Our Wildest Dream: A True Crime Blog of Film

Doll Museum: Ancient, Medieval, and Unusual Dolls Revisited

Doll Museum: Ancient, Medieval, and Unusual Dolls Revisited: I am researching dolls again, for my upcoming book, but also for a project we do in class. I will post links of some of the articles i ...

Thank you to my Viewers/Readers

We have nearly 5000 viewers/visitors/readers on this blog! Thank you so much to all of you! We believe in justice and the truth. We don't think Erzebet, and other women in her station, have enjoyed it. Woud love to read comments from you! Happy Blogging! Dr. E

Women executed for Withcraft--in 2013!

I read on Yahoo and AOL news this week that two elderly women were beheaded for allegedly being witches in Papua New Guinea. Another was burned. Are so different from thos in the 17th c and earlier who persecuted and martyred women for witchcraft? Note the parallels to Erzebet and others who were martyred and tortured; the women in New Guinea were widows, and it didn't seem like they had families. They were denounced on rumor by a neighbor. The police, or other authorities, couldn't or wouldn't, stop the atrocities. Up to now, the last woman burned for witchcraft was a wealthy socialite in Peru in 1836. In the colonies, a slave named Venus suffered the same horrific fate. Is it that the generations are closer than we think, or are we simply as barbaric as always? Where is Amnesty International? Where is NOW? Where is the UN? Where is everyone? Then, remember that the victims of the Salem Witch Trials were only pardoned in 1992, 300 years after the witch hysteria swept the Mass. Bay Colony.

Dr. Who

Last Saturday, the Dr. Who episode inspired by Erzebet and her girls' school, "Vampires of Venice," aired again. It was set in Venice, where Erzebet allegedly travelled, though her school was in one of her Hungarian/Slovak castles. The vampires who run the school include the son of the proprietress, so Count Pals Nadasdy has now taken the place of Fiszco as an acocomplice of The Blood Countess. Young girls were turned into vampires, and if they did not obey, they were disposed of by walking the plank into an alien lizard infested moat. This Countess is shown as remorseful. She looks very much like the portraits of Erzebet, though more aged. Spoiler alert; she ultimately sacrifices herself to the alien lizards rather than hurt anyone again.

Her Kind - Guest Post by Author Robin Throne, about other Pioneers and Women with Special Insight

Below is a guest post from our good friend and talented author and chronicler of women's histories and struggles, sympathetic to our efforts on behalf of Erzebet and other misrepresented and misunderstood women: Debut novel fictionalizes the lost great river village of Parkhurst, Iowa Thank you to the incomparable Dr. Ellen for allowing me to share some thoughts about the historical research behind my debut novel, Her Kind, released last month by 918studio. Her Kind is a fictional account of the settlement of the real-life, lost great river village of Parkhurst, Ia., now part of Le Claire (voted one of the “2013 coolest small towns in America” by BudgetTravel). LeClaire historian, Dorothy Lage, first chronicled a narrative history of this eclectic river town with her self-published manuscript, LeClaire, Iowa: A Mississippi River Town (1976). In it, she characterized the attractiveness and functionality of Pau-pesha-tuk, the agitated waters of the big river, a series of rapids that drew some of Iowa’s first settlers after the Blackhawk Treaty of 1832, and later rapids pilots before the lock and dam system tamed this tumultuous stretch of river. The diverse blend of cultures, personalities and vocations led to the establishment of an even earlier set of communities that thrived along this unique stretch of the big river border of LeClaire Township, Scott County, Ia. Lage’s interpretation of the LeClaire oral histories said Eleazor Parkhurst, Iowa immigrant and native of Massachusetts, crossed the river and arrived in Iowa in 1834 from Port Byron, Ill. (est. 1828), and purchased an existing log cabin and 180-acre land claim on the Iowa side of the big river that had been built earlier that year by George Harlan. See this home on LeClaire’s River Pilots Self-Guided Tour. Although reports differ, Parkhurst had arrived to a community of somewhere between 500-1000 Sac natives that resided along this stretch of the river after relocation from their Illinois village of Saukenuk under President Jackson’s 1830 Indian Removal Act. Prior to the Homestead Act of 1862, that clarified property claim rights in the new states and territories, earlier land acquisition claims in the LeClaire area of the Iowa district of the Wisconsin Territory were handled by the Dubuque land office. Parkhurst extended his Iowa land grant west and north along the big river in LeClaire Township, some accounts say as long as two miles, settled the first farm, and built a house from native stone and stucco in 1842. Eleazor Parkhurst then convinced his brothers, Sterling and Waldo, to join him in the Iowa district, and his post office application was approved in 1836 establishing the village of Parkhurst. That same year, Sterling and Thomas C. Eads, who had purchased a portion of Sterling’s property, jointly began to plat out the town of Parkhurst. Surveyors making the original survey of the Black Hawk Purchase in 1837 recorded finding this town in section 85, LeClaire Township, and said it was prospering. Prior to the official Parkhurst plat, another topographer made his way through the Iowa district in 1835 and came across the early Parkhurst settlement. Lieutenant Albert M. Lea (namesake of Albert Lea, Minn.) had this to say about Parkhurst in his self-published work that led to the official state name of Iowa: Of this place, not yet laid out, it is sufficient to say that the site is beautiful, the landing good, building material convenient, and the back country fine. There is nothing wanting to make it a town but the people and the houses, and these will soon be there. Its position at the end of the Rapids will throw a little more trade and storage there then it would otherwise have. A good deal of trade of the Wabesapinica will find a port at Parkhurst; and many persons, emigrating from Illinois and the Lakes, will pass by this route (p. 39). Lea’s book was later reprinted in 1935 by the State Historical Society of Iowa and renamed, The Book that Gave Iowa its Name. In 1839, the Parkhurst post office was renamed Berlin, and Lage and others have noted that this may have been due to the influx of German immigrants within that period. In 1845, the name was changed back to Parkhurst and in 1847, the post office became LeClaire, and the village of Parkhurst became the Parkhurst addition. Get Robin Throne’s Her Kind, a novel free from Kindle April 5-7! She is the recipient of the 2013 David R. Collins Literary Achievement Award, and see why Her Kind readers are giving 5-stars at GoodReads!

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: Lord Clapham (Doll) | V&A Search the Collections

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: Lord Clapham (Doll) | V&A Search the Collections: Lord Clapham (Doll) | V&A Search the Collections