Category: A Voice of Her Own
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The Mysterious Black Madonna
Her face was everywhere. Growing up Catholic in the 1950s, statues of saints and their pictures on “holy cards” were a part of daily life. But the scarred face of the Madonna of Czestochowa was special. In our immigrant community, she represented the Polish people’s struggle for nationhood. A fifteenth-century Polish historian wrote that the…
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The Hartwick College Piano Man
A long time ago, in a land far away, an eight-year-old girl who was me stood alone in the Hartwick College parking lot. She was stiff, and scared and not sure what to do. My little family of four had just driven over an hour – a big trip in those days – to Oneonta,…
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If Birds Could Save Us
What would it be like, a world without birds? Rachel Carson said it would be A Silent Spring. We are losing birds at an alarming rate. Since the 1970s, 2.9 billion birds have been lost in North America alone, or 29 percent of the total population. I’m afraid I’ve ignored them most of my life,…
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Simple Days
In my never ending quest to find balance in my Off Kilter life, I discovered a wonderful book. Quite by accident. Or seredipity. Or maybe it was just meant to be. In February, I traveled to a women lifewriters conference in Austin, TX and entered a silent auction for a book by a writer I…
Linda C. Wisniewski 