All posts by Ellouise Schoettler
Glancing Over My Shoulder
These days I am wandering through my stories to select the programs I will tell next month in Jonesborough, TN. I am thrilled to be invited as Storyteller-in-Residence for the week – September 8 – 12 – at the International Storytelling Center and to tell 5 hour long programs of my work. This is also a wonderful opportunity to look through my work and think about what I have been doing with my storytelling these past thirty years.
Visual artists often stop and take stock and select works for a retrospective of their art work. Here is a chance to do the same with my story work.
When I read the Song-catcher by Sharyn McCrumb, a novel featuring a ballad handed down through generations of her southern family, I was impressed by the way she incorporates family history into her story.
I came to storytelling through genealogy and did much more of that when I first started telling stories. She inspires me to go back in that direction, asking new questions.
In the biography on her website Sharyn McCrumb talks about the two worlds of her parents. That’s true of my family too. My father’s family was proud of their social position, which was based on my grandmother’s father. He was a Mecklenburg County elected official and a very popular figure. When I looked up his obituary in the Charlotte Observer a huge picture of him stared back at me from the front page of the newspaper. My grandmother was a spoiled apple of his eye who had been schooled in a Catholic finishing school. I remember her as a tall, aristocratic looking woman who was not prone to spontaneous hugs, in fact, I don’t remember any displays of affection. The mother of eight children, she was a reader, a versifier, an Anglophile and an avid Bridge player. She was proud of her lineage, especially her Confederate roots, because she did not know her Revolutionary War ties. If she had looked into she would have found her Revolutionary War roots and saved me a lot of trouble later. She would have been proud of all those deep tap roots that came through her father’s paternal family.
Her father’s mother was an Irish immigrant, from Tipperary, Ireland who arrived in America in 1837. She came with an extended family before the potato famine. Maybe they were seeking religious freedom, because they had both money and a trade. She left us our Catholic faith. Her family arrived in America through Nova Scotia, went to Albany, New York for a time where they had family, and then came to North Carolina following the little known 1840s gold rush in North Carolina. She married a young doctor from Newton, NC and they had eight children.
Surprisingly no Irish stories have been handed down through the family. I was not raised on the stories she must have told her son and that one would think he told his daughter. And, that he might have told my father, his grandson. The newspaper articles I found about him say he was known as a storyteller and a wit.
I wish we had been left a legacy of Irish songs and stories like Sharyn McCrumb describes from her Appalachian family? Ever since I discovered my strong Irish heritage I have wondered about this.
Now, Sharyn McCrumb, in describing her family, opens the question for me from another perspective. I will dig a little deeper. I want to know why we don’t have our pockets filled with Catherine Lonergan’s stories.
A Day to Remember
July, 1978
The ERA MARCH, Washington Mall, Washington, DC
More than 100,000 women wearing white – the connection to the women who fought for the Vote – marched in favor of Congress granting an extension on the time given to pass the Equal Rights Amendment.
When the vote was taken that year theygranted an additional three years.
I was there that day marching with a group under the flag of the Coalition of Women’s Arts Organizations.
It was an exciting, energizing, and hopeful gathering on a very hot and humid Summer day in Washington. We were part of women’s history.
Those days were filled with challenges. The memories of the times and the people are vivid for me
and being a part of the 1970s Women’s Movement changed my life.
Pushing Boundaries is my personal story of those days – –
I will be telling PUSHING BOUNDARIES:
2 PM Thursday September 10 at the International Storytelling Center, Jonesborough, TN
7:30 PM Wednesday, September 16, Friendship Heights Village Com. Ctr., Chevy Chase, MD
I hope women will come to hear this story and to remember their own.
The Power of Looking Back.
Thinking about and working on The Hello Girls, the show I will present at the Capital Fringe.
A Bit About WWI Times.
Starting the day of working on my Capital Fringe Show, The Hello Girls, listening to a popular boy-girl song from WWI ERA – to get my heart, mind and imagination geared into the right time zone. Pete Wendling recorded this for the player-piano in 1917 – the country was charged with patriotic spirit as America entered the Great War, the “boys” wanted to to go “over there”, my grandmother – Louise Cobb Diggle, wrote from New York City that the air was filled with music and calls for people to buy War Bonds, but she had no idea that in 9 months her two brothers would be “over there” in France and that only one would come home. Recently I saw a small dance card from an entertainment on a troop ship on the Atlantic on the way to France – For Me and My Gal was listed on the music program. March 6, 1918 The First 33 – of the Hello Girls, left NYC behind. Proudly wearing their new dark blue Army Signal Corps uniforms they boarded a troop ship along with several thousand Doughboys and sailed to France.
Circling
Working on my new story, Love Notes, keeps me focused on days in Baltimore when Jim and I met.
Not complaining. I love it.
Especially as it seems to be creating some serendipity connections between then and now.
Not complaining. I love it.
Especially as it seems to be creating some serendipity connections between then and now.
When I boarded the train in Charlotte to head to Baltimore to enter Johns Hopkins Hospital School of Nursing I was carrying a book that a nurse gave me “to read on your trip.” I did read “Miss Susie Slagles” by Augusta Tucker as the train clipped off the miles toward Baltimore. By the time I reached the nurses home to check in my imagination was fired by Tucker’s novel and her romanticized version of Hopkins in the early 1900s. I loved it.
I have been re-reading Tucker’s novel as part of my “research” for my new story. It prompts many memories.
Yesterday my friend Kay called from Texas, “Do you want to go back to Hopkins in June?” Before I could say, “YES.” she added. “lets stay where we did last year?” She read my mind. Those words were on my tongue. Last year we stayed in a renovated row-house on the street where Jim and I lived when we got married. Talk about walking back into the past – – it was great. “YES”
Now, the plans are underway and I am very excited to return to the old neighborhood.I have also been reading a history of Hopkins as a teaching hospital.
Last night at family gathering a new acquaintance suggested I read “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” which is the story of a major breakthrough in research on cervical cancer which occurred in 1951. Jim came to JHH in 1952 and I arrived in 1954. I recognized the names of researchers. I was sure Jim would have known them. It would have been so great to talk about it with him.
That led me to call one of Jim’s classmates. He is an OB-GYN – its his field. “Yes, I read the book – went to see the author speak. She was terrific. Several of the researchers had been professors at time we were there. You were right to recognize the names.” He and is wife may be coming to the scientific meetings the same time Kay and I will be there. Maybe they will try to stay in the same area we are. Yes, he would like to talk about the days he lived in a boarding house very like the one in Miss Susie Slagles. “I remember it well.”There are others I want to see and talk with and places I want to go.
I know I will have to work hard to walk down memory lane because so much has been changed.But – – it will be worth the struggle.
I really love it when life moves in circles
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)
A New Story – Premiere June 4
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
|
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.
An Eye-Opener
Thumbing through some old journals I stumbled across an entry in one that brought back the memory of something I thought I would never forget ….. But I had.
In 1999 I booked gigs in North Carolina for my first on-my-own storytelling road trip. I was performing at Meredith College in Raleigh and at the Museum of the New South in Charlotte for an event sponsored by the Mecklenburg County Women’s Commission. I was so excited about telling, Flesh on Old Bones, my stories about my North Carolina women that I did not think about the dreaded eight hour drive ahead.
Saturday afternoon before I was to leave on Sunday, I was moving fast around the house to get ready for the road trip. I stepped out onto the deck to ask my husband, Jim, who was working in the yard, a question. He answered and when I whirled around to go back into the house I tripped on the doorway. I splatted forward and met the kitchen floor full on my face. I felt my glasses dig into my cheekbone on the right side.
Jim heard the commotion and rushed in. “Stay still until I check you out.” His doctor-self always jumped to the rescue. He did his checking and then he helped me to a near-by couch.
“Ellouise, this eye is going to look bad. It is already swelling. I will ice it for you.”
I reached up and when I touched my forehead and the area around the right eye it was tender.
“Jim, what will I do. I have to drive to North Carolina tomorrow.”
He was crushing ice in the kitchen.
“We will see. Just keep you head down for right now.”
” I have to go.”
His doctor’s voice answered, “We will see, Ellouise.”
By next day my face was swollen and the right side was now a deep magenta. I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror.
“Jim, ” I called out. “I look like I have been beaten up. How can I tell stories to people?”
Please look at this, my eyelid is so swollen I can’t see out of my right eye.”
Jim carefully lifted my eyelid. Then he reached in the medicine chest and brought out the band-aid box. “This might work.” He taped my eyelid up so that I could see out of the right eye.”
“Ellouise, I don’t think you can drive to NC like this ….
plus the way you look you are going to scare people.”
“I am going.” And, I did. Changing the band-aids frequently and wondering how I was going to get along.
First stop was Meredith college where those folks were ever so delicately, so painfully polite they never mentioned my face. Only the young guy who wired me up with a lapel mic said anything –
“what happened to you, Lady.”
After that I told my hour program of stories feeling like a gold fish in a bowl as I stood in an amphitheater looking up into about 100 young faces who looked to me like they were wondering “what happened to you, lady.”
When I called Jim that evening he was encouraging,
“Jim, they act like they don’t believe me when I tell them I fell.”
“ Honey I was pretty sure they wouldn’t.
“Sounds like your eye is all right. You are doing a good job. Keep it up.”
“That felt good but I would have felt better if there had been a strong warm hug to go along with it.
Next day, still using the band-aids to hold up the eye-lid so that I could see to drive, I drove on to Charlotte, to perform for the women’s commission event. A woman met me at the museum to help me set up. She gasped when she saw me. Then she explained that the issue they were working on for this year was Domestic Violence. We both agreed I looked like they had brought me in as a poster for the issue. I was embarrassed and felt a bit dumb, that I had not made the connection between my face and their issue work.
I swallowed hard and explained how I had tripped in the kitchen.
“Well, tell them that when you start your program. Some of the women will believe you – some won’t.”
At least that would be better than ignoring what a sight I looked like as I had done at Meredith.
Oops. I had forgotten about my mother.
She lived in Charlotte, where I was born and raised. Part of my trip was a visit with her. Yes, she was coming to the performance – with my Aunt. Sure enough, they came all dressed up and a little early.
When I saw them come in I hurried to the back of the room to greet them. They both gasped. Mama seemed to have lost her voice but my Aunt Katherine was never without words,
“Good lord a mighty Ellouise, what happened to you, girl”. And I told them the thumbnail version of the story.
Mama had gotten her words back,” well, I knew Jim didn’t do that.” I hugged her..
The woman who spoke after my stories was a survivor of Domestic Violence who now spoke to groups to educate the public. When she was called to the microphone she paused and waited a moment before she said –
“I used to look like that,” she looked over at me “but it wasn’t because I fell in my kitchen – like she did. It was because my husband hit me.”
They liked my stories that night – they laughed and listened and they told me so afterwards.
But there is no question that the story that was the “eye-opener” was the survivor’s story.
No comments:
Post a Comment