1950's Culture
This actress won the Best Actress Oscar for "The Country Girl" in 1954, then left Hollywood two years later to become Princess of Monaco.
Who is Grace Kelly?
Joan and Mike's lake adventures got more exciting when this fell off their houseboat.
What is the engine?
This is the state flower of Oklahoma, where Joan was born.
What is the Oklahoma rose?
Log Cabin, Grandmother's Flower Garden, Double Wedding Ring, and Lone Star are all names for specific types of this craft.
What are quilts?
Joan held this job title until 1981 before becoming Director of the Joplin Public Library.
What is reference librarian?
This 1951 film, starring Marlon Brando as a brutish New Orleans husband, was adapted from a Tennessee Williams play.
What is "A Streetcar Named Desire"?
At her first AC/DC concert, Joan became an instant hero by passing around these.
What are binoculars?
Passed down from Joan's mother, this perennial daisy relative — the cultivar 'Clara Curtis' — belongs to this genus.
What is Chrysanthemum?
A quilt pieced together from a hodgepodge of mismatched fabric scraps is called this.
What is a crazy quilt?
In Texas, Joan also worked in this specialized branch of librarianship.
What is a children's librarian?
This 1954 Supreme Court case declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional.
What is Brown v. Board of Education?
On his first visit to Joan's house, Mike left this behind on purpose — an excuse to come back.
What is his pipe?
This term describes a plant that completes its whole life cycle — sprouting, flowering, seeding, dying — in a single growing season.
What is an annual?
This famous artist, writer, and poet, held by the Met, MoMA, and the Whitney, had his love letters to Joan featured in his 2024 biography.
Who is Joe Brainard?
Joan's adult fiction follows a heroine typically in danger—hence the genre's name.
What is "woman-in-jeopardy" (romantic suspense)?
This '50's novel's teen narrator rants about "phonies" — and it's banned from more classrooms than almost any other book.
What is "The Catcher in the Rye"?
Joan's father had two middle names — one given at birth, one he chose for himself.
What are Sydney and Trixie?
This fragrant, fast-growing climbing vine in the genus Lonicera is beloved for its scent and notorious for taking over fences.
What is honeysuckle?
Invented in 1842, this sun-exposure photo process was used by botanist Anna Atkins in the first photographically illustrated book, in 1843.
What is a cyanotype (sun print)?
Unlike today, in the 1980s an author like Joan needed one of these before a publisher would even look at a manuscript.
What is a literary agent?
In 1955, this contralto became the first Black artist to perform at the Metropolitan Opera.
Who is Marian Anderson?
The name Betsy was inspired partly by a 1940s book series about Betsy and this neighbor.
Who is Tacy?
The Chrysanthemum genus belongs to this enormous plant family — also home to daisies, sunflowers, and asters.
What is Asteraceae (the aster/daisy family)?
O'Keeffe's paintings of sun-bleached animal skulls were often set against the high desert near this New Mexico village, where she eventually made her home.
What is Abiquiú, New Mexico?
Joan wrote three novels — "Edge of Darkness," "Gently Down the Stream," and this one, with a title straight out of an insurance dispute.
What is "Death Claim"?