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GOOD NEWS…Jesse James Soul Liberty has been nominated for the 2013 Spur Award, conferred by the Western Writers of America, in the category of Best Western Non-Fiction-Biography. Winners will be announced in late June at WWA’s annual convention in Las Vegas. Anybody placing any odds?
The former home of Joan Malley Beamis, author of Background of a Bandit. Now the home of Sober Sisters Recovery.
As I say at the end of this article, I learned about Joan Olmsted Oates too late to include her story in JJSL Vol. I. When you read this, you'll know why Joan earned & deserved her own esteemed place in the biographical history of the Jesse James family. Perhaps someday I'll publish an expanded edition of Volume I. The family history of the James continues to grow. There's so much more to add.
ericjames.org/wordpress/2021/11/16/joan-olmsted-oates-arts-in-education/
Joan Olmsted Oates - Lioness of the Arts in Education & First Cousin of Frank & Jesse James
ericjames.org
Being a first cousin of America's historic icons Frank & Jesse James meant nothing to Joan Olmsted Oates. When imagining a purpose and destiny for herself, Joan could point with pride to a constellati...
THE INSPIRATION FOR SEAWARD, the coastal California castle built by Daniel Lewis James Sr.
Medieval Tintagel castle was the inspiration architect Charles Sumner Greene drew upon to move D.L. James to build Seaward in its style. (See JJSL, p.233.)
On the website below, you can interact with historic Tintagel castle and compare Tintagel with Seaward for yourself.
www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/tintagel-castle/history-and-legend/medieval-1240/
Medieval Tintagel Reconstructed
www.english-heritage.org.uk
Find out what Richard of Cornwall's castle at Tintagel would have looked like with this interactive reconstruction.
EXCITING NEWS FROM PARIS, FRANCE . . . We've recently learned that the archives of Charlie Chaplin in Paris have an abundance of material related to our blacklisted, American screenwriter Daniel Lewis James Jr. Dan James story of his relationship with Chaplin is told in the chapter "All For the Underdog" in Jesse James Soul Liberty, Vol. I, Behind the Family Wall of Stigma & Silence.
Nellie Willard Werger pictured below, a granddaughter of Lillith Stanward, Dan's wife, made a substantial contribution of artifacts to the Chaplin archive.
Photos of Dan James with his Leica camera slung around his neck, when he worked on the movie set of The Great Dictator, now compliment the daily notes that Dan wrote during production. Photos Dan took while filming and also off the set also appear in the archive.
One of the images of Dan James that has captivated our attention is a photo of him shirtless, as he worked with Chaplin in a scene where Chaplin is in a mud hole. Dan's shirtless image perfectly displays the broad shoulders and body trunk that is genetic among our James men. This is a physical feature very commonly overlooked by those who seek to authenticate images claimed to be Jesse James.
More regarding this archive of new photos and documents will be appearing soon on our website Stray Leaves.
I'm considering including this image of the actress Sarah Bernhardt in Vol. V of JJSL, a biography of Drury Woodson James. On the morning of April 18, 1906, eighty-two-year-old Drury awakened at his Lenox Hotel to the great San Francisco earthquake. His wife, Mary Louisa Dunn, twenty years Drury's junior, was torn between administering the hotel and its guests and her Catholic Church about to serve the dispossessed. Drury's son-in-law Edward Frederick Burns watched his Turkish Baths at 11 Grant St. burn to the ground. Suddenly Sarah Bernhardt appeared among the ruins. That night she performed Phedre in Berkeley.