Honoring the Everyday Women in Women's History Month
“My mission in life is not merely to survive but to thrive and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.” – Maya Angelou (1928-2014), memoirist, poet, civil rights activist.
Women’s history month celebrates the accomplishments of women in their time and place in history who beyond all expectations broke through the societally held boundaries. We know the story of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, civil rights activist Rosa Parks, women’s rights activists Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton – to name just a very few! While we think of these women as ‘the first’ to do something, they were standing on the shoulders of those who came before them – and being supported by those who were contemporaries. Women are by nature relational.
Today we are grateful for those who came before us and accomplished so much for women. We continue to move forward through their inspiration and the paths they have opened us for us.
There are the Everyday Women whose names and stories we know nothing about. Women share their stories and think that it is nothing special.
It is just the next step in their life. I checked out StoryCorp by NPR. It is a great resource for all stories – and women’s every day stories.
Here are a few:
Barbara Moore: At 21 years of age, she knew she wanted to be a bricklayer. None of the men wanted to work with her. The prevailing belief was that she was taking a job from a man. But one man did work with her and when he died he left her his tools. Barbara was honored. She worked for over 40 years in Baltimore, MD and was the first woman to join her local bricklayers union. (Originally aired August 1, 2014 on NPR’s Morning Edition.)
Maria Ochoa walks the Arizona desert to save lives. She is a 70-year-old grandmother who provides water and food to migrants who have crossed the border from Mexico. The humanitarian aid she and other Tucson Samaritans provide is legal, as long as they don’t transport migrants or venture onto private land. Their motivation is gratitude in being able to keep people from dying. (Originally aired June 21, 2019 on NPR’s Morning Edition.)
Army Nurses Diane Evans and Edie Meeks were stationed in a dangerous place in Vietnam during the war. One night they heard rockets. Even in their fear they protected their patients, placing mattresses on top of them and took care of their I.V. lines. They were their only defense between life and death… They wondered all those years if we did a good job. And it wasn’t until The Vietnam Women’s Memorial that this fellow came up to me and he said, ‘Hi Edie.’ It was this corpsman named Tom. And I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ He said, ‘I came to see you.’ And they came out of the woodwork all across the country. They were walking with their crutches and wheeling their wheelchairs and doing their wheelies like they always did when they were patients of ours. They wanted to find the nurse who took care of them because they wanted to say thank you. And that in and of itself is so healing. It’s just something that’s hard for anybody who wasn’t there to understand… It’s spiritual. It’s sacred. And we are sisters and we are brothers. (Originally aired November 5, 2022 on NPR’s Weekend Edition)
These are just a few stories found at StoryCorps. Read the full version of these stories. Search for others.
Let these stories touch your heart and inspire you to be a living presence of compassion and justice in our world today.
We are living on the shoulders of those who came before us. Let us be grateful! Let us continue to hear the call to be a bridge to the future!
“The beginning of wisdom is the desire for Wisdom, and this desire, when transformed into action, is love…” (The Love of Eternal Wisdom, Rabbi Rami Shapiro, p.3)
Sr. Patricia Torre, DW