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July 6th, 2008
annebroyles
 | 02:09 pm - History repeated--what have we learned?
I have always had a keen interest in history. I love seeing how the past affects the present. Yesterday we went with company on Boston's African-American Heritage Trail to see the area of Beacon Hill which used to be a thriving black community and important part of the Underground Railroad and abolitionist movement. Our guide, Cleopatra, mentioned again and again how interconnected past events were with present.
The book I am currently reading, ONE DROP: My Father’s Hidden Life — A Story of Race and Family Secrets by Bliss Broyard is a memoir about one person's search for her own family's racial-ethnic history. ONE DROP is also full of well-researched facts about New Orleans, the state of Louisiana, and the people of color who have lived there for centuries. I was stunned to discover that at several points in New Orleans history before and right after the Civil War, people of color, African-Americans, former and freed slaves, and Creoles enjoyed rights and privileges that were taken away from them again and again.
Have you heard of Oscar J. Dunn? He was a former slave who was elected lieutenant governor in 1868. Unfortunately, he died under mysterious circumstances the following year. P.B.S. Pinchback, an African-American man served in the Senate, House, as lieutenant governor, and briefly, as Governor of Louisiana in the following decade. People of color were actively involved in civic affairs and engaged in political strategies that would be echoed with more success in the 1960s. After the Separate Car law was passed in 1890, "Creole radicals" purposefully put a colored man on regional and local railroads to get him arrested so they could challenge the new, unjust law--quite similar to Rosa Parks' courageous act that led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
As these strategies worked, groups like the Knights of the White Camelia and Ku Klux Clan organized to work for white supremacy. In the absence of national leadership (Lincoln was dead, President Andrew Johnson ineffectual) the white population who had supported the Confederacy enacted laws that "put people of color in their place." After almost a hundred years of heart-breaking racist policies, the Civil Rights movement restored some of the rights that were taken.
Here we are in 2008 with racism alive and well throughout our nation. Other prejudices also abound. Will past strategies inform how we respond to the call for equal marriage rights for GLBT persons? Have we learned enough from our history to work for "one nation, with liberty and justice for all?"
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July 5th, 2008
dianemdavis
 | 10:25 am - Last day of hometown images
This has been a lot of fun. Thanks Cindy again for starting this. If it were to continue, I'd probably start taking details of images, tiny things overlooked when trying to give a big picture. But for now, I'll share this tiny spot from my yard. We have slowly developed sections of our yard. We've added a pergola and covered it flowers and wisteria, we've added a shed, an herb harden, and this little zen corner. We love to sit out with a good book, watch our fish and listen to the water gurgle as it falls into the little pool. It is very peaceful. Not as good as a real stream with a real waterfall....but this is suburbia, and we have to make do sometimes. It's a good spot for thinking about my writing.
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July 4th, 2008
annebroyles
| 05:39 pm - Whittier, poetry, and what lasts
Yesterday I went with out-of-town guests to the John Greenleaf Whittier Homestead. When the guide asked how much we knew about this American poet, I replied, "We are ashamed of how little we know about him." Although his name was familiar, I could not have told you (before yesterday!) exactly when he lived,or what his most famous poems are. Now I know that he was born in 1807 and was most influenced by the poetry of Robert Burns. By the time he was fourteen he was writing his own poetry. His first poem was published by William Lloyd Garrison when he was nineteen; Garrison became his mentor. Whitter worked as a teacher, shoemaker, and editor, and became active in the abolitionist movement. He published many poems, but it wasn't until 1866 when "Snowbound" was published that he attained financial independence through writing. By the time he died in 1892, John Greenleaf Whittier was one of the prominent poets in America.
I can't imagine a time when one poem could provide enough income to live on. Or that now, 142 years later, that famous poet and most of his poems are no longer part of the average Americans' lives.
What of each of us will remain once we're no longer alive on earth? That's one of the questions with which the protagonist of the novel I am currently writing struggles. She's nineteen years old, her father/mentor/coach has recently died and she has trouble knowing what meaningful legacy he has left. Although I don't yet know the role this item will play in her journey, I do have her take her father's old book of poems with her. I am doubtful that one of Whittier's poems will play into the plot, but we'll see!
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July 2nd, 2008
dianemdavis
| 10:53 pm - Day 5 of Hometown Pictures
The fourth of July is the biggest holiday the town celebrates. Everything is decorated, even this out of the way gazebo, tucked in a park behind the church. Flags are stuck in the ground and hung from all the homes. The town square becomes a party with game booths, lots of food to eat and community bands that play all day. We have a big road race followed by a parade to end the activities. My kids marched in this parade with either bands or scouts for years and all sorts of friends ran in the road race. The park fills up with thousands of people and it feels as if you are trying to walk out of a rock concert (wall to wall people). My husband avoids this like the plague.
The most fun part, is watching people claim their spots to cheer on the parade. By July 2nd, chairs are beginning to line up along the parade route. By the night of the 3rd, the roads are lined completely and it looks spooky, like something out of a Stephen King book with all these empty chairs. By the morning of the 4th, people have filled their spots and make curious distractions along the roads leading to the center of town.
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annebroyles
| 11:28 am - Hollyhocks!
When I was first researching PRISCILLA AND THE HOLLYHOCKS, I had to use the internet to discover what a hollyhock looked like. If I'd encountered a hollyhock on a visit to relatvies' farms and houses in Oklahoma, Illinois and Oregon, I didn't remember it. When we moved to Massachusetts a few years ago, I immediately planted hollyhocks as one of my connections to my picture book in which a slave girl is "saved by hollyhocks, and a white man's kindness." This week, the first hollyhock blossoms appeared on both my big "old barnyard" plants, and on the "Party Girl" miniature hollyhock bush. Given that we now have about twenty hollyhock plants scattered around our yard, blossoms should be almost continuous for the next month or two. My connection to these flowers started me thinking about how often books open readers up to new icons.
After identifying with Doris Gates' protagonist, Janey Larkin, my own doll-size tea set of Blue Willow plates took on new meaning. Because I cried through the shark attack in my Classic Illustrated version of Frederick Marryat's THE LITTLE SAVAGE, I had new sympathy for seals even when I saw them in real life and they weren't as cute as Nero, the marooned boy's faithful friend. Years before I saw the Channel Islands off California's southern coast, I felt connected tot that landscape because of THE ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS.
Now,I hope that some young readers will have a new affinity for hollyhock flowers. As I've done visits around the country I have realized that many people who are presently between 55-80 fondly remember "the hollyhocks at my grandmother's house" and how they loved making hollyhock dolls. Anyone younger than that usually has no connection to the flower. Here's hoping that a new generation of families will plant the hearty hollyhock in their home gardens!
Old Barnyard Hollyhocks
 
"Party Girl" miniature hollyhocks
 
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dianemdavis
| 09:33 am - Day 4 of hometown pictures
Thanks Cynthia Lord for starting this week of sharing hometown photos.
This is my favorite store in town. It is filled with unique art items, mostly made by local artists. It is my first stop when looking for birthday gifts or special thank yous. Usually the door above the sign is open and a giant grizzley bear stands there, holding many of the artsy crafts they sell. They sell practically everything, like: homemade soaps and painted pitchers and glasses, unusual teapots, paper mache fairies to hang from your car mirror or handmade clocks in the shape of funky dragons, cats or dogs. I even love the way they wrap items to take home. I always leave the bag (paper bag stuffed with tissue paper and wrapped with curly ribbons) exactly the way I bought it because it looks so pretty. A far cry from the Walmarts, etc. on the other side of town.
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July 1st, 2008
dianemdavis
| 12:02 am - 3rd Day of Hometown Photos
Thank you to Cynthia Lord for hosting this.
This is where you can see we are no longer just the small town. We have several sections of very heavily congested homes and apartments in town. But we try very hard to keep the small town feeling alive with festivals, concerts in the park and parades on the fourth of July, only now we plan for thousands of people to come to them instead of hundreds.
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June 30th, 2008
dianemdavis
| 10:49 am - for Slatts
Finally found a permanent home for this picture. We've moved it all over the house, and wasn't happy with how it kept fading into the backgrounds... Now we've made a photo wall, and put it front and center. Isn't it handsome? We love it!
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dianemdavis
| 09:40 am - A little more town history
This is day 2 of a week posting pics of my hometown in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. Check out cynthialord's LJ for a list of other participants.
This was a satellite church, from the first Episcopal Church built in Lowell MA for the mill girls.(remember your industrial history class?) Chelmsford was a town where richer mill workers built homes and took a trolley into Lowell to work, and where Lowellians went on vacation to the "country".
Being farming country, we had lots and lots of rocks that folk took out of their fields each year. These roundish rocks became the basis of our church. Much of New England is built with stone. Besides houses and churches, we have stone walls everywhere. I love how the church gardens look against these dark stone walls.
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June 29th, 2008
dianemdavis
| 05:18 pm - Chelmsford
cynthialord.livejournal.com has invited us to join in a Daily Photo challenge to show where we live.
Chelmsford considers itself an old country town as it was established in 1655. But the fact is, it now has over 33,000 people, and is a pretty normal suburb. Still, it prides itself on its history, so I thought I'd start with the oldest cemetery in town. My kids used to play here as we used to live right across the street. It was great for hide and seek, and had some amazing hills for sledding. Though we never got too close to these 1700 stones.
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June 25th, 2008
annebroyles
| 08:05 pm - An Unusual Church Library
Most church libraries I've seen are filled with musty, out-of-date books that no one checks out. The library at La Jolla United Methodist Church defies all such stereotypes, featuring a well-lit interesting building kept stocked by dedicated volunteers. I had a great time this week talking to adults and children at a PRISCILLA AND THE HOLLYHOCKS event sponsored by the Library Committee. One volunteer had even planted a Priscilla's hollyhock garden at the church. (See photos below.)
A four-year-old had two of the event's most memorable quotes:
1) When I began to autograph someone's book, she admonished me, "We're not supposed to write in books."
2) In response to my question about how we as research detectives could find clues about people who lived in la Jolla in 2008, someone mentioned that the pastor kept a journal that might later prove useful. This bright child said,"It's not nice to read someone else's journal."
Needless to say, I had to do some explaining after both her responses!
How fortunate this church community is to have a lovely library (with an upstairs children's section), dedicated volunteers, and a monthly program about books.
  
 
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