Name: LIFE@Lynchburg | "Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live”
Start: 2026-01-28T10:00:00-05:00
End: 2026-01-28T12:00:00-05:00
Location: Sydnor Performance Hall

$LIFE@Lynchburg | "Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live\u201d$

"Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live”: Connecting the Dots Between McCarthyism, Lucille Ball, and Me
What I thought I knew about the infamous Salem Witch Trials wasn’t the whole story at all. In fact, my knowledge barely scratched the surface. All I knew was that a group of foolish teenage girls let a prank get way out of hand — and that a famous playwright named Arthur Miller had decided to create an extended metaphor to spotlight the McCarthy trials. Of course, as an English teacher, I had taught Miller’s work, The Crucible, many times. I thought it was a noble attempt to focus on man’s inhumanity to man in a way that would surely prevent us from doing such a heinous, cruel thing again. Boy, was I wrong. Add grievously uninformed. While I knew all of Miller’s characters by heart, I did not know that my 9th great-grandmother, Mary Towne Easty, would be among those to meet their end at the end of a short noose.
I had just begun researching my genealogy when I connected with a long-lost cousin who shared my branch of a vast tree and offered me a copy of the extensive genealogical report she had commissioned some years back. On a dark and stormy night (yes, seriously!), I lay in bed and perused the stack of pages. There were names I recognized. Connected to more names. All documented, of course. By now, I wasn’t recognizing names at all — only the events that connected their lives across generations. This person married that person… and gave birth to the other person… Line by line, I followed the unfolding story with my finger. Eventually, I turned a page, and two names jumped off, names I had seen on Arthur Miller’s pages as well: REBECCA NURSE, my 10th great- aunt … and her sister, MARY EASTY, my 9th great-grandmother. Both were hanged in Salem.
For the next two years, I often dreamed that I was choking. I grew angry every time I saw the silhouette of a Halloween witch. The sight of the Salem Police Department’s official patch — “Witch City”— would drive me into a rage. I became so preoccupied with the event that I could not make sense of it at all. I finally figured that the debt I owed to my murdered ancestors was to examine WHY such a thing had happened fully. And it sure wasn’t what Arthur Miller said.
Speaker Biography:
Donna Plunkett St. Clair is Lynchburg-born and bred. A proud graduate of E.C. Glass High School, she served a tour of duty in the U.S. Army as a journalist and broadcaster during the Vietnam era. Her kind Uncle Sam funded her bachelor’s degree in English from Randolph College (back when it was R-MWC). Years later, she finally completed her master’s degree in communication and marketing at the University of Oklahoma. For many years, she worked in that field, in nonprofits and the government, before returning to her first love: teaching high school English. Having lost her own husband to younger-onset Lewy Body Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease, she subsequently founded a global social media support group for other caregivers. Today, she spends her time on genealogical research and political activism.