Enduring Women - P

Celebration of alternate lifestyles often implies a free choice between blighted urban solutions and healthy rural quaintness, exaggerating the country bliss. Yet the working women profiled here, some impoverished, lacking options in living location or situation, have thrived in spite of their environments. Nora Warren, undaunted by the Texas hurricane that threatened to destroy her shrimping livelihood, refuses to be handicapped by the massive stroke that has left her paralyzed. An aging Radcliffe professor traded her texts for a branding iron by marrying a Montana cowboy. A mother's community activities in Villa Coronado, Tex., helped stabilize the migrant population. Photojournalist Gentry, having adventured some 23,000 miles through the South and West, tenderly relates triumphs and hardships endured by 10 pioneering women during the decade that ended in the mid-1980s, women in traditional family situations. They have in common strong religious beliefs, unabashed creativity and courageassets shown here to be more valuable than money or prestige. Photos. (February 22)