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There were a few things that Ginny Brereton couldn't stand: preternaturally clean kitchen counters, rooms without bookcases, absolutely everything about Disney World, and long undisciplined sentences beginning with phrases like "there were." But those were incidental passions. Anyone who knew Ginny remembers her more for what she loved: her wonderful family, trips to hike in the French Alps or to climb in the neighborhood rock gym, music of every type, and books of every description.
Ginny's tragic death last September, the consequence of an early morning fire that destroyed her third-floor apartment, was an immeasurable loss to many people. To me she was a treasured intellectual companion and an irreplaceable friend. We laughed about something every time we talked to each other, no matter whether weeks or only hours had lapsed since our last conversation. For many years, as two independent scholars living mostly on the fringe of the academic establishment, we enjoyed the freedom to pursue ideas just because they were interesting. Together we edited a collection of essays, and wrote grant proposals, book reviews, and a scholarly article. We even dared each other to work through turgid books of postmodern theory, figuring it all out over saag paneer at Indian restaurants near our homes in Cambridge and Brookline, Massachusetts.
Of course, Ginny was not your average bookworm. I can't recall her ever going to a scholarly conference without an extra suitcase of books and a pile of Zagat guides. Many a time she and I ducked out of more serious matters to climb a mountain, find a walking tour, visit museums, search for offbeat restaurants, and of course browse bookshops.
But I'm not the only one who will miss her. Ginny is deservedly known as one of the top scholars of American evangelicalism, the world's leading expert on Bible schools many years before fundamentalists claimed their spot in the scholarly sunshine. Her first book originated as part of a Lilly-funded project, based in Auburn Seminary, on the history of Protestant theological education.1 With encouragement from project director Bob Lynn and the sharp young scholars he had assembled, Ginny developed the paper into a Columbia doctoral dissertation under Lawrence Cremin. She finished it just as Ronald Reagan was about to define a new era in American social history.
Even the most cursory glance at the table of contents, the many pages of footnotes, and the bibliographic essay confirms her zeal for what was then an obscure, and in many ways taboo, subject. Sympathy for conservative Protestants of any type did not run high in scholarly circles during the decade that produced Tammy Faye Bakker and Jerry Falwell. But as a young scholar, Ginny delved deeply into turn-of-the-century fundamentalist lore, with its "gap-men" and "Bible women," sideways statutes on dispensational charts and bitter disputes over the pre- or post-tribulation rapture. She traced the careers of eccentric and unglamorous people with the care more normally reserved for theologians and seminary presidents.
Ginny also wrote a book about conversion, taking on almost two centuries' worth of personal accounts by women who were deeplysometimes deservedlyobscure.2 But near the end, New England maidens seeking salvation from novel-reading and gossip give way to a rag-tag group of women on the path of personal transformation: cowgirl sidekick Dale Evans Rogers, Manson disciple Susan Atkins, writer Eugenia Price, and, of course, Marabel Morgan, the woman who made Saran Wrap famous.
A staple of evangelical bookshelves a few decades ago, these stories rarely received serious scholarly treatment. Ginny did not, however, let respectability stand in the way of inquiry. In fact, she finished the book with yet another unlikely turn, a chapter on modern conversion narratives composed of feminist epiphanies and lesbian "coming out" stories.
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