Dear America: December 2011

Goody Corey asked Deliverance Trembly to her house to read the bible as well as a newly published account of life on the frontier. Deliverance is asked to read the Narrative of the Captivity and the Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682) which accounts one frontier womans and her three children experience as captives of Native American tribe.

Read the entire original text on Project Gutenberg's website.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/851

Monday, December 12, 2011

Why is Deliverance "walking in dread?"

Why is Deliverance Trembley’s story titled

I Walk in Dread?

Dowry

What was Mem’s dowry when she married Darcy Cooper?

Who would you believe?

Why do you believe the villagers believed the afflicted girls over the denial of the accused women?

"The affliction"

What was “the affliction?” Who were the first afflicted girls, and how did they behave?

Devils all around

In her 30

th of January diary entry, Liv writes about an angry exchange between Goody Corey and Mem. When Mem called the Indians “Devils,” Goody Corey explained they were just men who had a different belief about what it means to own land. Reread that entry. What was Goody Corey trying to get Mem to understand?

Fortune-telling with the venus glass

Describe the fortune-telling incident that Mem and Susannah engaged in using a “venus glass.” Why was Liv so upset

with them for making a venus glass?

Why is this considered witchcraft?

Recipe: Corned Beef and vegetable soup -p. 21

1.Rinse off the corned beef
2.Cover corned beef with water and simmer one hour.
3. Pour off the liquid and add boiling water to cover.
4. Simmer another 3 hours
5. Add 6 white onions and 4 small turnips, cook 30 minutes more.
6. Add 6 carrots and 7 potatoes and simmer 15 minutes
7. Add one head cabbage cut in 6 pieces (or use horseradish)
8. Cook until all is tender.

Why is Liv angry with her father?

Where does Deliverance (Liv) get her diary?

Liv finds her diary in an unusual place? Where does she find it? What are her thoughts about finding the diary?

What would you thoughts be about finding a diary in an unusual place?

January Selection: We will meet January 18th 3:45PM

I Walk in Dread
The Diary of Deliverance Trembley, Witness to the Salem Witch Trials,
Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1691
by Lisa Rowe Fraustino

In 1691 in Salem Village. Twelve year-old Deliverance (Liv) Trembley and her seventeen-year-old sister Remembrance (Mem) have come to live with their uncle after the death of their parents. Soon after their arrival, their uncle goes off to seek his fortune, leaving the girls to run the farm with the strict instructions
that they are to tell no one of his absence. The girls busy themselves tending the animals and trading eggs and apples. Liv writes in her diary, “We are well able to take care of ourselves; that is not the problem. The problem is the villagers, who would not approve, and might condemn our uncle, and remove us from his care.” Liv and Mem are able to hide the fact that they are alone, though Liv worries that they might be punished for lying. She also is concerned that they might be
cursed by offering shelter and food to a homeless woman, Sarah Goode, who is rumored to be a witch.

When Mem becomes ill, many villagers come to the house bringing food and home remedies. When a small child asks of Mem, “When is she going to scream blasphemies?” both girls are shocked. They soon learn that the visitors believe Mem is afflicted, like two girls in the village who are “contorting their bodies
into unnatural positions and uttering terrible sounds that mostly make no sense.” Liv, who has already worried over the cause of Mem’s illness, feels a “sense of doom.” She writes, “Something terrible is going to happen in Salem Village. I can feel it in my bones, as surely as the caterpillar can feel a long winter coming.”

Mem recovers, but the girls in the village do not. When the doctor is unable to find a physical cause for their affliction, he says “the Evil Hand” is on them. The villagers, looking for someone to blame, accuse Sarah Goode and two others of being witches and doing the Devil’s work. The women are arrested and brought before a public examination. Even though they declare their innocence, the majority of the villagers do not believe them. Soon, more girls become afflicted, and more people are accused, including Martha Corey, an intelligent and outspoken woman. Liv wonders, “Why does the crowd still choose to hear the voices of the
girls instead of the voice of reason?”

Meanwhile, the landlord threatens to evict Liv and Mem if they cannot pay the rent on the farm. Since it appears that their uncle might never return, Liv writes of the trouble to their older brother Benjamin, who returns to be with them. Mem, who is being courted by Darcy Cooper from Haver’il, accepts his marriage
proposal. The whole family plans to move. Liv joyously writes, “Darcy will arrive in the morning with the big wagon, and we will load it up and
be gone from this place, not a moment too soon. Thank you, God. Thank you!”