Books about Gumption from Amazon.com

Women's stories often get lost because so much of women's history resides in private places such as diaries, family scrapbooks, family letters, or papers stored in boxes in family attics. Women often are hard to find, and once found, can be hard to track over time as they change their names when they get married And sometimes they marry more than once, which increases the challenge. This was what fourteen Fort Worth women took on when they agreed to write a chapter each on the history of women in their city.

From pioneer women to the movers and shakers of the mid-twentieth century, Grace and Gumption explores the lives and careers of the prominent and not-so prominent alike, uncovering a fascinating web of connection to show readers just how bustling Fort Worth was shaped by the distaff side.

Early in the process of planning the book, certain parameters were needed: from choosing the themes or categories of women's endeavors to deciding where to draw the line for inclusion. To avoid problems of inclusion and omission, the contributors agreed that they would only write about women who are deceased. Developing the categories to assign was difficult, because you can't pigeonhole women. Women always have been multi-taskers and many were relevant to more than one chapter because their talents and contributions reached in many directions.

Over the course of a summer, contributors met at monthly gatherings to discuss their progress. Meetings often concluded with authors bargaining with one another over who "got" which multitalented woman.

The goal was not an encyclopedia but to gather as many women's stories as possible out of the attics and into a public place, to provide snapshots of women's contributions that others may one day enlarge upon. In the process contributors learned a whole lot about the growth of a city and became a small and close-knit community themselves.

The result--a labor of love by women for women..
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In the character Balaam Gimble, Mike Nichols has created a knight-errant of contemporary rural Texas: a Joe Don Quixote Granted, Balaam's trusty steed may be only a rusty Frankenford-a twenty-three-year-old Ford pickup, reanimated time and again by the transplantation of parts from pickup cadavers, but the giants that Balaam tilts against are real enough to him-a ruthless businessman, a masseur-turned-dirty trickster, a money-mad hometown, and, most of all, plain old change.

For months the mayor and city council of the small town of Willoughby have been seeking a way to revitalize their town, to return it to the oil-and-cotton prosperity that it had enjoyed during the 1920s. They need an angle, something to put Willoughby on the map. When Balaam discovers a spring of health-giving mineral water on his two hundred acres of "woods and weeds," the town leaders suddenly see their angle.

As Willoughby's merchants begin selling Mason jars of Balaam's wonder water, the town's economic future looks much greener: Howard J. Liggett, the millionaire developer of a chain of upscale mineral spring resorts, offers to buy Balaam's land at many times its market value and build a resort on it, bringing even more people and prosperity to Willoughby. Residents soon forget how much they had cherished the "in our own sweet time" pace of their languishing little town.

Only Balaam sees that the town is beginning to change for the worse and is determined to save Willoughby from itself. Balaam is adamant-he won't sell the land that has been in his family five generations. But Liggett is just as adamant-he will acquire Balaam's land by hook or crook.

That crook is Ernie Ruiz, a young masseur with a criminal record. Liggett dispatches Ruiz to Willoughby to "persuade" Balaam to sell. Balaam remains serenely nonviolent in the face of Ruiz's campaign of terror.

When Ruiz cannot coerce Balaam to sell, Liggett stoops even lower: He resorts to perfectly legal means, informing Balaam that he has bought the mineral rights. Now the people of Willoughby know that even fool-headed Balaam, bless his heart, can't keep Willoughby off the map. Desperate, Balaam the knight-errant saddles up his Frankenford to make one final head-down, neck-bowed, full-gallop, Lone Star-spangled tilt at the windmills that threaten his hometown..
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This book deals with conflicts among churches and seeks to inspire better relations among them. It also promotes breaking down the biggest barrier between Christians, Jews, Arabs, and other religious cultures. This barricade is related to the Christian creed which says Jesus was the Son of God, or Christ, a mystical being. Good Gumption emphasizes that Jesus was fully human, a prophet, who sought to expand his biblical religion to all the people of the world. It advocates a New Reformation within Christianity to break through religious prejudices..
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John Pugh, railway worker, Seth Joshua, donkey driver, fighter and Frank Joshua, teacher were all converted in the Welsh valleys Pugh became a dedicated pastor who planted and grew several large churches before becoming involved in the 'Forward Movement'. The Joshua brothers had independently and with no training, started a venture of their own which saw great growth amongst the English language dominated industrial areas. It became the sort of pilot scheme that Pugh was looking for and they joined forces. The title of the book is taken from Pugh's plan to reach the unchurched industrial wasteland of Splott, next to Cardiff. He advertised the fact that he wanted 'To secure men of GRACE, GRIT AND GUMPTION' for the work..
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