Monthly Archives: April 2015

A New Story – Premiere June 4

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First performance JUNE 4 –

Information on June 4 Performance – Place and Time  HERE

Several years ago I found this little calendar which was filled with memories. My new story, “Love Notes” began there.

From the press release:
” Love Notes”

Happily Ever After is a matter of perspective.

A 1954 blind date between an 18-year-old nursing student and a fresh faced Johns Hopkins medical student launched Ellouise and Jim on a lifetime together. Love Notes, a one–widow show performed by Ellouise Schoettler, is a funny and touching journey of a 57-year marriage traversing through the peaks and valleys of the marriage vow. 

Death? 

It’s not a clean break.”

 

Ode to Family Photos

TWO WOMEN COLLAGE

When my husband Jim and I started dating I don’t remember his talking about his interest in documenting family history. It came to light steadily over the years and we have the legacy to prove it…. photos, home movies, videos, and audio tapes. I am now gathering them from storage boxes, closets and drawers to be sure they are all together in one place. Its our treasure.When we met in Baltimore where Jim was a student at Johns Hopkins University Medical School he casually took pictures with one of his father’s range-finder cameras. Developing the black and white film was expensive so we don’t have many photos of those days – but the ones we do capture the moment. I could never take pictures with that camera. It baffled me. My speed was a Brownie box camera.

Jim learned to take pictures from his father who was one of those camera-smitten amateur photographers of the 1930s in California, land of the movies. Jim helped his father take creative 16mm movies of the family. We have copies of those movies – scripts written by Jim’s mother and performed by his brothers and sisters – with sound. Jim often told me about them but I did not understand how priceless and precious they were until I saw them

I remember the first time I saw the movies I had heard so much about. One special evening in 1969 when we were at his parents house in Madera, CA for Christmas Jim’s father brought out the big movie projector. It was a small crowd that evening – Jim’s mother and father, Jim and me and our three kids. Hal showed the family movies and a selection of Castle WWII films.

In 1984 video cameras were large, heavy, clunky and expensive. We did not own one — yet. Jim was so determined to interview my father on film on his 70th birthday that he searched out a video rental in Charlotte, NC. That’s how we have over an hour of my dad and me on camera going back over old stories and hearing new ones and some good jokes. Not to be left out my mother insisted we interview her as well. And, am I glad.

A dozen years ago Jim’s oldest brother Harold transferred those movies to DVD for each of his siblings. They are wonderful – except that he backed the films with the theme from Chariots of Fire. I challenge anyone to watch them without crying as those kids of long ago cavort in the snow at Bass Lake and act out their mother’s scripts in their Fresno living room. We all should be so lucky as to have our childhoods captured on film so that we can revisit them over and over.

With the advent of digital cameras photography became more immediate and much easier so I took up photography as well. Family albums became part of my art form. Today I never leave the house without a small camera tucked in my purse. And, Jim often brought out his newest video camera to capture a bit of the life around him – delighted as they became smaller and more convenient to use – a great contrast to the earlier heavyweight cameras he lugged for his father.

Jim and I enjoyed and shared a passion for documenting everyday life. Jim got it from his father. I inherited it from my Aunt Katherine who kept photograph albums of all the family. Today our grown children document their families and we all share stories.

Nothing as grand as the first crop of California 16mm movies but its all quite fine – – and it tells our family story – – for our grandchildren’s children. What’s my point? To encourage you to take out your camera if you are not doing that already. You will be glad you did.

 

A Nudge from the Red Tent

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant has been gathering dust on a top bookshelf downstairs for at least ten years. I started reading it once but the turned down page corner confirms that I only read to page 9. I started reading it again a few days ago. I am not sure yet whether I will finish it – – but I am underlining in the 4 page Prologue. Anita Diamant has pricked a nerve that needed a prick.

In the 1980s I was diving deeply into genealogy waters – looking for “my women” and finding things I never knew about those “survivors” who nourished my deep North Carolina tap root. I wanted to tell my family, especially my daughters,  about them but only Jim listened to the stories. The others found the chorus of begats boring. Then I stumbled upon storytelling for grown-ups.  I squeezed Jim’s arm one evening when we were listening to a fine storyteller tell about her father – “I am going to do that – – and they are going to come.”

That’s when I say I became a storyteller – although I was born and raised by women who were good North Carolina talkers and I learned to tell stories as they told them.

The second sentence Diamant writes for the character in the Prologue is, “my memory is dust”- meaning her story has not been told.

She goes on –

“If you want to understand any woman you must first ask about her mother and then listen carefully.

Stories about food show a strong connecton. Wistful silences demonstrate unfinished business. The more a daughter knows the details of her mother’s life – without flinching or whining – the stronger the daughter.”

There follows a page on what women and daughters share over the chores they do together and then she rocked me again.

” But the other reason women wanted daughters was to keep their memories alive.”

The character says ” I carried my mother’s stories into the next generation —-”

Then, ” I wish I had more to tell of my grandmothers. It is terrible how much has been forgotten, which is why, I suppose, remembering seems a holy thing.” 


The Red Tent is a mid-rash on the life of the Biblical woman Dinah whose story is untold.  Diamant’s reconstruction and re-telling is brilliant. However, I doubt I will finish reading Dinah’s fresh story. Anita Diamant has made me realize that I have a lot of work to do in a shortened time. To tell my story – and to refresh the survivors’ stories I have gathered.

I owe this to my daughters. My grand-daughters need to learn their maternal line stories first, maybe later they will have interest in mine. I don’t expect my grand-sons to have much interest at all – maybe their wives will be curious as I was about Jim’s family.

Grateful to have storytelling to use as a vehicle for sharing the stories.  Perhaps,like Diamant, I will say something that will spur others to look for their stories.