[NFBV-Potomac-Announce] The Ditch Digger's Daughter Potomac Chapter February Book Club

[John Halverson]

Hello Readers,

Please find attached and below questions for the Ditch Digger’s Daughter.  There are 30 but the discussant should feel free to pick and choose.

We are meeting at 7:30 Wednesday February 5 at our home  The  address is 810 22nd Street South, Arlington 22202.

As usual we will order dinner.  I will send a menu closer to Wednesday.  Please plan to arrive between 6:30 and 6:45 for dinner.

John


ditchdigger.pdf
Southfield Public Library
The Ditchdigger’s daughters by Yvonne Thornton Discussion questions used at SPL -- February 2009
list of 16 items
1. Whose story is this?
2. What did you think of Donald? Did your opinion of him change over the course of the book?
3. Did the daughters realize how different their dad was from other people?
4. How would you describe his parenting style?
5. Did Donald have different strategies for each daughter? Would it have been better if he did?
6. Were Donald and Tass’s work ethics passed along to their daughters?
7. Were these girls exceptionally smart or were they the product of their environment? What do you think made them so driven as a family?
8. What was up with Donald’s family?
9. What sort of role did gender play in their lives?
10. What type of child was Yvonne? What type of woman?
11. What was the relationship between Donald and Tass?
12. Between Donald and the daughters?
13. Between the sisters?
14. What was the best piece of advice Donald gave his daughters? What was the worst? (picking out rabbits, too dark of skin, women are stupid about sex,
comments on their looks)
15. What do you know of the theory of birth order? Do you think these ideas applied to the daughters?
16. What did you think of the way they performed on weekends and kept up their studies? Could you have done that? What did their mother’s dreams of show
business contribute to their career?
list end
list of 14 items
17. Were you surprised that there didn’t seem to be any real issues of them playing at all white colleges, especially in the South, during the 60’s? Or
was that history re-written, do you think?
18. Two sisters complained of this book after it was written. Can you guess which two? (Jeanette and Rita)
19. Their biggest complaint was that their mother’s role in their lives seemed diminished. Would you agree?
20. Another was that the book “barely hints at the emotional toll their father’s dreams exacted on the family.” Would you agree at that?
21. Yvonne gives her opinions on why some African Americans don’t always succeed in college - the differences in social skills, dress and so on. Do you
think those are valid? Were they valid back in her day?
22. Interesting comment from Yvonne that perhaps her dad kept them fat on purpose . . . from reading the book would you agree that is something the dad
would have done?
23. Were you surprised at Donna and Jeannette’s rebellion? Were you surprised at how long it took? Why didn’t the others follow their footsteps?
24. What did you think of Yvonne’s wedding? Why was it so grand and formal?
25. Did Yvonne have more trouble as a woman or as an African American? Can you even separate the two? Did she?
26. How did losing Tass affect the family? Did that show how much – or how little- influence she had on the family? What was the biggest change after her
death?
27. How did Yvonne treat her husband? Her children? Did you see some of her dad in her?
28. Yvonne’s parents’ opinion was that it didn’t matter if you loved a man, but he has to love you -- would you agree?
29. Let’s talk about a few passages from the Gospel of Donald - see if you are believers!
30. What are some of the other messages in this book? What lessons can people take away from this book?
list end
Southfield Public Library
General Discussion Questions
list of 1 items
 For the person who chose the book – What made you want to read it? What made you pick it for the book club? Did it live up to your expectations?
list end
list of 1 items
 How is the book structured? First person? Third person? Flashbacks? Narrative devices? Do you think the author did a good job with it?
list end
list of 1 items
 How would you describe the author’s writing style? Concise? Flowery? How is language used in this book? Read aloud a passage that really struck you.
How does that passage relate to the book as a whole?
list end
list of 1 items
 How effective is the author’s use of plot twists? Were you able to predict certain things before they happened? Did the author keep you guessing until
the end?
list end
list of 1 items
 Did the book hold your interest?
list end
list of 1 items
 How important is the setting to the story? Did you feel like you were somewhere else? Did the time setting make a difference in the story? Did the author
provide enough background information for you to understand the setting and time placement?
list end
list of 1 items
 Which is stronger in the book – the characters or the plots?
list end
list of 1 items
 Would you recommend this book to someone else? Why? And to whom?
list end
Southfield Public Library
The Ditchdigger’s Daughter
General background information
Taken from:
---
February 20, 1997
Sisters, United in Success, Are Divided on the Details
By LENA WILLIAMS
In her inspirational 1995 memoir ''The Ditchdigger's Daughters,'' Dr. Yvonne S. Thornton paints a loving portrait of her father, Donald Thornton, a black
New Jersey laborer, who held the improbable dream that his six daughters would all become doctors. Two of them did so; a third is a dentist, and the others
are a lawyer, a nurse and a court stenographer.
Now, two of Dr. Thornton's sisters say that her account of their family's story, which has been made into a television movie, is flawed. They say that
it virtually ignores the role their mother, Itasker, a domestic worker, played in her daughters' success and that it barely hints at the emotional toll
their father's dream exacted from the family. They also say the book was written without their knowledge or permission.
In a new, privately published book, ''A Suitcase Full of Dreams,'' Dr. Jeanette F. Thornton, an Albany psychiatrist, and Rita L. Thornton, a lawyer in
Atlantic Highlands, N.J., portray their father as a domineering man who manipulated and bullied his daughters and drove a wedge between the three younger
sisters and two of their older siblings that exists to this day, years after their parents' death. (Mrs. Thornton died in 1977, her husband in 1983.)
The squabble might have been kept within the family, but the impending broadcast has the sisters worried about how their family's history will be presented.

It is one thing, Jeanette and Yvonne Thornton said, for sisters to disagree with each other, quite another to have an outsider interpret family matters.
The movie, which will be
broadcast on Sunday at 7 P.M. on the Family Channel, was adapted for television by Paris Qualles, a screenwriter and friend of the Thornton sisters. Mr.
Qualles, whose credits include a television movie, ''Tuskegee Airmen'' and a feature film, ''The Inkwell,'' attended elementary school in Long Branch,
N.J., with Rita Thornton, the youngest sister.
Mr. Qualles said his adaptation was based on sources other than those included in the book. It expands on the relationship between Yvonne, the third daughter,
who always tried to please their father and became the first in the family to become a doctor, and Jeanette, the second oldest, who rebelled against their
father's tight control. She was the first to shatter the dream of having six doctors in the house when she chose to pursue a doctorate in psychology, although
she went on to earn a medical degree.
''It is a success story; that is what ultimately drew me to the project,'' Mr. Qualles said during a telephone interview from Los Angeles. ''Conflict within
the family is not new, nor is it particularly dramatic. But when you have conflicts with a single goal, it makes for a more interesting story.
''What I hoped to do with Jeanette, she being the rebellious one, was to elevate one of the daughters, to represent the voice of people watching today,
especially the younger generation, which probably will watch this program and wonder why these girls put up with this.''
The movie presents Mr. Thornton, played by Carl Lumbly, as an enigma: a man who once said he loved his daughters better than life itself but who demanded
their unconditional love in return.
To the outside world, the Thorntons appeared to be a close-knit family, though sometimes the togetherness became suffocating as the sisters grew older.
The girls, who were not allowed to play with other children in their Long Branch neighborhood, studied together and attended the same schools, through
Monmouth College. Even though they achieved success and even performed as a teen-age jazz and rock band called the Thornton Sisters, they were forbidden
to mingle outside their family circle.
But Jeanette Thornton expressed concern that the movie would leave its audience with the incorrect impression that what it was seeing was the authentic
Thornton family experience.
''I'm afraid that after seeing the movie, people will go out and buy the book and end up believing that version of our story,'' said Dr. Thornton.
She and her sister Rita said they had been forced to publish their own book after they learned they could not stop their sister from going ahead with hers.
They said they did not know about their sister's book until she mailed them a copy.
Disturbed by what they read, including the omission of their half-sister, Jo Ann, who was born before their parents married, they tried to file suit but
learned they had no legal grounds to do so.
''We were told that this is our sister's view of the family, and that she has every right, legally, to tell the story as she saw it,'' said Jeanette Thornton.
''Had it been entitled, 'The Ditchdigger's Daughter,' we could understand. But it's about all of us, when only one of us was involved in the writing. Furthermore,
the title is misleading. Our father was a construction worker. He may have dug one ditch in his entire life. To use that title only trivializes what he
did.''
Yvonne Thornton, who is director of the perinatal diagnostic testing center at Morristown Memorial Hospital in New Jersey, said she had her own anxieties
about the movie.
''The first script didn't have me graduating from medical school,'' she said. ''I understand they had to focus on my father, rather than me, because he
was my focus. In so doing, and for creative purposes, they created intergenerational conflict. I hope they show that this was a loving family in the time
allotted.''
Dr. Thornton said she had not read her sisters' book, which is available only by mail.
''What's done is done,'' she said. ''My parents are gone, but they always told us that we have to cover for each other and have to love each other. And
I love every one of my sisters.''
Southfield Public Library
The Ditchdigger’s Daughter General Information
Connect to this website for an audio interview with Yvonne Thornton
http://psychjourney_blogs.typepad.com/wisdom_dad/2008/12/the-ditchdiggers-daughters-a-

black-familys-astonishing-success-story.html
For more on the family, go to
http://www.thornton-sisters.com/
To hear them perform, go to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtJA7aMVNJw
Yvonne has written a sequel – Something to Prove: a daughter’s journey to fulfill a father’s legacy. Published in 2010.
Jeanette and Rita have also written a book. Theirs is called A Suitcase Full of Dreams and was published in 1996.
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