It was spring 1894, early in President Grover Cleveland’s second term. A new company offering chocolate confections had recently been founded in Derry Township, Pennsylvania, in a town called Hershey. Avant-garde dancer and choreographer Martha Graham was born on May…
Whitman’s speculation below, misquoted (just a bit) by a character in the 1988 movie Bull Durham, speaks to the peculiar American-ness of baseball. It’s a game that traces its origins to England, but became wholly ours in the nineteenth century.…
Marybeth and Charles Meacham have three children: sons who are in their forties and a daughter who is thirty-eight. Their daughter Anne attended college and now works as a textile hanger with Goodwill Industries in Richmond – she inspects donated…
Six years ago, as they anticipated the birth of their first child, Kelley and her husband did more than just furnish the nursery – they got serious about saving. Even though Kelley had a good job in the government sector…
Cody Bowles, a 2016 graduate of George Mason University, recalls how hard it was to even think about paying for college when he attended Lee-Davis High School. “It was daunting,” he says. Neither of Bowles’ parents attended college, but his…
It started with an Instagram post of two sisters on Sibling Day. They were smiling and happy. Before long, though, the comments appeared: hahaha these @#$% losers – your sister needs to be really helped LMFAO! IM ACTUALLY DIEING LOL…
Growing up in Henrico’s near West End, Carla Navarrete had plenty of family around her: her parents, an older sister, and three younger brothers. But she didn’t have her grandparents, all of whom lived in her parents’ native country of…
Bad parent confession: We have never visited New York City as a family. Full disclosure: This bothers me more than it does my husband. With three children separated in age by six years, top to bottom, taking a bite out…
The French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) gained his first fame – really, notoriety – when he exhibited a plaster sculpture, “The Age of Bronze,” showing a standing man, fully nude, originally holding a spear (later removed by the artist).…
Years ago, when I contemplated the spacing of our children’s births, I thought more about immediate issues than how the differences in their ages would play out down the road. My chief considerations, at the time, were sleep (theirs and…
