Category: Birth Locations

585) Alecia Moore

Courtesy of Billboard

“I was never allowed to go over to any of my friends' houses when I was little, because I was a bad influence. None of their parents liked me and my own parents were scared to death of me— and for me."

585: Alecia Moore

Singer Known Professionally as P!nk

Born: 8 September 1979, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Her first album dropped in 2000, but before it could be released P!nk struggled through a difficult homelife and childhood. She faced divorced parents, drugs and alcohol addictions, and dropping out of school all before she turned eighteen (but she did return to get her GED in 1998). After P!nk’s debut album dropped, she was able to open for bands like *NSYNC, helping skyrocket her career.

Outside of the persona of P!nk, she has also written songs for artists like Cher and Celine Dion. P!nk also forayed into the acting realm, appearing in Thanks For Sharing opposite Mark Ruffalo and Gwyneth Paltrow. She even released an album under the band name “You+Me” with Dallas Green.

P!nk has sold over 40 million albums and 65 million singles worldwide. She has had fourteen singles in the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart (four of which were number one).

P!nk is a spokeswoman for Covergirl and works with various charities including Make a Wish, Ronald McDonald House, Autism Speaks, Human Rights Campaign, and Save the Children. She is also an LGBT Advocate and a spokeswoman for PETA.

P!nk is married with two children.

Sources:

https://www.pinkspage.com/pink/

https://www.biography.com/musician/pink

584) Vivian Liberto Distin

Courtesy of Famous People

 “I should have been relentless at saving [our marriage], as relentless as June was at destroying it.”

584: Vivian Liberto Distin

Johnny Cash’s First Wife

Born: 23 April 1934, San Antonia, Texas, United States of America

Died: 24 May 2005, Ventura, California, United States of America

Vivian is also the mother of his daughters Roseanne, Kathy, Tara, and Cindy.

She met Johnny three weeks before the Army sent him off to Germany in 1950.

They were married for twelve years and his pledge to stay faithful in the song I Walk the Line was to her. She later wrote a book titled I Walked The Line. The book was an autobiography and memoir and was published posthumously.

Vivian was of Italian descent, however, in some photographs she came across as much darker than she actually was. Some even claimed she was African American. In 1960’s America, this sparked racism and hateful messages, even death threats, from white supremacist groups across the country. This contributed partly to Vivian’s private life. She stayed out of the spotlight as much as she could and never toured with Johnny, instead opting to stay home and raise their four daughters.

Vivian is said to have believed that if Johnny hadn’t turned to drugs, they would’ve stayed married but both remarried two years after their divorce, Johnny to June Carter Cash and Vivian to Richard Distin, a former police officer, private detective, and travel agent.

She and Johnny remained friends until his death in 2003.

Vivian is portrayed by the actress Ginnifer Goodwin in the film Walk the Line.

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Sources:

https://www.countrythangdaily.com/vivian-liberto-johnny-cash-marriage/

https://countryrebel.com/blogs/videos/79364931-drugs-and-june-carter-johnny-cashs-first-wife-reveals-what-ruined-their-marriage/

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/11025335/vivian-dorraine-distin

583) Ulrika Eleanora Stålhammar

583: Ulrika Eleanora Stålhammar

Female Soldier During the Great Northern War

Born: c.1683, Svenarum, Sweden

Died: 16 February 1733, Hultsjö, Sweden

As a child, Ulrika was a persistent tomboy and hated womanly ideals. She ran away from home to escape an arranged marriage.

In 1713, she joined the army as a man and the next year married a maid named Maria Lönnman. After two weeks Ulrika told her the truth (that she was a woman) and they continued to live in a marriage of what was described as “spiritual love” by the LGBT Wiki.

Ulrika left the army in 1726 and returned to dressing as a woman. In 1729 she was charged with “violating the order of God” for dressing as a man and “making a mockery of marriage” for marrying another woman.

Ulrika and her wife were given light sentences and lived out the rest of their lives as a couple in quiet seclusion. The reason for their light sentences was due to the fact that Ulrika and Maria claimed to have had no sexual contact, and so their homosexuality was mostly forgiven.

There are no known images of Ulrika.

Sources:

https://lgbt.wikia.org/wiki/Ulrika_Eleonora_St%C3%A5lhammar

https://www.afterellen.com/people/533493-womens-history-passing-mans-world/3

https://sok.riksarkivet.se/sbl/Presentation.aspx?id=34664

http://theleagueofextraordinaryladies.com/2015/06/ulrika-eleonora-stalhammar-swedish-corporal/

582) Jillian Michaels

Courtesy of Self
“Yes, we want to be inclusive of everyone [and respect that] everyone comes in all different shapes and sizes. That nobody should ever be body-shamed or fat-shamed or excluded and that everyone is equally deserving and should feel equally valuable. But obesity in itself is not something that should be glamorized. But we’ve become so politically correct that no one wants to say it.”

582: Jillian Michaels

Personal Trainer, Businesswoman, Author, and Television Personality

Born: 18 February 1974, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Jillian is known for appearances on The Biggest Loser and The Doctors.

She holds a black belt in Akauri-Do and is certified in Kettlebell Concepts and as a nutritional and wellness consultant with the American Fitness Professionals and Associates.

Jillian is also co-owner of a spa and gym in Beverly Hills, California. She launched a media business in 2008 with a business partner and oversaw the creation and distribution of her personal app My Fitness.

Jillian made headlines in light 2019 for her, completely accurate (my opinion) statement that celebrating obesity is dangerous and unhealthy.

She has two children with her former domestic partner Heidi.

Sources:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1992190/bio

https://www.jillianmichaels.com/about

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/dec/12/jillian-michaels-slams-pc-culture-obesity-not-some/

581) Deborah Sampson Gannett

Courtesy of Wikipedia

581: Deborah Sampson Gannett

Revolutionary War Soldier

Born: 17 December 1760, Plympton, The Massachusetts Bay Colony (Present-day Plympton, Massachusetts, United States of America)

Died: 29 April 1827, Sharon, Massachusetts, United States of America

Deborah is also the first known American woman to dress up as a man to fight in war. She enlisted in the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment of the Continental Army in 1782. According to a diary written by one of Deborah’s neighbors, this was actually her second attempt to enlist. The first ended in Deborah being discovered.

Before joining the war effort, Deborah had been bound out as an indentured servant at only ten years old. Her father never returned from a sea voyage (or simply abandoned his family, sources differ), and her mother had little choice if she wanted her children to survive and not starve to death. When she turned eighteen, Deborah’s investiture ended, and as a self-taught woman, she became a teacher during the summers. In winter, Deborah worked as a weaver.

Once the war kicked off and Deborah decided to join the war effort, she made herself useful. Deborah was not a camp follower or someone who stuck to the sidelines. On the contrary, her war record was full of close calls and multiple confrontations with the enemy. As recounted by the National Women’s History Museum, “At West Point, New York, she was assigned to Captain George Webb’s Company of Light Infantry. She was given the dangerous task of scouting neutral territory to assess British buildup of men and materiel in Manhattan, which General George Washington contemplated attacking. In June of 1782, Sampson and two sergeants led about 30 infantrymen on an expedition that ended with a confrontation—often one-on-one—with Tories. She led a raid on a Tory home that resulted in the capture of 15 men. At the siege of Yorktown she dug trenches, helped storm a British redoubt, and endured canon fire.” (Full article linked below).

Deborah was wounded twice but refused medical attention both times for fear of her identity becoming known. A doctor finally discovered her true sex after a severe illness, and she was honorably discharged in 1783.

Deborah later married and had three children.

In 1792 she received a onetime pension of £34 sterling with the help of Paul Revere. Deborah was the only female soldier to earn a full military pension for her participation in the war. In 1802, Deborah partook on a lecture tour, traveling the new country to tell about her experiences in the war, the first woman in American history to do such a tour.

Four years after Deborah’s death, her husband petitioned Congress for a spousal pension since he had been married to a soldier. Congress would eventually award him the money; unfortunately, he passed away before receiving it.

In 1982, Deborah was named the official heroine of Massachusetts. She is considered a Daughter of Liberty and has a local chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution named after her.

Deborah's story is recounted on an episode of Monumental Mysteries titled "Piggy Bank, All the King's Horses, Funeral to Freedom."

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Located In My Personal Library:

Women Heroes of the Revolution by Susan Casey

Women in the American Revolution by Jeanne Munn Bracken

Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation by Cokie Roberts

America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines by Gail Collins

Sources:

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/deborah-sampson

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/diary-sheds-light-deborah-sampson-who-fought-revolutionary-war-180972547/

https://historyofmassachusetts.org/deborah-sampson-woman-warrior-of-the-american-revoultion/

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/deborah-sampson

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/377/deborah-gannett

580) Marina the Monk

Courtesy of Wikipedia

580: Marina the Monk

Female Monk (Now Saint)

Lived: Fifth Century AD, Byzantine Empire (Present-day Lebanon)

Also Known As: Mariam

There are actually six women who fit this description and two of them are likely to have actually lived but for this specific entry we are looking at Marina the Monk of the monastery in Qannoubine, Lebanon.

Marina disguised herself as a man to join the monastery alongside her father. Her mother died when she was a child.

She was accused of fathering a child and instead of fighting the charge she accepted the punishment from the Abbot—to leave the monastery and raise the child.

Her identity as a woman was only revealed after her death. When the monks examined her body and realized as a woman she obviously couldn’t have raped and impregnated another woman, they recognized she was an extremely pious and devout woman, and that they were basically giant, misled jerks. Marina was sainted for her piousness and devotion to the church.

I don’t really understand why, but while researching this entry in early 2020 I came across several articles claiming Marina is now an LGBT icon and transgender role model. I mean, I understand that she dressed as a man for between four and twenty-odd years (sources vary wildly on her, for obvious reasons she lived 1500 years ago), but I do not understand why Marina is suddenly a transgender icon. The idea of transgender did not exist in the fifth century Byzantine Empire, so by claiming this, activists are retroactively placing a label on her. Marina was born a woman and is remembered as a pious and devout female Catholic saint.

We will never know if Marina thought of herself as a man, the way transgender men do today. But what we do know is changing or imposing your beliefs on a historical figure like this one is dangerous. If you are interested in researching a historical figure that fits the mold of “Transgender” better, I recommend looking into General Casimir Pulaski of the Revolutionary War.

Sources:

http://www.maronite-institute.org/MARI/JMS/january00/Saint_Marina_the_Monk.htm

http://www.copticchurch.net/topics/synexarion/marina.html

579) Samantha Geimer

Courtesy of the Guardian

"He got arrested. I knew he was sorry the next day. I was sure he instantly regretted what he had done and wished it hadn't happened. It just wasn't as traumatic for me as everyone would like to believe it was. I was a young sexually active teenager and it was a scary thing, but it was not an uncommon thing. I understood much worse things happened to people. So, I was just not as traumatized as everybody thinks I should have been. I was almost 14. I wasn't 10."

579: Samantha Geimer

Thirteen-Year-Old at the Center of the Roman Polanski Statutory Rape Case

Born: 31 March 1963, United States of America

Original Name: Tami Sue Nye

Samantha wrote a memoir about her ordeal.  The arrest warrant issued for the acclaimed film director is the reason for Roman’s flight from the United States.

Samantha has stated at the time of the sexual encounter (she and the media didn’t call it “rape” in the terms it is applied today), her mother and stepfather were stoners, her stepfather wrote for a publication called “Marijuana Monthly”, and her aspiring actress mother encouraged both her daughters to get agents and enter the media business. Her mother did agree to allowing Samantha to work with Roman, but of course had no idea what would happen. Samantha has also admitted to drinking alcohol and taking Quaaludes the night of the rape, and that after she came home her mother immediately called the police.

Samantha was angry at her mother, and in the ensuing years, both were slammed in the media. Samantha didn’t handle the attention well, nobody would, and she started drinking heavily. She had a child when she was eighteen years old. Eventually she settled down, got married, and had two more children. Her family moved to Hawaii, where they were mostly left alone except for whenever Roman popped up in the news. In 1988, he settled a civil lawsuit against her for what was reportedly a six-figure sum.

In 2017, she made a plea to the courts to release Roman Polanski of his ongoing arrest warrant for time served in order to secure peace for her family and to get the media to leave them alone. There’s only one problem: that same year, Roman was accused by a fifth woman of rape when she was a child.

Samantha also stated in 2013 that she and Roman email from time to time.

Sources:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3005004/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/sep/18/samantha-geimer-roman-polanski-unlawful-sex-email

https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/8/17/16156902/roman-polanski-child-rape-charges-explained-samantha-geimer-robin-m

578) Nancy Lincoln

Courtesy of Geni

578: Nancy Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln’s Mom

Born: 5 February 1784, Hampshire County, Virginia, United States of America (Present-day Mineral County, West Virginia, United States of America)

Died: 5 October 1818, Spencer County, Indiana, United States of America

Nancy is remembered in history for her kindness and hope for her son to be educated. She died when Abraham was only nine years old, leaving a significant and lasting impact on her son.

In modern media, Nancy is portrayed as a victim of a vampire in the book, and later movie, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. In real life, it is believed Nancy died from “milk sickness”, or an infection from unpasteurized or otherwise contaminated milk.

Her grave was lost, and its approximate location is what is now marked in the cemetery.

Another fun fact; famed actor Tom Hanks is a distant relative of Nancy; whose maiden name was Hanks.

Badges Earned:

Find a Grave Marked

Located In My Personal Library:

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith (Historical Fiction)

Affairs of State: The Untold History of Presidential Love, Sex, and Scandal (1789-1900) by Robert Watson

Sources:

https://www.nps.gov/places/grave-site-of-nancy-hanks-lincoln.htm

https://www.geni.com/people/Nancy-Lincoln/6000000000770044640

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8381/nancy-lincoln

577) Lorna Luft

Courtesy of White Plains Performing Arts Center

"I'm really protective of my mom's legacy and my mother's legendary career. And I feel that if you really want to know about my mom, go see her movies, go listen to her recordings, and go watch her television shows, and that's how you'll know about her."

577: Lorna Luft

Actress and Singer

Born: 21 November 1952, Santa Monica, California, United States of America

Lorna is more known for being Judy Garland’s Daughter.

According to her autobiography, Lorna and her younger brother Joey grew up in relative comfort in Bel Air, nearly completely unaware of any issues with their mother’s drug or money issues. However, by the time Lorna was twelve, she was aware of Judy’s problems. This is shown in the 2019 film Judy, which depicts Lorna and her brother as younger than they actually were in real life at the time of the film. The film does however accurately portray how they were harshly impacted by their mother’s battles. Both Lorna and her sister Liza have stated they have no intention of seeing the film, nor were they contacted by the main star, Renée Zellweger.

In real life, Lorna worked for a time as her mother’s caregiver, helping administer her medication and watch after her. However, the toll eventually got to Lorna, and she suffered a mental breakdown. Lorna and her brother moved back in with their father, Sidney Luft. Only months later, Judy was dead.

Lorna was understandably devastated by her mother’s death, but eventually was able to move past it and into the entertainment industry. She has appeared on television, stage, and in Hollywood films and she wrote a memoir and one-woman stage show about life with her mother.

She has been married twice and has two children. Lorna has battled both breast cancer and a brain tumor but hasn’t let any medical problems stop her from continuing on.

Sources:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005167/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

https://www.newsweek.com/lorna-luft-says-she-will-not-watch-renee-zellweger-biopic-about-her-mother-judy-garland-1461566