widow's walk

[Lynne Murphy]

>I know what a widow's walk is, but does anyone know anything else about
>the phrase? Where it came from, when it came into use, who first used it,
>anything at all about it? My mother needs to know for a newspaper story
>she's writing. Any help would be appreciated.


We had a lot of widow's walks in my part of west-central NY.  I was
told in my local history lessons that these were for women watching
for their men coming back from the Civil War.  Whether that was true
or not is another matter.

L.


--
M. Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 3AN    UK
phone:  +44(0)1273-678844
fax:    +44(0)1273-671320