Great Aunt Priscilla's Shakespeare on my Shelf

I have written (5/28/11) about how I cherish the few books I have that were my late grandmother’s. I am also very happy to have a beautiful set of Shakespeare’s plays -- small muted-green clothbound books in the Yale Shakespeare collection, published in the 1910s and 1920s -- that were my late Great Aunt Priscilla’s. Aunt Priscilla was almost like a second grandmother to us, as she was very close to my mother’s family, lived with them for a while when she was a teenager, and was dearly loved by all in my mother's large extended family, including my mother and, later, me. I remember our visiting her in the Okanagan Valley when I was a child, and during my early adulthood had the honor and pleasure of showing her and her friends around San Francisco; she loved traveling and loved her friends, and after she became a widow, traveled more than ever. I loved and admired her and learned from her; she was a longtime schoolteacher, respected by everyone in her community, and a very well-read person. She also had a strong sense of justice, and worked for peace and justice in various ways. Although I don’t believe she used the term “feminist” about herself, she was a great example of an independent woman (married, but independent) at a time when not many women were interested in being, or able to be, so strong and independent. She was a great role model for those who knew her, including my aunts, my cousins and me, as well as generations of her students. So when I see her books on my shelf, I think fondly and admiringly of her, and thank her for being the strong, wonderful, influential woman she was.