From Squirt Blossom to Goddess: Helen McGehee’s Pursuit of Bliss as a Martha Graham Dancer

Dr. Linda Thomas received her Ph.D. in German literature from the University of Connecticut in 1978. Immediately thereafter, she began teaching at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College. She retired after an undistinguished, lack-luster career in 2006. The only publication by Dr. Thomas receiving wide recognition was an obituary for her mother. In addition to being published in the local newspaper, it circulated extensively on the Internet and was published in a (scholarly) book of recipes, Food to Die For to benefit the Old City Cemetery in Lynchburg. Another equally clever obituary was for her dog, but, having been inexplicably rejected for publication in the local newspaper, it remains unappreciated. She has published a widely unacclaimed book, Ordnung und Wert der Unordnung bei Bertolt Brecht. It drew only the attention of a well-known Brecht scholar, who wrote a bad review, obviously prompted by jealousy for not having thought of the book’s brilliant thesis himself. Having written with so little success on a subject about which she had some knowledge, Dr.Thomas decided to change tactics and try taking on a subject about which she knows absolutely nothing: dance. Her only qualification is that she does know Helen McGehee and shares Helen’s madness, proven by the subject’s willingness to entrust her life story to someone so immanently unqualified to understand it. Dr. Thomas hopes that this book will at least encourage someone else, who actually knows something about dance, to pick up the torch and do justice to Helen’s distinguished career. The author lives on in well-deserved obscurity in Lynchburg, Virginia.