News Release

It's a Girl!

EUGENE, OR  (07/09/2007)  Jan Eliot’s “Stone Soup” comic strip family has a new addition. Luci Stone Weinsten, was born Sunday (July 8) weighing in at 9 lbs., 8 ozs. Mom Joan gave birth at home with help from a midwife, and Luci was born healthy, happy and red-headed in the Sunday color strip.

Some die-hard “Stone Soup” fans who are familiar with Eliot’s message of strong women in families may find the name of the new baby amusing. “Lucy Stone” was an American reformer and pioneer in the movement for women's rights.

“Lucy Stone was born in the mid-1800s and disagreed with her father's belief that men should be dominant over women, so she went to college,” Eliot says. “I thought that kind of self-assurance was exactly the characteristic that the Stone women possess.”

The cartoonist expected some controversy over Joan’s homebirth, but overall she received positive feedback from readers. Eliot has experience with home births—one of her daughters had two home births. She has always been adamant about women’s rights and women being allowed to make these kinds of personal choices.

Eliot has tackled conventional situations in an unconventional family since the beginning of the strip in 1995. Graduating from the University of Oregon with a degree in Women’s studies and English, Eliot has described "Stone Soup" as addressing modern families who do not quite fit the stereotype of a perfect family - with mom and dad, 2.5 kids and a white-picket fence.

Developed from her own life as a single mom living in Eugene, Ore., “Stone Soup” follows the lives of two sisters, Val and Joan Stone, who are next-door neighbors. Most of the action revolves around Val and her two daughters, 13-year-old Holly and 10-year-old Alix, who were based on Eliot's two daughters, Johanna and Jennifer. Both are grown with children of their own now, but their lives continue to inspire the characters of Val and Joan, Eliot says, just as her own life now inspires the character of "Gramma," Val and Joan's mother, in the strip.

Val and Joan have experience quite a few ups and downs over the last few years. Joan’s husband went out for milk and never came back, she moved in with Val, then she married Wally Weinsten the next door neighbor. Last October Joan announced her pregnancy in the typical shocked, then horrified, then delighted process. Her pregnancy wasn’t expected, but welcomed by the Stone-Weinsten clan. Throughout the morning sickness, chocolate Sunday cravings, hormones Wally and Joan, as well as the rest of the Stones, remained positive and excited about the new baby.

Eliot collaborates with Women Build and Girls Build, both programs through Habitat for Humanity, on projects to give women the opportunity to help other women become more independent. Her characters have become spokescharacters for the organization.

Creator(s): Jan Eliot

Contact(s): Kathie Kerr

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