We Remember
   Jeanne Marie Laskas
   Photographs by Lynn Johnson
  1999 Wm. Morrow & Co. Inc. NY USA
   ISBN: 06881586363


Women born at the turn of the century tell the stories of their lives in powerful interviews & stunning portraits, a rare glimpse of 100 years of American womanhood.

25 women speak of the wonder & shared wisdom that could come only from experiencing this most dramatic of centuries. From a silent screen dancer who recalls the first talkies; to a little girl born into the Winnebago nation in a wigwam in the Nebraska woods sometime around 1897; to a Pittsburgh nun who still gets out of bed at the age of 95 at 5:30 am because it's part of what she promised to do; to a daughter of a newspaper columnist who has been writing her own weekly contribution & is still going strong at 101; to a rare beauty who could sing like a lark & had to stumble far from the sound of music until she made it to Harlem.

These are the stories that lie beneath the exterior we see & call "old women" They are our grandmothers, grand-aunts - our wise & gentle elders so few of us are privileged to know, to listen to, to admire.

I feel particularly blessed that this book flew into my hands at the library. I didn't say a word to it, accepted it, opened it & became lost in the stories of these women who have lived through interesting times.

What I enjoy is seeing a photo of these lovely ladies when they were very young & then the here & now picture. How the body may change with age, yet the smile, the look of introspection remains constant & it is the spirit that you see glowing out of each woman's visage.

Collectively these women made up a colorful & vivid patchwork of the way women live life, their perspectives, their values on what is a good husband, or what a life well-lived feels like or what an avocation means for a soul walking in the body human, gender female.

Lovely, lovely book of “Old Souls” recounting the curious & absorbing details of their memories & experiences.

Also by Jeanne Marie Laskas: The Balloon Lady and Other People I Know.
Lynn Johnson is an award-winning photo-journalist & has contributed to National Geographic, Life, Time & People.
(08/15/99)

Rebecca