My Hero

This morning, I read an article by Kathleen Parker in The Pantagraph, our local newspaper titled, "Don't Dismiss Influences of Nancy Drew." She referred to Senator Charles Schumer introducing Sonia Sotomayor at last week's confirmation hearing for Supreme Court Justice, and mentioning her girl-hood love for the Nancy Drew books. Ah, a girl after my own heart! Like many other women of my age, I devoured the Nancy Drew Mystery Series, and delighted in this smart, clever, courageous young girl (there were so few to read about) who figured out plot twist after plot twist with her brains (girls had brains?), intuition and ingenuity. Without my knowledge, she became a role model for me in my own adventures. I think that because of Nancy Drew, I was more willing to take risks (i.e. going to Africa with the Peace Corps) than I might have otherwise been. She was my first woman hero. She also, like me, had a father who was a lawyer, and though very busy with his work, always made time for his daughter.
I loved the mystery of it all; what impressionable young girl wouldn't? The books, my favorites being: The Secret in the Old Attic, The Secret Staircase and The Secret of the Old Clock, provided the excitement my own life lacked going every day to a very strict Catholic school where everything was quite defined. Nancy Drew's life seemed so carefree, so adventurous, so exciting compared to mine. Many morning I woke up wishing that I was Nancy Drew with a mystery to solve. Instead, I was just Gretta Conlan with twenty spelling words to memorize.
Only later in life did I discover that there was not just one author of Nancy Drew, but a whole roomful of people sitting in a room cranking out these mysteries on a daily basis. And while this created a momentary pause in my thinking about the books, it did not reduce my enthusiasm for them.
Young girls today have so many women role models; when I was growing up in the 40ies and 50ies, we had very few. I don't think I could ever underestimate the value to me, of reading book after book (sometimes with a flashlight under my covers) of a young, heroic woman who influenced me to be much like her.
There are many websites for Nancy Drew but the one I went to was http://www.ndsleuths.com where you can read about the upcoming Nancy Drew Convention, September 30-October 4th, 2009 at the Excalibur Hotel in Las Vegas. One of these years, I might just attend to pay homage to one of the heros of my life.