A Bonnet for Virginia

by Evelyn M. Frantz

Chronicles events in the life of a thirteen-year-old girl growing up in a large motherless family in nineteenth-century rural Nebraska.

140 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1978

Reviews

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quaint book about growing up as a young Brethren girl in the Nebraska Territory before the 20th Century. While many parts made me giggle because of my own experience with Brethren tradition - like thinking that musical instruments in the church was of the devil - some sections really made me consider the witness of the Brethren in areas of peace and community in a serious way. I was also attentive to the places where gender roles created a lack of opportunities for young girls, which is an unfortunate testimony to our Brethren past, and remains in our Brethren present. My main motivation for reading this memoir was to contribute to my thesis work about the Prayer Covering, which was highlighted in Virginia's desire for a bonnet, and then in the gift of a covering before her first Love Feast.

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was written in the 1970's by a girl who put her Grandmother Virginia's memories of growing up on a farm in the late 1800's in Nebraska into story form.It sounds like a great idea but it got really boring halfway through.It really rubbed me the wrong way when towards the end of the book, Virginia and a friend were going to some church gathering in another town and were riding there in a buggy driven by the family horse Frank. Poor Frank becomes ill and trys to lay down in the road and Virginia whips him a few times with the whip to try to get him to continue on since" its only a couple of miles now." Frank manages to get up and the reach the home where the gathering was to be held.Frank soon collapses and dies there. Nobody in the family shows any sadness or concern for this poor faithful horse that had worked so hard in the fields and otherwise for the family.All they cared about was that he wouldn't be around to work the fields in the coming summer. Her brother Mike who bought the horse originally only said "He was getting old. I was planning to sell him soon anyway." I realize this was the late 1800's and animals had it even worse then than they do now. They were seen as machines to serve man and that's all but that aroused an instinctive anger and disgust in me that I could not control. It ruined the entire book for me and I will never read this book again.

[Gale · Rating 2 out of 5]

THE POWER OF A SIMPLE, BLACK BONNET

This quiet little book of 20 short chapters is based on the diary of a young, teenage girl named Virginia, written presumably by her granddaughter. It stresses the importance of family ties and the sacred trust of honoring one's promises to a dying parent. Over the years we watch Virgie--the baby of a large family--undergo the transformation to Virginia, who comes of age in several ways.
We see her inner struggles to overcome shyness and the social stigma of poverty on the Nebraska plains.

Readers witness the Dunkers' church and their value on outward Conformity. Virginia learns that when the Lord opens a door, one should trust Him enough to go through it; something different and perhaps better may be waiting for us on the other side. He knows His plan for each of his children. With the emphasis on a simple, black bonnet as evidence of church membership, I am reminded of the sweet story, THEE HANNAH, whose young, vain heroine learns the importance of the plain, Quaker bonnet.

(April 17, 2012. I welcome dialogue with teachers.)