Elizabeth Mansfield Irving (continued)

This post is to explain a little of my project. Elizabeth Mansfield Irving (1852-1939) is my great grandmother, and mother to my Grandma Margo, Margaret Irving Wallace. She had an interesting life which I will tell about shortly. In fact I am writing a book about her.

Originally I was going to focus on Grandma Margo, because I have an old scrapbook of hers that would fill up a book by itself. That book, I was thinking of calling The Elocutioner's Daughter, just because it rolled off the tongue; of course I know nothing about The Exocutioner's Daughter, or at least not enough to make fun of it, and in fact Elocutionist appears to be a more common term though both are acceptable.

But I found more about Elizabeth Mansfield Irving, in fact enough to easily fill a whole book by itself. It appears Grandma Margo won't even show up until it's over half done.

She happened to come of age at a time when elocution was just becoming big. In fact, for women who were trying to get men to vote for suffrage, they saw elocution as probably the best way to do it. Make very persuasive arguments. Learn how to control your voice. Use your voice effectively.

this was what Elizabeth was good at. And I'm writing a book about it.

To my cousins, Grandma Margo's grandchildren - I will dedicate the book to you. Why not? I've known you all my llfe.