May Talks on Sarah Ridge
Here are the opening paragraphs to my talk given on Sunday, May 18, at The Yellow House Bookstore in Tiverton Four Corners, RI.
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Sarah Ridge Paschal Pix. A name -- until now -- almost never heard outside Chambers County in Southeast Texas where her Texas Historical marker stands by the side of a coastal prairie country road. Her grave lies nearby where I stood in a misty haze on January 8, 1991, after having heard about her when I attended a neighboring county historical society meeting.
During my intense research over three decades for my two-part historical/biographical novel A Woman of Marked Character - The Imagined Portrait of Sarah Ridge Paschal Pix 1812-1891, I discovered a remarkable woman in distant American history....
I uncovered the courage of a little Cherokee girl who grew up in an obscure life in a matrilineal society, one almost lost to history. A tenacious and courageous woman who lived through a time of acculturation into the world of the white man and such a period of upheaval in these United States that most of us can only imagine. Sarah attended mission schools, and was educated far beyond most white girls. Her era was the threshold to "Manifest Destiny" in American history that displaced Native Americans throughout the following hundred years....
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During her first 36 years of life as the daughter of the Ridge family, Sarah witnessed the removal of her family and Cherokee tribe from its homeland. Book One 1812-1848 chronicles her emotions and love for her family in Georgia and Arkansas as she endures the treacherous river passage and the assassinations of her father, brother, and cousin.
At the Yellow House Bookstore
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Several weeks later at the Little Compton (RI) Book Festival, I spoke on my two-part biographical/historical novel A Woman of Marked Character at the Pavilion behind the Brownell Library on the Commons.
I shared with the audience the story of how I discovered my main character, Cherokee Sarah Ridge Paschal Pix, and gave an overview of Book One (published last November) and Book Two (released in April) in the biographical/historical series.
I ended my talk with "Why does Sarah matter today?"
Sarah Ridge Paschal Pix never made it into textbooks. Yet her life intersects with so many crucial threads of 19th-century American history: the forced removal of the Cherokee, interracial marriage, the Civil War, Texas frontier life, and the evolving roles of women.
In her, we see the cost of national expansion. We see the resilience of women at the margins.
In writing A Woman of Marked Character, I’ve tried to honor her spirit—the grit, the grace, her courage.
I gleaned from Sarah's existing letters her love of her family and determination to persevere through unspeakable tragedies. She lived a fruitful and prosperous life, yet endured those tragedies and navigated both racial prejudice and gender expectations.
Sarah is a woman of her time—and a woman ahead of it.
Little Compton Book Festival May 2025
Thumbnail photo credit Sarah Ridge Paschal circa 1842, courtesy of McNeir Family photos, digitized by Paul Ridenour. All others copyright Nancy Stanfield Webb 2025.