Tortience

Tortience:

On Cape Cod, the early settlers called it the "tortience," that special bond which often exists between a father and daughter.

Mary Higgins Clark has mentioned in her book of "Kitchen Privileges" about the word, Tortience that it is the intimate bond between a father and his daughter. It is almost a universal fact that fathers have a special affection towards daughters, something very special and never can be explained.

"And in Remember Me the heroine, Menley, a travel writer, discovers that among old Cape Cod families, that “special love” between a father and his baby daughter had been acknowledged and even named; the daughter was her father’s tortience (p.134)." This is an excerpt from the article on the writer, Mary Higgins Clark where the same word is mentioned.[]

In some cases, tortience is used to refer the youngest child.

"Then Elizabeth, the smallest rose, began to be frightened. Hannah and Samuel were having the plague and she was left out. This ‘tortience-baby,’ the youngest, some folk said the plainest, since her hair was a little more lank than Hannah’s, her eyes a little less blue, was always struggling to share every adventure of her older sister and brother to whom she was Cape-loyal and sometimes much of a nuisance." - Excerpt from HINCKLEY FAMILY

Any other information on "tortience" and references are welcome.....

Reference:

1. http://www.maryhigginsclark.com/book_excerpt.php?isbn13=9780743412612

2. http://freepages.folklore.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~pahlow/hinckley1.htm

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu