May 2- Edith Anna Oenone Somervile born

Occurring in Women's History today:

1676 - Mary Rowlandson is released from her captivity by Indians in King Philip�s War. She published the tales of her captivity in 1682. Her tale is the first in the genre of captivity narratives. In 1676, a group of Nipmunk and Narragansett Indians attacked the town of Lancaster, where Mary Rowlandson a/k/a Mary White was living, burned the town and captured many of the settlers. Rowlandson and her three children were among them. Three months after her capture, she was ransomed for �20. Her daughter, Sarah (6), died in captivity from her wounds, and her two surviving children were released soon after.

Source: http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/mary.html


1858 - Edith Anna Oenone Somervile was born in Castle Townshend, Ireland and was brought up in her family�s 18th century house in West Cork. She was a suffragist, a huntswoman (she was the first woman master of foxhounds and was master of the West Carberry Pack), was president of the Munster Women�s Franchise League, was an artist (she trained as an artist in London and Paris and exhibited her work as an artist in the 1920s and 1930s, and she was a lesbian (she was companion to lesbian composer Ethel Smyth) .

Source: http://www.glbtq.com/literature/somerville_martin.html