Generous Women: An Appreciation Book

"I have known generous women," Earl Hamner writes. "Some of them have been famous, their names and faces known all over the world. Others are known only in their own communities, but their gifts have been many and varied, and each has enriched my life." First there was Doris Giannini Hamner, the gentle woman who gave him the gift of life. "My arrival seems to have been greeted with joy by my parents," he comments. Other Hamner women have also been generous with him. First and foremost is his wife, Jane Martin Hamner, who has given him the gift of love. In his teenage years, his father?s three sisters?Nora, Margaret, and Lottie?generously provided him a home in town so he could attend high school. His daughter, Caroline, gave him the gift of love?again. Women of Schuyler, Virginia, where he grew up, gave generously to the eldest Hamner son. Parkie Sneed, a neighbor, gave him his first job when he was ten. Sixth-grade teacher Miss Olive Giannini inspired him to always do his best. Elsie Mayo Gusmeroth, another teacher, awakened his first stirrings of puppy love; and Aunt Myrle Timberlake paid him a quarter for a summer?s work, giving him the gift of "big money." Isis Ringrose consoled him when his brother died. The beautiful Jeanine, whom he first kissed on Pont Alexandre III in Paris during World War II, gave the bridge to him when they parted. "And it?s still mine!" he proclaims. Many others have given generously too: magazine editor Mina Barton; Dorothy McCann, who gave him his first "big-time" writing job at NBC; Mabel Wolfe Wheaton, the sister of Thomas Wolfe; writers Harper Lee and Kay Thompson; editor Belle Becker of Random House; First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt; actresses Tallulah Bankhead, Patricia Neal, Michael Learned, Jane Wyman, and Ellen Corby; entertainer Minnie Pearl; presidential mother Lillian Carter?so many! So little space. Generous Women is about the women who have given so much of themselves to Hamner. "They have enriched my life," he explains, "and have contributed to my becoming the man I am today." This fond appreciation is a warm thank-you for gifts freely given and a reminder that, truly, no man is an island unto himself.Read More