The Astronaut Wives Club

This past week, ABC premiered a TV show based on Lily Koppel’s 2013 novel The Astronaut’s Wives Club: A True Story.

A mix of seven budding sartorialists and social climbing housewives are on their own missions to help their husbands make history in space, but they experience loneliness, isolation, betrayal and even death along the way.

Left: Life Magazine , 1959


Below: The astronaut wives on their way to Cape Canaveral, 1959

Old Florida beaches, the 1950s Florida pastel-colored architecture and the vintage fashion is what attracted me the most to the show. Much of the storyline takes place in Cape Canaveral, Florida. ABC did a splendid job in attempting to recapture central Florida in the 1950s.

Left: Cape Canaveral, 1959. Courtesy of Spaceline



Below: Brevard County, FL (Cape Canaveral) in 1958, photo courtesy of Florida Memory

I have yet to read the book, but I watched the first episode and was pleasantly intrigued at how the storyline swept past introductions and broke right into mini-storylines pertaining to each wife.

The story begins in the Kennedy era, where the race to get a man in space before then Soviet space program is no easy feat. Louise Shepard, wife of Alan Shepard, becomes the show’s protagonist when her husband makes history by becoming the first American to travel into space.

Shepard, along with glamourous Renee Carpenter, a preppy Jo Schirra, prim and proper Annie Glenn (wife of John Glenn), and other characters like Betty Grissom, Trudy Cooper and Marge Slayton all in part create a storyline that makes us feel like we are back in Florida in the 1950s and 60s’.

Renee Carpenter is my favorite Astronaut Wife so far. Her optimism and willingness to break social code, along with her bright, gaudy clothes makes her hard not to look at. It was rumored she was also great friends with one of my favorite icons, Jackie Kennedy.


Below: The Carpenter's and the Kennedy's, courtesy of JK Library

To get an idea of Old Florida during the 1950s and 60s and to watch a great show, The Astronaut Wives Club plays on Thursdays on ABC at 8 p.m.



Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/books/review/lily-koppels-astronaut-wives-club.html?_r=0
http://nypost.com/2015/06/12/these-badass-women-inspired-astronaut-wives-club/ http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mercury/index.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mercury/index.html

A Brief Intro

Florida- 58,560 miles of lush Sabal palms, marshy swamp and vegetation, beautiful, clear Gulf coast and dark, vast Atlantic waters.

And most alluring of all- its rich history.

As a first generation Floridian, my love for the Sunshine state was not affirmed until later in life when I moved out of my parent’s home. My mother is Georgia born and raised and made sure this notion was incorporated into much of my upbringing. Much of my childhood was weekend getaways to her hometown of Augusta, to visit my grandmother.

My Grandmother's house. August, GA © lafloridafemme.blogspot.com


Other times we visited my uncle and his family in Macon. Road trips to and fro meant stops along the way to pick pine cones off trees or get bags of raw pecans from family friends. As a child, Georgia often felt more like home because of the amount of family and the memories I had there. My father is from northern Michigan, but lived in Florida for the majority of his life. I believe his feeling of home is and was wherever his wife felt it was.

Prior to moving out of my parents home as well as after I began my studies at UCF, I have always traveled. I have been up and down the East Coast as well as out of the country. I have gotten completely lost on the New York City subway and ridden on rusty railroads in the Tennessee Smoky Mountains. I have driven on the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway and strolled along the beaches of Grand Cayman.

In lieu of all these remarkable experiences, the idiom ,“There’s no place like home” remains true.

West Palm Beach, my hometown. © lafloridafemme.blogspot.com


There is no place like Florida. The discussion of the best beaches in the world cannot even be held without mentioning a Florida beach. The Travel Channel has supported this fact by naming several of Florida’s beaches on its list of “Best Beaches” in 2015, 2014, 2013 and earlier. The Travel Channel now even has its own list of “Top 10 Beaches in Florida”.

In addition to fabulous wetlands and coast, we have beautiful history that is not limited to museums or exhibits. Remnants of the late Henry Flagler can be seen in much of the architecture and bridges in northern Florida’s Saint Augustine and Flagler Beach, hotels and homes in my hometown of West Palm Beach and Palm Beach, and rustic railroads in Miami and Key West.

This love I have developed for my home state comes with healthy curiosity. The Florida I love is the Florida I know- divine seafood, boating with friends, weekend trips to Miami and Disney, 70 degree winters and anything-but-dull residents. However, I have much to discover about old Florida. My spirit longs to discover remote Florida beaches, antiques untouched by time and Florida history that been lost or forgotten.

This blog will not be a history lesson, but an adventure. I hope you will join me on my pursuit of discovering more about this state I’ve grown so much to love.


-Brittany

Sources:
http://www.travelchannel.com/destinations/us/fl/photos/florida-beaches
https://flaglermuseum.us/history/flagler-biography
http://www.stateofflorida.com/facts.aspx