I recommend you read (Mary) Jessamyn West's "The Friendly Persausion," the 1946 book on which the the movie was based. It's a funny and sentimental collection of stories of Quaker life in rural Indiana in the mid-1800s. I've read it several times and still find joy in it. West was born in Jennings County, Indiana but moved with her family to Southern California at the age of six. She was inspired by the stories told by her mother and grandmother of their time in Indiana. The characters of Jess and Eliza Birdwell were based on her Milhous grandparents. West was a second cousin of Richard Nixon and a descendant of many early Pennsylvania Quakers, including George Maris born 1632 and Benjamin Mendenhall. She is my ninth cousin. Eleanor Rayl Sent from my iPad > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Sun, 26 May 2013 17:06:07 -0400 (EDT) > From: Bob Cooke <cookerl3@aol.com> > Subject: Re: [Q-R] William Penn Movie > To: quaker-roots@rootsweb.com > Message-ID: <8D0286BF98AC1C1-E68-1EA1D@webmail-vd018.sysops.aol.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > > Yesterday I watched "Friendly Persuasion" with Gary Cooper who played "Jess" (Jesse) Birdwell, a Quaker family in Indiana in the early 1860's. It was interesting the way Hollywood tried to explain some of the basic beliefs and ways of Friends. And a little more subtly expressing the humor of Friends' and the enjoyment Quakers have of sex. I learned that the large families the early Quakers had was because of the mortality rate of children and to a lesser extant for the personal to run larger farms in the future, which are true, but I think the Quakers enjoyed themselves and used this more as an excuse to have as many children as they could. Expressed by the scenes where "Jess & Eliza" happily spend the night in the barn on a pile of hay. After which Jess even mentioned they must do that again, soon. I think Hollywood tried to convey the large families without having 10 or 12 or more children, by having a wide spread in age between the oldest and youngest of the 3 children ! in! > the family. This movie was made the year I was born 1956. > > Robert Cooke