Page 12 - Palm City Spotlight - March '21

Page 12, Palm City Spotlight

Book Review

Book Of Ages: The Life And forgotten … until I scanned my Edward Mecom Marryed to Jane
collection for a book to consider for
Franklin the 27th of July 1727
Opinions Of Jane Franklin this review column. Through the years, she would add
The result is one of the most many entries, including the births
By Nils A. Shapiro compelling, most emotionally moving, of 12 children and the deaths of 11
I am not one who most impressive works of history I of them. Hers was not an easy life,
generally makes it a point have ever had the good fortune to but one that participated in the great
to reread books I have experience. More than once, as I events of her time and our nation’s
already enjoyed a first finished a chapter, I put this book history.
time; there are so many down for a few minutes and simply After serving as a printer and
new books being published sat quietly, pondering with a deep bookseller in Philadelphia, Benjamin
every day on subjects that empathy the life of Jane Franklin, the had gone to England and lived there
interest me. But while youngest of her parents’ 17 children, for decades during the colonial period,
watching on television seven girls and 10 boys. The youngest developing his reputation there
the recent inauguration of of her brothers was Benjamin, who (fathering a bastard son during that
the first woman to hold was six years older than her. Jenny and time) and returning home for visits only
the office of Vice President of the United States, the Benny (as they were called) would be once every 10 years. His relationship
historic import of the moment suddenly made me think close, caring and adoring brother and with Jane, as loving and close as it
of another woman I had read about several years ago sister for all their lives, into old age, truly was, was therefore limited to
– one who had lived in a very different America. I had the last of their family to survive. But their two-way correspondence of
been deeply touched by her story, had reviewed at the that is the only thing they had in common. hundreds of letters that were carried by mutual friends
time a splendidly written biography of her in this column Benjamin, who left home at the age of 15 and did not across the Atlantic.
and highly recommended it. I now read that book again return for decades, would come to be revered throughout Through these letters we become first-hand witnesses
after finding it among the hundreds of volumes in my the world as statesman, philosopher, scientist, author, to the founding of our nation as she experienced them,
home office library and, after first intending to write businessman, man of letters, governor, our nation’s first an average colonist in Boston: “the shot heard ‘round
a new review comparing that woman’s very different diplomat – a signer of the Declaration of Independence the world” that lit the flame of the Revolution; the mob
circumstances to today’s America, in which women are and Constitution – while Jane would marry at 15 a man of colonists disguised as Mohawks who attacked the
playing an ever-increasing role, I decided that my original who failed at everything, borrowed his way into debtors’ British ship in the harbor to protest the tea tax, an event
review, presented here, has stood the test of time. prison and eventually went mad. She bore 12 children that became known as the Tea Party; the secret meetings
***** and buried 11 of them. Because she was a woman in the in taverns, the rumors of uprisings, Paul Revere’s ride to
When we learn history, it is almost always by reading 1700s, Jane was taught to read so that she could pray in warn of the British invasion, and much more. Jane wrote
about the events and lives of the most famous people church, but was not taught to write because women of to her brother of all that was happening around her, and
of their times, and their achievements. There are rare her day were taught instead to cook, sew, and learn other her fear of the coming war.
exceptions, and I have reviewed one or two such books appropriate household duties. Across the Atlantic, Benjamin – though acclaimed and
in past Review columns; A Day in the Life of Ancient However, Jane was intelligent. She taught herself celebrated in England over a period of many years – was
Rome comes to mind. to write by sounding out the words, so she wrote now sending secret messages of his own to contacts in the
This month’s selection is another – a book I came phonetically, and apologized for her poor spelling in colonies, providing valuable information about the king’s
upon strictly by chance while browsing through a local almost every letter she wrote. At one point she wanted military plans, until one of his messages was intercepted
bookstore, which is where I discovered what turned out her brother to know that she admired how he had handled by a traitor and he was deported from England. In the
to be this remarkable literary treasure. himself in an appearance before the British Parliament. colonies, his own son, the Governor of New Jersey,
What led me to select it from the thousands of other She wrote, “Yr. Ansurs to the Parlement are thought by continued to be a Royalist who protested against the
volumes on this store’s shelves I have no idea. I had never the best Judges to Exeed all that has been wrot on the Revolution and was eventually branded a traitor to the
heard of the book, nor of the woman whose life story it subject, & being given in the manner they were are a new nation.
tells. Indeed, I never even knew that Benjamin Franklin Proof they Proceeded from Prinsiple.” Perhaps the most striking, and saddest, example of the
had a sister! The book’s title, Book of Ages, is taken from one that difference in Benjamin’s and Jane’s status is the fact that
But that fact did surprise and intrigue me. And the Jane herself created, “the paper made from rags, soaked hundreds of Benjamin Franklin’s letters are preserved
excerpts of glowing reviews on the back cover, together and pulped and strained and dried. Her thread was made in archives and are worth fortunes today, whereas the
with the fact that the book was a finalist for the coveted from flax, and spun and twisted and dyed...” Its purpose first letter from Jane that survives is one she wrote not
National Book Award when published in 2013, was was to record dates: the births and deaths of her family. to her brother but to his wife (who had stayed behind in
enough to convince me to make the purchase. And so, Her first entries were of her husband and her own: Philadelphia, did not see Benjamin for years at a time,
Book of Ages came home with me, where it has rested Edward Mecom Senr Born in December 1704
among my personal library shelves ever since, almost Jane Franklin Born on March 27 – 1712 Book Review on page 13

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