I Never Knew That!

It's funny how you learn words and may even use them, you know the definition but you don't KNOW where the word originated.  Agoraphobia is such a word.  The definition we know is: someone who is afraid to go outside the home.  The most famous agoraphobic that comes to mind today is Paula Deen.  She ran a lunch business called "The Bag Lady" out of her house 1989 after her divorce and had her two boys deliver the bag lunches on their bicycles. She finally got over this fear and has several restaurants named The Bag Lady. (One in Savannah, GA. my Mom and I ate there a few years ago. It was delicious.) Wow she really overcame that fear to be where she is today!  Congratulations Paula!

My Grandmother I believe became an agoraphobic in the last 15 years of her life.  She no longer would go out to her garden, to the grocery store or to get her hair done every month. Her brother went to the store and she stayed inside always cooking and sitting.  I noticed this behavior but never thought much about it till I became an adult and learned this word.

Agora means public meeting place in Greek.  A place where village people gathered to hear public speeches and buy goods, a marketplace.  Of course you know what phobia means. Greece! Wow, I never knew that!

I was reading a book about Emma Willard today the founder of the first school for higher education for women in Troy, NY.  1821.  Her father's sister had 82 acres on the Hudson River, and was quite wealthy.  She quarantined herself for 8 months in her house with no visitors and all windows shut so she would not contract TB. When the threat was passed she was so happy to be well she built a huge mansion, the largest anyone had seen in the area.  Her last name was "Jones."  This book stated that this is where the saying "Keeping up with the Jones" came from (1700s.) Wow, I never knew that either!

Now if you google this you will see a cartoonist lays claim to the saying. This guy started his comic strip in 1913.  So you do the research and the math, see what you find. Who came first? I like  Emma Willard's story better.

Emma Willard wrote textbooks, poetry books and gave lectures on higher education for women across the states, she gave the proceeds from her lectures and books to start another school across the ocean.  In her later years she opened a school for women in Athens, Greece.

And that is how I tie this article together from start to finish. It began in Agora, Greece and ends in Athens. 😉