Alabaster Doves: True Stories of Women Whose Lives Were Characterized by Strength and Gentleness

Most of the women whose life stories are collected here are not well known--Mary Mcleod Bethune, Donalinda Cameron, etc.--or were shadows behind their more famous husbands--Katherine von Bora Luther, Mary Moffat Livingston, etc. Told simply, these women's stories border on sentimentalization; and yet there are saving graces. Mary Livingston's life, for example, which was one of continued desertion by her husband ``for the Glory of God,'' of abject poverty for that same reason and, in later years, of alcoholism, is plainly told without any facile spiritualizing, romanticizing or martyrizing. Another advantage is the relative obscurity of the subjects--their status as the not-famous and the freshness of lives about which most readers will have known little or nothing. Nonetheless, one may find oneself craving more depth and regretting that only the surface has been covered. (Mar.)