Margaret Mitchell in Camden, NJ

On February 6, 1944, Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone With the Wind, visited Camden, New Jersey, to christen the U.S.S. Atlanta.  
Lately, I've been reading Margaret Mitchell and John Marsh which is an excellent biography of the years when Mitchell wrote Gone with the Wind, and a bautiful portrait of a wonderful marital partnership. 
Gone With the Wind sold more books than any another in the 20th Century.  It was a huge smash hit and in its own time, a literary success as well.  It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1937.  The movie made from her book " set a record for Oscar® wins and nominations. It took eight awards, with 13 nominations, winning for Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress (Hattie McDaniel), Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Interior Decoration and Best Editing."
Both the movie and the book have always been among my top 3 in favorites and I was surprised to find that my writing hero had visited my state, and indeed my county.  New Jersey is the Crossroads in more than the Revolution!
Speaking of the Revolution, I wish someone could have written a novel of the stature of Gone With the Wind, about our own state, we deserve it - where is our Margaret Mitchell?
For those of you who don't know much about her, Margaret Mitchell was not only a woman of her time and place but ahead of her time as well, in that she had a job in her youth as a reporter for the Atlanta Journal, in a day when women didn't work often and most especially Southern women.  She had many accidents and illnesses which plagued her throughout her short life.  In 1949 she was hit by a drunk diver as she and her husband crossed the street where they lived on their way to the movies.  She was only 48 at the time but had, at least, had the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of her labor.  It had taken her ten years to write and edit her book with the exceptional editing help of her husband who did it for a living.  She wrote and read to him and he edited.  It was a chance meeting with Mr. Latham of McMillan publishers that brought the novel and the reading world together.
As my regular visitors know, I am an avid history fan and a lifelong book lover, so both of these passions come together in this particular book which makes history live.  I have three Civil War ancestors, all, of course, on the Union side, and all survivors, though one was wounded (Hiram McQuiston) and one was imprisoned in Andersonville (Robert Jaggard).   One of the things I love about this novel is that we so rarely get the view from the ordinary people over whom the war swoops like a tornado.  That is what happened at the house where I am docent, James and Ann Whitall Hosue, Red Bank Battlefield, National Park.  They were Quaker farmers, pacifists, and yet the war, literally, dropped into their side yard.  I wish I were younger and had more energy, I'd write a Revolutionary War novel set there, but I'm tired and having written two independently published novels, don't feel as though I've got enough ink left in my veins. 
Well after a few more months at the gym and Weight Watchers, who knows, maybe I'll find the energy and take a shot at it - even if it is just another independently published and personal work like my others.
Happy Trails, I'm off to the Cranberry Trail and Pakim Pond with friends on this glorious spring day!
Jo Ann

The Stories that Stick

Okay, I apologize, I was supposed to have posted some Eastern State Penitentiary photos by Sunday, but I've been busy hiking at Pakim Pond on the Cranberry Trail both Saturday and Sunday and today, at Parvin State Park to celebrate EARTH DAY!

My pals Barb Spector and Trixie and I enjoyed a picnic lunch alongside Thundergust Lake in this deliriously delightful spring weather then did the 3 mile hike.  

While the days have passed since the trip to Eastern, though, I had time to let the information settle and I'm always interested in what stories stick after time has sifted.  For one thing, I am a docent at a historic site, as many of you know, James and Ann Whitall House, Red Bank Battlefield, National Park, so I like to know what aspects of a historic site experience stay with people.  As always, it is the individual stories.  I was most interested in the story of the Jewish group that provided a synagog so Jewish prisoners could attend an appropriate religious service, and then the Jewish prisoner I read about who was a poison expert and poisoned 30 people in scams engineered with spouses to kill and collect insurance.

Also interesting to me was the coincidence that the only woman prisoner I could find info on was also a poisoner who killed her husband.  So these were the stories that stuck.  Also, that they kept prisoners in solitary confinement so that they could be penitent and think about their crimes but they learned that was inhumane so they put prisoners together and that begat sexual exploitation that plagues the weaker prisoners in prisons up to this very day.

Hope you had a happy Earth Day and spent it in the woods or gardening or in some way communing with nature!
Jo Ann

Eastern State Penitentiary

Today, Good Friday, two friends and I toured Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia.  It was a fascinating experience that raised many questions in my mind.  First, I wondered about the women who had been imprisoned there for almost a hundred years, until 1923, then I wondered what were the most commonly committed crimes.  Last, I wondered what had happened to Riverfront Prison on the Camden City waterfront?  That prison was only built in the mid 1980's, so why was it closed, demolished and disappeared in such a short time?

When I looked up New Jersey State prisons, I discovered that there were 13, and in addition, county prisons are also still being used.  I didn't find out much about women at Eastern except for the name and story of one woman who was the last one incarcerated at Eastern.  Her crime was murder.  She poisoned her husband and was given 20 years.  They moved her to Muncy. 

Naturally I took a lot of photos, but it is late and I'm tired so I'll be posting the photos on Sunday because tomorrow I'll be hiking in the Pine Barrens with friends while the beautiful weather is here.

I recommend you visit Eastern, though it is a depressing place, full of the residue of shame, regret, and wasted lives.  

As for what happened at Riverfront in Camden, the closes I can come to an answer was that it was cheaper  to move the inmates into other crowded prisons and close this one, saving several million dollars a year in operating costs, and opening the possibility of selling the site for residential property development which was a deeply hoped for outcome on the part of Camden residents.  I didn't figure out how much they spent building that prison but it was only 20 years old - what a waste!  That is an economic crime in and of itself.




Something I like to do in museums is pick my favorite one item, or lace or fact.  All of us chose the tiny, doll size set of eating utensils in the "Pop-Up Museum" as our favorite item.  It was carved from bones found in the carver/inmate's soup.  We also found the synagog interestin.  It was created by the benevolence of Philadelphia for Jewish businessmen for Jewish inmates so that should they desire a spiritual retreat, they wouldn't be forced to attend a Christian service.  Naturally I wondered how many Jewish inmates there were - not many!  But one, Morris "the Rabbi" Bolber, was head of a  poison ring that was accused of killing at least 30 people in a scheme to get spouses to conspire in the murders to collect insurance money.  

In my opinion, it is NOT the appropriate place to hold a party, which I understand is a fund raising strategy there.  To party in a place still redolent of despair, hopelessness, depravity and human damage, seems improper.  I'm glad I visited during the day and in the spring.  On a dark day or during their scary Halloween tours, this could be a deeply disturbing historic site visit.  Nonetheless it stirs many other interests such as the history of society's methods for dealing with crime, and the architecture of separating criminals from the public and either punishing or rehabilitating them.  

Another opinion:  We could save a LOT of money if we let the pot-smokers out of jail.  Also, sentence them to community service where they can be of use to the public instead of a drain on our over burdened tax payers.
Happy Trails, Stay out of Jails!
Jo Ann
 

Riverton Writers & Friends

I have been a member of Riverton Writers for about 15 years.  My guess would be that the group has been in existence for about 30 or more years.  There are four of us left from the eight who were regular attenders when I began.  At present, we meet at Dorothy Stanaitis' house each month.  We are all writers.  Dorothy has published well over 100 essays, Ed has published at least three books, most recently "Lost Philadelphia" and Carol was a long time New Jersey Journalist who still writes articles and memoir pieces.  Tom, is our poet, though, like Emily Dickenson, he shies away from the glare of publication.  Dorothy and I also have in common history performances.  She is a Philadelphia Tour Guide and a New Jersey Storyteller for all ages with stories for children and historic tales for adults.
As for yours truly, Jo Ann Wright, I have published two novels independently, and have three collections of short stories and two collections of poems.  Over the years, I have also written and performed several historical pieces, most recently, the Civilian Conservation Corps in South Jersey.  I have kept diaries for 40 years.
Also, there is this blog.  I have had 35,187 views, 910 visitors last month, nad average about a dozen a day.  That's plenty for me, just enough pressure to keep at it, and not too much pressure.  I like the Independence of it too.  
I'm off to Riverton Writers today, which is why I decided to post this essay.  Over the years, I have been a member of one or two other groups and I'm always surprised and interested in people who write.  I have a number of other writing frends, two who have published books of poetry, and one who has published three books of South Jersey history, plus numerous acquaintances who have written and published.  
This year, I am working on family history and writing an essay on each of the relatives who "speak to me" and about whom I have something to say, either some biographical information, or a living memory.  That is what I'll be presenting today.  It's a piece about my Grandmother Mabel Wright, who lived in Ocean City, on 6th and Asbury and 11th and Bay,  when I was growing up and with whom I was very close.  I have her diary.  Next, I'll be writing about Joseph Lyons, my grandfather on my mother's side, and I'll be posting more family history on this site as well, since this year is devoted to fitness and family history.
At Bogart's Book Store in Millville, they often entertain local writers such as Marianne Lodz, whose family history memoir I bought and very much enjoyed reading.  I think I blogged about it at the time.  
"There are a million stories in the naked city, this has been one of them."  That is a quote for a memorial if ever I heard one.  Just so you know, it came from a movie called the Naked City, which is a film classic now, and was based on a book by Martin Wald.  That was about a murder mystery, but, I like to think that every one of the 300 million Americans or so of us has a story to tell, we are living stories.  Every family adds hundreds of other interesting stories too.  I hope you are writing yours!
Happy Traiils, Happy Tales!  Jo Ann

Gone With The Wind

One of my favorite forms of coincidence is when events coincide with my reading.  I mentioned in my last entry reading a funny book called MAN OF WAR about a journalist who does several time periods of Re-enactment.  I was reading his Civil War chapter when Gon With The Wind came on tv last night for the Turner Classic Movie Channel and celebration of their anniversary.  I often thought that if I took a phd, I'd combine history and literature and study Margaret Mitchell and that immortal novel GONE WITH THE WIND.  Each tiem I watch it, I focus on some other facet, this time, I took special note of the African Americans and their portrayal and also the criminal chain gangs working in the saw mill.  The free to cheap labor aspect of the movie was of interest since I watched 12 YEARS A SLAVE this year, the Oscar winner.

Also of interest is the attitudes of men towards women, personified of course, by Ashley Wilkes and Rhett Butler.  The 'classic Southern Gentleman" and the arrogant, selfish, "realist" both of whom are iron-bound to their perceptual framework and unable to see beyond or through it.  For some years, I was taken with the post Civil War women writers such as Ellen Glasgow, who wrote about survival after the war and adapting to the new world as well about agriculture and ecology and the impact from the way the land was used.
We didn't learn enough however, because right after that came The Great Depression and the combined ecological disaster of the Dust Bowl (bad farm practices) and the Stock Market Crash (bad financial practices that cripple us today - The Wall Street fiasco best posinified in THE WOLF OF WALL STREET.

The re-enactment scene is so interesting I've just ordered another book CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC, by Horowitz about the modern South and the attachement to this tragic period of history.  I've only attended one Civil War re-enactment myself and it was an encampment not a battle.  It was at the Parker Press Park near Perth Amboy, and since the Revolutionary War is my period, I was as much interested in the Parker Press as the encampment, but I have attended numerous lectures and other events (since this is the commemorative years of teh Civil War) and also visited Gettysburg, once as a child, and recently with my daughter for my birthday.  That most recent visit was especially interesting since it coincided with the realization from family history that I had 3 male ancestors who served in the Union forces, one at Gettysburg.

I have more to say about Gone with the Wind, and the Irish factor, but no time left to continue.  As always my epmail is wrightj45 @yahoo.com and I wish you
Happy Trails and Wagging Tails
Jo Ann

Atsion Hike & Book Review

Today, on this glorious spring day, April 12, 2014, Saturday, I hiked around Atsion Lake (which is open again) with my friends, Barb Solem, Barb Spector and Trixie.  It couldn't have been prettier and I fancied I could smell the fragrance of newly awakened earth, green growing things and sweet flowers.  

When I returned home, after opening the windows, putting in the screens and making 6 washcloth and soap Easter bunnies (I will gladly tell you how to do it if you let me know you are interested - it is my all time favorite Easter craft - wrightj45@yahoo.com) I finished a book I have been reading and began a new one.

The book I finished was the 2nd of 3 recommended at the Ancestry Day convention in Philadelphia.  It is THE LOST GERMAN SLAVE GIRL, by John Bailey and I strongly recommend it not only for those interested in family history and American history, but also to any interested in the pre-Civil War years or American Law, Indentured Servitude, German immigrants, or issues of Slavery.  The shortest possible description of the text is that it deals with the struggles of a woman alleged to have been a German indentured servant, orphaned and forced into slavery in New Orleans.  You'll have to read it to find out what happened!

The one I just began already shows itself to be highly entertaining in the first chapter.  It is MAN OF WAR, by Charlie Schroeder; one man's adventures in re-enactment.  Needless to say this would appeal to anyone interested in re-enactment, history, or humor.

Now, I am in the process of scanning and printing a dozen precious family photographs loaned to me for one week by my Uncle Joseph Lyons in Philadelphia.  It gives me the greatest pleasure to finally come face to face with the elusive great grandfather I have tracked for a few years, William C. Garwood of Turnersville, who went to Philadelphia to join the Merchant Marines and fell in love with a young woman whose grandfather owned a prosperous hostelry and cartng business on the waterfront, Hiram McQuiston.  The young woman was Mary Lavinia McQuiston, one of a long line of Lavinias coming into the present in my daughter, Lavinia Jones-Wright, and travelling back throough at least two generations behind Mary Lavinia McQuiston (known as Mame).  Her mother was Lavinia Johnston, whose parents came from Ireland, and one of whom was named Lavinia also, though I have not as yet tracked down her maiden name.  To anyone working in family history it is no news to say that family history is a long and detailed process that never ends until you do.

William C. Garwood served on the U.S.S. Yorktowne among other ships.  I have felt all along as though he had reached out to me through time to remember him and bring him into my world.  I believe it is true that you can love family members you have never met.  My mother loved William C. Garwood, her grandfather, very much and talked of him often.

Well, I haven't been traveling to many historic places recently but I'm off to Pottsgrove Manor next week.  However history lives with me every day in a number of ways and I'm always happy to share in my history experiences with those of you who have been showing up in my statistics as daily visitors!   Don't be strangers, write my e-mail sometime and say hello!  I'm always happy to hear from you as well.  I've heard from people in regard to Slimm's Ranch (and by the way, I met a member of the Slimm family yesterday at the Timber Creek Dog Park), and the Whitall House, and other topics.
Happy Trails, wagging tails!  Jo Ann (and Trixie)

Where It Used To Be

Back in the 1970's I used to like a Laurie Anderson song that was witty and funny because she gives directions throughout the song via "Where _____used to be."  As in "down by the railroad where the grain tower used to be."
Well, my entry today is about two new places where stores used to be where I used to shop.  
My latest project is to lose weight.  First I had several appointments and tests with a cardiologist due to excessively high blood pressure (for those who know blood pressure,  mine was 226 over 108).  I had tried to lose the weight I had gained over the past 10 years or so, by the usual methods, counting calories and walking but nothing was happening, so my doctor told me I needed to try something different.  He suggested I try Weight Watchers and sign up at a gym.  He also prescribed a new medication, which worked. 
As it happened, when I looked up Weight Watchers near me, I found one at the little shopping center in Bellmawr off Browning and Bell Roads where I used to shop at SuperFresh before they went out of business some years back.  They had a special deal of 10 weeks for $120 for Senior Citizens and I thought that sounded about right.  There used to be a farm owned by the Bell family on that land.
It also happened that a new gym had opened up at the Brooklawn Circle where the old KMart used to be.    They also had a good deal of $10 a month.  My old gym was $40.  And best of all, I quit my old gym because I became alarmed when some things began to hurt that had never bothered me before, a shoulder and a hip.  I thought repetitive stress might be the culprit.  Planet Fitness has a 30 minute total workout room which fits the amount of time I want to spend at the gym and allays my fears of repetitive stress from the hour on the bike and the hour rowing that I used to do.
So a week has passed.  How have I done?  The goal is to try to lose about 2 pounds a week.  If I take off my stated goal, I can earn a lifetime membership to WW.  The first week, following their Simple Start plan (I don't have the points system down yet and with Simple Start, you don't need it) I have lost 3 pounds.  
I did have to do some shopping for different foods but I can honestly say my fridge looks great (it was empty before) and I'm eating well, and feeling good especially about my progress.  I'll keep you informed and who knows, perhaps I will run into you at WW or Planet Fitness one of these days!
Happy Trails!  Jo Ann