Dillon family wedding anniversary, circa 1903. May Dillon (back row, third from the left); author’s mother, Frances Veronica Dillon (front row, fourth from the left).
Miss Dillon’s Gas Company By Kendric W. Taylor
May Dillon knew that while the gas industry might be thought to be a messy man’s world, it was, in fact, used primarily by the women of Coney Island. Gas stoves and other appliances were taking over the market, and these were women’s tools.
It’s the first day of summer as I write. A dreadful winter is past, and warmly awaited June is here -- a month of endings and beginnings – especially graduations, which are both. This year’s commencement celebrations included participation of one of our editorial number – our publisher – who had the pleasant task of attending, with his wife, two of their granddaughters’ college ceremonies: for a journalist and a lawyer. No doubt others of us on the Natural Traveler masthead – from Maine to Malaysia -- have proudly looked on as one of the young women in their families completed one journey while embarking on the next: one lofty life pinnacle achieved, surely to be followed by others. I myself am closely
following the path of a granddaughter, who just completed her college freshmen year, and whom I am quite certain is odds-on to be the first red-haired woman president of the US. But this was not always so -- as history, and any female, will tell you. Opportunities have improved, yes, with scores of women prominent in almost every profession, but it doesn’t take an historian to remind us it has been a struggle that took centuries to get from there to here, or a pundit to remind us that a complete breakthrough is far from complete: just look at salary inequities. It took immense courage and determination for women to even get out of the house, much less manage to get an education, to get a
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