I was a rich, white girl who had never chosen to marry. Many of my fellow Southern women would have called me a spinster. I was Miss Hellen Elizabeth Stanberry when I was born and that is how I died. But lonely, I was not. I lived a satisfying (and sexually fulfilling) life of my own choosing. And I did it while teaching school in Ashe County, North Carolina, a forlorn place of high poverty, and limited vistas.
I was a rich girl, the oldest daughter of the lumber baron, S. O. Stanberry. He had sawmills all over western North Carolina, was a partner in the region’s principal railroad, and owned our town’s only bank. He drove either a flashy Packard or a dependable Cadillac. Our neighbors (and employees) drove old, rusted Model T trucks. We had a large, three-story white frame house with central heating and three large bathrooms. Our neighbors (and employees) lived in shanties with potbelly stoves and outhouses built right over their creeks.
My father was a high order Mason, so he was known, and welcomed everywhere. My father was also a Presbyterian Elder, a religious order three steps above the all-too-prevalent Baptists. Because everyone knew my father, everyone knew me. But because they knew my father, they never told him about what I did.
No one ever told him that I smoked cigarettes, drank cocktails, and climbed into the hayloft with many very virile men.
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Lindsey Beth Hummel voices the narration
Some music provided by the California School for the Blind Student Jazz Quintet
