I want to give a Shout Out to a wonderful novel by American author Stephanie Barron.
For many, if not most of my generation, those born immediately after the Second World War, Winston Spencer Churchill was a figure that we learned to revere. His wartime speeches were studied and dissected, as was his use of the English language.
Of course, Churchill did not win WWII solely on his own, yet, however, it's hard to imagine the outcome of that conflict without his stewardship. And, what is forgotten today by a younger generation, is that Churchill was a man of his times, with all the faults and frailties that any human processes. I find it hard to stomach in this PC-world in which we find ourselves today, that the younger generation can’t or will not comprehend that without Churchill and his wartime peers, Britain would probably have fallen under Nazi Germany.
I was once told that books, in English, on Winston Churchill, number in their thousands. It is quite believable.
Recently, having returned after a hiatus of many years to reading non-fiction, I was delighted to come across That Churchill Woman.
Although I was aware that Jennie Jerome was American and the mother of Winston Churchill, I knew little of her. There were, of course, the stories from time-to-time that she was Jewish and this in turn accounted for her son’s apparent like/respect for the Jewish people.
Having read, and enjoyed the novel, using the Internet I searched for further information on the Jewishness of Jennie Jerome. Other than a few rumors articles, I found nothing to support the notion. Indeed, even if her father, Leonard Jerome, was Jewish, her mother, Clarissa Hall, was not, and given that its generally accepted that nationality is passed on by the father and religion by the mother, Jennie Jerome was not Jewish.
Leonard Jerome's family was of French Huguenot extraction, in other words, French Protestants.
Although a novel, Stephanie Barron has fashioned a wonderful story around Jennie Spencer-Churchill, (Lady Randolph Churchill), and offered a glimpse of the childhood and adolescent years of Winston Spencer Churchill.
I heartedly recommend That Churchill Woman.