Happy Birthday, Felicity!

Happy Birthday, Felicity! is the fourth book in the Felicity series. With her BeForever rerelease, it is now part of A Stand for Independence.

Characters

• Felicity Merriman
• Nan Merriman
• William Merriman
• Martha Merriman
• Edward Merriman
• Elizabeth Cole
• Annabelle Cole
• Miss Manderly
• Benjamin Davidson

Introduced

• Grandfather
• Mr. and Mrs. Cole
• Lord Dunmore

Only in Happy Birthday, Felicity!

• Isaac Wallace

Chapter by Chapter Summary

Looking Back: Growing Up in 1774

Discusses childbirth and childhood to young adulthood during colonial times. Topics covered:

• How families were very large in the era and it was not unheard of for parents to have eight or more children, though almost half of children died before six years old.
• The lack of current knowledge regarding nutrition and hygiene as well as germs as the cause of disease, leading to many children dying from illnesses such as diphtheria, whooping cough, and smallpox
• How children where born at home with midwives and how new mothers of high ranking could spend at least a week post birth in bed and a month recovering, while enslaved and working women were not given such time off.
• Christening ceremonies
• Early infant clothing which mostly consisted of loose dresses including stays until toddlerhood, short dresses for young children of any gender, and the breeching of young boys at age five or six (and the subsequent division into gender roles at the age and fathers taking more roles in teaching their sons after breeching)
• Games and toys available to children including music and reading, and how toys were either handmade or imported.
• How teenage years were spent according to class with poorer and enslaved youth already working while boys of better position would either continue education or go into apprenticeship and girls of such position would train in housekeeping and gentlewoman skills.
• The courting of young ladies and men, how families expected marriages of equal class, and how most girls were married in their early twenties.
• How boys of sixteen were required to practice with militia unless black or apprenticed, and boys between twelve and sixteen (white or free people of color) served as drummers or fifers
• The storage of arms and powder in the magazine, and the Raid of Williamsburg's Magazine, also known as the Gunpowder Incident, which angered the town's Patriots and was an inciting factor leading up to the American Revolutionary War.

Book Covers

• First cover from 1991-2000.
  First cover from 1991-2000.
• Third cover from 2004-2017.
  Third cover from 2004-2017.

Items associated with Happy Birthday, Felicity!

• Spring Gown with Pinner Apron and Pompon
• Felicity's Guitar
• Felicity's Party Treats
• Posie the Lamb
• Chocolate Set
• Tilt-Top Table and Chairs

Trivia

• The song Annabelle sings is "He Stole My Tender Heart Away"; however most sources show a publication of the tune around 1780, which means the song would have not been popularized in sheet music in 1775. It is quite possible that, as a traditional folk song, it would have been know prior to its formal publication.