To all those who purchased a copy of the new book, thank you! It is much appreciated. I hope you enjoyed it. I told my wife, and she has already spent it. Please answer the question about X, R, or PG. Thanks.
Almost all of this story takes place in Saratoga County, NY. Compared to modern Saratoga, 1960s Saratoga is almost unrecognizable. In 1960, the population of the county was 89,096. In 2020, it was 235,509; it is the fastest growing county in the upstate area. In 1960, it was a quiet, rural county. Today it is a thriving high-tech area with lots of suburbs for workers in the Albany region. I lived in Ballston Spa in the 1980s and my son and his family live in Saratoga Springs now. It is yuppie heaven; my wife and I frequently laugh at them. Since I couldn’t come up with an appropriate illustration for the cover page, I used a map of the Saratoga region. It has most of the places referred to in the story.
Many readers might not believe my depiction of a single mother in the early 1960s. All I can say is that it was a radically different time. In TV shows and movies, married couples had separate beds. The 1950s sitcom I Love Lucy was radically modern when Lucy was shown as pregnant; the only previous on-screen pregnancy was in the 1940s, when television ownership was very low.
The stigma I depict was quite common. Abortions were illegal, though ‘back alley’ abortions might be available, though extremely dangerous. Much more common was sending pregnant daughters off to distant relatives where they would live while hiding and then give the baby up for adoption. Raising a baby at home with your parents was an invitation to becoming a social pariah. If they were in school when they became pregnant, they were summarily kicked out as bad influences.
In the early 1960s, birth control was much more restricted. It was illegal for a doctor to write a prescription for women under the age of 21 without a parent’s consent. The Comstock Act prohibited advertising of birth control. Unmarried sex was illegal, so some states prohibited the sale of birth control (both the pill and condoms) to unmarried people. There are reports that some single women would borrow a wedding ring when they went to their doctor for birth control.
Enjoy!