The Newport Girls: A Memoir

At the tender age of eleven, Elaine Colton moved to Newport, Rhode Island, to live with her Navy civilian engineer father. Life had already been difficult for Elaine, having lost her mother at an early age; she desperately needed a friend to stand by her side. Instead, she got not one, but "fifteen" friends who supported her from childhood through adulthood for the next fifty years. Warm, witty, and full of love, "The Newport Girls" chronicles Colton's extraordinary lifelong relationship with her closest girlfriends. Beginning in 1952, Colton relates meeting Leenie Callahan, a girl who lived across the street, and how the two soon became best friends. They expanded their friendship circle in high school to include other like-minded girls. Together, these friends modeled for the local department store, wrote columns for the school paper, and enjoyed their carefree high school years. Despite the girls' wide dispersal around the country following graduation, they never lost affection for each other. Through marriages, career changes, children, financial hardships, divorce, and even death, the bond these women maintained for so long continued to hold strong. Along with numerous snapshots, other Newport Girls share their experiences in touching personal essays. In a story of the power of enduring friendship, the Newport Girls were always there for each other-and still are today.

Elaine Colton has spent over fifty-seven years connected to the Newport Girls. She lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with her partner, Rick Leeds.