My first post in 2011 finds me rummaging through my past on the precipice of my future.
2011 is the year I hope to graduate with an MFA in Creative Writing through the Whidbey Writers Workshop, a low-residency program on Whidbey Island.
I’ve written my way through two-thirds of my thesis, based on the life of my great-great-grandfather Michael Harm. Up until now, my protagonist has roamed the mid-nineteenth century Rhineland-Palatinate, a smidgeon of France, sailed the Atlantic Ocean, and arrived in the U.S. at New York City’s Castle Garden.
Now in 1857, as Michael prepares to arrive in Cleveland, Ohio, I’m revisiting my research from the two weeks I spent in Cleveland last April. One incredibly helpful resource is on-line, so I’m able to hop over there whenever I need to. It’s the Cleveland State University’s special collection about Cleveland history called The Cleveland Memory Project. The resources, especially the digital photos, are fabulous.
From a family album, my brother also recently sent me a photo I’d never seen before, of the employees of Michael’s Harm & Schuster carriage shop, circa the late 1870’s.
Pictured here, bottom row, left to right: Adam Crolly, Wm Walker, Fred Schuster, Michael Harm, W Paplotzki, Herman Butter (Butler?)
Only two of the men in the back row are identified: 4th from left: Anton Strom, 5th from left: Chas Schuster
Michael Harm and Fred Schuster were the business partners who owned Harm & Schuster Fine Carriages. But I’m also delighted to find my great-great-great-grandfather in the picture–Michael’s father-in-law Adam Crolly. A barrel maker (cooper) by trade, it seems in his 1870’s he went into carriage-making. Believe me, it’s all in the family. Fred Schuster was his other son-in-law. Chas Schuster must be a brother, or a cousin …
2011 is here. And so is 1857. Time to get busy writing.
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