Background
Starkey, Shirley Condit was born on December 25, 1933 in Tucson. Daughter of Edwin Carmichael and Mabel (Votaw) Condit.
(The Scorpion Stings relates a family's exploits while liv...)
The Scorpion Stings relates a family's exploits while living in Iran whre they witnessed war, earthquakes, riots and assassination. A U.S. Army captain takes his pregnant wife and three year old son with him on their first overseas assignment. Shah Mohammad Reza Palavi is in power and is dragging his country into the 20th Century. He mandates that women should give up the veil and get an education; that the mullahs and wealthy families give their lands to the peasants; that the tribal nomads give up their weapons and take up farming. It is 1963 and he called the decree the White Revolution because it was intended to be bloodless. It was not! It only caused the rise of a charisamatic mullah named Ruhollah Khomeini. Against this chaotic background the family, but more especially the wife, deals with the everyday problems of inadequate housing, lack of potable water, failing electricity, and the hiring of necessary servants.(Our heroine has no idea how to manage servants and ends up with 27...one right after he other)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0977019500/?tag=2022091-20
(The Monkey Drowns is the second in a series depicting the...)
The Monkey Drowns is the second in a series depicting the life of a military wife. The first book, The Scorpion Stings tells of a small town, naïve girl who marries a career Army officer, moves twelve times in five years and then finds herself in primitive Iran of the 1960’s. The Monkey Drowns carries the story further to when the family moves from Iran back to their hometown, Tucson, Arizona. The Army sends her husband to the University of Arizona for his Master’s Degree in Industrial Management. After graduation her husband is sent to Korea and then back to the States for further training in order to go to Viet Nam. During these long absences, our heroine carries on the family’s duties, taking care of three children, managing finances and the usual household jobs. The 60’s was a time of great upheaval; chaos was everywhere with the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. Anti-war protestors were burning draft cards and shutting down universities and disrupting the Democratic convention in Chicago. It was a difficult time for wives if the man of the house was in Viet Nam. Upon the joyous return of her husband, the family again moves several times, finally ending up in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas where he is a student in Command and General Staff College. Upon completion of the year-long school, the family is once again sent to Iran where her husbandis an advisor to the Shah of Iran. The year is 1970 and the change in Tehran is remarkable. The Shah has been working hard to drag the country from the seventh century into the 20th century. As he brings in more Westerners to ‘help’ him, the more resistance he encounters. The Shah is convinced that Saddam Hussein is planning an attack and initiates war games in order to be ready. In the meantime, Ruhollah Khomeini has been kicked out of Iraq by Saddam Hussein for fomenting trouble and he moves to Paris where he discovers the simple tape recorder. He commences sending recordings of his speeches back to the mosques of Iran resulting in major riots. Throughout all this, our military wife continues dealing with ordinary household events as well as wild dog attacks, kamikaze drivers, and the birth of her fourth child in an Iranian hospital. President Nixon arrives for a three day visit while bombs are set off all over Tehran. When the Pentagon requests her husband to extend his tour in Iran for a third year, he declines, in favor of returning to Viet Nam. He was concerned that his children might be the victims, if the radicals decided to bomb the American School. While he is in Viet Nam his replacement in Tehran is murdered. This story is mainly about the difficulties a military wife has to overcome. To quote Major General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, Jr.: “Military wives, in my humble opinion, are the un-sung champions of the Department of Defense. Read this book and appreciate what military families face during foreign and domestic assignments. It is all there, in charming detail.”
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0977019519/?tag=2022091-20
Starkey, Shirley Condit was born on December 25, 1933 in Tucson. Daughter of Edwin Carmichael and Mabel (Votaw) Condit.
Bachelor, University Arizona, Tucson, 1955.
Teacher elementary various states, 1956—1975. Broker real estate Tucson, 1976—2002. Owner Columbia Estate Appraisals, 1978—1980, LaCasa Esperanza Supervisory Care Home, Tucson, 1979—2001.
(The Scorpion Stings relates a family's exploits while liv...)
(The Monkey Drowns is the second in a series depicting the...)
Member of Assistant League of Tucson, AU Philanthropic and Educational Organization (president Arizona chapter), Society Southwestern Authors, Arizona Watercolor Association, Southern Arizona Watercolor Guild (signature member).
Married James Edward Starkey, September 28, 1956. Children: James Edward Junior, Patrick Joseph, Peggy Musselmann, Richard Carmichael.