From the Camden County Historical Society - sorry about the appearance - HTML issues!

If you are not subscribed to the Camden County Historical Society - here is a cut and paste run down on April events - sorry about the HTML issues, but this gives you an idea and you can check the CCHS website or get the magazine or look up any of the events listed below that catches your interest! Personally I strongly recommend the Gabreil Davies Tavern event. What a beautiful setting, a wonderful house, and having been there before I can vouch for a great array of interesting items and people!

APRIL EVENTS AND ACTIVITIES

March 30: "Dr. Mary E. Branch" Virtual Presentation with the Mount Peace Cemetery Association

March 30: "The 1776-1780 Revolutionary War Adventures of John Inskeep (1757-1834), a Young Man Born Near Haddonfield, New Jersey" with Camden County College & the Haddonfield Skirmish Committee

April 2: Vietnam War Living History Day on the Battleship New Jersey April 2: "Celebrating Lenape Artisans" at the Camden County Historical Society

April 2: Celebration of the Arts with Saint Joseph's History Society of South Camden

April 6: "Close to Home: Haddonfield in the American Revolution" with Camden County College & the Haddonfield Skirmish Committee

April 10: Tours of the Gabreil Daveis Tavern Museum with the Gloucester Township Historic and Scenic Preservation Committee

April 12: "Espionage and Enslavement in the Revolution: the True Story of Robert Townsend and Elizabeth" with the American Revolution Round Table of South Jersey

April 14: "Campaign for the Confederate Coast: Blockading, Blockade Running and Related Endeavors During the American

Civil War" with the Old Baldy Civil War Round Table

April 14: "A Special Tribute to the Cadillac Lady Sandra Turner-Barnes" with the Lawnside Historical Society

April 16: Open House at the Historic Berlin Railroad Depot

April 16: Basket Blessings with Saint Joseph's History Society of South Camden

April 18: "The History of Lucy the Elephant" with the Haddon Heights Historical Society

April 21: "The Legacy of Lawnside Mayors" with the Lawnside Historical Society

April 21: "The Merchant Marine in WWII" at Camden County College

April 23: Magnolia Station Train Show with the Magnolia Historical Society

April 23: Spring Open House at Barclay Farmstead

April 23 & 24: Colonial Re-Enactment at the Gabreil Daveis Tavern Museum

April 24: "Thomas Eakins and His Art in Gloucester City" with the Gloucester City Historical Society

April 27: Yom Hashoah Community Holocaust Commemoration with the Esther Raab Holocaust Museum & Goodwin Education Center

April 27: Candlelight Dinner with the Historical Society of Haddonfield

April 27: "Remember Paoli!: The Paoli Massacre" with Camden County College & the Haddonfield Skirmish Committee

May 4: "Native Americans’ Wars for Independence" with Camden County College & the Haddonfield Skirmish Committee Funding has been made possible in part by the Preserve New Jersey Historic Preservation Fund administered by the New Jersey Historic Trust / State of New Jersey.

Rancocas Merchant - Colonial Outfit

There are some groups of people who are just wonderful people and the History Community is one. Many years ago, when I first retired, I went to volunteer at the James and Ann Whitall House, Red Bank Battlefield, because I had met the gracious, brilliant and inspiring Megan Giordano on a tour there and I had been so impressed with her knowledge and her pasion for the site. She was a great role model for leadership as well as for historic involvement. Among the many things she offered the very large group of volunteers we had at the time, (about 60 volunteers) were monthly or quarterly lectures and workshops in everything from Honey cultivation, given by a local beeKeeper, to fabrics and clothing of the Colonial period. Megan, herself, had a wonderful outfit. She and her parents also took up Colonial dancing. Megan passed away a few years ago, at a tragically young age from Lupus. She is sadly missed by all who knew her.

At that time, I became acquainted with Sue Hueskin of Rancocas Merchant. She was a well known and well respected outfitter as well as a volunteer at many historic places such as Griffith Morgan House and Burough Dover House both in Pennsauken. If you have never visited them, you should, they are beautiful houses! Sue was also a sutler at most re-enactment events. She and her husband are presently volunteers at Indian King Tavern, another place I volunteered at for a brief time. Also a very warm and welcoming place with a terrific curator. Over the first half dozen years when I volunteered at Whitall House, I collected three full outfits, suitable for two seasons, summer, and winter. My summer bodice (a jacket style top) was a lighter weight, and I had a heavier weight for winter. I had a light half cape for fall and spring, and a full length wool cape for winter and hand- spun, hand-dyed hand-knit wool mittens. The mittens I had bought many years ago at Batsto when the Village had potters, weavers and spinners. My final purchase had been a mantua which I donated to Elfreth's Alley for the Mantua Makers House so people could see what a mantua was. (it is a one piece dress as contrasted with a skirt and top or what was called a petticaoat and bodice.)

When I got to her house, Sue welcomed me and brought me up on the latest news, the saddest news of which was that the tailor/seamster who made the Colonial clothes had succumbed to Altzheimers and was no longer able to work. Even though Colonial clothes are relatively basic and simple designs, at least the everyday wear, not so much the fancy dress of the gentry, it is still a matter of laying out the fabric, putting on the pattern, pinning, cutting and sewing and finishing. I have done a bit of sewing myself in my younger years, so I know what goes into it. Along with the labor, there is the cost of material to consider, and linen is expensive, and the linen used in Colonial clothing for historic re-enactment is a good quality natural linen, not sythetic. Fabric has become very expensive over the years!

Sue brought out her samples and I selected a sober brown bodice and black petticoat, appropriate to a Quaker matron, and a white neck scarf, white bonnet and an off white apron for my costume. That's five pieces. Sue told me she was keeping to her original prices despite the fact that everyone else has shot their prices through the roof.

I am thrilled with my outfit and very happy to have spent some time catching up with Sue Hueskin. By the way, Sue put together a very interesting cookbook based on one she had run across in the archives at the Burlington County Historical Society. Polly Burling Receipts. There are thirteen recipes dating from around 1770 in the cookbook. I bought mine from Sue when she was a sutler at a historic event, but I can't remember which one. Keep your eyes open for upcoming Colonial Events, I think there is a skirmish coming to Haddonfield, and you may come across Sue Hueskin and her husband. Meanwhile if you need an authentic costume at well below market prices and the highest quality and authenticity, give Sue a call and make an appointment 856-461-3369. She lives at 33 Pancoast Blvd. in Delran, NJ and you can find this information on the web under Rancocas Merchant..

I believe James and Ann Whitall House will be having a big event on April 9th, but I am not sure of the date and time. I will find out at History Book Club on Friday and I will post after that. Meanwhile, if you are interested in History Book Club, we are reading Founding Brothers, by Joseph Ellis, and we are at Chapter 4. You are welcome to get a copy of the book and join us at James and Ann Whitall House, Red Bank Battlefield, NJ at 10:00 (check the time, though, it might be 11:00) Check the house facebook page.

Happy Trails! Jo Ann

Fletcher Christian, Prince Andrew, and Jeffrey Epstein - Pitcairn Island Pivot point

When I was twelve years old, a shy, very tall, bookish girl, my family moved to New Jersey from Philadelphia and I found myself within walking distance of the FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY!! In Philadelphia, where I lived, it was too far to get to a library and I had learned early on, despite my still ocassional adventures meanderings, that the streets weren't safe for a child alone. But here, in New Jersey, I could walk the half hour trip safely from our house in the new development to Main Street and the library which was housed behind the police station at that time. I was a strange combination of fear and determination, so when I approached the circulation desk to ask for a library card, I was both terrified and determined to get that card and open up the vast world of knowledge that I KNEW was in those books!

The first book I borrowed was Nordhoff and Hall's trilogy: Mutiny On the Bounty, Men Against the Sea, and Pitcairn Island. This began a long romance in my imagination with the South Pacific. I can still remember the royal blue cloth spine of the book with the letters embossed in gold and a gold embossed sailing ship under the title. Preceding that book had been a few Children's Classics provided by my supportive and innately intelligent mother. She was able to acquire many things for us through supermarket promotions like green stamps books: We had the Children's Illustrated Encyclopedia, Children's Classics like Little Women, Treasure Island, the Silver Skates and many others. I can remember all of their covers the vivid illustrations characteristic of that period which were almost a hybrid of comic book and classic illustration art, very active, almost lurid.

A half dozen years later came the tv show ADVENTURES IN PARADISE with the gorgeous Gardner McKay, which had been created by James Michener and ran from 1959 to 1962. In his sailing schooner Captain Adam Troy sailed from island to island in the South Pacific hauling tourists and shady characters with possibly criminal enterprises. Then came both the book and documentary movie KON TIKI which is still thrilling to me. First I read the book about Thor Heyerdahl risking life and limb to prove his theory that Pacific Islanders made it to the South American continent. He made a few attempts to replicate the voyage, rafts of balsa wood, some boats made of floatable bales of reeds. A documentary followed the book with an unforgettable scene of a WHALE SHARK floating serenly under the raft like a waterborne block of gray buildings until some fool on board throws a spear at it and tethers the raft to the startled and fleeing megafish!

Throughout those years, we subscribed, thanks again to my intellectually curious mother, the National Georgraphic as well as Life, Look, Saturday Evening Post, House and Garden and a few other visiting periodicals. In the National Georgraphic, journeys were periodically made to Pitcairn Island to see how the survivors of the early mutineers were faring. There were things we know now that we didn't know then because everyone was invested in a myth of tropical paradise with peaceful villagers carving models of the HMS Bounty for tourists, and living in harmony with one another and with nature.

In case you aren't familiar with the story, which is shocking to me, but three people I have spoken with recently told me they never heard of Mutiny on the Bounty, the historical event went that brave sailors tired of being brutalized by their evil Captain Bligh (played in one film by Charles Laughton) rebelled under the heroic leadership of Fletcher Christian (played by Marlon Brando, and also once by Clark Gable) and he gathered a dozen men together to hijack the ship. Being merciful, they set the evil Captain adrift with those sailors loyal to him, and they returned to their idyll in Tahiti.

It goes without saying the rutineers expected the lifeboat sailors and the Capt. to die at sea, either capsized in a storm, or of thirst and starvation. But the intrepid Capt. a noteworthy navigator got his little boat and loyal sailors to safety via a ship and a port and back to London where an order for the arrest of the mutineers was issued.

Thus began the flight of the mutineers to find a place in the Pacific Ocean where the long arm of the British law wouldn't be able to find them. Mutiny was one of the most serious offences and they knew the British Empire wouldn't rest until they were found and brought to justice. Fletcher Christian had found an island that was known but not on any charts, Pitcairn Island. He dropped off some men at Tahiti and kidnapped some Polynesian men and 11 Poynesian women by luring them onto the ship then setting sail. (early stories didn't tell this part.)

What we know now is that first the English sailors murdered the Polynesian men because the English tried to make them be servants and also they tried to take possession of the Polynesian men's wives. After the Polynesian men were killed the English sailors set about killing each other over various disputes mainly, apparently, involving sexual partnering. Finally there was one man left, John Adams, with eleven women and several children who had already been fathered by the murdered men. This was the base of the population of Pitcairn Island. Once in awhile, a shipwrecked sailor would float ashore, or some boat would drop by, but mainly the people were isolated on their extinct-volcanoe island.

Eventually, some momentous events took place. Since the island was enclosed by steep cliffs, there was only one way on or off. Ships had to anchor in the ocean and 'long boats' would make the perilous trip through a narrow and treacherous channel to pick up supplies or visitors and to sell produce and souvenirs (carved models of the HMS Bounty, and woven baskets). This was the only way on or off the island for a hundred years and still is. However the ships visiting checked on the islanders and supplied them and a religious Missionary group called the Seventh Day Adventists decided to send a missionary pastor and build a church and supply the islanders with worship service and clothes as well as financial support. The Islanders became Adventists (at least in name.)

As I mentioned ocasionally visitors such as the National Georgraphic journalists and photographers would also drop in and this being, more or less a colony of Great Britain, school teachers would also be supplied from neighboring New Zealand or Austrailia, about 3,600 miles away. Sometimes, youngsters would be sent to New Zealand to Adventist schools for further education, and often, they did not return. Also, at one time, a British police officer named Brenda Cox, was sent to investigate an allegation by one of the escaped New Zealand female students of child molestation and rape That's when all hell broke loose.

For the full story, you can google NPR on Pitcairn Island or, I suggest, get the book from amazon or your library LOST PARADISE by Kathy Marks, a British and New Zealand journalist who covered the ensuing decade of investigaations, arrests and trials when the generations of child molestation and rape by nearly every adult male against every female child on the island were exposed. Telve seemed to be the age of greatest predation (the age I was when I got that library card.) But many girls much younger were raped and abused. The birth records showed girls as young as ten and eleven having children.

This brought up so many questions such as why didn't the parents protect the children, and why did't anyone ever intervene, such as the 7th Day Adventist ministers and their wives who were stationed there. Can people be held accountable for crimes that they don't view as crimes or that they come to believe are part of their cultural traditions? Also, anyone who has ever read Lord of the Flies, must also wonder about small groups of people left in isolated places without oversight or organized supervision, do they always descend into savagery?

When I worked for W. B. Saunders at the Riverside Plant in New Jersey, we were given an employee perk - once a month we could fill a box with any books of our choice for $1! Since they ran book clubs on areas such as Psychology, History, Archaeology, Anthropology, and Politics, I was in Heaven! Among the many many books on anthropology that I read, there was one that stuck with me, that, like Pitcairn Island, was a media favorite and often featured in magazine cover stories - it was about the discovery and interaction with a "Lost" Amazonian tribe called the Yanomami. An anthropoligist, Kenneth Good, who studied this isolated jungle tribe for many years eventually took a Yanomami wife whom he brought to the United States to live. They had three children but his wife, Yarima returned to her tribe. I wonder what happened to her. At one point after he had been there studying for some time, and before he married her, he returned to the US and left her there though she had lived with him. She was subjected to repeated rapes by the men of the tribe who stalked her and waylaid her at every opportunity. When Good returned and found out what had happened to her, he married her and took her away with him. She said it had happened because she had no man to protect her from the other men.

Well, I am almost finished the book and the author has done a marvelous job detailing the legal context, the cultural context of the Islanders' lives and relationships, and the psychology of many aspects of the experience of the people, both the defendants, the accusers, the families of both (all of whom are interrelated) and she has asked and tried to find answers to some of the questions I mentioned above.

Also, I wonder about the good luck or bad luck in what sort of leader emerges in any given group and how that determines the social contracts of the group as well as their health and survival. Also, I wonder about innate conscience and sense of right and wrong. Surely all humankind have a sense that it is wrong to hurt others who are weaker and more vulnerable?

Now, I think I may search amazon prime video and see if I can catch one of those old movies, perhaps the Marlon Brando one, of Mutiny on the Bounty. By the way, the connection with Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epsteinn is the conscienceless exploitation of young teenage girls by power mad and wealthy men. You wonder about the psychology behind this and the lack of empathy or sense of right and wrong.

Oh by the way, in real life, Captain Bligh was not a tyrant but was known for being fair and just and the quarrel between him and his former best mate was that Bligh had a bad temper and insulted Christian which caused a seething resentment and ended in the Mutiny and Pitcairn Island. And half of dozen of the accused pedophiles on Pitcairn went to prison in the building they built themseves on the island and which, after their sentences are fulfilled will be turned into tourist accommodation. Some story, eh? Truth is stranger than fiction!

Where to go this Saturday, March 26, 2022

an e-mail from Keri Oldfield at Rancocoas Woods

Hi friends!

It’s that time again…our annual Spring Open House!!! Join us this Saturday, March 26th, 10-4 for shopping, goodies and a chance to win a Co-Op $25 Gift Certificate!

Don’t forget about the 1st outdoor Rancocas Woods Craft and Antique Show of the season, this Saturday 10-3.

And, head on down to On Angel’s Wings for even more amazing vendors located in their courtyard!

Spend the day in Rancocas Woods!!!

See you Saturday, Bill and Keri

Thinking about Trees for Arbor Day and Earth Day

Twenty five years ago, a young woman named Julia Hill climbed 200 feet into the top crown of a 1000 year old Coast Cedar tree to protest the looming logging of the tree. She stayed up there for over 700 days, some say two years until she reached a deal with Pacific Lumber Company to save the tree. This is what one determined person can do! Even after she descended and the tree was saved, anti-envionmental criminals attacked and damaged the tree, but it was repaired and survived.

Julia "Butterfly" Hill, born in 1973, is still an environmental activist and LUNA the Cedar tree still stands in a reserve of trees now set aside as a protected area.

Julia Hill said she didn't know how anyone could stand in the presence of such "ancient beings and not be affected."

Arbor Day is April 29 and I have been thinking a lot about trees lately, especially now that Spring has come back and my yard has awakened. I have a woodland yard - no Lawn. Living in my yard are more than 25 different kinds of trees from sweet gum to maple, and several evergreens, some of which were Christmas trees. I couldn't bear to know a tree had been killed for a decoration for a season for Christmas, so my daughter and I had 'root balled' trees for Christmas which we planted after the holiday as soon as the ground thawed. Also, there is a remarkable evergreen that my daughter brought home from Historic Williamsburg in a white paper cone style coffee cup. And there are the hollies - some that got here on their own and some I planted. The largest and oldest trees were here when I got here and were here when the house was built so they must be 50 to 75 years old, including an old oak in the center of the back yard.

Though I have never been a gardener, I have planted several kinds of plants in my yard. A Master Gardener who used to volunteer at the James and Ann Whitall House,at Red Bank Battlefield, Joyce Connelly, gave me a couple of pots of Lily of the Valley, which have flourished in my yard, along with a heliobore. Every Easter, I have planted tulips, daffodils and hyacinths after their blooms died out and they come back every Spring. In late summer when the Lily of the Valley bloom, their fragrance is intoxicating. Speaking of intoxicating fragrances, recently honeysuckle has invaded the front of my yard, but I can't bear to take it out and have decided to let it stay with us though I do fear it might invade the juniper next door and I think the forsythia beside it might be in danger. I have two or three forsythia, one is in bloom now. One was a gift. A friend of old days did yard work and was asked to dig out an old forsythia. He brought me the root ball with some brown sticks coming out of it and we planted it and it fourished as if to say Thank Yor for a second chance.

Lately I have thought of planting another tree in memory of a friend who died and his obituary asked that a tree be planted in his memory, Rob Sweetgall. He was a gentle soul, an ultra marathoner who preached walking fitness and lived the life. We were in love once, forty years ago. I would like to honor his memory. He was a gentle giant.

Well for the next couple of months, I think I will dedicate all my posts to trees and environmental issues. Just as a reminder, I believe I already did a write up on Saddler's Woods, but if you didn't see it, let me remind you that Saddler's Woods is a conservaation area of 24 acres of old growth forext in Haddon Township off of MacArthur Blvd, across from Newton Creek Park and behind the shopping centers. An escaped enslaved man, Joshua Saddler, found sanctuary with a Quaker farmer,named Evans, for whom he worked and from whom he bought the land where he established a small village for other freed people like himself called Saddlertown. In his will he stipulated that the woods should remain intact for perpetuity and so it has remained with the protection and stewardship of the Saddler's Woods Conservation Association. You should take a walk there on the nicely maintained and safe trail and enjoy the company of the trees.

By the way I have done two paintings this week of the Salem Oak (which fell after 660 years in 2019) - not sure yet what I am going to do with them, probaby give them to Salem Meeting and Woodbury Meeting maybe on Arbor Day!

Happy Trails and if it is through the trees, I know it will be happy! Jo Ann

All These Memories Like Tears in Rain - Easter

That quote in the title comes from the most removed from Easter that you can get, a modern sci fi film. A dying Robot sits on an edge of a skyscraper as his life force runs out and utters a longer quote about all he has seen but the end and the gist of it is summed up in that phrase. As I get older, too, memories pop up from the distant past, and this morning I was thinking about a First Holy Communion gift that I was given when I was a child in Philadelphia and made my Confirmation. I guess I was about ten, and my father gave me a bible, a small white bible with gold edges on the paper that I still have, and someone gave me a necklace with a MUSTARD SEED in it. I don't think I fully understood what a mustard seed signified then, but maybe I did and I have forgotten.

Easter in my long ago childhood in Philadelphia was a big big event. So was First Holy Communion. My small church on the waterfront, Gloria Dei, Old Swedes' Church was a simple, humble, non-ostenatious affair, but families ALL bought brand new clothes and dressed up for Easter - to start the new cycle of the year, the rebirth, of Jesus and the world. We wore Easter bonnets in those days, and gloves! I had a whole new outfit, a new dress, socks, shoes, sometimes a light Spring coat or jacket. First Holy Communion I remember most from the Catholic children. We lived in what is called the Stella Maris Parish. The flood of Italian immigrants in the early years of the 20th century had turned the formerly Irish and German neighborhood, entirely Italian, but we all got along and they brought a lot of color and joy. Also, it was all I had ever known, I was born into an Italian neighborhood. At Christmas the men strung lights from house to house, criss-crossing the entire block and the women made and gave pizzelles to their neighbors. At Easter, the Italian market was filled with intricately braided and woven palm fronds which people put on their doors. And when the children made First Holy Communion, long parades of solemn girls dressed in white bridal dresses, layers of organdy, pleats and pearls, heads covered in veils and gloved hands holding rosaries or small white bibles like mine would walk silently down the streets to the church, their families gathered and gazing at them with awe and pride. The boys wore new suits with hair pomaded back, shoes shined. The whole neighborhood was a part of the celebration either through participation or observation. For weeks ahead of the holiday, dress shops had First Holy Communion dresses hanging outside to remind families of the upcoming ceremony and to tempt them to buy their dress there.

I can't remember if I had a First Holy Communion dress, if I did, I can assure you in our more humble and plain version of the ritual, it wouldn't have been one of those spendid wedding gown dresses. What I do remember is wandering around before the ceremony repeating over and over the Apostles Creed worried that I would forget at the important moment and shame myself and my family. I think I got through it. I was NEVER much good at memorizing.

Anyhow, back to the mustard seed, As I am reading HOPE, by Jane Goodall, she mentions the mustard seed, the parable of Jesus to describe the Kingdom of God, a small thing holding great power for expansion into something nourishing and enormous and powerful. As it happens some researchers ran across 2000 year old mustard seeds in Israel and Dr. Sarah Sallon oversaw the sprouting of the seeds, the fertilization of the male and female speciemens she grew, and they became fruitful. Jane Goodall relates this story to illustrate how resilient nature is. Her story stirred my memory of that long long lost world when religion played a such a big part in the lives of ordinary people and I wore a necklace with a mustard seed in it.

Upcoming Holidays - Happy St. Patrick's Day, and Happy Easter! To get ready for Easter, I am doing what I always do, watching lots of movies and documentaries about the beginnings of Christianity and the life of Jesus Christ. I wa texting with a frriend recently and she said every year at Easter she watches the Ten Commandments! I always watched that movie, too, and Ben Hur, and Spartacus! I learned so much, or perhaps I should say, I was inspired to learn so much from those movies! When I moved to Germany as a new bride with my drafted soldier husband in 1969, the book I took with me on the plane to read was a newly published book about the Discovery and Research on the Dead Sea Scrolls, what some archaeologists and bible scholars call the greatest archaeological discovery of th 20th century. Egyptologists might disagree with them on that, after all King Tut was discovered in that centtury too!

Happy Trails, Jo Ann

Searching for HOPE

Driving along the backroads of South Jersey which I once did whenever I felt blue, I once heard a song on 88.5 fm radio: Looking for Hope in a Hopeless World. It was not only a beautiful song but it spoke to a condition that afflicts so many of us. We are inundated with bad news all day every day. Mentally ill shooters murder little first graders in their school, angry and disturbed driver kills 'dancing grannies' in A Christmas parade! Every time you turn on the television or open your laptop, you are deafened by the clamor of crime. It is a smorgasbord of misery - crimes against the environment, against humanity, against animals, domestic violence, police killing in traffic stops - everywhere the evidence of evil. How in the world can you face the day?

That song, sung by Marlena Shaw stayed with me over the years, and I was reminded of it when I came across a review in the Sunday New York Times Book Review of the book HOPE, by Jane Goodall with Douglas Abrams. The subtitle is "A Survival Guide for Trying Times." And these are Trying times!

Needless to say I had to buy that book and I have been reading it. It is so helpful. One of the things Jane Goodall reminds me of, on page 53, is the L O N G P E R S P E C T I V E. Jane Goodall was born on April 3, 1934. She was a child of World War II. For any of us acquainted with those times (I was born in 1945 - the end of the war, but because my father was in the navy and my mother worked in the Philadelphia Naval Yard, the war was always with us) World War II and the Holocaust were for many of my generation, the introduction to the depth of man's ability to do evil. We grew up in the threat of nuclear war, which is sadly again with us.

My generation was consoled with a period of prosperity, reform, and therefore, HOPE. Our fathers were in Unions and our families had sufficient income to buy houses. I was fortunate enough to have a mother who loved motherhood, cooking, gardening, and who felt blessed to be financial stable enough to live her dream. In our youth, we baby-boomers, struggled to balance the injustices we perceived in civil rights and gender parity, and we saw some results. By the 1970's our awareness of climate vulnerability and corporate profit weapons such as cigarettes and pesticides as well as the detriments and cruelty in animal agriculture made many of us vegetarians and caused a surge in interest in wellness, jogging became fashionable and bicycling, hiking and project such as rails to trails blossomed.

But something happened and the surge toward greater consciousness and caring got sidetracked into a quest for celebrity fame and greedy wealth. Greed rose its ugly head and the nascent movement towrd efforts for the greater good turned into parasitic billionaires hiding unimaginable wealth in offshore accounts and poisoning the universal mind to get more attention for more profit (facebook).

It is enough to make an aging hippie lose hope, therefore I was immensely grateful for the effort of Douglas Abrams and Jane Goodall to find the time and energy to make arguments for keeping hopeful. Jane Goodall gives us four reasons which I will not list here because you need her explanations and examples to support and contextualize them.

What I will say, is if you are feeling hopeless and filled with despair, listen to Marlene Shaw's song "Looking for Hope in Hopeless World" on YouTube and buy Jane Goodall's book and give yourself a healing balm and reason to hope again - and take a walk. Spring is coming and the fresh green shoots of crocus are already popping up their little hopeful green shoots! After the bluster and slicing snow and wind of the last weekend storm, these balmy days are a great support for Jane Goodall's arguments for hope.

By the way, I became aware of the book via a review in the Sunday New York Times Book Review section sometime over the summer. I had sworn off buying any more books, but I am glad I made the exception and bought this one. It took me awhile to get around to reading it, stuck midway through the tall tower of books- to-be-read that sits on my coffee table, but I am so happy that I got to it now and just in time because Jane Goodall's Birthday is April 3, so I can read it with a happy birthday in mind!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO A TRUE HERO AND A MODEL FOR HOPE!

s

International Women's Day March 8th, 2022 - Movie Review Kurara: The Dazzling Life of Hokusai's daughter

I am sure it was no coincidence that the film Kurara, showed up on my amazon feed last night since it was the week of International Women's Day. My second bachelor's degree is in Art from Rutger's the State University, Camden Campus, and my primary study was in printmaking, so I was a big fan of Hokusai and did many wood block prints over the years, some before I ever went to college. Many children have been introduced to linoleum block printing and I had tried that as well as making my own stamps (introduced to children through potato printing in grade school) but often using erasers which is still fun! In the 1970's there was a big resurgence in stamping art. Anyhow, I NEVER knew anything about Hokusai's daughter which isn't surprising considering the invisible daughters hidden in the studios of so many famous artists.

It comes as a revelation to many Art students that the great srtists had training studios where they taught apprentices the art and craft of painting (or bookbinding or whatever the art or craft might be) and that often, the apprentices did parts of the master artist's paintings and the master artist did the finishing touches. This was especially true of the exceptionallly labor intensive art of Japanese Wood Block Printing. If you have never seen this kind of art, I urge you to look it up now or right after you read this post. You are in for a treat!

Arguably, Hokusai was the most internationally famed artist of wood block printing, painting, or actually, Japanese Art in general! Can you name anyone else off the top of your head? But despite my having studied his work and bought many books of his works, the most famous of which might be 36 Views of Mount Fuji, and his most famous single work has to be the Great Wave! But I never heard of his daughter.

As I learned from the beautiful film Kurara, the daughter Hokusai O-ie, not only was his primary assistant in the later decades of his life (he lived into his 90's), but an accomplished artist in her own right. I looked up her work and it is beautiful! and Different! I especially enjoyed the works where she focused on light areas emerging from darkness, with lantern light, as though someone were peering into a lighted room from a night shrouded hidden place. The film itself is filled with gorgeous scenes. If you have ever seen the famouse movie or read the novel about the Geisha, you will love this film.

While I am on the subject of the hidden hand of the woman artist, let me mention Lady Murasaki Shibaku, whom I discovered during a debate with a literature teacher at Glassboro State College during the 2nd Wave of the Feminisht Movement in the early 70's. I was taking a course called Survey of World Literature, and found not ONE female author. When I brought this up to the professor he countered that there weren't any. Off hand I could mention a few like Edith Wharton and Jane Austen, and the Bronte sisters, but he had arguments for why they didn't count, but he advissed me to make a bibliography of great women authors with the reasons why they should be included and I spent the summer doing just that. It was a great learning experience for me but not so much for the professor. He missed the point and added titles with women's names by men authors such as Nana, by Emile Zola, but no women authors. At that time, I discovered that The Tale of Gengi written in 1000 to 1020 was considred by most literature experts to be the first psychological novel ever written. That should count for something I thought! It isn't easy to move the sediment heavy minds of old professors, and sometimes it takes a great wearing down by weather. Of course, many years later, all kinds of courses were offered that gave women artists and writers an addenda status and I took those courses. The best one I took in Art was taught by Dr. Wendy Slatkin at Rutger's, who wrote the book Women Artists.

Happy International Women's Day! We are half the world! Jo Ann

An Irish Female Victim - Women so often victims in war, and always forgotten

In 1972, Jean McConville's teen aged daughter stepped out to the store to pick up something for the afternoon meal for her mother and her nine siblings. She was gone 20 minutes but when she came back her brothers and sisters, all under twelve, were screaming in terror because half a dozen men and women from the IRA - the Irish Republican Army, had forced their way into the house nd kidnapped their mother. She was never seen again. Jean McConville was 38 and had been pregnant 14 times already with ten surviving children, the youngest two twins. She was married to a British soldier stationed in Belfast. Jean had been raised Protestant but converted to Catholicism to marry her Catholic husband. She had been harrassed and intimidated, but no one would have expected her to be kidnapped and murdered. There was no proof that she was a spy for the British but that was the excuse the IRA used for her kidnapping and murder. At some point an independent investigation had been carried out and found no trace of any espionage on the part of Jean McConville.

The Northern Irish Constabulary apparently didn't give a tinker's damn about her life either and they waited years to investigate her disappearance, while her children begged for food and were finally taken in by CARE and divided up for placement.

The IRA and Gerry Adams spent a long time denying any responsibility after initially claiming she was punished for being an 'informant.' Eventually, years later, her body was found and she was given a proper burial, her casket carried by her surviving sons, gray haired men now. Two members of the IRA in an oral history project, admitted to having taken part in her kidnapping and execution. There was never any proof of her having done any spying only that she was married to an English soldier. Where, you have to wonder would the poor woman have found any time for such activities when she was 38 when killed and married at 18 with 14 pregnancies and ten live births in those 20 years - that is a pregnancy and nursing baby every two years or more often counting the four who died at birth or shortly thereafter. Where would she have found the time? She was constantly pregnant and nursing, not to mention caring for the ones already born.

Her daughter, the one who was out shopping for 'tea' still pursues legal accountability with, so far, no success, but she vows they will continue until the last of Jean's children is dead. She says, "If we give up then they win." >p/> It made me think of the casualties in all wars, the civilians brutalized, murdered, the children left orphans. We write about, read about, celebrate and honor the generals and the heroes and the politicians, but, like Jean McConville, the ciilians are most often lost in the story, disappeared. Since this is Women's History Month, I wanted this woman, this Irish woman, Jean McConville remembered here by me.

Another Post for St. Patrick's Day - Movie Review - BELFAST

The film, Belfast, was inspired by Kenneth Branagh's childhood in that city in the North of Ireland. His family moved when he was a child, partly to escape the mounting violence. Please forgive my conversational as opposed to 'historical' undersanding of the 'troubles,' but as I understood it, When England invaded and occupied Ireland, the British took the land and established a land owning plantation-style elite. The original Irish dwellers were forced to pay rents kind of like share-croppers in the US. In the North, the original population was driven out and replaced by displaced Scots from the land invaded and occupied by the British in Scotland. The Scots were strongly Protestant and there were long smoldering religious divides between Catholics and Protestants deriving from the Protestant Reformation.

The ongoing rebellious attempts by the Southern Republican Irish to take back their country made a fractious border between the Scots Protestant Irish in the industrial North, which depended on Britain for protection and commerce and the Catholic Republican Irish in athe agrarian and rural South that wanted the Britishh out. The British had long brutalized the Catholic Irish, forbidding them their native language, Gaelic, their religion, and forcing them off their land when they couldn't keep up the rents. In particular, in 1844, after a million Irish died of a famine caused by the failure of the potato crop (due to a black fungus) which kept them alive as the produce of their land was shipped overseas to England, the anger and rebellious spirit rose. The Irish had already tried many times to repel the British from their land, but the superior military might of the British Empire had crushed them and they lived under a form of martial law to keep them from rebeling again. Nonetheless, in the early years of the 1900's there was the Easter Rebellion, which again ended in defeat for the Irish but they never stopped struggling and their constant efforts finally resulted in a peace treaty and Independence.

The Northern Scots/Irish Protestants however, were allied to England in the pact and dreaded being absorbed into a Southern Catholic Republic. So the border was a constant source of tectonic plate like pressure and violent outbreaks.

As Faulkner once said, "The past isn't over, it isn't even past." And that is true of the North/South problems in Ireland. Although the Irish had finally achieved Replican Independence in the South, the North remained allied with England. And recently the Brexit problem caused problems again because Southern Republic of Ireland voted to remain in the Economic Union and the North voted to exit the EU along with England. Now the border had to harden again to comply with EU trade laws.

But back to our movie - In the film, one of the many events of violence of the Protestant Scots Irish agains the Catholics living in the border territories was happening. Bricks were thrown through homes identified as belonging to Catholics, and fire bombs were thrown and Catholic families were terrified. Although the family at the center of the film were Protestants they, too, were in danger from the mobs because the father refused to join up with the Protestant terrorist gangs. He worked in England. The heartbreaking wrench that tore the family apart when they had to move is the heart of the story, and it is the heart of the Irish story in general. More Irish live in in other countries than in Ireland now from the mass migrations forced by the many troubles. Irish fled to America, Australia, and other places, particularly after the famine. By the way, the Grandfather was played by Ciaran Hinds who was also born in Belfast, Ireland like Kenneth Brahagh. When he dies, the minister says, "Do not feel sorrow that he has died, feel happiness that he lived." I think that is beautiful although you cannot avoid the sorrow of the loss of those you love no matter how you may celebrate their lives.

Branagh's film beautifully captures the complexities and the great acting of veteran stars such as Judi Dench, take us to the soul of the stories that stand for the stories of so many Irish. The film has been nominated for many awards and I give it my award for ART and BEAUTY. I watched it os a rental for $5 on amazon prime. I have seen a LOT of Irish movies and read a lot of Irish books as my mother is of Irish descent and my daughter is named for the half dozen female ancestors from the Irish line, Lavinia. The first Lavinia who came here was a Johnson, and a Scots Protestant from the North. The one my daughter was named for, Lavinia Lyons, married an Irish Catholic named Joseph Lyons who was excommunicated from the Catholic Church for marrying outside the faith. They lived in Philadelphia. Lavinia (from the McQuiston family) raised two of the orphaned daughters of her sister, Sarah, who died young in the aftermath of our Influenza epidemic after World War I.

Although it was a devaasting tearing away from family, family history, culture, language, community and all that humans hold dear, I am grateful all my immigrant ancestors made the sacrifice and embarked on the great adventure that brought me and their many descendants here to The United States. I took my daughter to Ireland when she was in her early teens. We have both now visited all the countries of our origins: Ireland, England, Scotland, and Germany. Also I have visited Sweden and Denmark (our 17 percent Scandinavia dna origin). My heart and my home feel fully American but I honor my ancestors.

If you can, try to see this film - it is magnificent! Happy Trails at home and abroad! Jo Ann

For St. Patrick's Day - the Unwanted Immigrant workers we can't do without!

Sometimes coincidence steps in and reminds you of something you wouldn't have thought about or remembered. I have to interject a funny personal anecdote about my cat Lucky. When he first came to live here from West Virginia ten years ago, I had to sequester him in the back room until he got checked out so he didn't bring anything into the house and infect my other two cats - Seamus and Padraic. I would go down the steps to the back room and open the door and give him kitten milk and a little visit several times a day. He had made a nest for himself in my music bag where I had a harmonica, maracas, a small Irish bodran drum, and other little things I had picked up over the years for my daughter - a flute, and so on. It was a copious canvas bag! One day when I got down to the back door, I saw a postcard had been slipped under the door and into the hallway! It said WISH YOU WERE HERE! I am not jooking! Tht little rascal had scratched the postcard out of something else, a book off the floor to ceiling bookshelf, probably used as a book mark, and he played with it until he slipped it under the door.

Today, March 5, 2022, when I went back to the den to let the dog out, I found a photocopy of an old news article from the Philadelphia Inquirer, November 6, 2011 on the floor. Obviously, Lucky or someone else fished it out of something, a file or a book it was tucked into. The article was about the attempt to excavate a mass grave where Irish railroad workers had been buried called DUFFY'S CUT.

In 1832, dozens (about 51) of Irish workers were buried under mysterious circumstances in a mass grave and forgotten. The East Whiteland Township site was found to be too close to the Amtrak and Septa lines to be excavated. The rsearchers had hoped to exhume the bodies and give them a proper burial.

Yesterday the history book club of which I am a member discussed the crisis in the aftermath of the American Revolution when the government was forming and the "Founding Brothers" (the name of the book) were faced with petitions from Quakers and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, about the Slavery Question. In the end, it was decided nothing could be done at the time because the whole new nation enterprise was in such a perilous and vulnerable state. The Southern States were threatening to secede if the new government did anything to abrogate their "Property" rights.

The worker class of our country from 1619 to the present has always been an abused, unappreciated, exploited class of people, generally immigrants, who do the work that those who have risen through education or other means upwards in the social economic class, are no longer willing to do - agriculture, mining, cleaning, domestic work, cooking, service jobs, and they have often been immigrants. At present and for some years the agricultural workers have struggled to find a fair balance in wages and worker protections. There was a great old protest song "All They Will Call You is Deportees" written, I think by Woody Guthrie, about how the farm workers were brought in to pick the crops then deported when they were no longer needed. Just as in the debate of the new nation, it was discussed to buy the slaves from the plantation owners and transport them back to Africa. That was finally deemed to be too expensive.

The Irish workers will lie in anonymity but we can remember them here, and an Irish Celtic Cross of limestone from Ireland has been laid as a memorial near the mass grave. One of the researchers said there are hundreds of such graves strewn across the country where Irish workers have been buried in unmarked graves. I imagine this is true for Chinese rail workers as well, and for farm workers. These Irish workers were believed to have been sick with cholera and some were murdered by vigilantes afraid they wiould carry the cholera into the community. Thrown away like polluted rubbish. One set of remains was identified, John Ruddy, a teenager from Ireland. Family members from Ireland came and took his bones home for a proper burial.

I suppose my purpose here is to remember those workers and to remind myself and others to acknowledge, affirm and be grateful to all workers who labor to keep our society going whether in the coal mines, the restaurant kitchens, the farm fields, or the home! But especially to remember all the Irish workers who came here filled with hope after the despair of the Great Hunger - the terrible unforgiveable famine in Irlend from 1845-1852 when a million people died of starvation.

I was so grateful to learn while doing family history that my own Scots-Irish ancestors, the McQuistons of Pennsylvania, were already here and hadn't had to suffer that event to get here.

Erin Go Bragh! This phrase from Eire Go Brach, originated during the Irish Rebellion of 1798 just when our own country was struggling to find its way to cohesion and survival. Jo Ann