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Book Reviews63 past, much like the rich mixture ofPhiladelphians who shaped it over the past three centuries. William C. KashatusChester County Historical Society Love is the Hardest Lesson: A Memoir. By Margaret Hope Bacon. Pendle Hill Publications, 1999. viii + 143 pp. Illustrations. $10. Quaker historian and biographer Margaret Hope Bacon writes of her experience during World War II when she joined her recently married husband, Allen Bacon, as he was assigned as a conscientious objector to work as an attendant at the Springfield State Hospital in Maryland. Sykesville, as the mental hospital was commonly called, was alarmingly understaffed and overcrowded with patients suffering from a range of afflictions including tuberculosis, alcoholism, syphilis, and schizophrenia. Bacon makes a passing reference to The Snake Pit, and indeed conditions at Sykesville were similar: the medical staffrelied heavily on Paraldehyde to keep the patients sedated and electric shock as their primary treatment; lobotomies were introduced toward the end ofthe Bacons' service there. In the course of the narrative, Bacon comes to understand that "perhaps the great impersonal hospital itselfwas the problem, more of a social ill than the sickness it had been established to cure." This is history from a subjective viewpoint. Much of the material was first recorded in the form of short stories and a novel, which remain unpublished ; in returning it to memoir Bacon has continued to disguise names and to condense and arrange the narrative to elucidate her theme, which she states in her introduction as "an exploration ofthe spiritual basis from which nonviolence must spring, and the power of love to reach through incredible barriers and teach its lessons to the human heart." Her title, taken from William Penn, reinforces this theme: "Love is the hardest lesson in Christianity but for that reason it should be most our care to learn it." On the level ofsocial history, the memoir fleshes out our understanding of the experience of conscientious objectors during World War II. Fresh out of Antioch College, the Bacons, along with a few other "conchies," were given the hardest work and treated with disdain by staff members who supported the war and considered them "yellow bellies." Though supported by their small community, the c.o.'s had the added burden of feeling they had to display in every aspect of their lives the high ideals which led them to this choice and to maintain their commitment to nonviolence in the face of increasingly devastating news from Europe. On the level ofpersonal narrative, we are given the authentic story of a 64Quaker History young idealist whom the mature Bacon calls "naive" but who, not yet grounded in a firm religious faith, strives to behave morally in a flawed world and works to build a lasting marriage under stressful circumstances. Observing her own fear and the conduct ofthe hospital staff, Bacon learns it is possible for fear to cast out love, but in the end proves the greater truth that "perfect love casteth out fear." In a telling vignette, Bacon is given, on her first day on the job, the task ofbathing a "hellcat," a violent, demented woman with tuberculosis of the bowels whom the other attendants fear. Though gentleness and respect, Bacon is able to quiet her and bring some peace to her tormented life. Ultimately, this memoir attains the coherence of the novel that was never published, holding in tension complex issues ofidealism and reality, hope and despair, youth and maturity, love and fear. Despite some lapses in proofreading, it is satisfying both as narrative and as social history. Caroline CherryEastern University In the Shadow ofWilliam Penn: Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting of Friends. By Margaret Hope Bacon. Philadelphia: Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, 2001. xii + 74 pp. Bibliography, illustrations, map, index. $12. This useful volume summarizes not only the story of Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting but also Quaker history as seen in Philadelphia in the nineteenth and twentieth century. As Bacon says, to understand the history of the two meetings, Race Street and Twelfth Street, that became Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, "is to know the story of Philadelphia Quakers for almost two centuries: their concerns, their tragic separation , and their eventual healing." The three chapters contain informative details about...

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