In Those Days: A Story of Strong Women

Valerie Strong

thg 11 2010 · Xlibris Corporation

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This memoir takes the reader through childhood travel with an independent mother before World War II, to England, Barbados and France and on to adventures in Greece and Ohio which include animals, children and a Greek mother-in-law, concluding with the death of her father in 1985.

The book starts with her childhood in Canada. Trips by steamship with her mother are described ending with fl ight from France just before the German occupati on and the perilous convoy back to the safety of Canada. The Canadian school, subsequent college and scholarship to France end in marriage to a Greek student. Aft er his appointment as history professor at Hiram College in Ohio she follows him through scholarships and grants to Madison Wisconsin, Brussels Belgium, Washington D.C. and the Gennadius library in Athens Greece. This book is insightf ul and humorous in the portrayal of travel and the mingling of families of diff erent backgrounds. Her life was infl uenced by two powerful women, her mother and her mother-in-law. Although from diff erent cultures, these women were ahead of their ti mes; strong willed and courageous. Subconsciously these women prepared her to carry on aft er the devastati ng end of her marriage and the unexpected death of her mother. When she found it diffi cult to make ends meet their example encouraged her to take successful rug buying trips to Iran and Turkey and later to start a career as a landscape designer.

Aft er her father’s death she became a landscape designer, studying in Ohio, England and France. Some of her experiences in Northeast Ohio are recorded in All My Phlox, published by Kent University Press, 1999