Mark's farmhouse had a root cellar - it was connected to the house, and shared a stone wall, but you walked down into it from the outside, and an ancient door, solid thick wood, would close on you as you were down there. Mark kept a few things down there but it was a small space and he didn't have big plans for it - he figured he would use it if a tornado ever came through.
He had fixed his farmhouse up pretty well, well enough to have visitors, but he never had any. People just didn't go out into Iowa 100, 120 miles on scenic drives, or going out visiting. It was as if, though he'd bought the perfect, beautiful farmhouse on perfect, beautiful land, he had sentenced himself to isolation. He worked on his own from home, with a good computer network. He rarely talked to anyone except when he got groceries, and even then it was just "how are you?" and "fine thanks." At first he liked it that way, but by now he'd settled into a kind of funk. Didn't know anyone, had trouble meeting anyone, and now the house seemed like a lost corner of civilization.
He did have a friend, though, an old friend from college. The friend one day texted him and told him he was driving through Iowa soon. This friend, Avram, had always been into diving, and had moved to Israel knowing full well that there were some sunken treasures off the coast of Israel. Avram met someone who knew how to find them, and they dove together until they'd found a few of those treasures. Now Avram was driving through Iowa and asked Mark if he could visit. Mark of course said yes and sent directions by text.
When he saw Avram, who arrived at his farmhouse about three days later, he saw an incredible energy in him, as if he wasn't done doing what he was doing. Avram was healthy and happy, but secretive. Avram explained his story and asked Mark for a favor.
Basically the law was unclear about what one had to do with sunken treasure that one found. Authorities in Israel demanded that they be handed over. People like Avram and his friend Peter felt otherwise, especially if the treasure was out a ways, not directly on Israel's coast. Peter had given Avram a bag of old coins, and Avram brought them in from his car to show them. Then he asked Mark if he could hide the coins in the root cellar or someplace for about a month. He had reasons, he said, but wasn't really free to divulge them. Mark agreed. In exchange Avram gave Mark a single gem with a picture of a lute on it. It was one of those ancient lute symbols, and may have represented something, or may just have been a kind of money. In any case, it was now Mark's. Then Avram set out for the coast.
Mark knew, because Avram had told him, that the authorities and perhaps others were after Avram, and it would be better if he didn't have any coins on him. He knew that the small bag of coins was worth a small fortune, maybe a few thousand. He knew that he shouldn't keep calling Avram or give people reason to believe that Avram had stopped here on the way. He had kept his phone off the whole time. He had erased any texts to Mark or previous communication. Mark kept the large canvas bag of coins in the root cellar, and didn't move them or change them in any way, but he kept the one with the lute on it under his pillow, for some reason, where it seemed to alter his dreams.
He thought about the things Avram had said; he was clearly hiding something. It wasn't the authorities that Avram especially feared. Yes, they wanted the goods, and the coins were only part of a much larger cache, and they wanted the whole cache. Yes, Israeli authorities believed it belonged to the government, but they weren't about to cross the ocean to go chasing after a single guy on his own driving across the middle of the USA. It was someone else - maybe Peter, or a group of collectors, who knew he had something valuable and were after him. Somebody would apparently do whatever they had to to get those coins.
Word came by text about three days later that Avram had been killed in Salt Lake City in a car accident. Mark was very hesitant about answering the text, but felt impelled to know more - would there be a service? Did he have family still in the USA? He had lots of questions, particularly about how it happened. It didn't sound right. He didn't answer the text. He didn't want anyone to think he had anything to do with the treasure or the coins.
It didn't matter; the FBI showed up at Mark's farmhouse about a week later. Specifically it was two burly guys, a little rough on the edges, in a newer car with New Jersey plates. They introduced themselves as Benjamin and Walter, and they had badges which they showed. Mark invited them in and they sat at the kitchen table. It occurred to him that they were acting, and weren't really the FBI, but they were good actors, and polite to a fault, as FBI agents generally are. Benjamin was the slicker of the two and did most of the talking.
They said it was a little bit more than sunken treasure, but they weren't free to disclose. They confirmed that Avram had eliminated all trace of Mark from his phone, but said they had ways of tracking Mark down anyway, so he wasn't going to be able to keep that treasure hidden indefinitely. They said they had a warrant or the capability of getting one easily, so the best thing for him to do would be to just hand it over directly and spare them the trouble of finding it the hard way. In this part they alluded to doing whatever they had to, and Mark got the sense that it might not all be nice. But there was one point where Walter, the quieter of the two, accidentally addressed Benjamin as Peter. It was over in an instant and Mark, surprised, didn't quite know what to make of it at first; he wasn't sure that's what he had heard.
Eventually Mark just went and got the coins and handed them over. They were polite to Mark and grateful that he just handed them over without making a fight about it or making them go to the trouble of searching, finding, roughing him up, killing, whatever.. They hinted that Avram was in over his head with a crowd of people that would do anything for treasure like this, and that it was very possible that his death wasn't an accident. And then they were gone. He watched the newer car with Jersey plates go off into the distance and take the road back to the interstate.
Mark had a friend in another city who was capable of checking on such things, who he called, and eventually he found out that the FBI had done no such search at all; in fact it was imposters. What made Mark mull it over and check was the replaying, in his memory, of Walter's calling Benjamin "Peter." He hadn't been sure, at first, that that's what he'd heard, but with time he became more sure. There had just been that subtle clue that they weren't what they said they were. But he also figured that, if Peter was in on finding the treasure in the first place, there was no better person to end up with it than him. And he had put on a convincing performance.
The farmhouse was isolated, and Mark quickly got back into his isolated routine. But the gem under his pillow seemed to change his dreams. The lute symbol was from the time of the treasures, around the time of Jesus, but Mark couldn't seem to find more about it outside of what Avram and the two men had said. His dreams frequently took him back to that time, but he couldn't generally figure out if they were trying to tell him anything. Often the lute would actually be in the dream, or he would hear it, but he wasn't sure if he'd know lute music from any other kind. He came to feel lucky that he'd been spared, and given a window into that world, even though he didn't understand most of it. When he thought back to the two men, Benjamin and Walter, he pictured them as seamen, accurately or not, more comfortable in a boat than in a rural Iowa kitchen. But at times it seemed like they all, even Avram, were reliving those past times, traveling across continents and out into the sea to dredge up clues about what went on before.
Saturday, December 25, 2021
Sunday, December 5, 2021
Old friends from Clockville
The year was 1899, and this is actually based on a true story. The National Association of Elocutionists was meeting in Chautauqua, New York, a place on a lake that was considered an ideal, isolated spot for discussing intellectual ideas.
It had two problems; one was that train connections were bad, so that some elocutionists arriving from bigger cities like St. Louis or Pittsburgh found they had to wait too long at rural train outposts and some actually turned around and went back; it was just too hard. Also, the auditorium had the advantage of fresh air but the disadvantage of bad acoustics, so people who were in the back couldn't always hear everything.
Of course the social life was big. After the convention each day the steamboat would take everyone out on the lake and they would have a grand old time socializing. The big hoop dresses of the early 1890's had given way to a more sensible approach but ladies were still beautiful in beautiful gowns; it was called the mauve decade because a mauve or lavender dye had become available and was popular.
To elocutionists, practiced in the art of giving speeches and poetic performances in the best and most effective voice, listening to speeches about elocution was something to look forward to. Our friend Elizabeth, an elocutionist in Toledo, had come all the way out to Chautauqua to give a speech of her own.
By far the headliner was Alexander Melville Bell, Alexander Graham Bell's father, who was a stunning orator and had a system, which he described, of teaching speeches to the deaf.
But to Elizabeth, besides her own speech, which was perhaps the highlight of her public speaking career, there was a personal angle to this particular convention. She had gone to high school in Clockville, New York, and a friend of hers from high school, Mattie Chapman, came to visit. Mattie was dressed in a gorgeous gown and made everyone's head turn.
Mattie, however, was now Mrs. Charles E. Remick. Her husband, Charles, had been the Supervisor of Oneida County but had lost in a bitterly fought election; actually he was a Democrat in Republican territory, so it might not have surpised everyone that much. In any case, they compared notes. Elizabeth had kept her name, though she had added her husband's, and was now Elizabeth Mansfield Irving; she had two children, a boy 16 and a girl 10, but her husband had died a couple of years back and she was now a single mother.
Mattie, on her suitcases, carried the stickers of women's clubs around the nation. She apparently traveled quite a bit, and may not have brought Charles along; if not, was this a scandal? She'd have to take several kinds of trains and buses to get down to Chautauqua to see her high school friend Elizabeth. Perhaps they were out on the edge here, in a rural place, a large convention of well-spoken men and women, a couple of wild women on the social scene.
The social scene at Chautauqua was actually this huge old steamboat that went out on the lake and then, ultimately, came back at night. It was decked out like most steamboats of the day - with a calliope, and a large social area, where all the well-dressed, fine speakers would enjoy each other's company and perhaps go up on the upper deck and watch the stars and the lake. Many of the elocutionists did not bring their spouses, but people trusted each other more those days, not that there were no scandals, but more that Charles, for example, probably felt that Mattie could go see this childhood friend and then turn around and come back.
Mattie had no children that I know of. Her gown was noticed by everyone as stunning. She and Elizabeth, old high school friends, had a lot of catching up to do. Elizabeth promised to send her something from the Toledo Women's Club. Out west, she said, things were a lot different than here in New York. Her children were probably on the farm of her nearby sister. Her daughter was my grandmother. Within a few years, women would get the right to vote, but there would also be a war, and a pandemic, and a new century of things to worry about. At this point, on this night, all they worried about was having fun.
It had two problems; one was that train connections were bad, so that some elocutionists arriving from bigger cities like St. Louis or Pittsburgh found they had to wait too long at rural train outposts and some actually turned around and went back; it was just too hard. Also, the auditorium had the advantage of fresh air but the disadvantage of bad acoustics, so people who were in the back couldn't always hear everything.
Of course the social life was big. After the convention each day the steamboat would take everyone out on the lake and they would have a grand old time socializing. The big hoop dresses of the early 1890's had given way to a more sensible approach but ladies were still beautiful in beautiful gowns; it was called the mauve decade because a mauve or lavender dye had become available and was popular.
To elocutionists, practiced in the art of giving speeches and poetic performances in the best and most effective voice, listening to speeches about elocution was something to look forward to. Our friend Elizabeth, an elocutionist in Toledo, had come all the way out to Chautauqua to give a speech of her own.
By far the headliner was Alexander Melville Bell, Alexander Graham Bell's father, who was a stunning orator and had a system, which he described, of teaching speeches to the deaf.
But to Elizabeth, besides her own speech, which was perhaps the highlight of her public speaking career, there was a personal angle to this particular convention. She had gone to high school in Clockville, New York, and a friend of hers from high school, Mattie Chapman, came to visit. Mattie was dressed in a gorgeous gown and made everyone's head turn.
Mattie, however, was now Mrs. Charles E. Remick. Her husband, Charles, had been the Supervisor of Oneida County but had lost in a bitterly fought election; actually he was a Democrat in Republican territory, so it might not have surpised everyone that much. In any case, they compared notes. Elizabeth had kept her name, though she had added her husband's, and was now Elizabeth Mansfield Irving; she had two children, a boy 16 and a girl 10, but her husband had died a couple of years back and she was now a single mother.
Mattie, on her suitcases, carried the stickers of women's clubs around the nation. She apparently traveled quite a bit, and may not have brought Charles along; if not, was this a scandal? She'd have to take several kinds of trains and buses to get down to Chautauqua to see her high school friend Elizabeth. Perhaps they were out on the edge here, in a rural place, a large convention of well-spoken men and women, a couple of wild women on the social scene.
The social scene at Chautauqua was actually this huge old steamboat that went out on the lake and then, ultimately, came back at night. It was decked out like most steamboats of the day - with a calliope, and a large social area, where all the well-dressed, fine speakers would enjoy each other's company and perhaps go up on the upper deck and watch the stars and the lake. Many of the elocutionists did not bring their spouses, but people trusted each other more those days, not that there were no scandals, but more that Charles, for example, probably felt that Mattie could go see this childhood friend and then turn around and come back.
Mattie had no children that I know of. Her gown was noticed by everyone as stunning. She and Elizabeth, old high school friends, had a lot of catching up to do. Elizabeth promised to send her something from the Toledo Women's Club. Out west, she said, things were a lot different than here in New York. Her children were probably on the farm of her nearby sister. Her daughter was my grandmother. Within a few years, women would get the right to vote, but there would also be a war, and a pandemic, and a new century of things to worry about. At this point, on this night, all they worried about was having fun.
Monday, November 15, 2021
Elizabeth's father
During the Civil War in upstate New York, Finger Lakes region, most of the eligible men went to fight in the brutal, grisly war which was mostly fought down in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Georgia, well south of New York. A huge number of men were killed right away and in particular in the first three years, 1860-1863. Tales came back to the towns in the north about how people lost limbs and then just died because there was no care, or died from exposure to the harsh weather of the Appalachian Mountains that they kept having to tromp through to get to these various battlefields.
People stayed home mostly only if they had very young children who would be endangered by their leaving. Such was the case with Joseph Lafayette Mansfield, who had children 8, 6, 4 & 2, or something like that, and felt that if he left for the war they would have no way to eat. Sometimes if a guy could leave his wife with her family or another well-established family he could go anyway. but this did not seem to be the case with Joseph. He stayed behind, and farmed for the sustenance of his young family, and listened to the reports of people coming back from the front.
In those days support for the war wasn't universal; it had happened suddenly, and there were plenty of people who didn't feel like marching off into the cold mountains to the south, to get killed or wounded in the rain. There were plenty of people who tried to rustle up patriotic feelings for keeping the union together, but some just felt that if they wanted to separate off, let them. Most people were at least nominally in support of the soldiers though, and gave what they could to help the war effort. If you were a farmer you gave food. If you were able to work in a place that made war implements, you did that.
Joseph Lafayette Mansfield, I think, was a farmer, but he was also a poet and a very literate man. So when an army sergeant returned from Andersonville, toward the end of the war, he wrote a poem about him.
Andersonville, Georgia, was the worst of prisoner-of-war prisons, deep in the heart of Georgia. The sergeant, Daniel Blanchard, came back to upstate New York emaciated and starved, in terrible condition. There is no telling how he even got back to New York in the condition he was in. His stories and his condition shocked everyone.
By this time it was the end of the war. Confederate soldiers were themselves starving, so there was no way they would use their limited food supplies to feed northern prisoners of war. But the Andersonville prisoners had been swapped for Confederate prisoners toward the end of the war, and that's how Blanchard got free and was able to make it back home to central New York.
Joseph Lafeyette's poem was a tribute to brave soldiers who had endured starvation and privation in the name of the Union, and who saw the Union flag upon their release, and felt that their suffering was justified and worthwhile. The poem was Joseph's contribution to the war effort.
People stayed home mostly only if they had very young children who would be endangered by their leaving. Such was the case with Joseph Lafayette Mansfield, who had children 8, 6, 4 & 2, or something like that, and felt that if he left for the war they would have no way to eat. Sometimes if a guy could leave his wife with her family or another well-established family he could go anyway. but this did not seem to be the case with Joseph. He stayed behind, and farmed for the sustenance of his young family, and listened to the reports of people coming back from the front.
In those days support for the war wasn't universal; it had happened suddenly, and there were plenty of people who didn't feel like marching off into the cold mountains to the south, to get killed or wounded in the rain. There were plenty of people who tried to rustle up patriotic feelings for keeping the union together, but some just felt that if they wanted to separate off, let them. Most people were at least nominally in support of the soldiers though, and gave what they could to help the war effort. If you were a farmer you gave food. If you were able to work in a place that made war implements, you did that.
Joseph Lafayette Mansfield, I think, was a farmer, but he was also a poet and a very literate man. So when an army sergeant returned from Andersonville, toward the end of the war, he wrote a poem about him.
Andersonville, Georgia, was the worst of prisoner-of-war prisons, deep in the heart of Georgia. The sergeant, Daniel Blanchard, came back to upstate New York emaciated and starved, in terrible condition. There is no telling how he even got back to New York in the condition he was in. His stories and his condition shocked everyone.
By this time it was the end of the war. Confederate soldiers were themselves starving, so there was no way they would use their limited food supplies to feed northern prisoners of war. But the Andersonville prisoners had been swapped for Confederate prisoners toward the end of the war, and that's how Blanchard got free and was able to make it back home to central New York.
Joseph Lafeyette's poem was a tribute to brave soldiers who had endured starvation and privation in the name of the Union, and who saw the Union flag upon their release, and felt that their suffering was justified and worthwhile. The poem was Joseph's contribution to the war effort.
Sunday, October 24, 2021
Elizabeth only
The book I've been working on has become so big that I might cut the subject matter in about half and write a single book about one person.
Originally its proposed title was Elocutioner's Daughter, and I'd planned to focus on both the elocutioner, or elocutionist, and her daughter. It also was planned to focus on the daughter (my grandmother)'s scrapbook, an ancient thing with old peeling newspaper in it. I have barely begun to categorize things in it, set back temporarily by printing projects.
but the other thing that happened was that I found so much about the elocutionist herself, that I could easily write a book about her alone, and might.
She lived in the late 1800's; born in 1852, she was but a girl during the Civil War, and first got out there in the world of elocution after she married and moved to Toledo, in about 1877. By now she was 25 but had had time to practice and develop a career in elocution.
What happened was she fell in with the veterans. It's quite a story, which I will tell as soon as possible. Stay tuned.
Originally its proposed title was Elocutioner's Daughter, and I'd planned to focus on both the elocutioner, or elocutionist, and her daughter. It also was planned to focus on the daughter (my grandmother)'s scrapbook, an ancient thing with old peeling newspaper in it. I have barely begun to categorize things in it, set back temporarily by printing projects.
but the other thing that happened was that I found so much about the elocutionist herself, that I could easily write a book about her alone, and might.
She lived in the late 1800's; born in 1852, she was but a girl during the Civil War, and first got out there in the world of elocution after she married and moved to Toledo, in about 1877. By now she was 25 but had had time to practice and develop a career in elocution.
What happened was she fell in with the veterans. It's quite a story, which I will tell as soon as possible. Stay tuned.
Monday, September 6, 2021
Just Passing Through
Autobiography and true stories from out there
$4.39 on Kindle
$8.80 + shipping paperback, through Amazon
also on Kindle Unlimited
working on other methods of selling
$4.39 on Kindle
$8.80 + shipping paperback, through Amazon
also on Kindle Unlimited
working on other methods of selling
Monday, August 30, 2021
Margo
This novel, or at least I hope it's a novel, will be based on my Grandma Margo who I loved dearly. She never talked about her past, so what I dig up about her past will be entirely separate from my personal relationship with her. Personally, she was just a great grandma: she welcomed us to her home, she cooked for us, she put all of us grandkids on her lap, and she had an unending positive relationship with all of us.
But she had an interesting life, too, and that's what I want to dig up. Most of the above is fairly typical, and if I get to the part where she's a good grandma, I'll be ready to finish and put the book away. The meat of the book will be culled from a scrapbook that I found that was passed down to me through my mother. Somehow she filed away lots of letters, dance cards, pictures, yearbook pages, that kind of thing, and I plan on going through it carefully, scanning much of it, and putting it in the book.
One of the interesting aspets of it is her mother (see a couple of posts down), Elizabeth Mansfield, who was theatrical and encouraged her daughter to act in theatre performances. For this reason the scrapbook has a lot of theatre bills from Toledo in the early part of the century - 1910's, 1920's, etc., so the book will really take a close-up look at what Toledo was like in that era. That's actually what I'm really interested in researching. I want to know what it was like, and I want to convey it as an author. I experienced Toledo in the 1950's and early 1960's, and I know they had a little in common - they were the same city - but to me a little background will make this a very intense novel.
Not sure if this will be next on my plate. I'm dying to do it. But I have one more big one that I have to do as well, about language. And I'm considerting still working on a string of novels; my novel was so much fun, and so well-received, that I can't resist continuing on my string. Stay tuned. My autobiography is almost finished.
But she had an interesting life, too, and that's what I want to dig up. Most of the above is fairly typical, and if I get to the part where she's a good grandma, I'll be ready to finish and put the book away. The meat of the book will be culled from a scrapbook that I found that was passed down to me through my mother. Somehow she filed away lots of letters, dance cards, pictures, yearbook pages, that kind of thing, and I plan on going through it carefully, scanning much of it, and putting it in the book.
One of the interesting aspets of it is her mother (see a couple of posts down), Elizabeth Mansfield, who was theatrical and encouraged her daughter to act in theatre performances. For this reason the scrapbook has a lot of theatre bills from Toledo in the early part of the century - 1910's, 1920's, etc., so the book will really take a close-up look at what Toledo was like in that era. That's actually what I'm really interested in researching. I want to know what it was like, and I want to convey it as an author. I experienced Toledo in the 1950's and early 1960's, and I know they had a little in common - they were the same city - but to me a little background will make this a very intense novel.
Not sure if this will be next on my plate. I'm dying to do it. But I have one more big one that I have to do as well, about language. And I'm considerting still working on a string of novels; my novel was so much fun, and so well-received, that I can't resist continuing on my string. Stay tuned. My autobiography is almost finished.
Friday, July 23, 2021
Walking Boots & Pleistocene Geology
Walking Boots & Pleistocene Geology
Biography of Frank Leverett
Now available on Amazon
Paperback $6.50 + shipping
Kindle $3.99
Free on Kindle Unlimited
Biography of Frank Leverett
Now available on Amazon
Paperback $6.50 + shipping
Kindle $3.99
Free on Kindle Unlimited
Wednesday, June 30, 2021
Elizabeth Mansfield Irving
Elizabeth Mansfield was born at a time, the late 1800's, when women were challenging the assumptions they'd inherited about women's roles in society. She became very interested in oratory - public speaking - and by the time she went to college, Hillsdale College (Michigan), she was quite good at it. The art of oratory or elocution was considered the foundation of both public speaking and drama, so her passion was well recognized as an important practice and her skill was highly valued.
When it was proposed to Hillsdale College that she give an oration, however, she was denied, and it was a scandal. Hillsdale College was not ready to be a groundbreaker in the battle of women's rights.
She had a friend, Julia Reynolds, who also went to Hillsdale, and who would remain her close friend over many years. Julia married and moved to Council Bluffs, where she met Amelia Bloomer and became her close follower. Women's Suffrage was a big issue in those days, as was Prohibition, which we could now, looking back, say was a failed experiment. Nevertheless these were the times they lived in.
Elizabeth Mansfield married John Irving in Hillsdale and moved to Toledo, Ohio, not far from Hillsdale. They had two children, I believe, but she, now Elizabeth Mansfield Irving, became most famous for taking over her husband's insurance agency after he moved on to other pursuits. As an insurance agent and leader of one of the biggest agencies in the area, she had some fame and a considerable reputation as one of Toledo's first and most prominent businesswomen. It seems that at that time, it was uncommon for women to be in charge of any businesses, so she was even then breaking new ground.
But her greatest fame came from her oratorical skills. It seems that whenever she spoke, people listened carefully and her words had great impact. She was quoted in many journals and spoke on a variety of topics.
In one noteworthy speech, easily found on Google, she argued that it was pointless for women to try to become as much like men as possible in their pursuit of various high positions in business, because that just made everyone look bad. Rather, she said, they should maintain the traits of womenhood that were most desirable and succeed anyway. Because she delivered her speech in exquisite oratory, it made a splash in the world and was transcribed and widely circulated.
At one point someone in Toledo or nearby noticed that she was an expert in articulation and the processes necessary to make correct sounds, so perhaps she could be recommended as being able to help people who were having great trouble with this process. She agreed to try to help one child who was a rather severe case, and slowly and patiently, she taught him how to speak. In severe cases helping people like him is often a matter of unclenching certain muscles that have been fixed in a clenched position for the patients' survival or comfort in the face of other injuries they have sustained. She knew she was over her head in the medical details of the case, but soon she was treating several people, as there weren't too many specialists in articulation in the upper Midwest and people soon found her.
Her daughter, my grandmother, grew up in a household where women were told they could do whatever they set their minds to. She of course was guided into theater activities, and soon found herself in the middle of a lively Toledo social scene where theater performances actually did very well and were well received. By now we are moving into the roaring twenties, when the first major pandemic was over and everyone wanted to get out and have a good time.
Elizabeth Mansfield Irving's granddaughter, my mother, married Julia Reynolds Leverett's grandson, who had grown up in his early years in Council Bluffs. One of the things they had in common was that their grandmothers were prominent in the suffrage and women's rights movements of their time.
When it was proposed to Hillsdale College that she give an oration, however, she was denied, and it was a scandal. Hillsdale College was not ready to be a groundbreaker in the battle of women's rights.
She had a friend, Julia Reynolds, who also went to Hillsdale, and who would remain her close friend over many years. Julia married and moved to Council Bluffs, where she met Amelia Bloomer and became her close follower. Women's Suffrage was a big issue in those days, as was Prohibition, which we could now, looking back, say was a failed experiment. Nevertheless these were the times they lived in.
Elizabeth Mansfield married John Irving in Hillsdale and moved to Toledo, Ohio, not far from Hillsdale. They had two children, I believe, but she, now Elizabeth Mansfield Irving, became most famous for taking over her husband's insurance agency after he moved on to other pursuits. As an insurance agent and leader of one of the biggest agencies in the area, she had some fame and a considerable reputation as one of Toledo's first and most prominent businesswomen. It seems that at that time, it was uncommon for women to be in charge of any businesses, so she was even then breaking new ground.
But her greatest fame came from her oratorical skills. It seems that whenever she spoke, people listened carefully and her words had great impact. She was quoted in many journals and spoke on a variety of topics.
In one noteworthy speech, easily found on Google, she argued that it was pointless for women to try to become as much like men as possible in their pursuit of various high positions in business, because that just made everyone look bad. Rather, she said, they should maintain the traits of womenhood that were most desirable and succeed anyway. Because she delivered her speech in exquisite oratory, it made a splash in the world and was transcribed and widely circulated.
At one point someone in Toledo or nearby noticed that she was an expert in articulation and the processes necessary to make correct sounds, so perhaps she could be recommended as being able to help people who were having great trouble with this process. She agreed to try to help one child who was a rather severe case, and slowly and patiently, she taught him how to speak. In severe cases helping people like him is often a matter of unclenching certain muscles that have been fixed in a clenched position for the patients' survival or comfort in the face of other injuries they have sustained. She knew she was over her head in the medical details of the case, but soon she was treating several people, as there weren't too many specialists in articulation in the upper Midwest and people soon found her.
Her daughter, my grandmother, grew up in a household where women were told they could do whatever they set their minds to. She of course was guided into theater activities, and soon found herself in the middle of a lively Toledo social scene where theater performances actually did very well and were well received. By now we are moving into the roaring twenties, when the first major pandemic was over and everyone wanted to get out and have a good time.
Elizabeth Mansfield Irving's granddaughter, my mother, married Julia Reynolds Leverett's grandson, who had grown up in his early years in Council Bluffs. One of the things they had in common was that their grandmothers were prominent in the suffrage and women's rights movements of their time.
Saturday, May 8, 2021
Frank
I'm actually writing a biography at this point. A relative grows up in the Iowa Territory. He walks a lot and finds a fossil that they name after him. He walks from Ames to Madison to get a job.
His big thing is Pleistocene geology. He knows what happened 20,000 years ago, based on what he sees. This is a rare skill but he just picked it up, so to speak. After thousands of miles, he knows what he's looking for.
When it's all over he knows that what was Iowa to him, was at one time east of the river. The rich riverbottom soil he grew up with was just a temporary thing. Temporary in the sense of three or four times the span of human occupation, but still nowhere near 20,000.
He gets old and dies in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
His big thing is Pleistocene geology. He knows what happened 20,000 years ago, based on what he sees. This is a rare skill but he just picked it up, so to speak. After thousands of miles, he knows what he's looking for.
When it's all over he knows that what was Iowa to him, was at one time east of the river. The rich riverbottom soil he grew up with was just a temporary thing. Temporary in the sense of three or four times the span of human occupation, but still nowhere near 20,000.
He gets old and dies in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Thursday, April 29, 2021
kindle Vella
A new opportunity has come down the pike, namely Kindle Vella. The concept is simple: serialized fiction. You write a story the goal of which is to make them come back and read the next story. and it goes on and on.
I can do this. I'm not sure where to start or whether this is a good idea, but I know I can.
One possibility would be to base it on my ESL teaching experience. To be specific, I spent a lot of time, maybe thirty years, in the classroom, and I saw quite a bit. Never really had the desire to turn it into a serial novel, or a series of stories, but I could, no doubt about it. enough happened, and it all made good stories.
perhaps it's the fate of my 18-year employer, to be turned into a serial novel. I'll stew on it.
I can do this. I'm not sure where to start or whether this is a good idea, but I know I can.
One possibility would be to base it on my ESL teaching experience. To be specific, I spent a lot of time, maybe thirty years, in the classroom, and I saw quite a bit. Never really had the desire to turn it into a serial novel, or a series of stories, but I could, no doubt about it. enough happened, and it all made good stories.
perhaps it's the fate of my 18-year employer, to be turned into a serial novel. I'll stew on it.
Sunday, April 25, 2021
possibilities
update
The Dawgs project is stalled in the water. I'm not sure what to do with it. There are many possibilities. I had to shelve it momentarily which is what I do when I really don't have a clue where to go next.
I'm kind of eager to get started on a biography of Frank Leverett, scientist who walked from Ames to Madison, and might start as soon as I can. But I have never written a biography, and haven't read one in ages.
I'm trying to finish Prairie Leveretts, which will actually take some work to make a book out of it. Pulling together pictures, files, getting everything in there....I've got a ways to go.
I've been drawn up by a fireman's class.
Finally, I have this idea that I have to get on paper before it's too late. It is roughly this. We are all cards in a deck, equal when the game starts, except for the jokers which are generally excluded. but some of us get to be aces, while others are twos. In other words, while we have the fundamental equality of being just one card in the deck, we have "acting status" that allows some of us to win by virtue of being who they are, while others will always be at the bottom unless they "play their cards" very well. Now this setup implies that there are four different kinds of people (spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs) and I haven't quite worked that out. Or, similarly, thirteen levels, or castes, one could say. And these would be natural castes; you're born as a two, or born as a king. The world recognizes your status. No matter what game you play, you live with your caste.
Just an idea. But mind, you saw it first here.
The Dawgs project is stalled in the water. I'm not sure what to do with it. There are many possibilities. I had to shelve it momentarily which is what I do when I really don't have a clue where to go next.
I'm kind of eager to get started on a biography of Frank Leverett, scientist who walked from Ames to Madison, and might start as soon as I can. But I have never written a biography, and haven't read one in ages.
I'm trying to finish Prairie Leveretts, which will actually take some work to make a book out of it. Pulling together pictures, files, getting everything in there....I've got a ways to go.
I've been drawn up by a fireman's class.
Finally, I have this idea that I have to get on paper before it's too late. It is roughly this. We are all cards in a deck, equal when the game starts, except for the jokers which are generally excluded. but some of us get to be aces, while others are twos. In other words, while we have the fundamental equality of being just one card in the deck, we have "acting status" that allows some of us to win by virtue of being who they are, while others will always be at the bottom unless they "play their cards" very well. Now this setup implies that there are four different kinds of people (spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs) and I haven't quite worked that out. Or, similarly, thirteen levels, or castes, one could say. And these would be natural castes; you're born as a two, or born as a king. The world recognizes your status. No matter what game you play, you live with your caste.
Just an idea. But mind, you saw it first here.
Friday, April 16, 2021
Who Let the Dawgs Out
On a whim I started a new crime novel, Who Let the Dawgs Out? (tentative title), but had to shelve it mostly because I didn't have it planned out carefully enough. What I am finding is that in order to follow all the way through with a long novel, I need careful planning and several different levels of motivation. In this case I had the motivation to document the evolving Carbondale Halloween riots, which were different throughout several decades including the two I was there, and the motivation to write a good crime thriller, which I want to write just for experience.
But I got caught up because I didn't have any overall message - and also because I didn't really map out the plot. I am still working on these, as there are several possibilities, but one of the things that caught me up was that I am really standing on the fence between fiction and non-fiction.
Having done the true stories of several ancestors, I find myself fascinated by the effort to make a gripping story out of absolute truth. And I find that everyday lives are as good a way to do this as anything. I go in there, find out what I can, lay it all out on the table, and the reader can make a gripping interpretation of it, just as I did, constructed totally on absolute truth.
Now my first novel, which turns out to be a roman-a-clef (this is a fictionalized memoir - I didn't know it at the time I wrote it, but that's what I wrote) straddles the two genres, but I find that a little unappealing now. For that one I really needed to document the vegetarian restaurant and the actualist poetry movement, and I did, and I changed a lot of facts and basically told a personal story of growing up. All fine and good, and the motivation was complete enough that I actually finished, first time in forty-five years. The lesson in it for me is that if the motivation is there, I can do it.
On the non-fiction side I finished my third family book, in the same month, telling the story of a single ancestor who rode a stagecoach 1600 miles from Maine to Illinois. My story telling needs some work in non-fiction, I admit it. These books are not my best writing, though the motivation, to put everything I found in one place, is sound. I've got what I need and can do #4 and possibly a biography of Frank after that. So I'm on a kind of roll with this family non-fiction and, though I'm not crazy about the writing itself, it doesn't matter as much because only my family is reading it.
But the process of rustling up true facts and documents from that era is really exhilarating and fascinating. Also, to be done and say, it's all true to the best of my knowledge, I like that too. I find myself being pulled into non-fiction and I have a yen to move everything over there, and just do that for a while.
With the biography of Frank, that's still a whole 'nother genre, and I'm not even sure how to approach it. It was while documenting Frank that I found enough information about the other two: his father and grandfather, the grandfather being my own great-great-great grandfather. I have enough to make a good story, for sure.
I don't know what to do; I'm just putting this out there. And, for the moment, writing a play about Nixon.
But I got caught up because I didn't have any overall message - and also because I didn't really map out the plot. I am still working on these, as there are several possibilities, but one of the things that caught me up was that I am really standing on the fence between fiction and non-fiction.
Having done the true stories of several ancestors, I find myself fascinated by the effort to make a gripping story out of absolute truth. And I find that everyday lives are as good a way to do this as anything. I go in there, find out what I can, lay it all out on the table, and the reader can make a gripping interpretation of it, just as I did, constructed totally on absolute truth.
Now my first novel, which turns out to be a roman-a-clef (this is a fictionalized memoir - I didn't know it at the time I wrote it, but that's what I wrote) straddles the two genres, but I find that a little unappealing now. For that one I really needed to document the vegetarian restaurant and the actualist poetry movement, and I did, and I changed a lot of facts and basically told a personal story of growing up. All fine and good, and the motivation was complete enough that I actually finished, first time in forty-five years. The lesson in it for me is that if the motivation is there, I can do it.
On the non-fiction side I finished my third family book, in the same month, telling the story of a single ancestor who rode a stagecoach 1600 miles from Maine to Illinois. My story telling needs some work in non-fiction, I admit it. These books are not my best writing, though the motivation, to put everything I found in one place, is sound. I've got what I need and can do #4 and possibly a biography of Frank after that. So I'm on a kind of roll with this family non-fiction and, though I'm not crazy about the writing itself, it doesn't matter as much because only my family is reading it.
But the process of rustling up true facts and documents from that era is really exhilarating and fascinating. Also, to be done and say, it's all true to the best of my knowledge, I like that too. I find myself being pulled into non-fiction and I have a yen to move everything over there, and just do that for a while.
With the biography of Frank, that's still a whole 'nother genre, and I'm not even sure how to approach it. It was while documenting Frank that I found enough information about the other two: his father and grandfather, the grandfather being my own great-great-great grandfather. I have enough to make a good story, for sure.
I don't know what to do; I'm just putting this out there. And, for the moment, writing a play about Nixon.
Tuesday, March 30, 2021
Pioneer Leveretts & the 1600-mile journey
$3.99 on Kindle
Free on Kindle Unlimited
Part of the Leveretts in the New World series
OK I admit this is for my family, as it's about my great great great grandfather. A legend was always told in our family about a 1600-mile stagecoach journey from Maine to Illinois, and I finally found enough information about it to put it in a book. That journey was in 1834, so this book starts at the beginning of the 1800's and moves right up through the Civil War. It is third in a series. I am finding it extremely interesting that truth, sometimes, is way cooler than fiction, and, it's true. Enjoy!
Thursday, March 4, 2021
Tall Corn State
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