Category Archives: General

Musings and storytelling

Love those local bookstores

Posted on September 11, 2012 | 4 comments

I’ve been a customer of Island Books for decades. I can walk in the door, say something inane like “I’m looking for a book called Botany of … something-I-can’t-remember“? and Marni at the front desk will march over to the shelf, pull out Pollan’s Botany of Desire and plunk it on the counter in front of me. It’s uncanny, and it’s wonderful.

The other day I ventured to ask the owner, Roger Page, for his advice about whether or not my book would sell. He looked at me with a kind gaze.

“Have you finished writing it?” he asked.

“Yup.”

“Well, congratulations. Most people don’t get that far. Now for the bad news. You’re only a third of the way. Step two is finding a publisher, and step three is selling it.”

I nodded mutely. I knew that, but hearing it come from Roger, I knew it all over again.

“The most important thing for you to do now,” he went on, “is to get your pitch figured out. Memorize it, so it will trip off your tongue wherever you are.”

Thanks, Roger. Here, for all the world to see, I’m making a first attempt at a “book jacket spiel.” What do you think?

Harm’s Way: A Blacksmith’s Journey

Harm’s Way is a novel of historical fiction that tells the compelling story of MICHAEL HARM, an immigrant blacksmith who travels in the year 1857 from a rural village in the German Rhineland to Antebellum Cleveland, seeking frontier wilderness, liberty, and a better life, wholly unprepared for what he finds—rioting in New York, prohibitionist and anti-immigrant sentiment in Cleveland, and an Ohio wilderness fast being overrun by industrial enterprise. Apprenticing as a blacksmith under his uncle, a brutal taskmaster, Michael survives inspired by rags-to-riches accounts such as that of Abraham Lincoln, then-candidate for president. As the Civil War heats up, Michael and other wagon-makers crank out wagons for the Union Army. He wins the heart of American born Elizabeth Crolly and bets his future on a small, family-run carriage works. During Cleveland’s Gilded Age, against stiff competition from large carriage factories, he dedicates every moment to keeping his business, and the artisan craft of wagon-making, alive as a legacy for his children. Near the end of his life, as the horseless carriage threatens to close his shop for good, and his adult children are turning their backs on their German heritage, Michael must face whether he has succeeded in his quest, or devoted his entire life to a failed ideal.

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Non-natives

Posted on August 27, 2012 | 2 comments

It’s blackberry picking season — fifteen jars of blackberry jelly have been “put up” (to borrow an old family expression) and I hope to do a few more before the end of the season.

Even as I revel in blackberry bounty, I regret the reality: Himalayan blackberries are a non-native species threatening our natural habitat in the Pacific Northwest. It’s all I can do to keep the invasion in check in my own yard — new canes shoot out great distances over night. The way the thorny hooks lunge for the berry picker, clawing clothes, arms, hair, I swear this species resembles a feral animal more than a plant. The Himalayan blackberry first arrived on the West Coast in the 1800s. Click on this fact sheet for more details.

From my childhood in Ohio I carry memories of blackberry picking as well — my grandmother used to wait for me to bring her a couple of quarts, which she would cook, then strain with a cheesecloth and convert to “jel.” The Ohio blackberry (Rubus allegheniensis) was a much smaller, more tart variety growing on the edges of fields dotted with Queen Anne’s lace and teasel. While the blackberries are native, much to my dismay the Queen Anne’s lace and teasel are not. I learned this factoid at the Ohio Historical Center in Columbus, where they have a terrific “The Nature of Ohio” exhibit. For a list of Ohio’s invasive plants, categorized as “watch list,” “targeted species,” and “well-established,” click here.

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Writing highs and lows

Posted on August 13, 2012 | 1 comment

I’ve finished revising Harm’s Way, and this weekend found myself on a bluff overlooking Puget Sound, both dazzled by the spectacular view and overcome by vertigo, an uneasy sensation that at any moment I might plummet into the yawning abyss.

As writers, we carry these dual emotions with us always. Sometimes it’s more intense than others, but as I ferried off to Whidbey Island for my first ever alumni weekend (of the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts MFA in Creative Writing), I felt both high and low. Would I become that much more high? I wondered. That much more low? The answer was: yes, and yes.

Part of the weekend involved the graduation of nine MFA students in the class of 2012, a moment that made me happy for my writing friends, and reflective about whether or not I’d met my own writing goals since I stood up there last year. Afterwards, as we mingled and took photos, Bonny Becker (an author and teacher in the program), asked me what I’d been up to.

“Revising,” I said. “All year.”

“Good,” she said. “Most people don’t realize they need to do that. Good for you for recognizing it, and doing what it takes.”

I was grateful for the encouragement. I could not help feeling as if others were gaining ground while I stood still. Then again, I have yet to meet the writer who doesn’t compare herself to others. We love words after all, which brings about moments of yearning, moments when we admire what someone else has written and think: “I wish I’d written that.” What’s more, the farther I delve into my writing career, the more I figure out writing amounts to only a third of the business. With all the tricky ins and outs of publishing and selling, and the frequent changes in the industry, it can become overwhelming.

So yes, there were lows, but Bonny’s encouragement is an example of the much more frequent highs of the weekend — the chance to listen to some truly amazing writing, to hang out with writer friends and make new ones. As a group, writers know how to tell good stories and share many a belly laugh. We love our characters, and don’t shy away from the hard stuff either, especially when it comes to commiserating about steeling our egos for rejection, a process that in the end (we hope) will make publishing success that much more sweet.

So I’m home again, back in writing mode, holding onto that spectacular view, and feeling good about writing for as long as I can.

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Olympic storytelling, Boyle and Milton

Posted on July 29, 2012 | Leave a comment

When the Opening Ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics began, I was anticipating something along the lines of the show at Beijing, the digital floor and screens, the synchronicity of the performers, glitz and glam.

What’s with all the lawns? I wondered as Danny Boyle’s “Pandemonium” opened. What transpired was quintessential storytelling.

Based on Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” Boyle orchestrated for over 40 million viewers a creation story of sorts–of hell.

Boyle told his performers “you are creating Hell”. But he also emphasised that the Industrial Revolution was a key moment in history, giving birth to democratic movements, such as that of the Suffragettes and the demand for universal health care.

He told them: “It was monstrous but it changed lives. People, including myself, can read and write thanks to it. The workers of the Industrial Revolution built the cities that are now the settings for every Games.”

[DNA Daily News and Analysis]

I admit I loved it — from the cigar-smoking men in top hats to the sledge-wielding ironworkers in the mutant masks — especially because it did not hide from us the ugliness of our transformation. (Well, until we got to Daniel Craig and the Queen, at which point we put our rose-colored sunglasses back on.)

And based on the research I’ve been doing for my book, I’m with Boyle on the Industrial Revolution being key. It has changed everything. Without electricity, without gasoline, without our machines and technology, we would not have the slightest idea how to survive.

In the spirit of storytelling irony, I could not help but notice throughout “Pandemonium” the sense of total control — of the 1,000 actors, the sets, technical effects and timing — the opposite of what has been happening in the 21st century, the ever-expanding chaos as we humans propel ourselves blindly toward self-destruction.

do they only stand
By ignorance, is that their happy state,
The proof of their obedience and their faith?

— John Milton, “Paradise Lost”

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Unknowingly contributed

Posted on July 23, 2012 | Leave a comment

I stopped by an estate sale yesterday and, as always, rummaged through the box of books. Usually by Saturday afternoon all the treasures are long gone. But this 1876 copy of The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper, with its crumbling spine, lay overlooked. The seller wanted fifty cents.

Chronologically the first in the series of Cooper’s five “Leather-Stocking Tales,” The Deerslayer was published last, in 1841. What I love about this 1876 edition is that Susan Fenimore Cooper, the author’s daughter, holds the copyright and supplies her own “Introduction” about the history, the geography, flora and fauna of the Lake Otsego region. According to Quotidiana, “Susan Fenimore Cooper is remembered as America’s first female nature writer,” best known for her nature journal Rural Hours. She also worked for female suffrage, wrote articles for magazines, helped her father edit his books, and was so essential to his life he disapproved her several suitors and she never married.

Browsing through her “Introduction,” I found the following:

“In the year 1709 a large party of Protestant Germans from the Palatinate, fleeing from the effects of religious persecution, and the poverty brought upon Rhenish Germany by the wars of Louis XIV., emigrated to America under the patronage of Queen Anne. Some three thousand crossed the Atlantic at this period. Many of these settled in Pennsylvania, others on the Hudson, others at the German Flats on the Mohawk. A colony of several hundred of these worthy industrious people settled on the banks of the Schoharie [New York] in 1711. … Natty [hero of “The Leather-Stocking Tales”] and Hurry Harry are supposed to have approached [Lake Otsego] from the little colony on the Schoharie, founded thirty years earlier by the ‘Palatines,’ as they were called.

“There was a village of the Mohegans on the Schoharie, at the foot of a hill called by them ‘Mohegonter,’ or ‘the falling away of the Mohegan Hill.’ These Mohegans came, it is said, originally from the eastward, beyond the Hudson. The clan is reported to have numbered some three hundred warrieors when the Germans arrived among them. A tortoise and a serpent were the tokens of this clan. documents, chiefly sales of land to the Germans, still exist bearing their signatures in this shape.”

There is much more, about how her father decided to write The Deerslayer, about the end of her father’s days in Cooperstown, NY. Not to mention my delight at stumbling upon such a treasure.

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Genealogy research to novel

Posted on July 14, 2012 | Leave a comment

Thanks to President Gary Zimmerman and newsletter editor Joan Wilson, I am delighted to be able to direct you to the Fiske Genealogical Foundation Summer 2012 Newsletter, where my article “From Genealogy Research to Novel” appears (once at the site, click on Summer 2012 Fiske Newsletter Now Available to download the pdf). Also note on page 7 of the newsletter, the section on the lower right about “Fiske Writing Aids,” which lists further resources for writing family history.

Fiske Genealogical Foundation is a nonprofit service organization that provides genealogical training and resource materials. Currently, their library is celebrating its 20th anniversary in its Pioneer Hall (Madison Park, Seattle) location.

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Bound to respect

Posted on July 9, 2012 | 2 comments

In 1846, Dred Scott, a man enslaved to an army surgeon, declared he had lived long enough on free soil to make him a free man and sued the federal government to be rid of his status as a slave. After over 10 years of court trials and appeals, a March 2, 1857, ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court came down 7-2 against Mr. Scott. The Dred Scott Decision ruled:

“that Dred Scott had no right to sue in federal court, that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, and that Congress had no right to exclude slavery from the territories.

“All nine justices rendered separate opinions, but Chief Justice Taney delivered the opinion that expressed the position of the Court’s majority. His opinion represented a judicial defense of the most extreme proslavery position.

“The chief justice made two sweeping rulings. The first was that Dred Scott had no right to sue in federal court because neither slaves nor free blacks were citizens of the United States. At the time the Constitution was adopted, the chief justice wrote, blacks had been ‘regarded as beings of an inferior order’ with ‘no rights which the white man was bound to respect.'” Digital History

Good Lord. July 9 is the birthday of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, the Amendment that at last granted African Americans rights as citizens.

What rights? Back in the day, the Bill of Rights included the following: freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, the right to keep and bear arms, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, protection for those accused of crimes.

In 2012, the USCIA Citizenship and Immigration Services website lists the rights of citizenship as:
*Freedom to express yourself.
*Freedom to worship as you wish.
*Right to a prompt, fair trial by jury.
*Right to vote in elections for public officials.
*Right to apply for federal employment requiring U.S. citizenship.
*Right to run for elected office.

If you’re not a citizen yet? Click here for a Rights of Non-Citizens Study Guide at the University of Minnesota’s Human Rights Library. And while we’re on the subject, if we’re going to be “bound to respect” one another’s rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a good place to start.

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Soccer back and forth

Posted on June 29, 2012 | Leave a comment

Yesterday afternoon, the European Soccer Championship quarterfinal between Germany and Italy was tough going. My son was home, watching it about two feet away from the screen because he didn’t have his contacts in.

“I wonder about the history of soccer,” I said from back on the couch like a normal person.

“It started in England,” he said, spooning breakfast cereal into his mouth. “They call it football, but ‘socc’ was the nickname for the association, and they added the ‘-er’ on the end.”

Huh. This morning, still bemoaning Germany’s heartbreaking loss, I began clicking around for more enlightenment. The research trail was labyrinthine, since the keywords “history of soccer” and “history of football” are interchangable in certain corners of the world. Still, I found the basics quickly: games where a ball is kicked by the foot date back to China 1700 years ago etc. etc. Fast forward to 1863, when two English Football Associations were founded: Association (“Socc-er”) Football and Rugby Football (the former being a game where the ball could not be touched by the hands).

Still, confusion reigned. For instance, in the Gale Cengage 19th Century U.S. Newspapers database, I found no mention of the word “soccer,” but “football” turned up the following.
Boston Daily Advertiser (Boston, MA) Thursday, January 14, 1864
“A number of English gentlemen living in Paris have lately organised a football club, to which is to be added athletic indoor exercises of a gymnasia character. The football contests take place in the Bois de Boulogne, with the permission of the French authorities, and surprise the French amazingly.”

Hmm. Do they mean socc-er? Or rugg-er? (British nickname back then for rugby.) Interesting that the Boston Daily Advertiser is reporting the goings-on in Paris. Over a decade later, the same newspaper reports on a football match in Cambridge, Mass. between Harvard and Canada (Tuesday, May 09, 1876). The “Harvards” won, 1-0. But descriptions of the goals and touchdowns, movement up and down the field, etc. more closely resemble rugby.

Meanwhile, Germany did not found a football (soccer) association until 1900, one of the last countries in Europe to do so. One reason might be that, unlike the rest of western Europe, Germany was not a country until 1871. Early on, a memorable, crushing defeat for Germany occurred in 1909, when England trounced Germany 9-0. In the latter half of the 20th century (after two world wars, and decades where Germany was divided into two countries, then reunited), Germany had a string of victories, prompting Gary Lineker, England’s legendary striker, to state (after England’s 1990 World Cup loss): “Soccer is a game for 22 people that run around, play the ball, and one referee who makes a slew of mistakes, and in the end Germany always wins.”

A more complete exploration of 20th century German soccer can be found at Soccer-Fans-Info.com.

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Posted in 19th century history, Freinsheim and Palatinate history, General

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Add wine to the water

Posted on June 17, 2012 | Leave a comment

Do I have it backwards? Isn’t it supposed to be “add water to the wine?” Today, perhaps. But in Roman times, and still in the Palatinate, a favorite quaff is the Wein-schorle, a healthy dose of sparkling mineral water with wine added.

On my travels in the Palatinate (Pfalz) in 2010, cultural disorientation smacked me on the forehead my first night, while visiting the Bad Dürkheim Wurstmarkt. In one of the many vendor tents of this wine festival (which dates back some 600 years), I had no idea what any of the offerings on the sign meant. What on earth was a Wein-schorle? (a spritzer) A Trollschoppen? (a bumpy 0.5 litre pint glass, unique to the Palatinate). Traubensaft? (juice) Sprudel? (mineral water)

What’s more, I couldn’t help wondering, why are they diluting their wine? It seemed so strange, but turned out to be a wise choice — the Wein-schorle kept me hydrated, and alert enough late into the evening to be able to enjoy the fireworks display.

The disorientation continued the next day at Bewartstein castle, where I heard (or at least I thought heard — the tour guide was speaking German, my relative translating bits and pieces) that the best wine was reserved for the king’s knights at the castle, because if the water supply was poisoned, they would survive to protect the king. This concept cast a whole new perspective on the purpose of, and fascination with, wine-making. Water fermented with grapes in the wine-making process would render it safe to drink.

A week later, at Heidelberg Castle, I encountered the world’s largest wine barrel, the Heidelberg Tun. The barrel was built as a kind of “reservoir” — 55,345 gallons in all — to contain wine quotas, that is, the royal family’s taxes on wine growers under their rule. Imagine: all those wines dumped together in one enormous vat. What would be the point? Unless maybe, the water quality was poor, so the wine served as a substitute, or was mixed with mineral water to stave off illness?

Which makes more sense, except for the dance floor on top of the barrel. Perhaps the royal family’s motives were not entirely pure.

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Posted in Freinsheim and Palatinate history, General, The Last of the Blacksmiths: A Novel, Travels in Germany

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Just the facts, Ma’am

Posted on June 7, 2012 | Leave a comment

I am very impressed by the Western Reserve Historical Society (WRHS). Unless you’re a history buff, you might not know the term “Western Reserve” refers to the northeastern part of Ohio.

The Wikipedia entry for the Connecticut Western Reserve describes it thus: “the lands between the 41st and 42nd-and-2-minutes parallels that lay west of the Pennsylvania border. Within Ohio the claim was a 120-mile (190 km) wide strip between Lake Erie and a line just south of Youngstown, Akron, New London, and Willard …” The strip of land in Ohio included Cleveland. Hence, names like “Church of the Western Reserve” and “Case Western Reserve University.”

Among the Western Reserve Historical Society’s incredible collections, exhibits, archives and online databases, are the following: local funeral home indexes, Jewish marriage and death notices, biographical sketches, Bible records, Early Families in Cleveland Project, Allen E. Cole African American Collections and more. To see the comprehensive list of databases, click here. To search what’s available in their extensive library catalog, click here.

Each time I see something like “Bible Records Index” or “Early Families in Cleveland Project” my heart beats a little faster. Maybe I’ll find my ancestors there, I think. So far, nothing much has turned up. Why not? For one thing, they were German, so kept to their German clan. Perhaps their names appear in the German newspapers, hard copies of which are available in the WRHS archives library, but not digitized or inventoried by individual names. For another thing, these first-generation immigrants were working men. Furnace operators, barrelmakers, blacksmiths, machinists. The salt (and grit) of the earth. For instance, my great-great-great uncle Jakob Handrich, who immigrated to Cleveland in 1840, appears rarely (often with alternate spellings, Handrick, Hendricks, Henry). If at all. Here’s what I know.

Jakob Handrich Life Events
*Born circa 1822, presumably in Meckenheim
*Arrived July 29, 1840 in New York on Ship Anson, 18 years old, traveling with his parents, 2 older sisters and 1 older brother
*In 1841, Jakob settled in Cleveland, Ohio, trained as a cooper (barrelmaker) and earned $5 per week.
*In 1843, he found work as a blacksmith in a factory “where steaming kettles and machines for steamboats and railways were being built” and earned $1.50/day
*In 1848, he made a journey into the southern states, approximately 2000 miles, including Cincinnati, St. Louis, Mobile and New Orleans
*In 1849, he bought a property ($600 cash) and built a house himself (nicknamed “House Place”) and lived there with his elderly parents until their deaths in the mid-1850s.
*By 1858, Jakob had been swept up in the California Gold Rush and traveled around South America by ship to California. At first, he made a lot of money as a blacksmith in San Francisco, but then the times got bad and he traveled to Sacramento Sutte to dig for gold and try his luck.
*In 1862 he was still in California, and had amassed approx. $12,000 in the bank.
*In 1864, he was in Cincinnati and contemplated returning to California.
*In 1869, he had married, had one son, and lived again in Cleveland.
*In 1870, he went to look for work in Columbus, and traveled between Columbus and Cleveland in subsequent years.
*In 1896 he was laid to rest at Green Lawn Cemetery in Columbus, Ohio.

Little of the above info turns up in genealogy databases; it all comes from several dozen letters in my family’s possession. I have no birth record, marriage record, proof of children. Only his name on a ship manifest, and his gravestone, where his name appears as Jacob Handrick. Maybe that’s not even him, but it’s as close as I can get. Which leads me to believe there have to be thousands and thousands of others like him. Invisible souls. And he was male. Think of the invisible women–early city directories list only the men of the household, women’s names changed when they married, and so on. Without the letters, the fact that Jakob Handrich ever existed would seem a mere mirage.

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Posted in Cleveland and Ohio history, Genealogy tips, General, The Last of the Blacksmiths: A Novel

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