BRUNONIA BARRY
The Lace Reader
To my wonderful husband, Gary, and to my sister-in-law Joanne’s magical red hair
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MY NAME IS TOWNER WHITNEY. No, that’s not exactly true. My real first name is Sophya. Never believe me. I lie all the time.
I am a crazy woman…That last part is true.
My little brother, Beezer, who is kinder than I, says the craziness is genetic. We’re from five generations of crazy, he says, as if it were a badge he’s proud to wear, though he admits that I may have taken it to a new level.
Until I came along, the Whitney family was what the city of Salem fondly refers to as “quirky.” If you were old Salem money, even if that money was long gone, you were never referred to as “crazy.” You might be deemed “unusual,” or even “oddball,” but the hands-down-favorite word for such a condition was “quirky.”
Throughout the generations the Whitney men have all become famous for their quirks: from the captains of sea and industry all the way down to my little brother, Beezer, who is well known within scientific circles for his articles on particle physics and string theory.
Our great-great-grandfather, for example, parlayed a crippling preoccupation with ladies’ feet into a brilliant career as a captain of industry in Lynn’s thriving shoe business, creating a company that was passed down through the generations all the way to my grandfather G. G. Whitney. Our great-great-great-grandfather, who was a legitimate captain in his own right, had a penchant for sniffing cinnamon that many considered obsessive. Eventually he built a fleet of spice-trading ships that traveled the globe and made Salem one of the richest ports in the New World.
Still, anyone would admit that it is the women of the Whitney family who have taken quirky to a new level of achievement. My mother, May, for example, is a walking contradiction in terms. A dedicated recluse who (with the exception of her arrests) hasn’t left her home on Yellow Dog Island for the better part of twenty years, May has nevertheless managed to revive a long-defunct lace-making industry and to make herself famous in the process. She has gained considerable notoriety for rescuing abused women and children and turning their lives around, giving the women a place in her lace-making business and home-educating their children. All this from a raging