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You are here: Home / My Family / Iona and Sallie; Sallie and Munda: Granddaughters and Grandmothers

Iona and Sallie; Sallie and Munda: Granddaughters and Grandmothers

March 2nd, 2014 by Sallie Bingham in My Family Leave a Comment

Iona

Iona as a little girl

Yesterday my granddaughter Iona Ellsworth invited me to tea and we chatted for a while with the particular warm intimacy and understanding that seems to exist, often, between grandmothers and their blessed grandchildren—blessed by our love as well as by their many gifts.

Last night when I couldn’t sleep, a regular torment these days, I remembered my own grandmother, my mother’s mother, whom we all called Munda; her letters and short stories are part of the subject of my next book, out in August, “The Blue Book: Three Lives in Letters.”

Munda didn’t drive, so when she traveled by train from Richmond to Louisville for her spring two week visit, she was always at our house, unlike the other grownups who were usually in town, working or attending to their varied and vivid social lives.

So when the driving group dropped me off after school, I always knew I would find her, ensconced on the chaise longue with its ruffled pillows that was a staple of all southern bedrooms.

Yesterday my granddaughter Iona Ellsworth invited me to tea and we chatted for a while with the particular warm intimacy and understanding that seems to exist, often, between grandmothers and their blessed grandchildren—blessed by our love as well as by their many gifts.

She was always fully dressed, even down to stockings and shoes, and often she would be working on a delicate piece of lace to put on a party dress for me or my girl cousins.

I don’t remember where I sat—probably on one of those little dressing table chairs that perched like gilded spiders—or how we got started on our talk—or rather HER talk.

She was a storyteller, a spider-woman who wove her web of enchantment with tales from her collections of short stories, or myths that never found their way between covers.

I didn’t say much; her enchantment was too potent, her stories much more dramatic than mine—she loved love, death and desolation, in that order. I didn’t know much about any of that although I sensed all three would loom in my future.

With Iona, the situation is entirely different. We are equals. I think she came into the world sixteen years ago as my equal and has never lost that standing.

Her life amazes me: her dedication to horseback riding and strenuous competing, her wise sense that there is more to life than horses even though they are her passion, her keen sense of her responsibilities, her discipline.

She does not spin tales, as Munda did. She talks about her life. And I am astonished. Our relationship couldn’t happen if I was sitting on a chaise lounge and she was sitting on a boudoir chair. Instead, we sit as equals on two hard straight chairs on either side of a small table, with two cups of tea in front of us.

What a blessing.

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In My Family Munda Louisville Iona

A long and fruitful career as a writer began in 1960 with the publication of Sallie Bingham's novel, After Such Knowledge. This was followed by 15 collections of short stories in addition to novels, memoirs and plays, as well as the 2020 biography The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke.

Her latest book, Taken by the Shawnee, is a work of historical fiction published by Turtle Point Press in June of 2024. Her previous memoir, Little Brother, was published by Sarabande Books in 2022. Her short story, "What I Learned From Fat Annie" won the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize in 2023 and the story "How Daddy Lost His Ear," from her forthcoming short story collection How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories (September 23, 2025), received second prize in the 2023 Sean O’Faolain Short Story Competition.

She is an active and involved feminist, working for women’s empowerment, who founded the Kentucky Foundation for Women, which gives grants to Kentucky artists and writers who are feminists, The Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture at Duke University, and the Women’s Project and Productions in New York City. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sallie's complete biography is available here.

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Watch Sallie

Taken By The Shawnee

Taken By The Shawnee

July 6th, 2025
Sallie Bingham introduces and reads from her latest work, Taken by the Shawnee.
Visiting Linda Stein

Visiting Linda Stein

March 3rd, 2025
Back on October 28th, 2008, I visited artist Linda Stein's studio in New York City and tried on a few of her handmade suits of armor.

Listen To Sallie

Rebecca Reynolds & Salie Bingham at SOMOS

Rebecca Reynolds & Salie Bingham at SOMOS

November 8th, 2024
This event was recorded November 1, 2024 in Taos, NM at SOMOS Salon & Bookshop by KCEI Radio, Red River/Taos and broadcast on November 8, 2024.
Taken by the Shawnee Reading

Taken by the Shawnee Reading

September 1st, 2024
This reading took place at The Church of the Holy Faith in Santa Fe, New Mexico in August of 2024.

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Pasatiempo, The Santa Fe New Mexican

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