Meet Violet Fielding, my original historical character from 1918 Boston!
I've been doing some workshopping with my custom historical characters because I've been a little bored with AG's historical offerings of late, and because it's a fun excuse to dig into moments in time that interest me personally, but AG probably wouldn't produce a similar character themselves. (I say that, but my 1940's Hawaii character predates Nanea, so who knows! Maybe I'm manifesting some future stuff I can borrow for my gals.)
Violet is the youngest of three siblings. Her older sister Alice is in her early 20's and either a nurse or a Hello Girl, leaning towards nursing because I'm not sure I want her to go overseas and she could work at a hospital in Boston during the war. Her older brother James is 19 and enlists in the Marines once the US enters World War I. I think by Violet Saves the Day, he's returned home dealing with quite a bit of "shellshock" and that becomes a somewhat major theme.
Her parents are pretty wealthy, and the family lives in a brownstone on Beacon Hill in Boston. Her dad is a doctor and mom is a suffragist who also gets involved in causes supporting the war effort. Both parents are very supportive of their kids following their passions and getting themselves out there in this still relatively new century, which is why Alice has been allowed to go to school instead of immediately marrying some wealthy guy.
Vi herself is a precocious and creative kid. I think she likes to draw and paint and generally be crafty and creative, which comes in handy when brainstorming ways she can support her brother overseas and the war effort more broadly. While she's not afraid to get her hands dirty, she does like typically girly things like having teatime and looking at catalogs filled with new dresses. Her book series would theoretically cover 1917 through 1919 or so, and touch on the war, Women's Suffrage, the Spanish Flu, shellshock, and possibly the Boston Molasses Disaster.
Currently I'm trying to come up with a best friend character for her, as she really needs a Nellie or Ruthie in her life with the age difference and both siblings being off doing exciting and scary things without her. There are a lot of different directions I could go in with said friend - fellow wealthy-ish kid feels boring, Boston had a lot of new immigrant communities in the 1910's, some of whom did live in a specific part of Beacon Hill, Boston historically struggles with insidious covert racism but was still a city with a number of prominent Black and Jewish communities - and nothing's quite clicked as perfect just yet.
Violet is a Marie-Grace doll with a Nanea wig. Someone was selling her on a Facebook group a few years ago and I immediately felt like she was a Violet and needed to join my crew. Her last name was inspired by Lady Dorothie Fielding, a British woman who drove an ambulance during WWI and received several awards for bravery and service. Fielding's letters home were published after her death and are a really fascinating look at what it was like on the front lines doing this incredibly dangerous and important work. I used it as a major primary source for an educational interactive I helped develop in one of my previous jobs.
