Amazing Grace!

This week, our new hip Governor Tim Kaine officially pardoned and cleared the good name of one Mrs. Grace Sherwood, 300 years to the date of her “water trial” for Witchcraft… and the only person in Virginia history ever convicted of being a Witch.

Grace Sherwood lived her whole life in the Pungo area of Virginia Beach with her husband and three sons. She was said to be exceptionally tall, strikingly attractive, strong-willed, and a non-conformist who was a midwife, healer, and friend to children and animals. She was a skilled herbalist and often advised her neighbors on which herbs to use to cure aliments. Pretty cool woman, right? Au contraire! These traits were resented by her jealous neighbors, who began spreading rumors about her “witch-like behavior”.

Suddenly Grace was being accused of blighting crops, making livestock die, influencing the weather, and causing the miscarriage of a pregnant neighbor, and--wait for it--wearing men's clothes! Chilling, isn't it?

After her husband died, Grace was left to oversee the family's farm and to raise the sons. It was hard work and Grace often wore her husband’s clothing while tending to the day to day activities on the farm. Come on, ready-to-wear for a big woman was hard to find in the 1700s!

After eight years of constant slander and bickering by her neighbors, Grace was formally charged with suspicions of witchcraft. These charges coincidently came after Grace had brought action for assault and battery against two of her neighbors, claiming that one neighbor trespassed, attacked and caused great bodily harm to her. Grace won her case and according to court records, she received 20 shillings in damages. It is not known for certain whether Grace filing that formal complaint was the reason behind her neighbors accusing her of being a witch. However, since it was the same neighbor… I’m just sayin’!

In 1706, A jury of women was ordered to search Grace's body for suspicious or unusual markings, thought to be brands of the devil himself, and naturally the woman jury found, "marks not like theirs or like those of any other woman." But, neither the local court nor the Attorney General was willing to pass judgment declaring her a witch.

It was finally decided that Grace, "by her own consent, be tried in the water by Ducking". Water was considered to be the purest element and the theory was that it would reject anything of an evil nature. Based on this theory, the accused was tied up and thrown into the water. If the person drowned, she was declared innocent of witchcraft; if she could stay afloat until she could free herself, she was declared a witch.

On July 10, 1706, Grace was marched from the jail down the dirt road to the Lynnhaven River. This being a big event, hoards of people from all over the colony flocked to the scene as news of the Ducking had spread throughout the Commonwealth. They tied her thumbs to big toes, cross-bound, and dropped her into the River.

GUILTY!! She floated. I think I’d try to save myself best I could, too! Eight years in lock down for The Witch Of Pungo.

When she was released from jail, she got back her sons from a relative who looked after them for her, paid her back-taxes, and moved back into her Pungo home. She quietly tended her herb garden and oversaw the farm until her death at age 80 in 1740. There are Rosemary plants available today during the various festivals held in the Pungo area of Virginia Beach that are rumored to be clippings from Grace Sherwood's own magnificent Rosemary trees.

Proclaimed our Governor's writ on Monday: “With 300 years of hindsight, we all certainly can agree that trial by water is an injustice. We also can celebrate the fact that a woman’s equality is constitutionally protected today, and women have the freedom to pursue their hopes and dreams...”

Marilyn knew how to rock a bikini! :)

Ahh, the bikini…one of my favorite things! Is there anything else quite like it? The modern day bikini was introduced to the public in Paris on July 5, 1946 and celebrated "The Big 6-0" yesterday.

The inventors were Louis Reard, a French engineer, and Jacques Heim, a French fashion designer, who named it after the Bikini Atoll, the site of nuclear weapons testing in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. They figured the buzz of excitement about this new fashion creation would cause an "explosion" like the atomic bomb.

Heim’s first design, in May of 1946, was called the "Atome" for its diminutive size, and billed it as the "World’s Smallest Bathing Suit". Two months later, Reard "split the atome" even smaller when the "Bikini" was introduced to the public in Paris.

Reard could not find a fashion model who would dare wear such a shocking bathing suit so as to expose the belly button as it did. However, as luck would have it, he found one Miss Micheline Bernardini, a stripper, who happily agreed to model his creation.

In the US, it took Brigitte Bardot's bikini in the 1957 movie "And God Created Woman" to bring popularity stateside. But three years later, when the "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" song came out, an American bikini buying spree began.

And the rest, as they say... is history!

Happy Birthday, America...
230 and going strong!