Womenfolks: Growing Up Down South

by Shirley Abbott

In a rich blend of memoir and meditation, Abbott focuses her graceful and witty attention on mothers and daughters of the South. Theirs is a world of red dirt and backbreaking chores and roof-raising revival meeting--a far cry from the magnolias and mint juleps of Gone with the Wind.

Genres: Nonfiction, Southern, History, Memoir, Biography

210 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1983

About the author

Shirley Jean Abbott Tomkievicz (born November 16, 1934) is magazine editor and writer, most noted for her three volumes of memoirs.

(from Wikipedia)

Abbott began her career as an editor, writer, and historian in 1959 when she was hired by Horizon magazine as a fact checker. In 1973, she was appointed Horizon’s editor-in-chief, a post she held until the magazine closed three years later. Abbott has written articles for Smithsonian, Lear’s, Gourmet, Harper’s, American Heritage, Southern Living, McCall’s, Glamour, and Boston Review, as well as for newspapers.

(from http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net...)

Reviews

[Yaaresse · Rating 5 out of 5]

ETA: May 2021 - Culling my print books. Yes, again. It's an ongoing process. And, naturally, it's never a simple matter of taking books off shelves and putting them into boxes. One gets distracted, especially when letting go of really good books. So I ended up re-reading this one and enjoying it even more than I did the first read.

It's hard to categorize this book. It's partly a memoir, but it's also a good, hard look at the history of women in the south and social commentary on same. It's the most candid, unflinching and accurate depictions of 20th century southern rural life and women I'd ever read. Some have said Abbot seemed to look down on her background, but I disagree. She looked it directly in the eye and described exactly what she saw. She neither romanticized nor demonized. While her writing focuses on her Ouachita hill-country family in Arkansas, I recognized much of what she said as applicable to what I knew growing up in the upper south. While her age put her somewhere between my parents and oldest sibling, the situations, motivations, and personalities of the people she wrote about felt very familiar to me. I recognized them in my grandmother and her sisters, my aunts, and "country" cousins.

I recently learned the author has two other books in this vein. I'll need to hunt them down now, and I plan to replace my print copy of this one (with its teeny, tiny font) with a Kindle version.

“The frontier will nevertheless survive in the attitudes a few of us inherited from it. One of those attitudes--to me a beatitude--is the conviction that the past matters, that history weighs on us and refuses to be forgotten by us, and that the worst poverty women--or men--can suffer is to be bereft of their past.”
― Shirley Abbott, Womenfolks: Growing Up Down South

____________
I started reading this ages ago, then popped it into a seldom used drawer to protect it while doing some painting. I guess I protected it too well because I couldn't find it again until just recently.
Then again, maybe it was serendipitous because it was the perfect thing to read so close behind Rick Bragg's books. Lots of good stories in this book about the lives of Southern women. Lots of stories that ring true and my grandmother and her sisters probably lived themselves.

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shirley Abbott’s foray into the world of southern women is an amazingly interesting combination of personal memoir, history and narratives of southern women themselves, past and present.

“The difference between a lady and a belle is that the former has a multitude of responsibilities and hence a more solid power base, while the belle thinks only of herself. Some women become ladies without ever having been belles; some remain belles all their lives, though not always successfully.”

As a northern woman, this world is completely foreign to me. I have had southern friends, of course, but reading this book has given me a completely new perspective. I loved the history and the stories Abbott presents in this work of non-fiction, and I was impressed at how much information was new to me. I had no idea that women used sun bonnets to keep their hair clean, rather than keep out the sun, for instance. I had no idea of the importance of liquor (ie, whiskey), for southern males – which of course, influenced southern women. I especially found interesting the examination of the different classes in the south and their effect on each other.

While Abbott’s comments do jump around a bit, she never lost me – in fact, I felt as if I was sitting in the parlor listening to a wise woman tell me about her family (and southern) history. I could have stayed listening to her all day.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first edition of Womenfolks was printed in 1983, though the cover shown here is a 1998 edition. I first read this book for a Women Writers class I took while working on my dissertation in the early 90s. By that time I was in my forties, and as a southern woman, I could relate to so many of Abbott's tales. I have re-read Womenfolks several times, and I pass copies out to friends when I think they need to be reminded of who "we" southern women are and why we are the way we are! I also give copies to friends who did "not" grow up in the South, because I believe Womenfolks helps them to understand us better. From page one (where Abbott describes a mothers-and-daughters-visit to the family cemetery -- which I have experienced) to the last page, (which gave me one of my favorite quotations ever -- see below), this book was written for me. But it was also written for other southern women -- and southern men -- and everybody else! Okay, here's my favorite quote: "The frontier will nevertheless survive in the attitudes a few of us inherited from it. One of those attitudes -- to me a beatitude -- is the conviction that the past matters, that history weighs on us and refuses to be forgotten by us, and that the worst poverty women -- or men -- can suffer is to be bereft of their past." Read the book.

[Sarah Coller · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm just as conflicted about my feelings regarding this memoir as the author seems to be about her feelings regarding Southern women. She both praises and insults them in turns, and seems to be both embarrassed by and nostalgic of a past she can't compartmentalize.

The author grew up in Hot Springs, Arkansas and knew my northwest part of the state when it was still dirt roads and, in her words, "primitive". It would be interesting to know how she sees NW Arkansas now with the rapid growth that has taken place in the last 15 years or so. Dirt roads are awfully scarce!

Published in 1983 when the author was in her late 40s, she obviously has a very different perspective from how most women in Arkansas would see themselves today. She makes a lot of assumptions about the intelligence of Southern women and her thoughts on the "Southern belle" are awfully stereotypical (though I will admit one mother and daughter pair I know did come to mind). Rather than being stuck with a choice between staying home to raise a passel of ignorant, dirty children who take after their ignorant, dirty mother; or escaping as an émigré to the North to find an education that is supposedly non-existent here; many of today's Southern women know that the best kind of education is the one you give yourself. Self-education can be very thorough, as well as very freeing, and is an option that many choose so they can live on their own schedule and terms---a concept that "educated" feminists seem to have such a difficult time grasping.

I purchased this book with hopes of learning about the daily lives, responsibilities, and dreams of Southern women from the past. Instead, this reads more like an author attempting to convince herself and everyone else that she's not as ignorant and hillbilly as "those people" from whom she came. While I did enjoy quite a bit of the social history in the book, I came away with little respect for the author.

[Navida · Rating 4 out of 5]

A different view of the south. Of southern women. Very enlightening.

[Amy Hopping · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part memoir, part history text, and part family history record, this book brings to life the past of the south. It is full of information about the south and the people who settled it, in general, and about very specific localities and people. Abbott's more personal details, given to her by family members and others, as well as from her childhood memories, take me back to places I know well from my own childhood. She grew up in Hot Springs, Arkansas. She discusses events that took place in areas I have visited often; I now have a new perspective of some of these areas in light of the knowledge I now have.). Although she is of my grandmothers' generation, her description of the south and of the southern way of speaking is as I remember it from my own childhood decades later. One specific piece of information she shares is that most areas of the south are void obvious markers and reminders of the Confederacy, such as statues and roads named after southern generals (though they do exist--as an adult I have moved to an area in which those southern reminders are alive and well). But what is most interesting about the book is her discussion of southern women, as they really were. While historical fiction paints pictures of a south covered entirely by antebellum mansions housing finely dressed, weak, and lazy women, this book explains (as true southerners already know)that most southern residents, regardless of race, were poor and hard working. This book especially focuses on women, pointing out that the stereotype of submissive and meek is incorrect. Southern women, poor or rich, approached life with a purpose. There were jobs to be done, no matter their station. Admittedly, the book has a bit of a negative tone with regards to men, but it is not outright anti-male; it simply seems to point out repeatedly that many men had a proneness to vices. But this is probably more obvious because the book's main characters are its women. Abbott references other works about the south (sometimes pointing out their misconceptions and stereotypes), as well as the journals of southern women. She reminds readers of their feminist roots in generations of women that came before them. Womenfolks cries out for at least a read, if not a place on your bookshelf!

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shirley Abbott was born almost 60 years before me, and published this book before I was born. Still, I found I identified very closely with her main psychic struggle-- "Who are these women that I am a part of and yet apart from?"

The old-timers of my youth would have been roughly contemporaries with Abbott, maybe a little older--between her and her mother--, but I still have the same anxiety of "this will be lost" that she expresses.

As for the book, it is written as a meditation on the topic of Southern women, but I feel like she starts with her strongest thesis "What is the Prototypical Southern Woman?" and that the subsequent topics, not so much grow weaker, but become less compelling for having frontloaded her musings with that initial exploration. It makes for tidy narrative, but ending with "Who are we who have left the South, and why?" kind of leaves me unsatisfied; I am one of those uprooted in that way, so I can easily imagine the reasons others might have had for leaving.

In summary, excellent content, but might have benefitted from reordering.

[AR · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found "Womenfolks: Growing Up Down South" by chance as it was referenced in "Writing Family Histories & Memoirs" by Kirk Polking. I checked it out at the library with the idea that I could learn from Mrs. Abbott's style how to approach telling my own family stories. However, it thouroughly exceeded my expectations as it not only gave me the guidance I was seekeing in that respect, but it also provided historical and sociological perspectives regarding my own Southern roots that have served and will continue to serve as points of reference for my own memoir writing and family story telling. I enjoyed "Womenfolks: Growing Up Down South" on so many different levels that I promptly searched for an out-of-print copy online and ordered my own, marking many passages for future reference. This is truly a must read for all Southern women and those who want to understand us as it dispels the myths created by the media regarding Southern women and the lives they led.

[Christia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Abbott does a wonderful job of capturing the essence of being female in the South. Part autobiography, part social commentary, part history lesson. An excellent read. If you are a Southern woman you will no doubt identify with some portion of this book. The author is originally from Arkansas, and her experiences gave me a better appreciation for the women from the maternal side of my own family, who also happen to be from Arkansas.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a recent emigre (4 years) to the South, I have been searching out accounts of Southerners' experiences and attitudes, both in growing up and the present.

This book was particularly enlightening. Some of Abbott's tales made me realize that "growing up Southern" was and is not all that different from "growing up Nothern" or Western, or whatever. And some helped me better understand the culture in which I've chosen to live.

[Rachel Kopel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Library booksale. I thought it was going to be more *funny* stories about growing up as a southern woman, but it is a very well written sociological approach to the differences that southern girls and women experience, with some very warm and funny references to her own family.

[Denise Gilbert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed how she wove the larger history of immigrants to the South with the earliest threads of her own family history. I was humbled by the strength of the women of her family. It was a very good read.

[Nicolette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some things could have been said more succinctly. After a while, this book just seemed rambling to me. I finished it for the sake of finishing, not because I enjoyed it.