Biography about mary hoehling

Mary Duprey Hoehling, a former Bethesda resident and author of popular histories, died Dec. 7 at a nursing home in Venice, Fla.
Hoehling was an author of popular history books.
Mary Duprey Hoehling 1914-2004.

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Disguised as a boy, pretty Sarah Edmundson volunteered in the Michigan Infantry and fought as a private in the Civil War. Field nurse, secret agent, dispatch rider, her courage and compassion made her a great heroine of the Union Army.

Born in the Canadian wilderness, Sarah could hunt and plough as well as any boy, and frontier families blessed her nursing skill. At seventeen she fell in love with handsome James Vance, but learned that her father had promised her in marriage to a repulsive old man. She ran away and found refuge with friends in a distant town until her hideout was discovered. In desperation she fled to the United States, disguised as a boy. There she became "Franklin Thompson", earning her living as a book salesman. When Fort Sumter fell and volunteers mobilized for war, she made an extraordinary decision -- to fight for her adopted country, risking her life and the exposure of her identity.

It seems astounding that Sarah Edmundson survived death by disease and death under fire; that she lived with the soldiers but was never detected as a woman. Yet only a

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YANKEE IN THE WHITE HOUSE

The career of John Quincy Adams spans the first fifty years of our nation's history and from this viewpoint, the biography is worth reading. Students of history can follow the intricate acts of diplomacy sponsored by our new government, the clash between Federalists and Republicans, the emergence of the Democrats from a split in Republican ranks. However, the biography itself, as rendered by Mary Hoehling, is too idealized and uncritical to create a realistic portrait. One cannot quarrel with the author's skill in research as each aspect of Adams' career is recorded from his boyhood at Braintree, his assignments all over Europe in the role of diplomat, his work as Secretary of State and his final ascent to the Presidency. The details of his personal life are also duly recorded. Though many vital changes took place between the leadership of Washington and Lincoln (the years that John Quincy Adams served his country) this book is more a eulogy to its hero than a dynamic and human appraisal.

Pub Date: April 1, 1963

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

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Flamboyant showman, starry-eyed dreamer, dedicated scientist, Thaddeus Lowe with his billowing balloon can justly be called the Founding Father of the United States Air Force, because of the balloon equipment and aerial reconnaissance techniques he developed during the Civil War.

A self-taught cobbler's son from New Hampshire, Lowe was interested in the science of flight and one of his boyhood experiments was a plan to send a huge kite aloft with a cat in it to test its reaction to altitude. He became fascinated by balloons and at twenty-two was a carnival balloonist taking passengers aloft at so much a head. A student of wind currents and gases, he made elaborate plans to fly a balloon across the Atlantic and was making a test over land, coming down for fuel in South Carolina, just as the Civil War broke out. Because of his very apparent Yankee accent and his strange paraphernalia, he was nearly hanged on the spot as a spy.

He offered his services to the Union Army and despite the skepticism of the generals about military balloons, Lowe gave a demonstration for President Lincol