grandpa Howard. However, I remember Great Grandma Eva well. She died when I was in 3rd or 4th grade, so I did spend hours of time at her house, helping her with flowers, and cooking, and entertaining, and looking at the children's books she had stashed under the couch. Great Grandma was a devout Quaker, but I can imagine her being happy with some new-found freedom. From what I hear, my great-grandfather was a very strict man. Maybe she would have enjoyed buying a pair of silk stockings from the counter at The Boston Store in downtown Alliance. Maybe she would have sat at the counter at Murphys and enjoyed a lunch by herself. Maybe she would have sat in the streetcar on the way back to Beloit, wishing it would go on forever.