Augusta Jane Evans Early years What were her early years like? She was born Augusta Jane Evans on May 8, 1835, in Columbus, Georgia, Did she stay in Columbus for her entire childhood? scarcely ten when they moved to San Antonio, Texas, in 1845. Was she poor growing up? Her father suffered bankruptcy and lost the family's Sherwood Hall property in the 1840s. Did things ever improve for her family? I don't know. Did she have any brothers or sisters? family of ten
Was her childhood overall happy?
Was Augusta Jane Evans childhood overall happy?
She was born Augusta Jane Evans on May 8, 1835, in Columbus, Georgia, the eldest child of the family. The area of her birth was then known as Wynnton (now MidTown). Her mother was Sarah S. Howard and her father was Matthew R. Evans. She was a descendant on her mother's side from the Howards, one of the most cultured families of Georgia. As a young girl in 19th-century America, she received little in the way of a formal education. However, she became a voracious reader at an early age.  Her father suffered bankruptcy and lost the family's Sherwood Hall property in the 1840s. He moved his family of ten from Georgia for Alabama, and scarcely ten when they moved to San Antonio, Texas, in 1845. When the Mexican-American War had ended, and everything was in a disorganized condition, consequently there were no schools of any prominence. Had her mother not been cultivated and literary, Evans could never have obtained the education which fitted her for the work she later accomplished. During the Mexican war, San Antonio was the rendezvous for the United States troops sent to assist General Zachary Taylor, and the brilliant uniforms of the soldiery, the martial music, and the exciting events that accompany war, combined with the picturesque, enchanting scenery around San Antonio, furnished an excellent theme for Evans' first novel. In 1850, at the age of fifteen, she wrote Inez: A Tale of the Alamo, a sentimental, moralistic, anti-Catholic love story. It told the story of one orphan's spiritual journey from religious skepticism to devout faith. She presented the manuscript to her father as a Christmas gift in 1854. It was published anonymously in 1855.  However, life in a frontier border town like San Antonio proved dangerous, especially with the Mexican-American War. By 1849, Evans' parents moved the family to Mobile, Alabama. She wrote her next novel, Beulah, at age 18; it was published in 1859. Beulah began the theme of female education in her novels. It sold well, selling over 22,000 copies during its first year of publication, a staggering accomplishment. It established her as Alabama's first professional author. Her family used the proceeds from her literary success to purchase Georgia Cottage on Springhill Avenue. CANNOTANSWER
she became a voracious reader at an early age.
Home: A Memoir of My Early Years is a best-selling memoir written by Julie Andrews.  It was published on April 1, 2008, by Hyperion.

Home tells the story of Julie Andrews' life up until 1963, when she left England for Hollywood to shoot Mary Poppins and is part one of a two-part memoir, with the second part Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years, released over 11 years later in October 2019. While it includes dark childhood memories of surviving the London Blitz and attempts by her step-father Ted Andrews to molest her, the book overall presents a happy vision of Andrews's childhood. She has said in an interview that the book The Little Gray Men and her father Ted Wells were her inspirations and source of influence as an author, along with Charles Dickens, among others. Andrews revealed in the book that Wells was not, in fact, her natural father; her biological father had been a family friend with whom her mother had had a brief affair.

The book received a generally positive critical reception.  The Los Angeles Times described it as "immensely readable"  and The New York Times praised the quality of the prose. Home was #1 on the New York Times Best Seller List of non-fiction adult titles on April 27, 2008.

References 

British memoirs
2008 non-fiction books Margaretta Large "Happy" Rockefeller (née Fitler, formerly Murphy; June 9, 1926 – May 19, 2015) was a philanthropist and the second wife of the 49th governor of New York and 41st vice president of the United States, Nelson Rockefeller (1908–1979). She was first lady of New York from 1963 to 1973, and second lady of the United States from 1974 to 1977.

Childhood and family
Margaretta Large Fitler was born at Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, in 1926. Her parents were Margaretta Large Harrison and  William Wonderly Fitler Jr., an heir to a cordage fortune.  Her mother would subsequently remarry. The younger Margaretta was known by her nickname, "Happy", given to her for her childhood disposition. She was a great-granddaughter of Philadelphia mayor Edwin Henry Fitler and a great-great-granddaughter of Union general George Gordon Meade, the commander at the Battle of Gettysburg, and his wife Margaretta Sergeant, daughter of politician John Sergeant.

Marriages

On December 11, 1949, she married James Slater Murphy, a virologist associated with the Rockefeller Institute and a close friend of Nelson Rockefeller's. They had four children: James B. Murphy, II, Margaretta Harrison Murphy, Carol Slater Murphy, and Malinda Fitler Murphy (1960–2005). Malinda married Francis Menotti, the adopted son of composer Gian Carlo Menotti.

Happy and her husband divorced on April 1, 1963, for reasons The New York Times called "grievous mental anguish" and her former husband's lawyer classified as "irreconcilable differences".  One month later – on May 4, 1963 – at the home of Laurance S. Rockefeller in Pocantico Hills, New York, Happy married Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who had taken office in 1959 and was eighteen years her senior. She had worked as a member of his office staff until her resignation in 1961. Nelson divorced his first wife, Mary Todhunter Clark, on March 16, 1962. Happy and Nelson Rockefeller had two sons together: Nelson Rockefeller Jr. (born 1964), and Mark Rockefeller (born 1967).

At the time, Happy Murphy's relationship with Gov. Rockefeller was controversial. As the British journalist Lady Jeanne Campbell wrote in the London Evening Standard, when the Murphy-Rockefeller involvement became a subject of media scrutiny after the announcement of Rockefeller's filing for divorce from his first wife and Happy Murphy's resignation from his staff, "Already people are comparing Happy Murphy to the Duchess of Windsor when she was plain Mrs. Simpson." More damaging still was the political fallout for Rockefeller. Echoing the party-wide concerns, an official of the Michigan Republican Party told The New York Times that the couple's potential marriage likely would cost Rockefeller the 1964 presidential nomination. "The rapidity of it all—he gets a divorce, she gets a divorce—and the indication of the break-up of two homes. Our country doesn't like broken homes."

Despite some people's disapproval, Rockefeller was re-elected as governor twice more and served until 1973, when he resigned. He was appointed Vice President of the United States by President Gerald Ford, after Richard Nixon resigned, and served from 1974 to 1977.

There has been speculation surrounding Malinda Fitler Menotti, the youngest daughter of Happy Rockefeller and Dr. James Slater Murphy, with many in the Rockefeller inner circle believing her to be Nelson Rockefeller's daughter.  In his diary, Rockefeller intimate Ken Riland used a tone of knowing irony when mentioning Malinda, putting the word stepfather in quotes. Ellen, the wife of Wally Harrison, the architect and Nelson Rockefeller confidant, claimed that Malinda's parentage was an open secret among Rockefeller associates.

Health and death
She was a breast cancer survivor, having undergone a double mastectomy in 1974, two weeks after Betty Ford, then First Lady of the United States, underwent a single mastectomy. Happy Rockefeller died on May 19, 2015, at the age of 88, following a short illness.

See also

 Rockefeller family

References

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1926 births
2015 deaths
American socialites
First Ladies and Gentlemen of New York (state)
New York (state) Republicans
People from Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
People from Manhattan
Rockefeller family
Second Ladies of the United States
Meade family Jillian Kesner-Graver (August 9, 1949 – December 5, 2007) was an American actress and historian who worked with her husband, Gary Graver, to preserve the work and legacy of director Orson Welles. She was best known as an actress for playing Fonzie's girlfriend, Lorraine, on Happy Days.

Early life
Kesner-Graver was born in Portsmouth, Virginia. Her father was in the United States Navy and she spent much of her childhood in Denver, Colorado. She first moved to Los Angeles in 1959 where she worked as a model before getting into television and movie acting.

Career
Kesner-Graver was best known for playing Fonzie's girlfriend, Lorraine, on Happy Days. She was credited as Jillian Kesner on Happy Days, as well as her other television and movie roles. She appeared in a large number of "B-rated" films throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.  Her credits included Raw Force, Starhops and Jaded. She developed a large following among fans of B-level action films.

She appeared on a number of television shows, including Three's Company, The Rockford Files and Mork & Mindy. She met her husband, director and cinematographer, Gary Graver, on the set of the film The Student Body in 1976.

Death
Jillian Kesner-Graver died on December 5, 2007, in Irvine, California of complications from a staph infection, which she contracted after having been diagnosed with leukemia. She was 58 years old.

Filmography

Film

Television

References

External links

1949 births
2007 deaths
Actresses from Virginia
American film actresses
American television actresses
Infectious disease deaths in California
Deaths from staphylococcal infection
People from Portsmouth, Virginia
20th-century American actresses
Deaths from leukemia
Deaths from cancer in California
21st-century American women