You Have to Be Willing to Strike the Match

Blame it on those little paper matchbooks, too soft, too small. Those first efforts when I was a child terrified me -- the idea that a flame would be held at the end of my fingers. And it seemed I could not get the paper match to take fire, in its clumsy travel along the rough lighting strip.

Wooden matches arrived as a huge relief in my life. I could get them to light without flinching much, just making my fingers scurry backward along the small stick as the flame took shape at its tip. Every since then, I've avoided matchbooks, and appreciated those cardboard boxes full of potential instead.

It's the middle of the Jewish Festival of Lights, Hanukkah, as I write this. I've just taken part in an online session called "Magnify the Light," hosted by Ritualwell, a Jewish collaborative; a rabbi in Israel gave a teaching about how powerful light is ("it just takes a little light to push back the darkness"), and half a dozen of poets -- including me -- read related work. Mine was one of my poems based in awareness of both my happy marriage and the absence of my beloved, as I'm now a widow. A widow who knows how fortunate she was, and is. 

Then, as the session ended, I heard from Persimmon Tree, a lush and abundant online publication that delights especially in the lives of women over 50. My poem "Where's the Tag?" is in the just-revealed issue, and it deliberately rides the traditions of both my Quaker mother and my Jewish father. I've added a dash of the distress I hear around me, as many people who are oppressed by short days struggle through December, aiming for the relief of the Solstice and longer hours of sunlight ahead. Here's the link, and here's a screenshot too: 

 

There, I've managed to light a match and then a candle in my own (rather dim) mountainside afternoon. I've said in other places this week that a candle can be both a candle of mourning and a festive custom, at one time. That's how it feels. 

I'm so grateful that I've learned how to light a match ... even if it still makes me flinch a little. 

 

To Be a New England "Girl"

My mother, managing five children and the social commitments that went with my father's management job, rarely spent money on herself (if we don't count those cigarettes). But she indulged in two magazine subscriptions that meant the world to her: Yankee Magazine, and Down East, "The Magazine of Maine." When a copy of one of those arrived in the mail, she'd curl up in her armchair under the portrait of her four-greats grandmother, and reconnect with the New England self she'd left behind in 1950 when she married my dad and moved with him to that land of plentiful engineering jobs: New Jersey.

Each summer she'd craft lengthy lists of meal plans and clothing needed, and we'd all head to New England for family camping. Our visits to great-aunts and various sorts of cousins dwindled with time, as either they passed away or the chaos of a large family couldn't be welcomed. So my memories of "Auntie Mi" (my grandfather Palmer's sister) and her husband are very faint indeed. I recall a donkey and maybe a pony at their New Hampshire home. And one of the more distant cousins, also called Aunt out of respect for her age, made doughnuts in Vermont. I don't know which town, now.

My folks had a challenging marriage, but around 1980 Dad went to a "gestalt" psychological workshop in Florida and came home repentant, determined to start over. They put their house on the market, quickly accepted an offer, and were weeks away from moving to Mexico City, where Dad would manage a lighting factory in transition, when Mom dropped to the ground outside the nursing home where she worked, and in a shockingly short time, she died.

In between the fresh start and the devastating ending, Mom sold or gave away most of her family treasures that spoke of New England. "You kids aren't interested in the stuff," she said firmly.

I can't say for sure about my siblings, but I was already in Vermont, rebuilding the family connection to New England, parenting a toddler, and expecting a second child. By the time I knew what Mom was up to, she'd done it. 

Then three years later my home burned to the cellarhole, in one of those devastating Vermont winter fires where there's nothing left—except in this case me and my children, which of course meant the most important part survived and went forward. (Yes, this is part of why my novels often include a fire.)

Somehow, these many years later, I do have a few small items from Mom's New England life. That probably means my father held onto them and passed them to me after the house fire. Two of them, small and without family initials, remain tiny treasures to me ... and those are what I carried to the Concord Historical Society last year, when I suddenly needed cover images for my newest novel, THE BITTER AND THE SWEET (Winds of Freedom Book 3). Concord's Beth Quimby kindly opened the museum to me, so I could stage a few photographs.

This one didn't get chosen for the cover, but it includes the two small items that remind me of Mom's New England roots: a locket that now holds a bit of my late husband's hair in its specially made interior, and a tiny mirror, far smaller than the one that always rested on my mother's "dressing table" next to her rose-scented eau de toilette and her face powder.

Somehow it seems like I should look into getting my own subscriptions again to those two classic New England magazines that engaged my mother so deeply. The story keeps spiraling, though: My first published poem in a national magazine? Yes, it was in Yankee Magazine, in 1995 -- too late for Mom to see it, but confirming for me anyway that I was becoming the New England "girl" she had always been at heart.

 

Poems Published in 2024: "Body in a Box"

What joy it was to enter the pages of Cathexis Northwest Press with this poem, reflecting on how Dave seems often very present, even though his "remains" are buried at the beautiful Mt. Pleasant Cemetery in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. See the poem and the rest of the issue here. (The poem is on page 43.)

Loving November

Center, my grandfather; I'm standing behind my youngest brothers., at the airport.

After a dingy, cloudy final week of October, November has launched here with bright skies and gusts of snowflakes. It's a season full of energy and daring (at least on the best days), and I'm up for it.

My grandfather Ernest's birthday was November 4, and when I was small, birthday phone calls across the Atlantic were costly and had to be booked in advance with an overseas operator. My grandfather sympathized with my parents' tight finances and would place the call from his end. Mom and Dad only needed to stay home and receive his call.

They reminded each other of the date using a British rhyme about Guy Fawkes Day, when bonfires in England declare vengeance on a long-ago traitor. The rhyme says, "Remember, remember, the fifth of November!" (That was the date of Fawkes's treasonous Gunpowder Plot back in 1605.) Ernest's birthday would be the "other date," the fourth.

One November, my folks recited the poem wrong, accidentally saying "remember the fourth of November" instead -- and assuring each other that Ernest's birthday phone call would thus take place on the fifth. So they cheerfully went out to a local hamburger diner on the fourth, and felt terribly embarrassed to miss my grandfather's important phone call after all.

That makes it easy for me to recall the right date now! 

My grandfather Ernest's dual citizenship and cultured awareness enabled him to leave Germany safely before Hitler's "Final Solution" took form. In these days of rising anti-Semitism, it's good to reflect that my father's parents found sufficient haven in England, although I know now that Fascism in London at that time still meant a level of discomfort and fear.

Lucky me: Although I didn't understand my grandfather's life, and I didn't wake up to the questions I could have asked until way too late, I did very much feel his love and support. Now I imagine some conversations we might have had, and they intrigue me.

Cigar Ash on His Tie

 

Nothing pretty about him at seventy: massive hands,

lower lip drooping and deep, reddened, quiet eyes

watching my efforts. Ernst. Grandfather to nine

 

smaller family than his own father’s—yet none of us

starving in a brutal camp, or fleeing to South America

not even exiled to Australia (great-uncle Alfred). We

 

could fit within a single room. Yet Ernst overflowed.

Say “Ernest” in England, banker, explorer, eager lover

of strong women: Some people walk away. Refuse.

 

With long strides he walked toward. What I seize

(years later) must mesh with my early observations, white

cigar ash on his tie, and on his car dashboard too, thick

 

soft, scented, no relation to ashes of war. Symphonies,

portraits, books, the riches of late peace. His early winter

promised French cafés, Dutch museums: In November winds

 

I hear his smoker’s cough, his hawk-fierce whistle, and

welcome my grandfather’s haunting.

 

 

 

 

 

North Danville Family Stories, Updates, Corrections, and Additions from Gerard Lamothe, October 5, 2022

 Many thanks to Gerard W. Lamothe of North Danville, who provided the following material:

Hiking Her Way Into a New Biography: Annie Gibavic and the Adventures of Writing

Annie Gibavic, who lives in Sutton, Vermont, says she's always loved to hike. In 2003, Bondcliff Books published her memoir of a 3-week "through hike" of Vermont's Long Trail. Called ALONE BUT NOT LONELY, the book was well received and demonstrated her ways of challenging herself and finding joy.

At that time, a woman hiking alone was still fairly rare; comments on the discussion site GoodReads reflect how the book was valued:

It's been a long time since I last read this book, and when I was a kid it inspired me to want to hike the Long Trail. Before I left for my own hike on the LT this year, I picked it up again to revisit Annie's story. Honestly, her trail journals are just like any other trail journals, but I think when I was younger, it was a lot more unusual to find a woman doing this kind of thing alone. I'm still thankful for how my own hike was sparked by this one book picked up in a thrift store so long ago. Vermont is a magical place, and the LT is a very special trail indeed. 

When Annie herself was a teenager, she interacted often with her aging great-aunt Dorothy C. Walter, a woman born in the late Victorian years whose life involved unusual paths for that time. Dorothy not only performed the expected roles of caregiver for several family members -- she also taught "Americanization" to many immigrants in Providence, Rhode Island, and brought back explorations of her adventures there to women's and church groups in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. For many listeners, Dorothy—an ardent writer herself—may have been the first to explain to her home-grown Yankee audience that immigrants need not be "dirty" or "ignorant" and that their foods, even though seasoned in ways Yankees never indulged, could be delicious. (You can read my recent feature on Dorothy here.)

Annie's personal memory of Dorothy from her teen years is really a classic of how a not-yet-grown girl sees things: She recalls Dorothy's large size, and the tremendous efforts required to assist her on the narrow staircase of the family home, when the elderly woman broke her hip!

But as an adult, Annie became a teacher herself, and with her mother Annette's edited packets of Dorothy's writing, Annie began to identify more with her great-aunt. At first she taught at an alternative school in Peacham, with a curriculum based on musical theater. "Dance was my first love," she explains, and it led her into work at a choreographer for the Vermont Children's Theater and for a high school. Further, as an art teacher at Miller's Run School in Newark, VT, for 25-30 years, she also taught ESL, or English as a Second Language -- that is, English for immigrants.  

And all the while, she hiked, and she re-read the family stories, especially Dorothy's. One day she suddenly realized that "Americanization" and teaching English as a Second Language overlapped substantially. She marveled that she hadn't realized until that moment how closely her life meshed with her great-aunt's adventures.

Over the past few years, Annie's been writing another book. This time, like Dorothy and like Annie's mother Annette, the writing focuses on a relative: Joseph Hall, the "adventurous brother," she says, of her great-great-grandfather Dudley P. Hall. Bondcliff Books, which published her trail book, is considering her manuscript. It would be both history and "family memoir," and pulls her life even closer to Dorothy's.

I met with Annie a few weeks ago to learn about Dorothy -- we sat outside Café Lotti in East Burke, so we could chat without masks. Astonishingly, we were sitting next door to the former home of Joseph Hall.

So how could I resist? When we finished talking about her family and their intriguing history, I asked Annie to step next door so I could take her photo with Joseph Hall's house behind her. I hope her book will be published soon, so I can enjoy this adept writer and hiker's view from the mountains today.

My Eight-Greats Grandmother Valued Her Clothes!

It's Vermont Archives Month, and that's taken me into sorting many letters and photos from my mother's side of the family, and updating the family tree a bit further. 

Women's clothing in the 1850s and 1890s keeps coming back onto my research schedule, for a couple of books that I'm writing, one set in each decade. (The 1850s one will be book 3 in my Winds of Freedom series, published by Five Star/Cengage.)

But I was totally amazed to discover today the will of my 9-great grandmother Sarah Littlefield Sawyer, 1649-1734, who lived in Wells, Maine, when it was still part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Check out item 12 in particular!

If, like me, you have no idea of what "calaminco" means here -- check out this handy article by Leimomi Oakes, a textile and fashion historian, who says "Calamanco (also spelled callimanco, calimanco, and kalamink) is a thin fabric of worsted wool yarn which could come in a number of weaves: plain, satin, damasked, and was even brocaded in floral, striped and checked designs.  The surface was glazed or calendered (pressed through hot rollers)."

The Will of Sarah Sayer

   To All People to whom these Prestns shall come Greeting. Know y^e, that I Sarah Sayer of Wells in the County of York in the Province of the Massachusets Bay New England Relique of William Sawyer late of Wells afors^d Deces^d (thô weak of Body, yet of sound & well Disposing mind & Iudgment) Do Committing my sperit in the first place unto God the Father of it thrô Jesus Christ, & my Body into the hands of my Executors hereafter named to be by them decently Interred in hopes of A Blessed Resurrection, Dispose of the Temporall Estate with which God has been pleased to bless me in the manner following viz^t

   1. My Will is that all my Iust & honest Debts, together with my Funerall Charges shall be paid out of my Estate by my Executors hereafter Named.

   2 I Give & bequeath unto my son John Wells Eight Pounds to be paid him by my Executors within six months after my Decese. I Will also that A Bond of thirteen pounds given by him to me, shall be freely surrendred up unto him by my Executors within the afors^d term of six months after my Dece'se And I Will that the Eight pounds I herein give unto this my s^d son John Wells be laid out by him in procureing A Funerall Coat after my Disc.

   3. I Give & Bequeath unto my son Thomas Wells Eight pounds to procure A Funerall Coat after my Decese the which s^d sum shall be paid him by my Executors within six months after my Decease. I will also that A Bond of thirteen pound given from him to me shall be freely surrendred up to him after my Dece'se.

   4. I Give unto my Daughter Patience Clark five pounds (besides five pounds I have already given her) to be paid unto her by my Executors within six months after my Decease.

   5. I Give & Bequeath unto my Daughter Sarah Sayer of Newbury two pounds & four pounds A piece to Each of her two sons Viz^t Jonathan Sibley & Sam^ll Sibley these several sums to be paid vnto my s^d Daughter Sarah Sawyer & her afores^d two sons by my Executors within six months after my Decease.

   6. I Give & Bequeath unto my son Francis Sawyer thirty pounds to be paid unto him within six Months after my Decease by my Executors.

   7. I Give & Bequeath unto my Grand son William son of my son Daniel Sayer De'cs^d thirty pounds, to be paid him by my Executors within six months after my Decease.

   8. I Give & Bequeath unto my Daughter Hannah Chesley thirty pounds to be paid her by my Executors within six Months after my Decease.

   9. I Give & Bequeath unto my Daughter Ruth Sampson Thirty pounds to be paid her by my Executors within six Months after my Decease.

   10. I Give & Bequeath unto my great grand-Daughter Mary Clarke Daughter of my grand son Natha^ll Clarke A Certain Feather Bed that has an homespone Tick to be Delivered to her by my Executors within six Months after my Decease.

   11. I Will that what ever Use or Interest shall be found due upon my Bonds that any of my Children or Grand Children have Obliged themselves unto me by, shall be freely wholy and absolutely remitted released & given up unto such from whom it may be found due by my Executors at my Decease.

   12. I Give & Bequeath unto my four Daughters my wearing Cloths as follows viz^t I give to my Daughter Patience Clark A black Calaminco suit & my black blew searge Petty Coat. I give to my Daughter Sarah Sawyer my silk Crape suit & my red & Yellow under Petty Coat. I give unto my Daughter Hannah Chesley my silk suit. I give to my Daughter Ruth Sampson my striped Calaminco suit, & A striped Calaminco Gown & A black silk Petty Coat. all the Rest of my Cloths I will shall be Equally Divided among these my four Daughters. And if either of these my Daughters shall Decease before I shall, then I will that their Daughters shall have such Clothes as their Mother would have had by Vertue of this my Will if they were Liveing.

   13. I Will that four pounds shall be paid by Executors unto the Church of Christ in Wells, within six months after my Decease, to be distributed by them among some of the poor Members of s^d Church.

   14. I Will all my Estate of what nature or kind so ever not already disposed of in this my Last Will & Testament unto my two grandsons & my two Daughters hereafter mentioned viz^t Joseph Sayer, W^m Sayer, Hannah Chesley & Ruth Sampson to be delivered up unto them & equally Divided amongst them within six months after my Decease.

   15. finally I Do hereby Ordain Constitute & appoint my son Francis Sayer & my Grand-sons Joseph Sayer & William Sayer to be the sole Executors of this my last Will & Testament and Do hereby revoke & Disannull all former Wills & Testaments heretofore made by me & Declare this to be my last will & testament : As Witness my hand and seal this twenty seventh Day of April Anno Domini 1734. Annoque R R Georgii secundi magnæ Brittanniæ &c septimo.

Signed sealed & pronounced    in presence of    Hans Dalzel    Jeremiah Storer    Jeremiah storer Jur		NB : the words or grand Chil-    dren were interlined be-    tween, ye sixth & seventh    Lines from ye top of the    second page before signing    & ye word between will &    all in ye thirty first line from    ye top of the second page    was erased before signing    Sarah Sayer : (seal)
Probated, 10 Feb. 1734-5. Inventory returned 2 June 1735, at £540: 2: 6, by John Storer, Samuel Wheelwright and Daniel Morrison, appraisers. [Source: Maine Wills, 1640-1760 (Portland, Me., 1887), p. 356]

 

Acceptance Can Take Time

Dad, around 1965.

One of the gifts of history is understanding.

I say this today with a lot of gratitude. It's an intense writing time for me, working on several books at once, with each one approaching Life from a different angle. The most directly personal is a memoir that I'm gradually building, each chapter created when I have time for it, in an online publication called Medium. It has a "pay wall" but you can access quite a few items before it will ask you to ante up. (So far, my biggest paycheck from writing there was $1.09, for a month of labor. I guess I'm not one of those wealthy writer types. But I love being able to share the material.)

You already know that writing changes with time -- the hope of any writer is that it gets better, gets more "worth reading." Maybe we forget that it also has to be worth writing. And that's where yesterday's writing surprised me with an enormous gift:

I adored, and still deeply love, my dad. As a kid, I never questioned his opinion; as a teen, I wrangled with him about the Viet Nam War, but his knowledge always overswept mine (though my sense of what was wrong and right grew in power).

When, at midlife, I found myself in recovery from alcohol abuse and trying to clean up some major messes, I tried to hold my dad to account for some things he'd taught me about being a woman, that had resulted in, to put it kindly, an Epic Fail. He laughed at me and made a rude joke. It was one of those unforgivable moments that life hands out sometimes: someone I idolized, making me smaller.

Yesterday's memoir piece, which dealt with my college escapades, also framed some "life instructions" my dad provided. How amazing it was to discover that I'm no longer enraged at what he taught and said! Learning more about his life, especially his childhood as the Nazis overtook his birth country and turned him into a refugee (an identity that I never associated with him when I was a kid, honestly; he was just smart, educated, funny, and all-powerful of course) ... well, I have learned what History does to people's thinking and to the soul. And somehow, in all that learning:

I learned to accept and forgive my father.

Looking back, I don't think that was on the goals list for Advanced Placement History class. Guess I learned something more this week. Glad to be paying attention.