Germany after World War II - a tv show review

First, let me desribe Trudy to you, because I feel I must. She was about five feet two, and yes, she had eyes of blue, and medium length straight platinum hair. She spoke with a hoarse low voice, possibly from smoking, and she was about mid thirties. She was my only friend when I lived in Germany rom 1967 yo 1969. After 1969, my then husband was discharged from the US Army and we lived on the road in an Volkswagon Van for a year traveling around 38 different countries.

When I first got to Germany, we lived in a tiny third floor apartment with slanted atttic stye ceilings. It was very cosy and comfortably furnished. Th army post was all filled up with the soldiers returning from Vietnam or on their way there an officers of Wharton Barracks were given the option of living "on the economy" which meant in a local town, Heilbronn, in a civilian apartment.

Trudy lived across the courtyard from me in a 2nd floor apartment with three toddlers. Her means of living as I soon gathered, was as a 'temporary' wife to an American soldier. They would get to live a comfortable life with a wife and family in a local apartment, and Trudy would get her rent paid and child support and PX groceries. I would visit her regularly and we would smoke and chat and she would regale me with her tales of romance and manipulation. For example, once when she needed (or wanted) new furniture, she told her live-in American soldier boyfriend that she was pregnnt and needed seeral hudnred dollars for an abortion. He paid the money, no questions asked and she bought new furniture with it. When one soldier shipped back hoe, she would get 'dolled up' and go to town and attract another. When I knew her, her live-in was a 19 year old boy from Texas. He was crazy about her. And indeed she was a hugely charming and entertaining woman. Eventually, she married him and he took her back to Texas with him, along with her toddlers.

We never ever spoke about the second world war, Trudy and I. We tlked about her boyfriends and her children and her romantic adventures. I was so young and inexperienced that I didn't think anything at all of the new construction of our apartment complex, a aguely Roman style series of concrete structures around a garden center where oldeer women who had known scarcity and hunger, worked every day on their life-giving vegetable pathces. I never thought when I looked at them at the time, that they had lived through the total destruction of their town through artillery bombardment. and street by street, house by house gunfire. Their town had been a Nazi stronghold History wa nowhere in my mind at that time. I was learning how to cook, newly married, and just took things as I found them, no questions asked.

Many years later however, I became very interested and read a book about the Battle of Heilbronn which opened up many questions in my mind about those yers directly after the end of the war when everything was destroyed but the common German civilian population still had to find a way to stay alive. I realized after searching that there was scarcely anything written or filmed about that time. Plenty on the concentration camps, plenty on the battles nd the allied invasion, but almost nothing on the aftermath and how the people who were left alive managed. There was one fine film, The Marriage of Maria Braun, which had a great influence on me and was a mgnificent film depicting the complexities of life for a woman in that aftermath.

Recently I found, to my delight, there is a PBS tv series called "Our Miracle Years" about three sisters, the daughters of an iron magnate and their struggle to make lives for themselves in the debris of the world they have grown up into, and the death of their father. It is beautifully filmed and well acted and if you have amazon prime and pbs you should watch it. This August, of course was the 75th anniversary of the end of the war as I know well since I was born in 1945 - a war baby, to my Philadelphia navy yard worker mother and my US Navy sailor father. Sometimes I feel a great camera light in my soul and as though a film strip were running through me with the vivid, colorful, and entirely rich and plentiful life of the post war years for people like my family - a car, a television, a house, a new house, a big brick barbeque grill in the yard, five children born to happy, deeply in love parents who were bathed in the glow of prosperity and vigor and post World War II boom time. At the same time that it feels like a bright light it eels like a weight, a weight of memory and of years and of love.

Hope you get to watch this series! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

A woman's education/The Taliban/Maisie Dobbs-a book review 8/27/21

After bidding a fond fairewell to my friends in Three Pines, Quebec, who live in th novels of Louise Penny, I looked around for a new set of murder mysteries. I looked up most popular, prize winners, the ten best, and came up with author Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs novels. Maisie Dobbs is the impoverished daughter of a oving and hard working 'costermonger' in London's East End just before the onset of World War I. Her mother has died, and her father, upond delivering produce to one of the great houses' (think Downton Abbey) speaks to the cook and the butler about the possibilities of getting his daughter a 'place' as a servant where at least she will be well looked after, fed and safe. It is arranged and the uncommonly clever young Maisie while doing the usual pre-dawn chores of cleaning out the fireplace grates and starting the fires each morning, finds a lirary. Also uncommon is that Misie Dobs is literate, she can read and write as well as being exceptionally intellectual curious and this is a most important point for the theme of my post here today. Maisie begins to read her way through philosophy in the fancy library in the pre-dawn hours until one day, months into her employment, she is discovered. Fortunately for her, the Lady of the house, in both senses of the word Lady, is a feminist and active suffragette so instead of punishing Maisie she looks for a way to keep her service (which is dutiful and competent) while supporting her desire for knowledge. She also sets her up with a tutor in the persona of a family friend and scholar, Mr. Blanche.

One of the things that struck me immediately was the intellectual hunger of this pre-teen girl because I had the same characteristic, but not until I was much older did I realize how unusual it was. At the time and for most of my life, I took it for granted and if it was commented on at all, it was in disparaging terms as being "odd" and not in the good sense. Mostly it elicited comments such as "Get your nose out of thea book and do something useful." Like Maisie, I happened onto a hidden trove of treasure, in my case it was the shelves of books in my Grandmother's basement, a colection of the greatest novels of European literature, a set of Charles Dickens and a set of Mark Twain, but even more important to me, a couple of novels of THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON A HIKE! I didn't know at the time that these were a series, all I knew was that here were girls in a book who were like oddball me - adventurous, intelligent, and clever. I didn't know any girls like that, and my main attribute was intellectual curiosity more than a thirst for adventure, but how I loved that book! They introduced me to more enterprising young women such as Cherry Ames, Student Nurse, and Nancy Drew. But, I was also, at a very young age, reading those European classics and imbibing advanced ideas and Victorian vocabulary. I loved those novels, in particular, Guy deMauppassant. What a rich field for th sowing of seeds of interest in human psychology, history, class politics, gender politics, a world of thought.

But, what brought me to this essay today, was about women and education and class. Neither of my parents graduated from high school though both were self educated and both read. My mother subscribed to at least 6 magazines including Saturday Evening Post, Life, Look, Better Homes and Gardens and National Geographic, and my father read all through the years I knew him as my parent. I don't know if he read earlier on in his life. Both of my parents were intelligent and interested in things. We took weekend drives to places of some interest all through the spring, summer and autumn months. We visited caverns, museum, all inds of palces of interest, and in particular, regularly to Skyline Drive, the Blue Ridge Mountains, where my father ha worked in the Civilian Conservation Corps in his youth. They opened my eyes and my mind was already fitted out with a voracious appetite for knowledge by genetic, some mysterious inheritance. I can trace it back on both sides to a teacher a generation back on my mother's side, and a seminarian two generations back on my father's side.

Like Maisie Dobbs in the Winspeare novels, my reading and my active intellectual curiosity fitted me to make the leap to college, and it was a leap from my working class life and world. My high school also helped to prepare me for that world though not through education. Tracking put me into the 'business' program not the college prep program. But through the social interaction, my association with other young people going to college, it appeared on my horizon as a place I might be able to go at some point through some miracle. The miracle turned out to be student riots in th 1960's which opened the college doors to people who had interest and desire if not SAT scores and college prep courses. I started out in extension school programs and when I saw I could easily manage, I was able to switch to day college, then full time, then a Bachelor Arts in English and when I had really learned 'the ropes' I got another Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts, and way leading on to way, as it does, eventually to a Masters in Education. Throughout all of this, I worked as a teacher. Still through most of the peer group I inhabited, from my husband and the couples we spent our free time with, my intellectual pursuits were unusual, even rare. Some of them read, my ex-husband was a reader, but none of them pursued higher education and NONE of the women had any interest in college.

But times were changing, and I met others like myself in college, women who were always intersted in learning more, and figuring out how things were, and how they had got to be how they were and how they could be different and better. I met women interested in class dynamics and gender issues as well as in Art and Literature.

It turns out now that the half dozen or so of my best friens, that is the ones I have seen the most and spent the most time with over the years are all like me in that we came from families where our parents either didn't go to high school or didn't go to college (though some of my friends don't like to admit it) and we struggled to find our own way to the promised land which set us on paths through education to self-systaining careers and financial independence even through retirement. We were a generation, and our education is a generation marker. Not one of my closest friends had a mother who went to college and all of my closest friends have achieved even graduate degrees, many of us on our own. We were working class girls.

This is, in fact, a remarkable thing. And it is equally remarkable that I was born with this unusual trait to seek out knowledge, to love books and learning. I still know very few people of whom this is true. It ha een a saving grace for me.

Which brings me to the Taliban. Patriarchy has always been intent on repressing women and our intellectual capacity. We underestimate the biological imperative of maleness to 1.Dominate females to contro their reproduction, and 2.defend and extend territory to provide resources for the offspring of their reproductive efforts. Many of the state goals of the Taliban, as with many other old and patriarchal relgions has to do with controlling female reproduction through denying education, forced marriage, forced continual childbearing and subservience to male needs. Their suppression of female abilities whether Catholics, Muslim, Mormon, or any of the other religions or cultures that specialize in domination and suppression of wome, denies them a treasure of creativity and innovation - the abiities of half the population to add to the cultural richness. Even in our own culture, in my lifetime and early childhood, women were not encouraged to be educated and oru culture drove women like cattle into a cycle of early marriage, childbearing, childrearing and home-making rather than the pursuit of independence. Dependence was encouraged, and many women were on board with it, thinking the easy life of being supported and required to master only the simpler tasks of the home were enough, until, of course, their breadwinners disappeared through one means or another and they found themselves with no income, no skills, children to provide for and now viable means of adequate support except o find another male meal ticket.

The uneducated and untrained women were forced into employment that was difficult, menial, and low paying with no benefits. The cultures that repress women are forced into backward civilizations that depend on violence against women to keep the status quo. Fundamentalist groups like Boko Haram are forced to kidnap children to rape and subdue in order to continue their biological imperative to reproduce. The cultures of these other fundamentalist societies remain impoverished and so envious of the gifts of the civilizations of modern cultures that they must kill and repress their populations to keep them within their borders. The drug gangs of South and Central America have much in common with the Taliban and Isis, Boko Haram and violent death cults of that sort in that they are like a cancer that kills the host on which they feed and bring about their own demise. The ultra right wing cults of the ignorant, anti-science, and racist states in the South of the US are another example. Their defiance of science and common sense is causing them to kill their own population through the epimeic of Covid 19 and the Delta variant. Sadly many innocent people are caught in the deadly web of this ignorance and will suffer and die. I am often grateful to my ancestors who came to the US and provided me with all the opportunities I have enjoyed and I hope they are pleased that I did get an education and that I worked for the common good for my adult life as a teacher spreding knowledge and struggling against ignorance.

My first and only theft

Sometime during the early hours of the morning, I was dreaming an essay, the main subject of which had been haunting my mind for some time. It was about the only real crime I ever committed, my only theft. When I was a young child, my family lived in Phladelphia, but my grandmother lived in Ocean City, New Jersey. We stayed with her for a week or two ever summer, and visited most Sundays. What struck me most about this memory of my crime was that I, a small child of 6 or 7, was allowed to go out by myself and wander around. One of the things people had then was an alleyway. We had one in Philadelphia behid the yards at the back of our brick row homes, and my Grandmother Mabel had one behind her yard that stretched down the street. I am sure I was probably warned not to leave the yard or go further than the alley behind Grandmom's house when I was allowed to go out and play, but I often wandered far afield. Once, most dangerously, I climbed into a coal car down at the railroad tracks and found myself trapped there for several hours before I managed to jump and slither high enough to get purchase on something to pull my little snowsuit clad self out. But that's another story. My theft ccurred on a day when I was wandering along the main shopping street of Ocean City, Asbury Avenue. My Grandmother's apartment was then at 6th and Asbury, the upstairs of a house owned by her sister. The builidng has since been demolished.

On the day of y Asbury wannder, I walked into Hoyt's five and dime store, and gazed longingly at the eye level counter with the bin of the object of my greatest youthful desire, a set of false teeth with a hinge that you could put on your pinter finger and your thumb and clack up and down. Only the mystery of childhood can explain my overwhelming desire to own that object. It was true, that at that time clacking false teeth seemed to be a common and popular accessory to many television productions, both comedies and mysteries, but I have no idea why I wanted that item as much as I did. On the day of my theft, I remember being particularly cunning and acting with real intent. I was planning to steal the coveted object. I looked around to see if any store clerks were nearby or watching me. I was terrified, which is why, no doubt this old old memory is still with me, the strength of the emotion that it is wrapped in.

Finding myself unobserved, I quickly reached my small nad up and into the bin and grasped the one ich square clear plastic box which housed the little false teeth. Then, quickly, tense with fear, I walked out onto the sidewalk where the sun shone like an interrogation lamp. There was no joy in my successful theft, no sense of triumph, only a bad feeling of fear.

In those days, men and women dressed up when they went shopping down town, and there were many suited men with hats, all of whom looked to me as though they were store detectives and as each one passed me, I imagined him laying a huge man hand on my little shoulder and taking me in to go to jail for theft. The shame to my parents! By the way, I am certain that my father and mother, my Grandmother, my Greatuncle Yock, any of them would have gladly given me the nickle to buy the alse teeth, so I am not sure why I felt compelled to steal them.

Inevitably the weight of the fear and the consequences weighed so heavily I turned and trudged back to the five and dime store and put the false teeth back into the bin. I never stole anything ever again.

By the way, not only children could roam freely in those more innocent or naive days, dogs, too, could roam about at will. People mainly opened the door and let the dog or cat go out and the pet returned in its own good time, its own business having been concluded. Slowly over the 1950's and 1960's, somehow these freedoms eroded and we all, probably correctly, began to see the world as a more dangerous place. Children played under watchful supervision or in their own yards only. Dogs, too, became sequestered into their own yards or walked abroad only on a leash.

One of the many other times I wandered off on my own at the seashore was in Wildwood, NJ, with the other Grandmother, in a rental house with bright forest green wooden trim. That time I was even younger, possibly four years old, and I followed the family dog of my grandparents, an Irish setter named King, who did, indeed have the imperious bearing of royalty. The day I decided to follow him, he was patient for a few blocks but then decided to shake me so he could do his own grown up dog route without the encumbrance of this human slow poke, so he trotted off as I called forlornly and futiley for him to wait. Many hours later, I was hopelessly lost, hot, and tired. Finally, I lost all courage and hope and stood on a corner crying. A police patrol car stopped and picked me up. The officer asked my name but I only knew my first name. I was so awe struck by my situation in the back seat of a patrol car, it is a wonder I could even pull up my first name. To his question about the name of my parents, I could only reply "Mom and Dad." When he asked where I lived, I only knew Philadelphia. Finally he asked if I thought I could recognise the house where I was staying if I saw it and I shook my head to the positive. We drove up and down the streets until I saw the bright green wooden trim of the rental house and my Grandmother and Grandfather standing on the lawn, presumably looking for me. I suppose these are good reasons why chidren should not be allowed to wander freely.

These memories, however, due to my advancing age, come back to me more and more and in surprising detail which, I am told, is what happens when you get old. The distant past comes into focus as the recent fades. We old people soon become aware of the lost world we inhabited, the things that we knew and took for granted like alleyways, hucksters with horse drawn wagons selling vegetables, the ice man, ice boxes, free dogs and childhood adventures wandering, are gone forever, replaced and covered over by the sediment of time.

Happy Trails! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Lament for a world without photographs

Today, Wednesday, August 11, 2021, I just took pictures with my iphone of some old photographs I came across recently. I was actually looking for something else and I found a forgotten scrapbook of my youth, my 20's, with some photographs I had taken of New York City with my little Pentax 110. What a camera! It was very small, you could fit it in your pocket easily, and very versatile - you could take standard photographs or panoramic. I loved that camera, but, of course, inevitably, it was replaced by a digital camera. I don't know what happened to it, I may have even thrown it away (perish the thought) in a desperate attempt to unclutter my life.

I am a keeper and saver but NOT a HOARDER which seems to be one of the new 10 sins of the modern world. Fat and Hoarding have taken the place of other sins which go unremarked or while criminalized, not scorned by public opinion, such as venality or lust. There are no shows about "My Porno Life" or "my money Grubbing Life" only My 600 Pound Life, and Hoarders.

Anyhow before I go down a rant road, let me get back to the subject of the beauty of old photographs. I thank my mother repeatedly for enriching my childhood with a wide array of magazines which I am sure I have mentioned in my posts many times before. We subscribed to Life, Look, House and Garden, Saturday Evening Post, National Geographic, and other magazines that came and went but didn't have the saying power of those stalwart companions listed above. I grew up in a more reading world. We also had newspapers and both of my parents read the magazines and the newspapers and in fact, as I recall, nearly everyone I can remember read the newspapers. In fact, nearly everyone I remember from my childhood had magazines - they were everywhere!

My first introduction to a WOMAN photographer came about with a LOOK cover by Margaret Bourke White, who was also a War correspondent during WWII. I was thrilled to think that a woman could be a professional photographer though I had no idea, even as an adult, how that could come about. How did those women find their way through the labyrinth that led them to a career in photography. I know at least one found her way through the WPA via the FSA. That stands for the Federal Works Progress Administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ans subsidiary of which was the Farm Secrity Administration. Today you can go on Library of Congress web site in American Memory and see wonderful and beautiful photographs from the 1930's taken by Dorothea Lange and the many photographers eployed by the WPA through the FSA.

One thing circles around to another, and to get back to my topic, I was looking for photographs from my father's time with the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) of the WPA. My daughter had written an essay that was published in the Oxford American. The rights had just been released to her and she was thinking of adapting it. But I couldn't find those photographs, instead I found my own old scrapbook - literally a paper scrapbook with the picturs fastened in with those litle black adhesive triangles. I was 20 when I took those photogaphs, an impossibly long time ago. The photos have faded over time, and blurred. This gives them an even more beautiful and haunting quality I think.

It makes me sad to think so many photos taken today go to the Cloud or SnapChat, only to vanish like lightening bugs, gone forever, not to be gazed down upon every again by fond eyes looking at a world transformed. But maybe that's okay. People don't want clutter and I really get it. Sometimes I fantasize getting a storage shed built in the yard (another storage shed, to be honest) and putting all my stuff in it and making a streamlined existence for myself, one easier to dust and manuever around in now that I am old. But like some poor dragon trapped forever in a cave with its treasure, I could never be parted from my lifetime accumulation of jewels and rare magical objects. I have one entire wall from floor to ceiling of shelves containing photo albums, and a wooden trunk of small albums. The cameras are all gone, but the photos remain until I myself am gone at which time, I guess they will become paper waste as I doubt there is any place you can donate or store a wall full of photo albums and I doubt anyone in my family will want them, though so many are living history.

I fact, I am preparing to make a painting using some small and utterly gorgeous old sepia phtotgraphs that are 100 years old as my models. My cousin was about to discard them but sent them to me, and they are my father, and his two brothers as toddlers. I am calling the painting "Ghosts of the 100 Year Old Babies" and I plan to enter it in an upcoming group show at Eiland Arts, in the old Railroad Station in Merchantville. When I download my New York photos to the computer from my phone, I will post them on here if I can figure out the new format. Haven't done that in awhile!

Happy Trails, out in the world or in your memory - Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

USS New Jersey Battleship Event

Recently I was watching a mystery series set in Germany on the border of Poland. Another one I watched was set in Dresden. Both are part of a subscription to pbs.masterpiece that I took on amazon prime because I watch tv on my laptop not on television. For one thing I cannot tolerate any more commercials, and for another my declining vision and hearing make television difficult. I like amazone prime. Anyhow, I was struck with how it was just my lifetime ago that Dresden was a pile of rubble and ashes after the firebombing of WWII. Also, Poland, the aerial views show a place that looks as though it was never destroyed. Time marches on and like ants who have had a dog step into their anthill, we have repaired our damages, rebuilt and forgotten.

However, on August 14th, we will remember the end of the second World War on the Battleship New Jersey on the Camden Waterfront. There will be re-enactors, and even aerial events. Many if not most of the soldiers and auxiliary helpers who made it possible for us to defeat the Nazi onslaught and the demonic ambitions of the Japanese Empire are now gone. My father was in the navy in both the North Atlantic and the South Pacific. The last book he read before he died was about the Battle of Tassaferona which he witnessed from a US Navy Troop transport at sea. My mother served at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia. I was born in November of 1945, and I once had a film (now deteriorated, sadly) of my mother marching joyfully in August 1945 in a neighborhood Victory Parade, proudly waving a tall American flag and in her final months of pregnancy with me.

Everything started out new for us, my parents new marriage, new house, a little row home on Warnock Street in South Philadelphia, my father's new career as an ironworker, our new little family, my mother, father and me, and a new world full of relief and hope and promise.

I hope I can make it to the USS NJ Battleship Event, but my car is old, my knees are not good, and although I invited my sister and nephew, if they don't go, I won't be able to go either, so I don't know. I would like to go in memory of my parents and what they lived through.

Twice, in my old 'volunteer' days, I did a one woman re-enactment as a volunteer for the Red Bank Battlefield, as a WWII woman war correspondent. Red Bank Battlefield was the site of a World War Ii river defense emplacement and twice we hosted large and very popular WWII Re-enactments. A new book had just come out about a half dozen of these intrepid journalists, and I had photo of Margaret Bourke White, the photo journalist, and I copied her outfit and hair. By good luck, a 1947 German portable typewriter had been for sale for $25 at a local vintage shop to help with my re-enactment. I had also read a biography of Martha Gellhorn, a World War II war correspondent who had ended her marriage to Ernest Hemingway to go to Europe to cover the allied invasion. The beginning and the development of the careers of women war correspondents is in itself a great subject for a blog post, for anotenother time. Final note, I first learned about Margaret Bourke White through a photo of hers which appeared on the cover of LIFE Magazine when I was a child. My mother was a great suscriber to magazines, we must have had a half dozen that brought the world into a our little home every week and every month. I gobbled them up! The Saturday Evening Post covers by Norman Rockwell inspired my interest in Art.

Happy Trails! >p/> By the way, there will be a bluegrass concert FREE at Proprietor's Park in Gloucester City (which is on the rDelaware River front) on Tuesday the 10th of August from 7 - 9, so bring a chair and enjoy some fun music. The opening act will feature Michael Tearson - do you remember him from WMMR? He is a living rock and roll encyclopedia!

Too Hot To Go Out - Time to Listen to Music! ALBERT HALL, WARETOWN

Okay, I will talk about one historic place you can go for music, but first - it has been so hot this summer, that aside from my morning dog walk and my gym workout, the odd shopping errand, I have spent my afternoons indoors, msstly reading. However, in the evening, I have been watching music documentaries on amazon prime. Frankly, to me tv commercials are like mosquitoes or flies - I can't stand them, so I watch amazon prime on my laptop - also it helps with vision and with hearing as both of these essential abilities have declined with my age.

So far I have watched more concerts and documentaries than I can list, but just to mention a few: I watched 3 documentaries on Joni Mitchell. The only title I remember is Woman of Heart and Mind. It was excellent! Then I watched two more. I have watched Echoes of the Canyon, about the offspring of the original Laurel Canyon musicians such as Crosby Stills Nash and Young and others. Also I watched a new documentary about PINK, who I had never listened to before, and one on the History of POP featuring BoyZ 2 Men, whom I had never heard before either. To get to the point - after one such documentary on the Bee Gees, I decided to watch Saturday Night Fever which I hadn't seen for decades and which features the music of the Bee Gees. What an absoutely PERFECT blending of film and music! The most recent documentary I watched was It Begins with a Song - about the song writers of Nashville, and I am going to couple that documentary with the film Nashville, by Altman, also many decades old.

Now there are Many Many Many concerts at the many many wineries of South Jersey and I get notifcations in my e-mail via something called Visit South Jersey, so if you are an intrepid driver, or don't mind the heat, check it out. But there is one place I LOVED but I can't drive there anymore because of my aged car and my aged vision - ALBERT HALL in Waretown. I don't know what the opening status is since the pandemic so you will have to check it out online, but I can tell you Albert Hall was a heck of a lot of fun. You could buy a slice of homemade cake and a cup of coffee to enjoy while there and to refresh yourself after the long drive in the dark woods! If you have never been there, look it up and head on over one Saturday evening soon!

Also, a coupe of years ago, I attended a lecture at PPA - Pinelands Preservation Alliance, Bishop's Farm, by an author of a book on *Folk Music History in New Jersey. I will try to find the author's name. We have a history and you can see a lot of it on the walls at Albert Hall. Meanwhile I should mention there is a wonderflu littl music store in Collingswood, one shop down from a bakery on the corner of Haddon Ave. and you can buy instruments, vinyl records, or take lessons there. I took ukulele lessons there for a few months before the pandemic. I still pluc and strum from time to time, mostly working on DEOPRTEES, originally sung by Woody Guthrie, although I heard of it through Pete Seeger. Woody Guthrie lived in New Jersey through the last years of his life and that's where Bob Dylan visited him. There is alwaays something fun to do and to go to in New Jersey!

Happy Trails! Jo Ann If you want to contack me, use my e-mail wrightj45@yahoo.com

*Folk Music Revival in New Jersey, Michael Gabriele

Saddler's Woods, Haddon Twp., NJ

In the Spotlight!

Did you ever want to be famous? Well that's how team SWCA feels these days after two media outlets featured Saddler's Woods!

The TV news channel, PHL17 offered viewers an introduction to Saddler's Woods that aired in June on the "Weekend Philler" segment.

You can view it here. On the more academic side, Saddler's Woods was mentioned in the International Society for Science magazine, Science News in the July 3rd edition. This edition was dedicated to accounts of tree preservation across the globe. From Madagascar to Saddler's Woods, the magazine profiled methods of preserving and restoring woodlands for the vital ecosystem services trees provide.

The article, written by Susan Milius, mentioned Saddler's Woods and included a photo of students from Haddonfield Friends School exploring the stream, as well as a photo of key steward, Doug Hefty's 80 page report that thwarted development in the 1970s.

Joshua Saddler, for whom the woods are named, was featured in both pieces and we are thrilled to expand the awareness of the woods' cultural significance.

If you love trees as I do, and if, like me, you are aware of the important place they play in our survival, you will be interested in Saddler's Woods and this centuries old effort to save and conserve a small patch of woodland that has miraculously survived the suburban sprawl that surrounds it. The iformation above came from an e-mail I received today because I subscribe to the Saddler's Woods conservation group e-newsletter. I took a course with this group once that included a tour of the woods and I have been devoted to their efforts ever since and fascinated by Saddler's Woods. I hope you can go there for a short hike and read up on this wonderful resource. It is located just off Cuthbert Boulevard in Collingswood. There is a traffic light between the two shopping centers, just across from Newton Creek Park. You turn right and on the right hand side you will come across a small patch of woods. Look for the marker identifying the woods and there is a trail you can follow, only 20 to 30 minutes long, but a cool, shady, forest sanctuary, worth the visit. Enly!

Happy Trails - Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Upcoming Weekend July 10th - Things To Do

1.Annual Salem County Fair and is on again for this year! This coming Saturday, July 10th the Greater Elmer Area Historical Society will have its monthly open house at their headquarters, the former St. Ann's Catholic Church 117 Broad Street, Elmer, NJ.

2.Butterfly Festival at the James and Ann Whitall House, Red Bank Battlefield, National Park, NJ

Happy Trails! Jo Ann

Cooper River

This autumn a group comprised of a videographer and several kinds of scientists and environmentalists will kayak, and bushwhack all 17 miles of the Cooper River from it's confluence with the Delaware River to its source. They will test water quality and assess clean-up requirements from downed trees and debris. The Cooper River used to be 60 percent polluted by sewage and even more if you count storm-run off but thanks to the Clean Water Act of the 1970's, progress has been made and the river mostly cleaned up. As you probably know, it is a great venue for Rowing regattas and competitions. I used to live along the Cooper in the little brick row homes and I loved walking the 4 mile track around the river. This is good news! To find out more, google "Explorers plan to search South Jersey’s neglected Cooper River."

Jo Ann - my e-mail is wrightj45@yahoo.com

Happy Trails

Midnight Review of the movies for 4th of July

It's midnight and I have watched the last film of my 4th of July film festival for this year! Al Pacino in Revolution was the WORST! The sound quality was horrible, the whole plot was grim and grimmer, and Nastassia Kinski was a dreadful casting choice. The scenery was authentic looking and that's all I found worthy in this awful film.

April Morning was EXCELLENT! You had such a feel for the authenticity of the way the townspeople were forced to alter their way of life to respond to the British crackdown, their reluctance to fight, their struggle to find a way to fight and survive. In a way, it was a metaphor for the entire war situation, farmers and artisans and shop keepers forced to become soldiers, guerilla fighters. The acting was good and the scenery authentic.

The Scarlet Coat was also terrific - I had read a good deal about Benedict Arnold, Peggy Shippen, and Major Andre', and I found the whole spy aspect interesting. I had read about that before as well nnd found the film true to the reading and research I had done. It was well done in every way - great diction, filming, casting, and acting and very authentic.

Drums Along the Mohawk was a favorite though it did have that early family style Disney quality, still it was moving and a different view, the frontier view with each side vying to win Native American Allies to their side to fight for them, though both sides were really enemies of the Native Americans in the end.

I wanted to end the night with The Crossing with Jeff Daniels but I couldn't rent it from amazon. As Imentioned in my first post, I really like TURN, though I could only enjoy it when I watched it on my laptop because, again, it was so dark and murky in the filming and the diction wasn't very clear. The older movies were much much better at that. Actually I think the best thing is to watch them ALL!

Fourth of July for the 245th year is now over, so Goodnight friends and fellow Amerians! Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

I did find The Crossing for FREE, streamng, and it was very good. It made me think a good way to watch the movies is geographica, starting with April Morning (Lexington and Concord), Drums Along the Mohawk (upstate NY)then The Scarlet Coat (Benedict Arnold and West Point, NJ), the Revolution (the City of New York), Then the Crossing (North Jersey) and finally, the Patriot. I have to say, I spent a lot of time with tears running down my cheeks - so much suffering! I did find Mary Silliman's War, also streaming and free, and it was slow moving but very interesting on the theme of kidnapping for prisoner exchange. Themes are another good way to watch - the spy theme, the theme of victory snatched from the jaws of defeat, and so on. Happy Viewing movie and American Revolution Fans!

REVOLUTIONARY WAR FILM FESTIVAL 7/4/21

First off here is the list:

Drums Along the Mohawk - Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert

1776

Revolution

Johnny Tremain

Scarlet Coat

April Morning

All For Liberty

Beyond the Mask

Filicity

Today, to celebrate the 4th of July, I deided to wear my red white and blue T-shirt, and watch a film festival beginning with Drums Along the Mohawk, which I haven't seen in many years and really didn't remember. In fact, I was under the impression it starred Randolph Scott, but I think that was because in my foggy memory, it got mixed up with the early version of The Last of the Mohicans, but I cc ould be wrong about that as well.

Drums Along the Mohawk was interesting to me in so many many ways, watching it from this year 2021! First, I realized how it set me taste for early American furnishings, for my love of log cabins, and for my eventual interest in the Revolution War in later life when I became a docent for the James and Ann Whitall House at Red Bank Battlefield. Watching it now, I couldn't avoid the critical eye born of my understanding of European expansion and the annihilation of the Indigenous people along with the expropriation of their land and means of survival. Also, when Henry Fonda slapped Claudette Colbert in the face because she couldn't control her hysteria at the sight of a friendly Mohawk man, his claim "I didn't want to do it, Lana, I had to," carried all kinds of implications as did the presentation to Henry by that same Mohawk man of a wife whipping stick to help turn her into a "fine woman." All that aside, and there is a lot of it - not even going into the nearly silent Daisy, the Afrian American servant of the well-to-do widow and all her presence indicates in regard to the enslavement of Africans, still there was a lot to understand in a new way having a broader understanding of history as an adult. As a child, naturally, I bought into the heroic settler narrative without any of the associated questions and qualms I have today. However, there is a lot to be learned from these old movies and they do bring up a host of interesting points of view including the futile attempts on the part of the Indigenous tribes to figure out which side to ally with and have the best outcome - as we know now, there was NO BEST outcome for them, only decimation through disease and genocidal politics.

It was clear to me evn now, however that the settlers, the colonists, couldn't comprehend the wider scope of the process of which they were a component part. All they knew was that they were here and they had to survive. I have been watching a lot of movies and documentaries about the migration of European tribes the Barbarian Migration, the Celtic Migration, the Roman Expansion, the British Empire. And the crime that was our founding in America was just a chapter in that worldwide and millennial history of tribes expanding into other people's lands and settling there through force and integration as well as importation as slaves.

It was interesting to see the German militia officer trying his best to shape up the wild frontier men who were jokers and drunks and had no concept of discipline as a German military immigrant would have understood it. And it was also a familiar narrative to see the wild frontier man marrying the unsuspecting city girl and transporting her to a cabin far from everyone and everything where she then had to learn to survive, and give birth to children, and help them survive. Personally, I think I would have gone back home, but, I am old and not young or in love and those women, whether going North or West, really couldn't get back home anyway. They were stuck.

I think my next choice will be Revolution. Although it is a contest with 1776. I don't want to watch Patriot, so that goes to the bottom of the list and the bottom six films on my list I have never seen and never heard of, so probably won't be watching them. I have just recently watching all the episodes of TURN which I thought was excellent, once I could watch it on my laptop and not on tv where it was too dark and I couldn't understand what they were saying. As I get older and my sight and hearing begin to dimish, very dark shows and shows with too much ambient sound, or actors who don't speak distinctly and clearly are difficult for me. No problem there with Drums Along the Mohawk! Clear lighting and clear diction!

Happy 4th of July, if you want to talk to me about the movies, e-mail me because comments on blogspot is a MESS! wrightj45@7ahoo.com

Happy Trails, Jo Ann

On The Trail

This morning, I was writing a note to a friend who had recently suffered one of the predictable tragedies of a long life. In her case, her husband of 55 years had passed away. It made me think of the ways in which I have coped with such losses in my life. The main two rescue boats have been books and driving, going for rides. Both of these escape routes originated in my earliest years. From the time I became a fluent reader, around age six or so, I have escaped from a bad mood, an emotional discomfort, or any kind of contemporary pain, by reading - a great distraction. In later years, I returned to the comfort of taking a RIDE in the car. We all know that you can soothe a fussy baby or toddler with a ride in the car, same for a restless soul or a soul in pain.

While writing about my driving cure, I realized that my driving of the later years seemed to follow a trail, a theme of some kind. Not in any chronoological order, they seemed to follow a search such as my search for old train stations. Often these searches resulted from having already found one that sparked my interested but just as often, I followed the trail for some other reason and found a place of interest as a result, for example, following the old train station trail, I came across Eiland Arts in Merchantville. When I was a teen, I often walked the railroad tracks from Maple Shade into Merchantville where there was an old train depot. The Merchantville Train Depot has been rescued and turned into an ARTS CENTER! and a Coffee Shop! You can drop in there and have a coffee and a scone and see an Art Show! You can sign up for a class or order some baked goods too. Also, beside the train depot the old track line has been turned ito Rails to Trails, another of my search themes. A friend joined me on the RAILS TO TRAILS search and we went as far as the seashore, I think it was the Linwood Rails to Trails. In many places where rail lines have gone out of use, the rails have been repurposed for hiking and biking - a great idea.

So here is a list of some of the trails I have followed, in case you are looking for something to do: The OLD OYSTER TOWNS: Bayshore Discovery Project, Shell Pile, Port Norris. Your Main Stop on this trail is The Bayshore Discovery Project Center which houses a museum and an oyster bar and the oyster schooner, A. J. Meerwald is docked there for a boat ride on an old oyster schooner. Be sure to call and reserve in advance for the boat ride as they have a specific schedule. In fact for any place I mention it is wise to check out the on-line presence first for hours and so on. But don't let that stop you - after all, it is a RIDE and even if your destination turns out to be closed, who knows what you might find on the way there or on the way home!

Speaking of oyster schooners, South Jersey especially along he Maurice River has many old towns that grew up around the ship building trade. At Mauricetown, you can walk around and tour the old captains' houses! SHIP BUILDING TOWNS, a good theme.

OLD INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES: BATSTO Village and Visitor's Center - Along with touring the mansion and the village, at the visitori's center, you can buy Barbara Solem's book GHOSTTOWNS AND OTHER QUIRKY PLACES IN THE NEW JERSEY PINE BARRENTS and you could spend years folowing the trail of old industrial villages and disappeared towns, as well as towns that were laid out and never built in that book! ALLAIRE Village is another historic and preserved industrial age village to visit.

ONE ROOM SCHOOLS - I actually took a tour once of the one-room schools of Burlington County. Having been a school teacher before I retired you can see why this theme was of interest. There is one in Maple Shade and one in Vincentown, but I have run across them in many places. You might find a list in the Burlington County Historical Society website - the BCHS organized the tour many years ago that I enjoyed.

STATE PARKS - there was a marvelous little booklet that the State Parks put out and one year a friend and I went to most of them that could be reached in an easy one day drive. It was called a PASSPORT to the STATE PARKS. At each state park ranger station you got a stamp to put in your booklet.

REVOLUTIONARY WAR BATTLE SITES - New Jersey missed the ball on this one, New Jersey has hundreds of sites of Revolutionary War interest which no one seems to know about except the few stalwart history dovotee's who do lectures, mpas, and research on them, a few of which I have attended. Needless to say up in the Trenton area are several but down south we have Hancock's Bridge, the site of a massacre and a good place to start, and right nearby is Quinton's Bridge, the site of another skirmish but the gem, of course, is Red Bank Battlefield in National Park. You can visit the James and Ann Whitall House while there, and that may spark your interest in following Quaker Meeting Houses!

There is a long trail of QUAKER MEETING HOUSES in Suth Jersey and you can Start in Burlington and work your way down via the Old Salem Road (don't get me started on the controversy over whether Kings Highway is the Old Salem Road or not) anyhow you can find them through Woodbury, Woodstown, Salem and all the way to GREENWICH (Where there are TWO).

GREENWICH (pronounced Green Witch) is worth the drive for its many interesting palces to visit. There is the tea burner monument, a long YE GREATE STREET of marked historic buildings, a couple of nearby harbors witha restaurant in one. And there is a museum open a few times a year and an early autumn FAIRE!

SALEM is another town on the way to Greenwich that has many siites of interest. There is the MEETING HOUSE, but sadly the ANCIENT SALEM OAK once a great destination point for me and other tree lovers, has died. How many historic events that tree witnessed in its hundreds of years in the cemetery grounds. Also in Salem there was the Salem Oak Diner, and old diners are another good trail to follow with a fun lunch component. There is an ecellent book available on New Jersey Diners. I heard the author speak at the Burlington County Historical Society - another great visit!

Speaking of the Burlington County Historical Society, there is a well-known Underground Railroad site thre, Wheatley Pharmacy which I think has a small museum attached, or at least it used to. The UNDERGROUND RAILROAD IS AN EXCELLENT THEME TO FOLLOW. You can start down in Greenwhich which also holds a great Revolutionary War site - the Tea Burning Monument. Having been a great place for smugglers to try to sneak tea into South Jersey destined for Phladelphia via the Cohansey River. My first introduction to the Underground Railroad in Greenwich came when I spotted a small roadside cemetery called OTHELLO outside the village. Othello was an African American village where an early school was established for African American children. The old town is next to Greenwich, and at Othello I found a CIVIL WAR cemetery of African America Civil War Veterans.

SADDLER'S WOODS is one of my local favorite sites with a connection to the days of Slavery in New Jersey. An escaped enslaved man found sanctuary, freedom, and employment with a Quaker farmer named Evans in what is now Haddon Township. Saddler bought a plot of farm land of his own and around him sprang up a small community called Saddlertown. When Saddler died he left a plot of original old growth forest in his will to be conserved in perpetuity and so it has been. There is a nice 30 minute hiking trail there. A conservation group once gave a tour of the flora and fauna of Saddler's Woods through the Audubon Adult Ed. program which was wonderful. The conservation group have a building nearby, I think on Buttonwood Ave, but you can look them up and get more information on their web site.

Speaking of Haddon Twp. reminds me of Elizabeth HADDON and the history of OLD FAMILIES which is a fun trail to follow. Elizabeth Haddon came to the new world to make residence on land her father had purchased and she established Haddonfield. Two other founding families in our area worth noting with places to visit are the COOPER family and the FENWICK family. Cooper bought land in Camden and established several farms which he left to his sons, and two or three ferry lines to Philadelphia. His founding home, Pomona Hall is still standing and a wonderful historic house to visit next to the Camden County Historical Society and Library. One of the old ferry buildings is in the process of being saved (rescued) and may become a Revolutionary War Museum - about time! FENWICK was the founder of Salem, and there is a large stone marker on the enrance of Salem to commemorate that event. There is a line in his will where he disinherits a granddaughter for marrying outside her race and religion which becomes an interesting trail to follow to Gouldstown, a multiracial village of African American, Dutch, Indigenous and European ancestry.

LIGHTHOUSES - this needs no explanation but there is an interesting World War II exhibition at the lighthouse in Cape May! East Point Lighthouse is one of my favorites.

A fun and developing theme for driving around and walking is CONVERTED GOLF COURSES. My favorite, and there are several, is at Coxe's Creek, near Cape May. I think there may be another where the Eagle's Nest golf course used to be. These are golf courses that closed and have been allowed to return to some semblance of a natural landsccape.

A good one for summer, or fall, for that matter, is Lakes. You may be interested to know that there are few natural lakes in New Jersey and, I think NONE IN SOUTH JERSEY, most of the ponds and lakes in South Jersey were constructed by farmers and in particular Cranberry Bog farmers, or Marl pit diggers, and QUARRY diggers.

CRANBERRY BOGS - There are many of these to seek out - start with Whitesbog a wonderful landscape to hike and enjoy and a small store/museum and the residence of Elizabeth White who cultivated the blueberry from the wild highbush berry. There is a blueberry farm nearby and a few times a year a blueberry picking and festival! >p/> Quarries are an interesting search theme, the only one I can think of at the moment is BLUE HOLE - a famous one! But Ceres Park has an interesting Marl pit-quarry pond that is an amazing jade green color at certain times of the year. When I was a teen, various neighborhood boys knew of quarries in the pines where we would go to swim - perilous! But I don't really know where those quarries were located only that it was a favorite summer adventure of my youth, the 1960's.

Another fun summer theme is boat rides - Start with Captain Dave in Millville and enjoy a peaceful chug down the Maurice River, with a nice vegan lunch at Wildflowers Vegan Restaurant and maybe a visit in the shops and galleries of the GLASSTOWN district. Also that brings us to:

RIVERWALKS - Millville has an interesting River Walk path which on the south bank is long dirt walking trail and turns into a festival area on the norther bank, city side, on various weekend evenings. For the more adventurous hiker, there are the Maurice River Bluffs to hike with several marked trails and great views. Many towns in our River Rich state of New Jersey have Riverwalks, and Cooper River is another one, in Camden Cunty. Also, Bordentown has a CANAL PATH as well!

And if you are looking for inspiration, seek out the Historical Societies! Many towns have one and often they have a variety of tours, brochures, and books. A great histoical tour I enjoyed with a friend just before the Pandemic was sponsored by the Berlin Historic Society and we toured a cemetery with re-enactors telling the stories of people buried there, as well as a visit to one of the oldest train depots still in use. They are a wealth of information and you can begin with Camden County Historical Society - by appointment only at present, check out their website and call first, but they have a rack of brochures with dozens of hsitoric sites you can visit and find trails to follow - for example, you can follow along with poet Walk Whitman from his historic home (tours available by appointment) in Camden to a resort spot he liked at Laurel Srings, to the end of the line, his tomb in Harleigh Cemetery in Camden. CEMETERIES are a wonderful tour theme.

CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS IN NJ - My father worked on the CCC but in a different state, Virginia, nonetheless, because of that, I knew what the WPA and the CCC were. The Federal Works Project was designed both to put Americans back to work at restoring, recording and resurrecting our nation after the Depression and the Dust Bowl, and to train young men for the upcoming World War II. One component of the many faceted WPA was the Civilian Conservation Corps and their main job was replanting the environmentally devastated wastelands left behind by industrial exploitation. The New Jersey forests had been decimated by industries from the iron furnaces to charcoal making, bogs and other agriculture. The TREE ARMY as they were known, replanted millions of trees. To find out more, you can go to Bass River State Park and Parvin State Park and walk the trails, both places have historic markers describing some of the work done by the CCC.

BATTLESHIP NEW JERSEY - I haven't done much exploration on the theme of WWII in New Jersey but heavens knows you can guess there is plenty - from that lighthouse in Cape May that I mentioned to the USS NEW JERSEY BATTLESHIP. Tomorrow is July 4th and there will be fireworks viewed from the Battleship. I have visited the ship many times and it is well worth your visit. I understand there may be a museum opening nearby where the shipyard used to be but I don't have any information on that at hand.

GHOSTS AND HAUNTINGS - Ok, I must be honest, I do not believe in ghosts or hauntings, but if you do and it gets you out and exploring, well, New Jersey has plenty. One trip/tour that I recommend is to White Hill Mansion in Fieldsboro, New Jersey. I believe around Halloween they have a hunted house tour which I took with a friend and it was fun and fascinating. This is a fascinating house to visit and learn more about with a long long history that includes the Revolutionary War! Again, check the web site to see what hours, or just drive up and look at the house from the outside.

FORT ELFSBORG THE SWEDES - If you want to go back to founders, the Swedes and the Dutch were here very early to trade with the Indigenous people and I apologize for not having more on Native American New Jersey. The only thing I had was the Pow Wow that used to be held in the autumn at Rancocas Woods Reservation but I believe it is closed now. Also there is a book on BROTHERTON. Anyhow, there isn't much left on the Dutch and not uch left here on the early Swedes beyond the name of their fort - FORT ELFSBORG. There is an artist colony hearby with an annual open studio that used to be held. Also, if you are searching for Fort Elfsborg as I was once you may come across the Abel Nicholson House - beautiful old historic house hidden down an often flooded dirt road on the Fort Elfsborg trail. And of course, there is Trinity Church in Swedesboro and a marvelous LOG CABIN on the bluff overlooking the road. I think it is the Schoorn Cabin. And of course, the Nothnagle Log Cabin recently up for sale, which is known as the oldest Swedish/Finnish log cabin in America! I am in love with log cabins. There is another one at the entrance to Salem! Oh yes, now that I think of it, there is one in Burlington as well!

History Heroes and BOOKS - I have known and heard of some remarkable History Heroes, people who strove to save what they could of the disappearing history of their patches. At the now departed Murphy's Book Loft which used to be in Mullica Hill, I bought many copies of an old magazine on the history of South Jersey, the editor of which was SHIREY BAILEY. She also wrote several books some of which I have tracked down, about the history of, for example, the Maurice River. MEN, THE SEA AND INDUSTRY, by MARGARET LOUISE MINTS, is a classic and a rare book which I managed to find one copy of but which is now very expensive. These are just two of the hundreds of heroic history savers I can think of at the moment, but nearly every historical society has one they can mention. Different counties had different heroes, of course, I think Frank Stewart was one for Gloucester County. A book you really must have is the WPA State Guide for New Jersey. The WPA published one for every state in the U.S. in 1937 and this is a gem. You could use it to find places to explore for the rest of your life! Also, don't forget Barbara Solem's book GHOSTTOWNS AND OTHER QUIRKY PLACES OF THE NEW JERSEY PINE BARRENS. I think the Arcadia books are helpful too.

Gotta Walk the Dog - oh, yes, DOG PARKS are a fun one to follow if you hae a canine friend!

Happy Trails! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Annual Ann Whitall Flower Show at Red Bank Battlefield

The Annual Ann Whitall Herb and Flower Show will be held on une 27th from 11:00 to 4:00. It sounds like a lovely day and in the past, I have certainly enjoyed attending. I will be going this year as well, with my sister who is a landscaper! Happy Trails - Jo Ann wrightj45@yhoo.com

A DUTY TO KNOW-TULSA 1921

I love history and daily I am drawn down deer trails in the woods of information. For example, yesterday, I discovered that THREE presidents were assassinated within a 40 year period at the end of the Civil War. Now, the Civil War isn't one of my areas of more than polite acquaintance, so, of course I knew about Abraham Lincoln but I did not know about Garfield or McKinley. Having followed up on that trail, it appears that their murderers were more of the mentally unstable individual type than the political type. But perhpas ALL murderers are inherently mentally unstable or they wouldn't be drawn to do such a crime.

I like to know things but I also believe there are things we should all know in order to better understand our world. Frequently in subject areas such as environmentalism and health, you will find columns with titles such as "What you can do to help." Since 1619 Project, which I admired, I have been trying to increase my awareness of African American History, by which I mean ALL AMERCICAN history with this major component added into the mix from which it has been absent for most of my life. It is my duty to KNOW and it is one of the things we can all do. Just as I spent my entire adulthood trying to balance history with the addition of Women's History, I now try to make the balance with the addition of the history of our Africann AMerican neighbors and feelow citizens. I have read a lot of books, most recently CASTE by ISabel Wilkerson, which I think I reviewed here in the blog. And on my living room table is JUNETEENTH, by Annette Gordon Reed, who is an author with whom I have been familiar sine I read her book exposing the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Himmings nnd her family's long time in the shadows of the Jefferson family's refusal to accept their genetic relationship. One of the intersections between slavery and women's history, to my way of thinking, has been the male control of sexual access to women. It is rarely discussed that the whites who bought, sold and owned Africans, took widespread advantage of their control to rape the women. What was even more shocking to me was that they used the products of their rape, their own offspring, as more chattel to be sold. Rape and the selling of their own children - two heinous crimes white history has kept hidden.

Genocide and massacre are two other subject often left out of the patruarcgak white male history. You may have heard of the Tulsa, Oklahoma massacre of the citizens of Greenwood, known at the time as the Black Wall Street. If not, simply, as was so often the case in the start of a genocidal attack, a young African American shoeshine boy was accused of assaulting a white woman in an elevator. The boy said he bumped into her when the elevator lurched. He was arrested and taken to the jail in the courthouse, where a mob quickly formed with the intention of lynching him. African American World War I veterans determined to stop a lynching gathered, armed to defend the courthouse from the vigilante mob. Next the mob descended on Greenwood the affluent business and residential section and machine gunned anyone in the streets while airplanes dropped incendiary devices onto the rooftops of the homes and businesses. More than 300 people were murdered and the entire district was burned to the ground. Mass graves are currently being exhumed in hopes of identifying exactly who was killed for the sake of the descendants.

If you want to learn more THE GROUNDBREAKING: An American City and its Search for Justice by Scott Ellsworth is available, as is the book I am planning to read now, JUNETEENTH. If anyone couldn't do anything more, at least becoming aware of these tragedies and their effects on our fellow citizens is a step in the right direction. Juneteenth, by the way is the date when enslaved African Americans in Texas learned they had been emancipated.

Happy Trails - Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com \

Red Bank Battlefield Today June 6, 2021

Today I met a couple of friends at Red Bank Batlefield to give thema quick battlefield tour. One of them is a docent at Atsion Mansion, and sometimes at Batsto; she is also a volunteer at Cedar Run Wildlife Center. Thinking about how I wanted to present it to them in a short form, since it is 93 degrees out today, I decided to start up on the bluff over looking the river, because really, that is the heart of the story.

Imagine, I said, that it is early autumn and the harvesst has almost reached its grand finale' and so far, although the Quaker family in the James and Ann Whitall farm house, were clearly aware of the war raging around them, they had been blissfully out of its reach, until now.

To this point our Coitinental Army had been thrashed from New England to New York and General Washington was battling over in Pennsyvlania in the Brandywine area. Raiders from both armies were burnign crops and rounding up farm animals to feed the famished soldiers because the British ships coun't get up the Delaware River to supply their army stuck in Philadelphia after they captured it.

I thik it is fair to say that generally in European wars the way you won was to capture the capital and or capture or smash the army. The British had captured our capital but they hadn't smashed our army and they couldn't feed their own army by foraging in Pennsyvania. When foragers stole the cattle and chickens and pigs, there were none left to breed and res-stock. They burned the fields so the enemy couldn't use the grain, so there was no more grain. They had stolen all the supplies the farm families had tried to hide, their preserves for winter, their hams, the potatoes and apples in the root cellars. No one had anything left to eat. The city was hungry, the armies were hungry, the people in the countryside were bereft.

Already soldiers from both sides had ransacked South Jersey, the cattled drive of General Mad Anthony Wayne, the forces of the British and there were small fires burning everywhere, skirmishes over bridges like Quinton's Bridge and Tavers (the meeting and gathering places for local militia) like Hancock House in Alloways Creek.

What had to heppen now was the British were determined to take out the two forts defending the River and the river fortifications. Sunk into the river were Chevaux de Frise - a french term for logs with etal spikes sunk in rafts of rocks all across the river to puncture the hulls of ships trying to come up the Delaware to Philadelphia to suppy the British forces. Fort Mifflin on the Philadelphia side had already been built and was under bombardment.

Next, the Continental forces had come to the Whitall family farm and confiscated their applie orchard to build a ground fort with ditch and fascnes made from the uprooted apple trees. This fort was called Fort Mercer after a beloved general killed in action, Hugh Mercer. Between the two forts Mifflin and Mercer, and the river fortifications, even though the British had captured Philadelphia, they couldn't feed their army and hold on to it. So they sent their hired army of Hessians under Colonel Carl Von Donop to take Fort Mercer while they battered away at Fort Mifflin.

The Whitall family being Quakers, were Pacifist and neutral, but the war came to them anyway, as all wars do. They had to leave their home in the hands of the Continental forces and take shelter with family members in Woodbury. Meanwhile, Ann Cooper Whitall's broher's house in Woodbury had been taken over by General Cornwallis for his residence while he was in the region at war with us.

In the Fort at the Whatall farm, a small force of 200 ment, some of them African American soldiers of the 1st Rhode Island, warned by the blacksmith's boy who ran all the way from Haddofield to tell them the Hessians were coming, waited. There were so few of them, they had to hole up in one corner of the fort and leave the rest unmanned, which turned out to be a saving grace.

The Hessians came marching down Clement's Bridge Road and attacked the fort on October 22, 1777 with about 2,000 battle hardened soldiers. But their commander was arrogant and didn'twait to batter the fort with artillery first. He ordered his men to charge and they were picked off like sitting ducks trying to climb through the fascine (the upturned roots of the apple trees). In only a couple of hours nearly 500 were wounded including Colonel Von Donop, shot 9 times, and they had to retreat. The Hessians took th wounded that they could carry or lay over their horses, wagons and cannon, the rest they had to leave on the ground, crying and calling for help and bleeding to death.

The victorious Cotinental defenders carried the wounded into the Whitall House and laid them on the floors while the army doctors did whtever they could to save them. Oral history has it that Ann Whitall returned to check on her house and helped to nurse the wounded sodiers with her skills in herbal medicine. There was also a myth that so many arms and legs were amputated that a huge hill of them stood outside the window of the surgical room, and that the floor was soaked with blood that seeped through the sawdust. It must have been a horrible scene. Many of the dead were buried in mass graves on the bluffs and over the years their bones washed out with flood tides. Some were gatheed up and re-bured in a small cemetery near Woodbury called The Strangers Cemetery. Other wounded were cared for in the confiscated Woodbury Meeting HOuse.

Whenever I go there, I always feel the fear and the suffering of those poor men and boys, especially the wounded lying on the ground, abandoned by their army, probably illiterate conscripts, who defiitely couldn't even speak English, and would never see their families again.

Meanwhile, we, the Continentals had a great, though short lived victory, and showed France that there was a chance we might prevail. Also on the river, the great Warship August had caught fire and exploded and both sister warships were disabled, so the river remained out of British reach for the time being. I am not sure how long the Whitall family had to remain out of their home, but they were lucky because when they returned it might have been dirty and bloody but it was intact and they could clean it up and re-furnish it and live it in again and for several more generations. James Whitall could get back to farming and his shipping investments and Ann couud get back to keeping the home, watching over the inentured servants, and her children, and going to meeting to watch over her soul. She was a fervently religious believer as she demonstrates in her diary, which is kept at the Gloucester County Historical Socity in Woodbury and is also on-line now. Unfortunately the volume that exists is only from 1762, becaue who wouldn't love to see what she said about 1777! Her son, Job kept a diary too, but it is more a record of farm business and ot much to say about the war; I think he was trying, as a good Quaker, to turn his mind away from war, and as a good Quaker of the time, toward stewardship of his farm property and business.

Many were not so lucky as the Whitall's were; their farm houses were burned, their fields destroyed their animals taken, sometimes the women wer raped, and sometimes defenders were killed. New Jersey is not only the Crosssroads of the Revolution, in many ways it was in the crosshairs! Ann Whitall - Thinking about Ann Whitall, her life, her world turned upside down. Having read the one diary, anyway, I got a small glimpse into her home. You can tell she was raised to be devoit. I suppose from the time she was born her religion was drilled into her, Quaker school (if she went to school) nothing but the bible to read. It made me think how her life was being riven by the same forces that were then beginning to fracture her religion. The Quakers were being divided into Orthodox (By the book) Quakers, and Hicksites (by the revelation -which was God talking to you) Quakers. The Quakers were becoming more secular and relaxing the hidebound rules that had eveloped around them when they took their version of Puritanism from England to the colonies. The free-wheeling frontier becoming domesticted, the Quakers could begin to relax a little, and the ones who really beived in hell fire and damnation and the fiery pit were frightened by the relaxation of the fences. Ann must have felt the coming of the war onto her own farm as a judgement of God, smiting them for their spiritual indolence.

Another thing I always think about with Ann and women of her period, their extreme innocence and naivity, along with the credulity. What must it have been like for a girl like her to get married and endure the shock of the marriage bed, not to mention the physical ordeal of childbirth, a life threatening experience in Ann's time, the terror, the pain! And Ann went through it seven times! All those children, all those people in the house, the half dozen indentured servants, who were most probably not a little resentful and untrustworthy. After all, one, Margaret Heeney, actually absconded with herself (Run Run Margaret - get free!) Ann must have been internally forced to be ever watchful, for her children, for her soul, for her household, and according to her diary, she felt very little support from her wordly husband and her increasingly wordly sons, who actually behaved disrespectfully towards her without being chastised by their father. She did, however, live a long life, into her eighties, before the hand of the punishing God struck her down with yellow fever.

Someday I would like to do a book THE SALEM ROAD, FROM BURLINGTON TO GREENWICH, with all the interesting historical events and people along that road!

Happy Trails! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Arcadia Books!!

Just yesterday, when I was picking up a prescription at Walgreens, I noticed a new display kiosk with dozens of title in the Arcadia books series, for our area, Camden County! I bought three because I very much enjoy these books and must have about 50 by now! This time I bought Cooper River, Delaware River, and Women i World War II, all favorite topics of mine.

I only got to read one so far, which I read while I waited outside the veterinarian's office today. My youngest cat, Patsy Cline, was sick for 3 days and so I had to take her to the best veterinarian EVER! Dr. Ed. Sheehen in the Fairview section of Camden, just off the Black Horse Pike. He is the kindest and most talented doctor, and his staff are ANGELS! I have been going to him for decades after trying a good many others and finding them less than satisfactory. Anyhow, I enjoyed the Cooper River book so much, I asked the tech to give my copy to Dr. Sheehen to say thank you to him for all his wonderful medical assistance over the years. He lives in Collingswood and I thought he would find the Cooper River book interesting, I know I did!

Three of the details I found particularly interesting were in relation to the Cooper family and their ferries, in particular the one at Pyne Point which I have visited and photographed. The information on Elizabeth Haddon and her nephew John Hopkins (of historic Hopkins House which I visited many times when I lived near Cooper River and when it was an Art Gallery) and the bits on Joshua Saddler, the environmentalist and freed man who saved Saddler's Woods, one of the only pockets of original old growth forest left in South Jersey which is under stewardship and conservation by a group of dedicated volunteers. I was happy to take their workshop before the pandemic, a tour of the woods the sighting of the oldest trees, and a great workshop ahere we dissected an owl's pellet and found a shrew's skeleton! If they ever advertise again - TAKE THE TOUR!! I think I found the ad in the Audubon Community Education Booklet, but you might also want to check their website.

You can find the Arcadia books at any bookstore. I bought several at Barnes and Noble at the Rt. 70 shopping Center, and as I said this kiosk was at Walgreens on the Black Horse Pike and Kings Highway. Great reading.

Happy Trails! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Thoughts on Historic CONTEXT Whitall House, Red Bank Battlefield, National Park, NJ

I think, often with a site like the James and Anne Whitall House, Red Bank Battlefield, National Park,NJ, it is easy to get narrowly confined within the borders of the main even the Battle that took place on October 22, 1777. Although the drama and the import of that event is the center of the location, there is so much more to learn about the people and the world surrounding that event. James and Ann Whitall were Quakers from a large, successful and old time clan of Quakers in the South Jersey area. Ann was related to the Cooper family, founders of Camden, and by the way if you haven't visited Pomona Hall at the Camden County Historical Society, you should!

Anyhow my point for this blog entry is simply that when you have exhausted the details of the Battle of Red Bank, it might be time to dig wider rather than deeper, and explore the history of the Quakers in South Jersey, shipping trade on the Delaware Rive (James Whitall was heavily invested in it), indentured servitude in Colonial New Jersey, the Whitall family employed several indentured servants, one of whom, Margaret Heaney, ran away and James Whitall put out a warrant for her capture.

In general the Quaker community was opposed to slavery but the attitudes of the Quakers is an interesting area to delve into as well. For exampe, one of the Coopers, Marmaduke Cooper, refused to free his enslaved workers edespite much attempt at persuasion by his Quaker meeting, and he neded up being cast out.

The local community wouuld also be an interesting subject to explore, the Woodbury connection, for example, one of Ann's male relatives (her brother?) had a home in Woodbury near the Meeting House, which wa confiscated by the British and used as a headquarters util their retreat. His house is beside the Goucester County Historical Society Museum and Library, another plae worth a visit. Houseed in the Library, behind the Museum, is the framed family tree upon which Ann Whitall appears. <[?> Needless to say, (or is it?) the presence of Native Americans, the indigenous inhabitants before Europeans came and staked a claim on the land, is also a worthy area for exploration. Some artifacts are on display in the new glass cases at the Whitall HOuse.

I just visited last Sunday became I am going to return as a volunteer beginning this week on Saturday or Sunday and I was amazed at how things have changed at Whitall House. I was a volunteer there for many years beginning in the Megan Giordano period. She was a remarkable young woman who died far far too young of Lupus. She was devoted to the Whitall House and the period of the Battle and she was both brilliant and knowledgeable. She was also remarkably inventive in ways to inspire and broaden the knowledge of volunteers. She brought us speakers on Colonial dress and fabrics, spinning and weaving, bee keeping, medicines, maternity, and at the time of her passing, she had been working on a cooperative venture with the town of Woodbury to explore, deepen, and emphasize the connections between the town and the Battlefield.

All that aside, if you haven't been there recently, there couldn't be a more inviting time to stop by. The park is green and flourishing, the house is open for tours (you can explore on your own or have a tour) Thursday through Sunday. There is such a rich variety of historic places to visit in our neck of the woods!

Happy Trails! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Mother's Day thoughts and Book Suggestions May 8, 2021

Although I am a mother, of a daughter who is now 37 and fully independent, when I think of Mother's Day, my mind ofte goes to my female ancestors, beginning with my own mother and stretching back through the grandmother's I knew, the great-grandmother I knew, and the ones I never met.

Also, I often look back on those women I feel are my spiritual, political, literary mothers, the Mothers of the Movements for Suffrage and Abolition, the Mother's of Literature who wrote the great books, and those who worked in universities and academic settings to bring these women back to us. There was a feminist press that used to find and reprint out of print works by women writers, was it Virago Press? I just looked it up and YES it was and furthermore there is now an e-book about the history of Virago Press.

I had a lost and forgotten female ancestor, my mother's biological mother. My mother was adopted raised by her aunt Lavinia, after Lavinia's sister, Sarah died at the age of 25, leaving three little toddler daughter's behind. The three little girls were placed by their father in The Camden Friendless Children's Shelter. This episode in the family history was entirely buried and never spoken about. Many years into my adulthood, and my retirment, when I took up family history, I tried to find out as much as I could about this lost grandmother whose name was never spoken. I am not sure what she did to be so completely erased, but also, people in those days didn't do much reminiscing, as I recall.

My quest for our fore-mothers was begun long before my search for my biological grandmother. My search for my literary female ancestors began in my college days, when these writers, too, were lost and forgotten and never spoken of. By the time I took my second degree this time in Art, feminists had worked their way up the ranks of academnia and were making archaeological inroads in excavating these lost 'mothers.' I was fortunate enough to have had Wendy Slatkin for my teaher. She had written a supremely meaningful book on Women Artists and she was both a passionate and brilliant teacher and an exellent scholar and writer.

Today, the day before 2021 Mother's Days, I have been catchng up on the Sunday New York Times Book Review and I read a review of a book which I am going to buy from amazon as soon as I finish this blog post: THE AGITATORS, Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women's Rights, by Dorothy Wickenden

One of the details that struck a chord in reading the review of this book was that Harriet Tubman, one of the three women profiled, was illiterate, could neither read nor write. She was a monumentlly heroic feigure, as by now, you reader, and most of America knows thanks to the film HARRIET, as well as fairly dedicated revisionist history since the 1970's. A book I had bought but have not read yet about Frederick Douglas adn the women who supported, abetted, and loved him, spoke of his first wife, also a previously enslaved woman, who was illiterate. Both Harriet and Douglas's wife were mocked by contemporaries for their 'plantation dialect' and their illiteracy. This breaks my heart. And it reminds me of the long and arduous journey for women's educational equality that our fore-mothers made.

A few nights ago, I watched a documentary about one of my lifelong favorite male writers, Charles Dickens, and I was struck again by his ill treatment of his first wife, Catherine who bore ten children and was then abandoned by Dickens, forced to leave her home and children which were then taken over by a younger sister. What choice did she have? She would have gone to the "work house" "alms house' or been out on the streets if she didn't accept the obominable option forced on her by Charles Dickens who blamed her for all of the children he had to support, willfully oblivious to the part he played in their conception. Catherine had no occupation and no skills with which to support herself. She was at his mercy, and there was precious little of it.

One of the things for which I am most grateful has been the opportunity for me to get an education, develope a marketable skill, teaching (a stronghold of women's rights and employment throughout the past two hundred years) and thereby to escape poverty, desperation, and a deprived old age, thanks to our union and my pension.

Thank you, Mom, for all the books you bought me and read to me and thank you Lavinia Lyons for raising my mother when your sister died, and thank you to all my teahersin 2021.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

Movie Review - NOMADLAND

If you haven't seen Nomadland yet, I reecommend it. I first ran across this story as an essay in The Atlantic or Harpers, then I bought the book. The movie is wonderful! Having lived on the road once, myself, in my youth for a year, I could relate to the experience although I was young. Don't know how I would feel about it now in my 70's and definitely wouldn't want to be working for amazon in my 70's though lots of people are. I have met people living in campers in parking lots and in the woods at campgrounds, where you can stay but you can't stay long. What I found most comforting about the otherwise bleak and sad movie, was the way people helped one another and hwo they looked on the bright side and let nature and beautiful scenery lift their weary and burdened spirits. Also, as mystics have known for millenia, there is something about going off and living in simplicity and solitude that brings spiritual peace. The movie is beautiful and thought provoking. I hope you find it and enjoy it.

Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

MOSAIC ARTIST AT EILAND ARTS

When I went to Eiland Arts this week with another friend to see the Moseaic show, I picked up the artist's card so I have more information in case you might be intereeted. It is a perfect time of year to visit the gallery, sit outside at one of the nice bistro tables and enjoy a coffee and delicious pastry after you see the gorgeous mosaic art.

EILAND ARTS CENTER

10 EAST CHESTNUT AVE.

Merchantville, NJ 08109

856-488-0750 >p/> Artist - Laura Lynn Stern

LaauraLynStern@gmail.com

facebook Laura Lyn Stein, sculptural Designs

This artist designs and creates for residential and commercial properties. But go see her work in person at the gallery and if you are feeling like a nice stroll, enjoy the rails to trails where the old train tracks used to be. I love how they repurposed the old railroad Depot. I enjoyed a lette' and a lemon scone! The pastry are delicious. It seems to me it is the perfect experience for a laid back spring day! ENJOY!

Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

A Place To Go, A Thing To Do in South Jersey this week! - ART

Today, a friend and I had a splendid day. We had brunch at LesbiVeggies on Merchant St. in Audubon. I had the Hungry Woman Brunch and she had the peach cobbler pancakes. Delicious!

Next, we drove over to Eiland arts, IN Merchantville, right off Centre St. alonside the Railroad and the rails to trails path. I have written about Eiland Arts many times before because it is in a re-purposed railroad depot and I love railroads! Also, I have shown my paintings there many times and ejoy their group shows immensely.

"PIECES OF ME" - A solo show by Laura Lynn Stern

April 5th-May 31st

What a splendid show. The work is magnificent and very very reasonably priced. There were smaller pieces for as low as $50 adn absolutely gorgeous pieces, large and impressive for $200. The craftsmanship as well as the artistic vision were stunning. Even if you aren't in the market for some beautiful art, treat yourself to a wonderful experience and go see this solo show. My favorite pieces were the three crows. My friend's favorite works were the iridescent three square works as you enter the gallery.

This was a lovely way to spend a day. And our walk in Saddler's Woods (Just off Cuthbert Blvd., Collingswood, behind the shopping center) after the Art show was also delightful. The trees have their new green leaves, the sun shone down through the tree canopy and as always the devoted conservator/volunteers of Saddler's Woods had seen to it that there was no trash strewn around. If you aren't familiear with FOREST BATHING, let me say very simply, it has been proven scientifically that the chemical exhalations of trees are therapeutic for people and spending time in the woods is healthful even beyond the exercise. We timed and counted and saw that it is about one mile from one end of the main trail to the other and about 30 minutes. Hope you take me up on this tip and enjoy the forest, the artwork, and the delicious food. LesbiVeggies is not open on Monday or Tuesday. Another friend told me there was a tv piece about their restaurant last week.

This message just in from RANCOCAS WOODS for Saturday - Enjoy!

Hi friends! It’s that time again...the Rancocas Woods Craft Show is this Saturday 10-4. We’ve got over 90 vendors in back of the shops AND even more vendors in the courtyard at On Angels Wings! The Craft Co-Op is stocked full of lovely gifts for that special mama in your life! New items are coming in daily!

Also, mark your calendars...on May 8th the Shops in Rancocas Woods are honoring all mothers with a free flower! Collect a flower from all participating shops to make yourself a beautiful bouquet (while supplies last)! When you’re finished collecting your flowers, stop in The Artisan House and Miss Juanita will be happy to wrap them all up for you!!! And don’t forget about the Kids Craft Show and Flea Market on the same day from 10-2!

Lots of fun “in the woods”!

Hope to see you there!

Bill & Keri

Time Team Episode 5, Season 20

If you have visited my site before, you will have seen that I have posted aabout my favorite archaeology showBritain's Time Team. A team of archaeologists with narrator are invited by a town or a group to excavate ruins or mythical ruins and answer questions. The trick is, they only have 3 days to do their work. In the episode in the title, called WARRIORS, Time Team were invited to join the military in exploring a site in Wessex owned by the army, which is not far from the famous Stonehenge. It is a burial mound which the archaology investigation team of the army have been excavating for months.

What makes this episode to interesting to me is that the military has a program to rehavilitate severely wounded and or traumatised soldiers through the archaeology dig. The first soldier to come up with the idea was wounded in Iraq and when he came home he was in such despair he was suicidal, BUT, he became interested in the Time Team show and pitched the idea of doing archaological digs with traumatised soldiers to the military and they signed on. Dozens of soldiers worked at the burial mound at Barrow Clump, overlooking Figheldeen an ancient Anglo Saxon village below and in sight of the giant mound.

The wounded soldier who originated the idea of using the projects to rehabilitate soldiers sunk in despair and apathy, said he didn't know why watching Time Team was so helpful to him, but it was. His favorite TT member was Phil Harding, also my favorite, and I would guess everyone's favorite, for his outgoing and humorous nature and his ability to display his emotions. He has a childlike joy, especially when he finds flint, which is his specialty.

In this episode almost 50 Anglo Sacxon skeletons were unearthed, dating from the 500's. Also there were cremations dating from 2000 years ago, the Bronze Age, many artifacts such as metal shield bosses, which are the circular metal centerpieces in a wooden shield, as well as broaches and spear heads. It must have been strange for the soldiers to be unearthing soldiers who died, 1500 years ago, although there were also women and children in this burial which is an anomoly.

I have often wondered myself why this show is so engaging. After all, it ran for 20 seasons and I have to say I have loved all 20 seasons of it. Possibly, part of it is the ensamble of teammates, but also, their infectious enthusiasm, the anticipation of what they might dig up, and the marvel of the narratives they are able to spin from such minute pieces of bone and pottery. Also, it is like a visit with the ancestors and a comfort to think of long expanses of time which puts things into perspective. Well, I close now because I am off to episode 6.

Jo Ann

If you wish to converse with me, you may use my e-mail as comments has been hacked and ruined by spammer.

wrightj45@yahoo.com

Early American Life Magazine June 2021 - Historic Place Ideas

I have written many times about Erly American Life Magazine. Every single issue has something of interest to me even though I am no longer working as a histori site docent. For those of you new to my blog, I used to be a volunteer at half a dozen historic sites in New Jersey, but over the past ten years or so, I have had to cut back, and then the pandemic put a full stop to my final volunteer experience which was at the James and Ann Whitall HOuse at Red Bank Battlefield, in National Park, New Jersey. When I began there well over ten years ago, a brilliant and charismatic young curator, Meghan Giordano, sadly deceased at an early age, was an inspiration to everyone who volunteered there.

During that time, early in my retirement, I was introduced to EArly American Life by a librarian friend and I have subsribed to it ever since. Along with my passion for history, I have always had a fascination and respect for hand-made, hand crafted objects such as pottery, quilting, metal work, wood work and so on. It oes with the territory. I have a degree in Art and taught Art most of career of 35 years. Although I have a very large yard, oddly pie shaped, narrow at the front and spread out like a fan at the back, I was never much interested in gardening until I met the master gardners of Whitall House, in particular, my favorite, Joyce Connolly. She took me on a tour of her garden once, and she gave me Lily of the Valley, one of my most beloved little plants, the fragrance is intoxicating. And she gave me a mystery plant which she identified for me a couple of years after as Helibore. It blooms with tennis ball sized yellow blossoms early in the spring, about the time the crocus peak up their brave little heads.

AS I said, I usually read EAL from cover to cover, so I may be back after this entry with a review of another article but for this post I wanted to mention Greenfield Village, I think it is somewhere near Detroit because in the article the Manager of Greenfield mentioned moving the Detroit Central Market Building to their 80 acre, 83 historic structure site. What I found interesting was the wide array of events they sponsor there in order to bring in the visitors and to spark their interest and keep them coming back. That's how you get tax support to keep this historic treasures for the future.

At Greenfield they hold antique automobile shows, they do a big splash for Halloween and Christmas; they recently bought the farm of the founder of Firestone and they are plowing and raising farm produce and crops. The plan for the Detroit Central Market is to compare urban and rural food history, and to open the discussion on food literacy, the history of distribution, food deserts, and other topics of contemporary importance.

I understood the push at Whitall House after a big consultation effort to design the future, to focus on the specific main incident of Red Bank Battlefield which was the October 1775 Battle, but I always thought it was a shame to be narrow like that because one of the MOST popular events we ever held was a World War II Reenactment. Hundreds of people came and visited our site for the first time. And we could justify it at that time because there had been a WWII Sentry Tower on the site to guard the Delaware River owing to the stealthy patrolling of our Atlantic coast by U Boats at the time. They were slaughtering our Merchant fleet. My father had been a Merchant Seaman before he joined the Navy and so I was well aware of the dangers to Merchant ships at that time.

Personal history often plays a big part in the stimulation of and the depth of the appreciation of younger people for history. Since so many of my family members participated in so many big events in our history, it was all very real to me. My Grandfather Lyons was on the Mexican border during the first World War to protect our Sothern border. My father and his brothers wer in the navy during World War II, and my grandfather on the paternal side was a Merchant Seaman. My mother worked at the Navy Yard during the War before she joined my father in Florida and after she came home to Philadelphia when he shipped out.

One of the extra types of vents we still hold at Red Bank, however, is the annual Garden show which is popular and beautiful. Look for that in the end of the summer, and in the fall come to our October re-enactment. Perhaps by then, I will be back to giving tours! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Early American Life Magazine

16759 West Park Circle Drive

Chagrin Falls, Ohio 44023

1 Year, 7 issues - $28.00

Happy Easter 2021 - Old Photographs

Well, it has been a long and interesting and challenging year from March of 2020 to April of 2021. I won't get into the politics of it, because that isn't what this blog is about, and we have all had more than enough of the Pandemic, although I will take a moment to say that this past Wednesday, I closed out the month of March by getting my second inoculation of the Pfizer vaccine at the Mooestown Mall Mega Site. It was not quite as eerie as going for the first shot when I entered the process and the old abandoned Lord and Taylor Store for the first time. This time, I knew the ropes and I didn't have the fresh eye of the first timer. What was new, however was the enormous relief I felt when I left. I had no idea of the burden I had been carrying for a year until after my second shot and the burden of fear fell off my shoulders.

Again, I was fortunate and had no bad reaction to the inoculation. Many people I have heard about and have talked to have not been so lucky and have reported sore arms and muscle and joint pain. Some said they were wiped out for a day or two. I was perfectly fine - or at least as fine as I was before the shot.

But what I wanted to talk about today, was old photographs which I love with a romantic passion. Before my Grandmother Mabel died, she gave me a wooden box with old family photographs of hers in it, two of them date back to the early days of photography in the 1800's; they are her parents, Catherine Sandman and William Adam Young and Ipresume it must be wedding photographs or sometime around then 1884. I have old photographs from my mother's side of the family too, her parents and the early days of my own parent'ss marriage. My parents photographs ae from the second World War when my father was in the navy and stationed in Florida. They are so beautiful and carefree and young that it breaks my heart, but I am consoled when I think of what long and happy lives they had after the war when so many others lost their lives. My parents got to buy successively larger houses, move to the suburbs, plant a vegetable garden, grill on my father's elaborite brick backyard grill, swim in pools, have children and watch them all grow up, and they got to celebrate their lives in many ways. I have photographs of many of those ways, but surprisingly few from our many road trip vacations.

I was given a camera very early on and I took photographs from the start and regularly for the rest of my own long an lucky life. More than a decade ago, I began to do family history, and to share it with my siblings and their children, I also began to use the old family photograps. For example, I had a somewhat amusing photograph of my cousin Patty and I, around 1955, dressed up and posed in our Easter outfits outside a row home in South Philadelphia which may have been my family's first home. I made copies of it and mounted it on pretty floral scrapbooking paper, framed it, and glued button sized magnets on the back so it would stick to the refrigerator. I sent one to my cousin and put one on my fridge. For Halloween, I copied and hung a dozen old photographs from the 1940's and 50's on black screening and used it for a decoration with some fabric leaves glued on - very attractive. My biggest project was to have postcards made for several holidays from those old photographs - couples for Valentine's day with a red Valentine border, Navy and Marine portraits of my father and brother for Veterans' Day and Memorial Day with a red, white and blue border, and Christmas postcards of my brother and myself with anta around 1950. It wasn't at all expensive - it only cost around $40 for 50 postcards.

This year I came up with another use for some old photographs for Easter. My sister's house burned down 5 years ago in March and she lost most of her family mementos and photographs. From time to time, for the holidays, I make copies of the ones I have and give them to her in albums. For Easter this year, I framed si of them and put them in an Easter Basket protected in the green grass. She can't eat candy and she lives on a farm, so she doesn't need more flowers, so I thought a basket of memories was a good solution. ,p/> One year for Christmas, I gave all my siblings (there are 5 of us) a 2.3 foot framed family tree collage of family photographs which I had scanned and had copied and printed at Belia Copy Center in Woodbury, where I also had my postcards made. NEXT I am thinking of a way to use two dozen small black and white glossy photographs of toddlers who may be my father and his brothers from around 1920 which were mailed to my Cousin Patty by another relative. She had no use for them, but I found them enchanting, especially since those babies became men, had full lives and died, but here they are, forever at the beginning with their bright baby eyes and beautiful baby faces. Whatever Art Project I decide to use them in, I want to title it 100 YEAR OLD BABIES. I am thinking of trying the Mod Podge process of photo transfer onto fabric, maybe a white apron which I happen to have, or a baby blanket - time will give me the answer.

Well I hope this blog entry gives someone an idea of something to do with their old family photographs and as always if you want to converse more with me on this subject you can reach me at wrightjr5@yahoo.com. In the mean time, HAVE A HAPPY EASTER!

Jo Ann