Home for Erring and Outcast Girls

Home for Erring and Outcast Girls

Adult historical fiction
The Berachah Home in Arlington, Texas really did exist. During
the time it was open (1903-1935) it helped three thousand girls and
women, most with at least one child, reclaim their lives. This was
radical in a time when a female, once "fallen," was considered beyond
hope, even if she'd lost her "virtue" by rape, and often any resulting
children were also considered beyond redemption. The home taught the
vocational skills of its day that would enable self and child
support. It also allowed women not comfortable with the outside world
to stay. Most unusually, unwed mothers were allowed to keep their
babies rather than have them handed over to "better" families. Julie
Kibler's Home for Erring and Outcast Girls tells the alternating
stories of three women whose lives were touched in one way or another
by the institution.
Lizzie and her very young daughter, Docie, referred to Berachah
by a jail keeper, were barely clinging to life. Lizzie was not only
starving and exhausted, but hooked on the heroin that had been foisted
on her by the bosses who had used and discarded her. As she healed
physically and emotionally she came to see Berachah as a safe haven in
a perilous world, a place she wanted herself and Docie to stay in
basically forever.
Lizzie's best friend, Mattie, had come to Berachah to try to
save her desperately ill son Cap's life. He died the night they
arrived. Brought back from despair, she became a kitchen worker with
great cooking skills. Unlike Lizzie, she knew that she would
eventually rejoin the outside world.
Cate, a reclusive 21st century librarian working in her
university's archives collection, is fascinated with their collection
of Barachah documents and the nearby cemetery of the home. She studies
them whenever she gets a chance. She knows those no longer living
people far more intimately than she knows any of her contemporaries.
She considers the former inmates to be her girls and has two favorites.
"...Two women I've come to regard as having souls that mirrored
each other in spite of vastly different beginnings--and likely, their
endings too. Two women I've come to adore as if I've known them
forever, though I've never met them. By now, they've both been gone
for decades."
Because the long deceased can't hurt her the way the living
have? Because she has much more in common with her girls than she
realizes?
How about you read the book and decide for yourself?
On a purrrsonal note, this week has been an emotional roller coaster
for me. Wednesday we had amazing weather for a pop up book sale to
benefit Orono Public Library I volunteered at. We had lots of
customers. We took in $165. I was waiting to see if UMaine would
require vaccines. When I learned yes I was feeling on top of the
world. The next morning when I met the manager I'll be working for
and she seemed awesome and I saw so many people who love me and have
missed me I felt like I'm coming home. Then my daughter told me that
UMaine may very well shut down again in October with Delta strain
soaring and not enough people getting the vaccine and my heart sank.
If I can't work enough weeks I'll run out of tuition money. All I
want to do is stay in school part time. Is that too much to want? In
a few weeks I'll probably giving orientation tours for incoming grad
students, projecting positivity while inwardly wondering if we'll
still be there on Halloween. I feel very angry with the people
putting false information that scares people from getting the vaccine
on the Internet. If the human race survives COVID I can't imagine
what future people will have to say about all the opportunities to
curb it we missed. (Jules).
I feels for my hoomans. (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to the scientists and others who are
working to turn things around.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway


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