June Dates in Women's History by Susan G. Butruille

June Dates in Women's History
by Susan G. Butruille

June takes its name from the Roman goddess Juno known to the Greeks as Hera, protector of women and their sexuality and marriage--hence, June is the month of weddings. A competitive festival to Hera, held every four years, was the forerunner of the Olympic Games.

Father's Day is celebrated in the U.S. on the first Sunday in June. It was not an official U.S. holiday until 1972. Inspiration for Father's Day has at least two versions. One credits Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, WA, for honoring her father, a single parent of six children. Another credits Grace Golden Clayton, whose father was one of 361 men killed in a 1907 mining disaster near Monongah, West Virginia. In Catholic Europe, fathers have been celebrated on March 19 since the Middle Ages.
Mid-June: Rice planting festivals in Japan. Women honor the Shinto rice deity with special songs and prayers as they plant.
June 3, 1906 Birth of Josephine Baker, American-born dancer and singer who won fame in Europe, mostly in France. She also served as a spy for the French Resistance during World War II.
June 4, 1920 The Woman Suffrage Amendment passed Congress to go to the states for ratification, which barely passed on August 26, 1920.
June 7-15 Vestalia, celebration of purification and preparation of first fruits, honoring Vesta, Roman goddess of fire. In their homes, barefoot Roman matrons made offerings of food baked on their own hearths. Vestal virgins, who tended the sacred fires of Vesta in her temple, made offerings of sacred cakes called mola salsa, made from first crops, then cleaned the temple. First fruits festivals are universal and still celebrated particularly within indigenous communities.
June 10, 1977 Medal of Honor restored to Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, a Civil War surgeon who won the medal in 1865 and saw it revoked in 1917 due to "ambiguities" in her status as a soldier.
June 10, 1692 Bridget Bishop was executed in Salem, Massachusetts for "witchcraft," one of perhaps 20 victims.
June 10, 1833 Birth of Pauline Cushing -- actor and Union spy during the Civil War.
June 11, 1880 Birth of Jeannette Rankin of Montana, first woman elected to Congress, and the only legislator to vote against U.S. entry in both World War I and World War II.
June 14 Flag Day commemorates the adoption of the United States flag by the Second Continental Congress in 1777.
June 14, 1811 Birth of Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and author, best known for "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which caused an uproar over slavery.
June 16, 1976 Seven hundred children were murdered in the Soweto Massacre in South Africa for refusing to learn the language of Afrikaans.
June 16, 1975 Junko Tabei, Japanese mountaineer, became the first woman to summit Mount Everest, and the first woman to climb the highest peak on every continent.
June 16 Birth of geneticist Barbara McClintock, whose research in genetic transformation was dismissed for decades by other, mostly male, geneticists, who called her work "crazy." At the age of 81, McClintock won the Nobel Prize for her work in physiology and medicine.
June 17, 1872 Susan B. Anthony was brought to trial for voting as "a citizen."
June 17, 1865 Birth of Susan La Flesche Picotte, first American Indian woman to receive a medical degree, known for her medical work and leadership among her Omaha people.
June 18, 1983 Sally Ride became America's first woman astronaut.
June 19, 1945 Birth of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese opposition leader, human rights activist, and winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.
June 21 Summer Solstice, observed with bonfires and, during medieval times, witch burnings.
June 23, 1940 Birth of Wilma Rudolph, who overcame childhood polio to win three gold medals in track in the 1960 Olympic Games.
June 23, 1972 Title IX of the Education Amendments signed by President Richard Nixon. This legislation guaranteed equal access in education, including sports.
June 25, 1903 Marie Curie defended her doctoral thesis on radioactive substances at Sorbonne University in Paris, and went on to win two Nobel Prizes, one in physical science and one in chemistry.
June 25, 1881 Birth of suffragist and pacifist Crystal Eastman, co-founder in 1920 of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
June 26, 1902 Birth of Antonia Brico, Dutch-born conductor and pianist, and the first woman to be recognized as a world-class symphony conductor. The founder of the Brico Symphony Orchestra (now the Denver Philharmonic Orchestra) settled in Denver, Colorado, where she taught piano to Judy Collins, who, much to Brico's chagrin, became a folksinger. The film Antonia: A Portrait of a Woman, documents Brico's life.
June 26, 1914 Birth of Babe Didrickson Zaharias, once called "the world's greatest athlete." She excelled in every sport she tried, won Olympic medals in track and field, and became famous as a golfer.
June 27, 1880 Birth of Helen Keller, who overcame blindness and deafness to graduate from Radcliffe College. She spoke three languages, and became a speaker, an author and advocate for people with disabilities.
June 27, 1918 Portland physician Marie Equi arrested for anti-war speech in Portland.
June 28, 1838 Coronation of Queen Victoria in Westminster Abbey.
June 28, 1969 Beginning of the gay rights movement when gays fought back against police harassment at the Stonewall Bar in Greenwich Village, New York.
June 29, 1779 Margaret Cochran Corbin received an allowance for her heroism after filling her slain husband's battle station.
June 30, 1917 Birth of Lena Horne, singer, actor, dancer, and civil rights activist who fought to guarantee that African Americans could attend her shows.

THE PIANO PLAYER
by Susan G. Butruille

My dad, Dr. R.J. (Griff) Greffenius, taught me how to play the piano. I remember the metronome's arm ticking back and forth on top of the upright piano Mother and Dad bought used when they married in 1935. Dad would sit beside me, counting with the metronome to make sure I got the rhythm right.

That was one thing about Dad. You had to get it right. To this day, if there's one thing I can get right when I play the piano, it's counting. Another thing I get right is the feel for the song. I didn't get that from Dad though. I got it from Mother. I learned how to feel the song from listening to Mother sing while Dad or I played.

The night I met the piano player, Mother and I weren't thinking about music. We were thinking about Dad. The doctors at the hospital had told us he would live only a few more days. We'd been with Dad all day, reading and talking to him, playing some of his favorite recorded music.

That night Mother and I needed a refuge from our vigil so we escaped to a quiet restaurant. We sat down, ordered wine, gazed at the menu, couldn't think of much to say. Our thoughts were back at the hospital. Slowly, the mellow notes of a piano filtered into our consciousness. We began to realize that whoever was playing the piano was reviewing Mother and Dad's life together, in the music they lived and loved and danced to.

We listened in silence to "Stardust."

"The piano player puts such feeling into that song," Mother said, breaking our silence. "I think we danced to it the first time we met." Her eyes glistened. "We met at a dance, you remember."

Mother smiled as her memory glided back in time to the small Colorado town where the pretty blond college coed danced with the tall, handsome forest ranger. "He wasn't a very good dancer then," Mother said as the piano player continued with strains of "Dancing in the Dark."

"Your dad didn't feel the music like I did," she said. "I learned how to dance from my dad, just by getting the rhythm of it. But your dad learned by counting: slow . . . slow . . . quick . . . quick . . ." So they learned to dance together -- Mother feeling it, Dad counting.

Now the piano player, without being asked, was playing all of Mother's requests. "Walkin' My Baby Back Home" . . . "Anniversary Waltz" . . . "A Cottage for Sale" . . . "The Man I Love" . . . "April in Paris" . . . Most of the songs were from the '30s, when Mother and Dad married, learned to dance together, started their family, and welcomed my brother, their first child. Some songs were from the '40s, when I was born.

Mother and Dad danced through their lives together, not always in rhythm. But any sour notes they shared never sounded on the dance floor. Wherever they lived, they were the most elegant dancers in town.

Mother and I finished our food and wine to the accompaniment of my parents' musical past. Soon it was time to leave. But first I had some unfinished business. I made my way to the bar where a man about my age sat at the piano. He was playing "Tenderly." As the tune ended he glanced in my direction. I explained about my dad, and told the piano player how much his music had meant to my mother and me.

"I'm so sorry," he said. I could tell he was a lot more comfortable playing the piano than offering sympathy to a stranger. He positioned his hands over the keys, ready to play another song. Then he turned to me.

"You know," he said, "sometimes you sit here and make the music, and you wonder if anyone's listening. If anyone cares."

He thought for a moment. "Tell your mother this one's especially for her." And he began to play again.

"Thanks for the memories . . ."

Thank you so much.

Mother and I drove back to the hospital. To say thanks to Dad. For the memories. For the music.

There's a post script to this story. Sometime after Dad died, I sent a copy of this story to the piano player, addressed to him in care of the restaurant. I soon received a letter -- not from him but from his mother. The piano player had died of a heart attack the month before. In her letter, his mother told me that her son had come home one night with a smile on his face. "I think I helped someone tonight," he told her. The news of his death deepened the loss I already was feeling. But I was glad I had thanked the piano player.

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