{"id":254,"date":"2020-01-28T07:13:54","date_gmt":"2020-01-28T15:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/?p=254"},"modified":"2020-01-28T07:13:56","modified_gmt":"2020-01-28T15:13:56","slug":"delimited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/2020\/01\/28\/delimited\/","title":{"rendered":"Delimited"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by mailsparky<\/a> from FreeImages<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Eleanor was a tiny woman \u2013 tiny in stature but not mind or\nemotion. Born at the turn of the 19th<\/sup> century in Chicago with so\nmuch promise, she now found herself stuck in sewing circles and ladies groups\nas she approached spinsterhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She longed for a world in which a woman was not defined by\nher gender, but by her contributions. And she really wants to take off her\ncorset. Like really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eleanor had resolved that the only way to bring that about\nwas to find an open-minded man who would be her husband. She impressed upon her\nfamily the need to go to university, for where else could she find an\nenlightened man, but her father was opposed, and her mother always agreed with\nher father. Her brother went to the University of Chicago, became an\naccountant, and married Eleanor\u2019s best friend, Phyllis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eleanor hated tea or dinner at their house, though she was\ninvited often and always attended. She hated sitting primly on the edge of the\nchair, being aware of any crumbs that might stray from her plate to the Berber\ncarpet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She needed a path towards a convenient union. A man who\nwould allow his wife the comfort of breathing freely, the ease of moving unimpeded\nthroughout the day. Where was she to find that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She became enamored of maps \u2013 big, table-sized maps with the names of cities and valleys, of countries and continents. She needed a husband who would allow her to travel, to learn, and to experience life without a ribbed cage compressing her diaphragm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her father, a doctor, allowed her to accompany him to the\ncountryside where he made house calls for farming families \u2013 an annual event\nthat she had attended man times in the past. \nEleanor searched the schoolyard where the families had met to greet her\nfather. She saw no single men as far as she could tell. She donned a pair of dark\nspecs and laid a map out on on the table. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat are you looking at?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An old farmer, as old as her father, was looking at the map on the table. He looked sideways at her and smiled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a map of Illinois. \nSee Chicago at the top? And Lake Michigan, just north?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t seen a map ever before,\u201d the old man drawled. \u201cCan\nyou explain this to me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eleanor took off her glasses, started at the man, glanced at\nhis empty ring finger and smiled. \n\n\u201cI would love to.\u201d \n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eleanor was a tiny woman \u2013 tiny in stature but not mind or emotion. Born at the turn of the 19th century in Chicago with so much promise, she now found herself stuck in sewing circles and ladies groups as she approached spinsterhood. She longed for a world in which a woman was not defined by her gender, but by … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[66,67,70,68,65,69,64],"class_list":["post-254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shorts","tag-character","tag-corsets","tag-farmers","tag-independence","tag-maps","tag-old-fashioned","tag-woman","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256,"href":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254\/revisions\/256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizabetholdham.com\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}