By CRAIG JUER, published in Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)
When Shawnda Rush woke up in her one-story house overlooking the fields and woods of the Shenandoah Valley, she could see a cane leaning against the bedside table and the sunshine through the sheer white curtains. But the world that lay outside the room was a mystery to her. She heard footsteps outside the doorway and tensed when around the corner and up to the edge of the bed crept a sandy-haired toddler, who appeared no older than 1 or 2. “Mommy?” the child cooed. Shawnda panicked. She didn’t recognize the girl...
By ELIZABETH MCCRACKEN, published in New York Times (Metered Paywall - 1 to 2 articles a month)
In some ways you could trace everything back to the stutter. In 1933, Gertrude Hadley ran away from her Arkansas home with a former prizefighter named Joe Jeannette II, who’d shown up at her high school prom. First they went to Hot Springs, where they married, and then St. Louis, and finally New York City. Her father, Willis Hadley, was a teacher and wanted her to go to college in Tennessee; he threatened to come with his shotgun to confront his new son-in-law. Then he decided that his daughter had made her bed and must lie in it
By PAUL TOUGH, published in New York Times (Metered Paywall - 1 to 2 articles a month)
Looking back, John Aldridge knew it was a stupid move. When you’re alone on the deck of a lobster boat in the middle of the night, 40 miles off the tip of Long Island, you don’t take chances.
Virginia's Never ending History
By TOM JACKMAN, published in Washington Post (Metered Paywall - 3 articles a month)
Even before John F. Kennedy moved into the White House in January 1961, he and his wife Jacqueline were looking for a weekend retreat away from Washington. They settled on the Middleburg area, first in an estate they leased called Glen Ora, then in a second property which they purchased and built a new house on called Wexford, both near Route 50 along the Fauquier-Loudoun county line. They hired a married couple as housekeepers at both properties, David and Catherine Lloyd, and when the Kennedys left the area, Jacqueline Kennedy bequeathed a few personal items to the Lloyds which are now being seen publicly for the first time.
By DAN CASEY, published in Roanoke Times (Metered Paywall - 18 articles a month)
“The Godfather” was the year’s highest grossing film. Carly Simon released “You’re So Vain,” her biggest hit. In Washington, D.C., police arrested five burglars at an office building, a seminal event in what later became the Watergate scandal... Meanwhile, back in western Virginia late in the summer of 1972, two characters who worked in a Salem bar conspired to bring Muhammad Ali to the Roanoke Valley, for his first — and last — boxing exhibition here.
