Category Archives: genealogy

Glancing Over My Shoulder

Screen Shot 2015-08-09 at 1.05.33 PM
Main Street, Jonesborough, TN

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.

TWO WOMEN COLLAGE - e scoettler
Two Women, collage, e. schoettler

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.

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.

Christmas-es Past

A Family Christmas Story – 2: At the beginning

 Christmas Season 2014:
Surprised today  when I “googled” Bargain Town USA – Brooklyn – 1957 and this post of mine was at the head of the Google selections. That seemed like a “sign” to re-remember this one again – so here it is.
Williamsburg Wreath, photo by e. schoettler

Christmas 2013

Continuing the review of blogs I have written about celebrating Christmas in our family.

Jim loved Christmas. He was raised in a large family in California surrounded by extended families in the area so he loved to celebrate – even when we were living so far from either family.

I, on the other hand, never really liked Christmas. Some of my childhood holidays are spiced with love and laughter and I prize those memories but many other are best forgotten.  My father was an alcoholic and the Christmas Holidays triggered unhappy memories for him and tension and unhappiness for the rest of us.
Jim’s love of the Season went a long way to teach me that Christmas is a time to be happy.

That’s one reason I like to look back on our Christmas-es together

Blog From December 2008

Christmas 1957
682 Argyle Road, Brooklyn New York.

We moved to Brooklyn in July 1957 when Jim graduated from medical school and was assigned to Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn for his internship.

Christmas 1957

1957 was our first Christmas on-our-own. Jim and I were married December 30, 1955 and Jim came to Charlotte for that Christmas with my family. The next year Jimmy was one month old and we went to Charlotte for the holidays and for Jimmy’s Baptism at Assumption Catholic Church, where Jim and I were married the year before.

Our first Christmas ornaments purchase at Bargaintown USA, Brooklyn, NY, 1957

We still have and prize a few of the fragile glass ornaments that we bought at Bargaintown USA – one of the pioneer warehouse-type operations in Brooklyn. The balls are decorated with silver glitter.

Christmas Ornament, circa 1957, purchased from Bargain Town USA,  Brooklyn, NY

What was bright and shiny for years is now darkly tarnished by 50 years of being wrapped and un-wrapped with newspaper scraps.

In those days an intern’s salary was laughable so we planned a very spare Christmas.

The single interns took the duty on Christmas so the married guys could spend the day with their families. It was a swap. Married guys worked New Years Eve. I was grateful and Jim would have hated missing being there for Jimmy’s first Santa.

Santa brought Jimmy the noisy push toy he is holding and a classic small wagon of colored wooden blocks. By the time he had opened all the gifts for him sent from Califoria and North Carolina he was over-whelmed. Stopping only long enough to take a bite of the candy he found in his stocking. He was a happy kid, laughing and grinning all day.

We went to mid-morning Mass at St. Rose of Lima Church about a mile away and then drove over to the hospital for a sumptious traditional dinner which we could not have afforded at home and I had no clue how to cook.

Jim says he thinks we drove to Manhattan after eating, parked the car, took out the stroller for Jimmy and walked down Fifth Avenue to see the animated windows at Saks and then take in the monumental tree at Rockefeller Center.

Back to 2013

Storytelling has taught me to watch for the ways life circles back on itself when I work on my personal stories.

Jim and I left Brooklyn in 1958 and did not live in New York again. However after we moved to Washington, DC area in 1964 we went back frequently and usually at Christmas.

In the late 1960s Jim entered training as a Psychoanalyist at the Washington Psychoanalytic School and every December Candidates attended the American Psychoanalytic Society Meeting in New York City at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. That meeting was always scheduled the weekend before Christmas – not convenient true, but that was a magic time to be in New York. And at the Waldorf – Astoria Hotel with all its lavish Christmas Decorations. On Park Avenue we were a quick walk from St Patrick’s Cathedral, Saks Fifth Avenue and Rockefeller Center.
Not to mention access to all the wonderful museums in NYC.

Several Christmases in the 1970s we took Jimmy and Karen and Robin with us so that we could all share the magic – visit the Metropolitan Museum, see a few plays and take in all the sights of Manhattan.

Then one Christmas in the 1990s all our East Coast family which now included our grand-daughters
took the train and spent a Christmas week-end at the Waldorf -Astoria Hotel where we enjoyed the magic of New York City: Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, Macy’s Santa Village and Santa Claus.

I am so grateful it is all part of our family’s Christmas stories. Just writing this down prompts me to  remember more and more and know that I will be looking for pictrures later today to see what stories the others remember when we sit down for supper Christmas Eve.

Brierly Road Christmas
Telling the stories of our family stories of Christmas
is the best way to remember and honor Jim and celebrate all he was to us.
Who are you remembering during this Holiday Season?
Back to 2014 –
We are remembering Jim and missing him as much as ever. I doubt that will ever change.
But it feels particularly strong today. Jim’s brother Tom passed away yesterday. Thursday – two days from now I will be flying to California to join the Schoettler family for his funeral.
I can start the trip remembering the wonderful memories of Jim and Tom and all their family –

Christmas Past

 

After Jamie, the oldest of daughter Robin’s three sons, was born, Jim and I often spent Christmas with Robin and Brad and their kids in California. First in sunny Southern California and then in Lafayette which is on the Oakland side of the San Francisco Bay.

Several times we celebrated Christmas Eve with our son Jimmy’s family here and then flew out on Christmas Day, arriving in time to have Christmas Dinner on the West Coast. It was as close to bi-locating as we are likely to get. Our daughter Karen often made the trip with us.

In 2004 Jim and I flew to Robin’s a week before Christmas and Karen arrived in Lafayette several days before Christmas.

I wrote about Christmas Past then too.

12.24.2004

Around the dinner table at Robin’s, everyone was taking a turn telling something about a Christmas Past.

Brad talked of a memorable Illinois Christmas at his grandparents house. Jamie, Robin and Brad’s oldest, begged the question, not sure that this year might not be the one he would talk about later.

When it was our daughter Karen’s turn she laughed.

“Ofcourse I remember the year I got all the stuff.”

She paused and then added,

” but there is the Christmas Eve we were out here, in Madera, at Grandma’s and we went to Yosemite.”

Jim and Robin and I nodded. “Oh, yes.” “That was Christmas 1974”, I added.

This is not our first California Christmas.

My husband is a California native. He went to medical school on the East Coast and ended up staying out there. We brought all our kids to Madera for Christmas for the first time in 1969.

Jim’s father died in March 1974.

We came back to California with our three kids for Christmas that year so that all the family would be together. It was a wonderful reunion of aunts, uncles, and cousins as those anniversaries often are.

Christmas Eve dawned. All the resident families had chores to do and fixings to complete for the holiday. We were at loose ends and in some ways in the way.

Jim suggested we take our kids for their introduction to Yosemite – only a 90 minute drive away.

As we climbed toward the mountains we met snow. There were snow capped peaks ahead as we drove through lightly dusted hills and valleys.

We stopped for breakfast at a lodge near the entrance to Yosemite Park. The dining room had a cathedral ceiling and large windows framed breathtaking views of the snow capped mountain peaks.

A floor to ceiling grey stone fireplace dominated one end of the room. Standing near-by was a 20 foot evergreen tree. The top just missed the rough hewn ceiling rafters. The room was perfumed with a mixture of spruce and wood smoke. The thick farm pancakes and maple syrup were as perfect as the setting.

We entered Yosemite Park through a tunnel. As we emerged the monumental El Capitan

stood before us on the left.

Ahead on the right we saw a bright white streak against a sheer rock face where

Bridal Veil Falls was frozen solid.

We were all so awed that we spoke in the same hushed voices we use in church

The air was cold and crisp and pure. The skies overhead were bright blue with an occasional white cloud floating by.

Ours was the only car at the vista point. And that was how it continued all day. We saw no more than three cars all day. We owned the park.

Deer grazed in snow covered clearings.

When we walked toward a creek we heard the rushing water before we saw

it tumbling over the rocks. At every twist in the road there was a new view of the white capped Sierra peaks that surround Yosemite Valley.

Half-dome dominates and is my favorite sight.

That was forty years ago – but I can see it as clearly as if it were yesterday.

How could we have known that we were capturing a timeless moment that would live for each of us – –

Today I think of it as the day we spent in the Presence of God –

and I am so grateful we shared it as a family.

 

A Bit of Genealogy

photo: ellouise schoettler, 2007
Late afternoon light
and fragile dried fowers
blend
suggesting
timeless mystery.
It is in the book.
All Isiah Harrison descendants
are related to Abraham Lincoln.Another genealogy surprise.
A few years ago Jim and I went to Harrisonburg, VA on a Genealogy search.
We visited the home place of Isiah Harrison and there we made another connection
to this man who is an early ancestor
of mine and learned that all Isiah Harrison descendants are also related
to Abraham Lincoln.
Well, I’ll be darned!

Letters are an Important Link

Gus Keasler Letter Sig 2

Finding old letters can add richness to family stories.

There was so much to love about a letter I found at the DAR library 20 years ago  that I  prize it. There is advice and inspiration for stories. I quote it to make the point that asking questions of our elders is essential to learning the history of our families.

In 1893 when Mr. James Parks answers his grand-daughter’s questions about their family history he explains that he did not ask questions when he was young so he knows little about them.

He explains that when he was young he cared more “about fish hooks and pocket knives” than he did about family stories and “when I did want to know, my grandfather had fallen into a foolish state and could tell me nothing.”  So he explains why he could tell her very little about their history.

And, he counsels her to value the people she finds.

” You will see that there were no great ones among our ancestors. They were all in the common walks of life, no blue-blooded aristocracy, but just upright, high-minded honorable men and women. If there were no”great ones” among them, there were none of who we were ashamed.

September 9, 1893 (signed) James Parks

 

Attic Museums

I love “attic” museums.
Small places where they exhibit

the bits of peoples’ lives.
Where the obscure becomes important.
Some would say

“all they have is trash.”

Attics are where you find the bits of memories.
Where you stumble across the forgotten
Kept because it was precious.

Southerners have an affinity for holding on –

To things.
We want the bits of history

To tell us who our people were.
So we will know who we are.

We keep stuff – for generations.

A photograph, a piece of lace, a spoon,

Books, oh, my yes, books

Letters, pens, linens, pots and pans.

And on, and on, and on.

We guard them.

They are us.

Our roots, our connections.

How can you know yourself

Without your stuff?

That’s where the stories are.