Spirited Sisters

Book excerpt: Spirited Sisters captures six generations of family stories. These spirited women form a family heritage for the current generation’s identity. Daunting tales of escape introduce Babka, a young Polish Jewess. Though she was spirited, Babka was challenged when her youngest daughter, Bernice, converted to Pentecostalism and joined the love of her life in South India. Next, additional Grandmom’s lives add insights from the Western prairie and in the Oklahoma Territory. They share how the Scotts treasured their families as well as human rights. Amanda and her daughter Lenora provide a sequel to Ruth Byrd Barnett and Freddie Estelle, who are both from old English stock. Pentecostal fervor revivals prompted Estelle to work in Maharastra, India, while Ruth Barnett supported abolishment of racial bigotry and supported women’s voting rights in the United States. The next generation brought Ruth Burgess and Helen Sullivan, Estelle’s daughters, into lives intermingled with cultural diversity between western and eastern ways of living with diverse challenges. Spirited Sisters chronologies how these spirited women have diversely and often creatively dealt with change and continuity.