Lois Orr (23 April 1917 - August 1985), also known as ''Louise Cusick'', ''Lois Cusick'' and ''Lois Culter'' was a 20th-Century American member of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (

POUM The Workers' Party of Marxist Unification ( es, Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista, POUM; ca, Partit Obrer d'Unificació Marxista) was a Spanish communist party formed during the Second Spanish Republic, Second Republic and mainly active a ...

) female militia.

Background

Orr was born in

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

. She attended

University of Louisville The University of Louisville (UofL) is a public research university in Louisville, Kentucky. It is part of the Kentucky state university system. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of ...

, where she met Charles Orr. In her sophomore year, she married Charles. They traveled to Europe for their

honeymoon A honeymoon is a vacation taken by newlyweds immediately after their wedding, to celebrate their marriage. Today, honeymoons are often celebrated in destinations considered exotic or romantic. In a similar context, it may also refer to the phase ...

, where they visited several countries including Nazi Germany. They were about to embark to India, but heard about the uprising and the start of the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...

Career

Orr lived in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

during the Spanish Civil War, where she was a member of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) female militia. She and her husband, survived the Stalinist attack on the POUM in June 1937, after the fighting of the Barcelona

May Days The May Days, sometimes also called May Events, refer to a series of clashes between 3 and 8 May 1937 during which factions on the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War engaged one another in street battles in various parts of Catalonia, ...

. They were arrested on 17 June, the day after Andrés Nin Pérez and the POUM executive were arrested, but were released on 1 July and placed by the US consul, Mahlon Perkins, on a ship bound for Marseilles on 3 July 1937. They were in Mexico in 1940 when

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...

was murdered.

Legacy

An edited collection of her letters home to the US from Spain were published in 2009.Jeremy Harding, ''Paralysed by the Absence of Danger'', London Review of Books, 31(18), 2009

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Orr, Lois American people of the Spanish Civil War POUM 1917 births 1985 deaths Women in war 1900–1945 Women in war in Spain People from Louisville, Kentucky