Family
She was born Gloucester, Virginia, as Mary Elliot Seawell, a member of one of the older families of to settle in North America and one of the first families of Virginia. Her father was John Tyler Seawell, a lawyer and orator and a nephew of President John Tyler. Her mother (Tyler's second wife), Frances Elizabeth Jackson Seawell, was a native of Baltimore whose father, Major William Jackson, had fought in the War of 1812.
Descendants of the original Seawells spell the family name in one of two forms: "Sewell" (as in Sewell's Point, Norfolk, Virginia) and "Seawell." Otis Notman interviewing Molly Elliot Seawell for the New York Times Saturday Review of Books noted that the regional pronunciation of the name was "Sowell," although Molly Elliot Seawell pronounced her name as it was spelled ("Talks" 392).
Read more about this topic: Molly Elliot Seawell
Famous quotes containing the word family:
“It seems to me that upbringings have themes. The parents set the theme, either explicitly or implicitly, and the children pick it up, sometimes accurately and sometimes not so accurately.... The theme may be “Our family has a distinguished heritage that you must live up to” or “No matter what happens, we are fortunate to be together in this lovely corner of the earth” or “We have worked hard so that you can have the opportunities we didn’t have.””
—Calvin Trillin (20th century)
“True spoiling is nothing to do with what a child owns or with amount of attention he gets. he can have the major part of your income, living space and attention and not be spoiled, or he can have very little and be spoiled. It is not what he gets that is at issue. It is how and why he gets it. Spoiling is to do with the family balance of power.”
—Penelope Leach (20th century)
“The family circle has widened. The worldpool of information fathered by the electric media—movies, Telstar, flight—far surpasses any possible influence mom and dad can now bring to bear. Character no longer is shaped by only two earnest, fumbling experts. Now all the world’s a sage.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)