Author Dale Stanten

On Thursday, October 17, author Dale Stanten will discuss her memoir “The Hooker’s Daughter” as part of Northern Essex Community College’s Life Long Learning Program. This presentation will take place on the college’s Haverhill Campus, 100 Elliott Street at 2p.m. Admission is $2.

In 1950s Jewish Boston, Stanton’s mother established a home-based business as a prostitute to remedy her husband’s inability to provide for his family. At age six, the author was answering the front door for johns. Kids were forbidden to play with her and even the Girl Scouts asked her to leave. And when her gay sister “came out” at age 16, it was the only thing her parents focused on as contemptible.

Stanten’s memoir is a story of survival, driven by a strong will and an ability to extract positive qualities from a dysfunctional life, punctuated by immoral and illegal behaviors. Stanten was able to reconcile the reality of her environment with what she wished it to be. The resulting tenacity enabled Stanten to cope with her terminally ill husband and widowhood at age 37. Her unconditional love for her mother challenges the reader to examine beyond that which is socially acceptable and identify that which is universal.

Stanten currently serves on the North Shore Board of Juvenile Scholarship Aid, volunteers as a Big Sister, and is an active member of Power of Women, a National Association of Women on the Rise, and The Arizona Humanities Consortium for the Arts. A life-long learner, she studies Kabbalah and Torah and shares her personal journey to encourage others to rise above their circumstances, no matter how difficult, using their inner strength to determine the course of their own lives.

She currently resides in Boston and Phoenix with her husband.
Copies of “The Hooker’s Daughter” will be available for purchase at this event.

Life Long Learning is a program of lectures, study groups, and trips for adults. All programs are open to the public.

For more information or to receive a free calendar of upcoming Life Long Learning events, contact Charlene Boucher, Life Long Learning coordinator, at 978-659-1225, or cboucher@necc.mass.edu.