Eugene Gochenour Memoirs Part III

I have been sharing Dad's memoirs over the past weeks. Today's excerpt continues his childhood memories from the Depression.

Gochenour family in late 1930s; Eugene is front right; his mother back right,
sister Mary back left and to her right is Al Gochenour.

"Military Road was built centuries ago for armies to travel from Buffalo to Niagara Falls. The road was elevated at the location where the house we lived in was built. On each side of the house was a gully. The strip of land where the farm house was placed was filled [with dirt] to the level of the road.

"The foundation of the house was about three feet thick, built of stone that probably came from a nearby quarry. When we first moved there the house had a dirt floor in the basement but later Dad and some friends put in a concrete floor. Huge logs with one flat side supported the floor of the house. Wooden pegs held the logs together. A cistern was located under the rear porch but of course it had not been used for dozens of years.

1865 Military Rd in the 1940s after Al Gochenour bought the
property and fixed it up. 

"The house sat quite far back from the road and one day as we sat on our front porch, to our amazement, we saw elephants walking past on the road. The elephants led a parade of horse-drawn wagons filled with lions, tigers, and other animals. Now as children we had never seen elephants, and we were amazed to see the size of them. The circus had come to town and this was their way of advertising it.

Circus passes down Military Rd at Ensminger Rd; an Ensminger family house in the background.

"The first photo shows the elephants as they passed by. Across the street is the Ensminger farm house. It sat at the corner of Military and Ensminger Roads.

"When we first moved there Ensminger Road was just a dirt road leading into the fields. The barn that sat behind the house had already been torn down, and soon [about 1960-61] the house would be intentionally be burned down to make room for a bowling alley. A childhood friend, Ridgely Ware, had lived there with his mother and aunt. As a child I remember drinking water from a well with a hand pump that was on their side lawn. I drank it with cupped hands and it was cold and delicious. Before the barn was torn down, two old horse carriages were parked in it. Ridgely was about two years older than I, but occasionally we did things together. Sometimes we would go into the barn and sit in the carriages and make believe we were driving them. There was also a well with a hand pump in the barn, but I was told that the water in that well was bad, so I never tried it.

"During the ‘40s the Ensminger barn was torn down then during the ‘50s the house was sold.

"One day early in the morning I looked out of my upstairs window and saw the Ensminger house burning. Rather than tear the house down the owners decided to have it burned down. So they got the firemen to set it afire and control it. It is an awesome sight to see a burning house with the flames reaching high into the sky. The heat was so intense it could be felt blocks away. A bowling alley was built on the lot next to where the house had been, and the house lot became a parking lot. Such is progress.

Circus parade with donkeys passing on Military Rd near Ensminger past
where a bowling alley would be built in the 1960s

"The next photo shows a donkey, pony, and horse. As you can see the previous animals had made their contribution to the highway and the fly population. Across the road is the field where there would soon be a bowling alley.

Circus parade traveling on Military Rd north towards City of Tonawanda;
the field would later house the Erie County Highway Department garage; foreground
later had a Texaco gas station and Schwinn Bicycle shop.

"The third photo shows the parade as it travels north toward the city of Tonawanda. The field across the street is where the Erie County Highway Department garage would be built. The lot on this side of the street is where a Texaco gas station and a bicycle shop would be built. The lot had once been a town dump.

"The old farmhouse had a basement only under part of the house. When we first moved there, it had only a dirt floor. The kitchen area had a crawl space under it, and when the water pipes would freeze during the winter father would have to crawl under there with a blow torch to thaw them out. Rats and mice had chewed passages through the walls and ceilings for a hundred years, and during the fall and winter you could hear them scurrying around. Our kitchen cupboards had many holes covered with tin can patches that had been nailed on probably from the time when tin cans were first made. But the rats would just chew another hole. One night a rat got into the house, and we saw it. Well, everyone went chasing it through the house trying to whack it with a broom or stick. We finally cornered and killed it. That was our excitement for that evening! A few years later when I was older, it was my job to go into the crawl space and retrieve any dead smelly rats that had ate the rat poison bait that we had set out for them. We eventually hired an exterminator who treated the house monthly.

Emma Becker Gochernour with Mary and Alice on left,
Gene on right, and Emma's brother Lee in center. Open land on right
would eventually be where Rosemont Ave. was built.

"As kids, we could always find something to eat. There was a house on Delaware Avenue that had a garage that sat quite far back from the street. There a person sat all day making the sugar cones used for ice cream cones. Broken cones were always left on the window sill for us to eat. They were like candy to us.

"Many people had fruit trees, strawberry patches, and grapevines in their yards, and we always knew when they were in season. We usually would raid them at night, but occasionally we would pull a daytime raid. The neighbors we took from probably did not even care, but to us it was exciting. We also had a Bartlet pear tree in our yard that had great pears.

"In the springtime, [my Uncle] Lee and I would pick and eat all the meadow mushrooms we would find in the fields. Eaten fresh and raw, they are very good. The second week of June is when the wild strawberries were usually ripe, and mother would spend hours in the fields picking them. She always took the dog along because she was afraid of snakes, and the dog would chase them away. Mother made jam from the strawberries. Mother would also pick dandelion leaves during the spring, and make a salad with it. Even I liked that salad.

"Near the airport and the dump was a golf driving range. During the late ‘30s some of us kids were hired to pick up golf balls from the field. We were paid ten cents for our work and we would give back five cents for our favorite candy bar, a Milky Way. We liked to go to the dump also. There we found what we thought was some neat stuff, and took it home. When our parents saw what we had hauled home, they made us put it out to the street so the rubbish man could haul it back to the dump. I often wonder if the rubbish man thought that some of those things seemed familiar!

"The Sheridan Park Golf Course had some nice hills where we could sled during the winter. One day I slid down the hill and ended in the creek. It was a long freezing walk home! There was also a pond where we ice skated on.

"When summer came, I would go to the fields next to the golf course to find golf balls that the golfers had lost. Then I would sell them back to them. One day I found and sold twelve dollars worth of balls, with which I bought a portable radio. Since they were new on the market at that time few people had them. The radio was large by today’s standards. I liked the smell of the plastic material that covered it. The plastic looked like leather, and the radio had large batteries. It was great to take anywhere and have music.

"During the '30s and '40s I had many ways to make money. I picked up pop and beer bottles from along the roadways and took them back to the store where I got two cents each for them. I had a paper route, cut lawns, worked in the field with John Kuhn, and got a weekly allowance of twenty-five cents from mother for my home chores. During the fall and winter, I went to the housing project where I received a dollar for each ton of coal I could carry from the street to the customer’s coal bin. My friend Dale Thiel and I would usually do the coal jobs together. We would use the customer’s trash cans to haul the coal. It took about 20 to 23 cans for the ton of coal. Also during the winter, I would shovel snow from people’s driveways and sidewalks, for two or three dollars.

"The nearby horse riding stables rented out horses to the public. They made many trails through the woods and fields that we would ride our bikes on. We literally had trail bikes in those days! Also in the woods, we would build tree houses from scrap wood we found."

A Victorian Police Officer in Petticoats: The Female Detective by Andrew Forrester

The Female Detective was published in 1864 when law enforcement organizations were cutting edge. Mike Ashley's introduction to The Female Detective notes the first British police agency was organized in 1829 and Scotland Yard was created in 1842. Edgar Allen Poe introduced the first detective in fiction in 1841. Alan Pinkerton employed the first woman detective in 1856. The character of 'Miss B', undercover police agent, was novel and original.

The Female Detective stories were written by Andrew Forrester, the pen name of writer and editor James Redding Ware. His unnamed heroine addresses the reader to explain the importance of her secretive work and justify the role of the female spy in society.

Who am I?It can matter little who I am.
I would have my readers at once accept my declaration that whatever may be the results of the practice of my profession in others, in me that profession has not led me towards hardheartedness. 
For what reason do I write this book?
...I may as well say at once I write in order to show, in a small way, that the profession to which I belong is so useful that it should not be despised.

Seven stories follow, some showing how our female detective operates, some are stories she has heard, and the last story is a comedic delight that is quite Dickensian in humor. Her purpose is to broadly illustrate the importance of the detective.

Miss B predates Sherlock Holmes but uses the same logical thinking to puzzle out her cases. She posses as a milliner or takes up local residence to gain access to her subject. She cross-examines in the guise of a friendly ear. Then she makes her deduction and sets out for proof.

Her powers of observation are astute. Boot marks "have sent more men to the gallows, as parts of circumstantial evidence than any other proof whatever," Miss B proclaims. She advises evildoers to carry a second pair of boots to wear while committing their crime! She explains what she calls the "audacity of hiding," that the safest hiding place is the most obvious, citing "the great enigma-novelist, Edgar Poe" who illustrated this when a man places a letter in a card-rack on the mantelpiece when he knows his house will be searched.

...the value of the detective lies not so much in discovering facts, as in putting them together and finding out what they mean.

Because our female detective is not heartless, but is committed to the law, she can find herself faced with perplexing moral choices. She places her duty above pity.

A man is your friend, but if he transgresses that law which it is your duty to see observed, you have no right to spare him...

She accuses the English police system as requiring "more intellect infused into it. Many of the men are extraordinarily acute and are able to seize facts as they rise to the surface. But they are unable to work out what is below the surface."

I enjoyed the sense of humor in the writing, often at the expense of her male coequals. "I found out the constable, and I am constrained to say--a greater fool I never indeed did meet. He was too stupid to be anything else than utterly, though idiotically, honest."

The stories are varied in subject and style; some are recognizable as traditional detective fiction, some more anecdotal and not directly related to Miss B. I enjoyed reading them all.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Female Detective
Andrew Forrester
Poisoned Pen Press
Publication Date August, 2016
ISBN: 9781464206481 ebook

Guilty Until Proven Innocent? Damaged by Lisa Scottoline

Mary DiNunzio, South Philly born and bred, has risen to partnership in Bennie Rosato's legendary Center City law firm. If Bennie is the strong and sure leader of her practice, Mary is all heart--and lots of righteous indignation.

Mary was the Neighborhood Girl Who Made Good, so she got her self-esteem from being universally beloved.

Mary has a big case and a wedding weeks away when an elderly grandfather comes into the office. His orphaned grandson, an engaging ten-year-old with Dyslexia, is accused of attacking a school aide and they are being sued. Patrick reveales that the aide molested him. Mary takes the case. Discovering the school has failed to offer Patrick the help he needs to learn to read and become successful she arranges for his admission into a private school.

That evening Mary stops by their house to find the grandfather has died and Patrick is in denial. Stepping in to help, Mary becomes emotionally attached and can't let go. She decides to become Patrick's foster parent to ensure he gets the help he needs.

But is Patrick as innocent as he appears? When a fraught Patrick holds a gun on the Department of Human Services case worker who wants to separate him from Mary he is classified as a threat. The police even suspect Patrick of causing his grandfather's death by an overdose of insulin.

Damaged is the newest Lisa Scottoline book in the best selling Rosato & DiNunzio series. It is geared to shed light on the complexities of child welfare, the intricacies of the foster system, and the challenges facing special needs children. Most of the novel revolves around Mary's fight to become Patrick's foster mom.

The subplot offers suspense and thrills after Mary starts piecing things together. Meanwhile, her fiancée is out of town and unaware of Mary's decisions. What will Anthony think when he returns to find Mary is committing to parenting a child without his input? Will their relationship end as they realize they are not operating as 'married', but as individuals make decisions alone, not jointly?

The issues Scottoline address in the novel are important and readers learn along with Mary. This does slow the book down, but the tension of what will happen--and what did happen--drives the reader's interest. Mary's delightful family and neighborhood friends are always fun and add lighthearted comic moments.

Read the first chapter at http://scottoline.com/book/damaged/

Read my review on Scottline's previous book Corrupted here

I received a free book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Damaged
Lisa Scottoline
St Martin's Press
$27.99 hard cover, $14.99 ebook
Publication August 16, 2016

Memoirs of Eugene Gochenour Part II

Today I am continuing to share from Dad's memoirs about his family and life growing up in Tonawanda, NY. Today is about his Depression era childhood.

Emma, Al, Mary and Gene Gochenour

The Depression was at its worst during 1935, the year we moved to Military Road when I was five years old.

One day some of us kids were over by the railroad tracks when we saw this huge monster coming down the tracks toward us. With black smoke billowing from its smokestack, the whistle screaming as it approached the road, and the ground shaking as it went by, my first sight of a steam engine was terrifying. But it did not take long before we were used to the ironwheeled monster.

Sometimes we would put pennies on the track to have the train flatten them out as it passed by. We would count the box cars, tankers, and gondola cars, and read the names on them. A really long train had about one hundred and fifty cars and one caboose.

A huge, deserted factory was near the tracks about four blocks away, the old Jewett Stove Company, and I guess it had closed a few years before we moved there. The building’s windows were broke out and the doors were open so us kids would run through the building playing games, and looking at the piles of paper and other things that had been left there. Years later the building would become the Lucidol Corporation, where a huge explosion would occur, causing many deaths.

There were other signs of the Depression. Basements were dug on Oakridge Street by Elmwood Avenue, and when the work stopped they filled with water and became a hazard. Near the railroad tracks by the airport was a field where a business had closed. There were some old trucks, and a deep pit where a mechanic could work on the underside of them. At all these places it looked as though the people had just dropped everything and left.

But one place that had stayed in business was the Eastern States Grain Company. Huge grain elevators, or silos, sat by the tracks just somewhat south of Sheridan Drive. Spilled grain lay on the tracks there, and many birds, mostly pigeons, lived off of it. Years later when I raised rabbits, I would take a bag and gather grain to feed to them.

There were four movie theaters within probably five miles from where we lived. Three were at the Tonawandas: the Star, the Rivera, and the Avondale. One more theater was in the city of Kenmore. To get to them we had to walk to Delaware Avenue and catch a bus. Years later there were also three drivein-theaters. One was on Ensminger Road, one on Delaware, and another on Niagara Falls Boulevard.

The entrance to the Erie Canal was at Buffalo, New York, about ten miles south of where we lived. It followed parallel and next to the Niagara River to Tonawanda. Many huge factories were built, supplied by the raw material that came through the Great Lakes. On many days when the wind blew from the west, you could smell the odors from the Semet Solvay plant, and when near the Niagara River the odor and see the soda ash that emanated from the International Paper Mill.

When we first moved to Military Road us kids would walk to Two Mile Creek by the golf course. The water was crystal clear, and many fish and frogs lived there. But during the Second World War, the creek became contaminated from all the factories, and filled with black silt, killing all the wildlife. In those days no one thought of pollution, but one place it was very visible was at the Niagara River by Wheeler Street in the city of Tonawanda. There was a drain pipe from the Spaulding Fiber Company that emptied into the river there, and every day the water that came out of it was a different color. It was a strange sight to see a bright red or green stream enter the river, then mix and slowly disappear.

This picture of my father and I was taken at the porch at our side of the house. Dad is in his work clothes, sitting on the rickety porch. We finally had a fuel oil furnace, and the oil tank that fed it stands behind him. My bike is leaning against the porch. It did not have a chain guard and the pants on my right leg were all chewed up from getting stuck in the chain. One day I decided to paint my bike silver. When Dad came home and saw what I had done, he gave me a spanking. He didn’t like my artistic flair I guess!

There were still some horse stables and farms then, and their manure piles created many flies and odors. The screen door of our house was often coated with flies during the summer. We used fly swatters and fly strips to control the houseflies and horseflies.

Gochenour Homestead in Woodstock, VA

The second trip we took to my father’s birthplace in Virginia was around 1940 or 1941. At that time my father, mother, Mary, Alice, Grandfather Becker, and I went in Dad’s 1937 Buick. The trip seemed to take forever. I remember Dad showing us the seven horseshoe turns of the Shenandoah River on the way.

When we got there we stayed at the farm. On the farm they had some turkeys. I had never seen turkeys, and when three went into the barnyard, they chased me. Everybody thought it was funny except me. I was terrified! Mother and father went into town, and when they came back, they bought us kids some Kazoos, an instrument you blow into to make a tune. It probably wasn’t long before they were sorry!

Since it was Christmas time Dad and I went out into the woods and found a tree. We cut it down and hauled it back to the house. It seemed strange to celebrate Christmas when there was no snow and it was not cold. Before we made the trip, mother had bought me a pair of high top boots. They were the latest thing, and they came with a jack knife, and a knife holder sewn onto one boot. I was so proud of them, and when we went to church that Sunday, I wore them. I was quite the envy of the boys there. Soon it was time to leave. The trip was uneventful until we got near home. Grandfather got car sick, and we had to stop the car so he could heave. Nice thing to remember, huh?

One summer night father heard men talking out at the road in front of the house. It was during the year of 1937, and I was seven years old. Military Road had a speed limit of 50 miles per hour, a pretty fast speed for those times. Dad got dressed, and went out to see what was going on and found some men attempting to change a flat tire. He offered to help and was kneeling down taking the tire off of the car when a drunk driver hit the vehicle. Dad was thrown down the road about 50 feet. A neighbor from down the street who was watching was killed, and the person who owned the car with the flat tire was killed. The driver of the car that hit them fled the scene, but was caught later. Dad went to the hospital and survived, but had back trouble for the rest of his life. The day after the accident, I walked out on the street, and saw car parts, and what I thought were human brains. The man that was driving the car that fled the scene, was never prosecuted, and no one ever received any compensation. 

Years later, after my father had died, our station had become a New York Inspection Station, and occasionally a state trooper would come in and inspect our station. When one trooper came in, he saw the name on the form, and asked if my father had been in an accident years ago at this location? I told him yes, and I was his son. He said the driver of the vehicle that was hit was his father, and that the man who drove the car that killed him was rich, and had found a way to avoid liability. He said he had always kept track of that man, and said the man was struck and killed by a car two years previous.

Near the airport and the dump was a golf driving range. During the late ‘30s, some of us kids were hired to pick up golf balls from the field. We were paid ten cents for our work and we would give back five cents for our favorite candy bar, a Milky Way. 

We liked to go to the dump also. There we found what we thought was some neat stuff and took it home. When our parents saw what we had hauled home they made us put it out to the street so the rubbish man could haul it back to the dump. I often wonder if the rubbish man thought that some of those things seemed familiar! 

The Sheridan Park Golf Course had some nice hills where we could sled during the winter. One day I slid down the hill and ended in the creek. It was a long freezing walk home! There was also a pond where we ice skated on. When summer came, I would go to the fields next to the golf course to find golf balls that the golfers had lost. Then I would sell them back to them. One day I found and sold twelve dollars worth of balls, with which I bought a portable radio. Since they were new on the market at that time, few people had them. The radio was large by today’s standards. I liked the smell of the plastic material that covered it. The plastic looked like leather, and the radio had large batteries. It was great to take anywhere and have music. 

During the ‘30s and ‘40s, I had many ways to make money. I picked up pop and beer bottles from along the roadways, and took them back to the store where I got two cents each for them. I had a paper route, cut lawns, worked in the field with John, and got a weekly allowance of twenty five cents from mother for my home chores. During the fall and winter, I went to the housing project where I received a dollar for each ton of coal I could carry from the street to the customer’s coal bin. My friend Dale Thiel and I would usually do the coal jobs together. We would use the customer’s trash cans to haul the coal. It took about 20 to 23 cans for the ton of coal. Also during the winter I would shovel snow from people’s driveways and sidewalks, for two or three dollars. The nearby horse riding stables rented out horses to the public. They made many trails through the woods and fields that we would ride our bikes on. We literally had trail bikes in those days! Also in the woods we would build tree houses from scrap wood we found.

What is left when you cease to distinguish truths from fiction? And Other Existential Questions

Alan Thier's novel Mr Eternity probes the philosophical questions that each generation struggles to answer. What is freedom? What is truth? Can we trust individual or corporate memory? Was there a Utopian age, and can we recreate it? Can--will-- we find our own version of El Dorado? Or the Anna Gloria woman of our dreams? What is the meaning of life? Can we find happiness?

Survivor of 24 shipwrecks, Daniel Defoe/Old Dan/The ancient mariner--his name changing over the centuries--tells stories dredged from his jumbled memories. He has seen the world change and change back again. Myth and history become fused in his memory. Generations of young adults hope he holds answers:

• A college drop-out in 2016 wants to make a film on 'the ancient mariner'. At twenty-seven years old, he 'is nothing', popping pills and worrying about global warming and the future. He travels with Dan on a treasure quest.

• In 1560 a native Indian Pirahoa girl travels with Daniel de Fo, 100 years old, and the Christian conquistadors who seek El Dorado. Her world is about to collapse. 

• In 2200 Jam is traveling down the coast from Boston to Florida with Old Dan, 750 years old. Dan seeks his long lost love Anna Gloria. Jam is nineteen, a poor orphan, angry and lusting for the past world of air conditioners and mosquito repellent. 

• Dr. Dan Defoe was 300 years old in 1750 when John Green meets him in the Bahamas. John was the child of his slave mother and her master. With his death and rebirth Dr. Dan helps him find freedom and love.

• In 2500 Jasmine Roulette, the daughter of the King of St Louis and president of the Democratic Federation of Mississippi States, is a powerless political pawn living in decadent luxury. An anachro-feminist and insatiable reader, she is obsessed with the lost American civilization. She was 26 when her father bought an old slave named Daniel Defoe who remembered the glory of the United States. 

Daniel Defoe's long life has brought wisdom: kingdoms come and go; civilizations are destroyed. Each generation must learn to let go of what they cannot control and enjoy life, even a life lived when the world is ending. True love should be each man's El Dorado, even only spun from imagination.

I was fascinated by this book. I found each character engaging. Daniel DeFoe shares aspects of the title character in his namesake's novel Robinson Crusoe, surviving shipwrecks and being sold into slavery. The young adult characters voices and perceptions are distinct and clear.

I loved the wacky, mishmash stories Dan tells of the past; they were hilarious, but also chillingly revealing. Thomas Jefferson is remembered as a revolutionary terrorist in the jihad against Great Britain. Dan says he knew a space captain named Robinson Caruso who built farms and cities on Mars.

Daniel explains the collapse of American civilization: it was more economical to allow the destruction of the world than to save it. In the future Georgia becomes the pineapple state, St. Louis is surrounded by arid desert and camels.

Readers who prefer a novel that is plot or character-driven, or following a linear time line, will find this book a challenge. Although it deals with philosophical issues, the issues rise out of the characters struggles.

The theme of the book is eternal, the specific concerns timely.

I received a free ARC through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

http://cannellagency.com/portfolio/mr-eternity/

Mr. Eternity
Alan Thier
Bloomsbury Books USA
$26 hard cover
Publication August 9, 2016
ISBN 9781632860934

It's a Dark Night Inside: The Language of Dying by Sarah Pinborough

Caring for a dying parent is a universal and timeless experience. Some children hover, an administering angel, while others stay in distant denial; some vent their anger at the gods or fate that they are being left, or being left to care, while others eagerly await the freedom that parental death can sometimes bring to a child. It is a time when we face the past and the future, forgive or hold on to resentment, become the child our parent always wished for, or being cut loose can finally become ourself.

The Language of Dying is an honest and moving journey into the soul and heart of a daughter caring for her father's last days. Her dysfunctional family, which has "so much colour that the brightness is damaging", comes together briefly to the family home.

There is the older sister Penny, a 'glowing' woman who hides behind a 'Gucci persona', full of excuses why she did not take on their father's care.

Older brother Paul is a dominating and charming man addicted to excesses. and who disappears for months at a time.

The twin boys are the youngest, beset with demons. Davey, dually addicted, tenuously holding onto sanity and sobriety, and lost Simon whose self-destructive dive began when abused by a trusted older man.

And our heroine, victim of an abusive marriage, struggling to repair her life, who cares for her dying father day and night.

Their shared past is their parent's alcoholism and break-up, but our heroine alone sees the wild, red eyed creature, wonderful and waiting for her.

"Love is hard to kill," she thinks, like life, and the family bounds hold tenuously.

Pingborough's insightful writing captures the emotional life of her narrator. It is also beautiful and memorable writing.

My father died of non-Hodgkins lymphoma and spent over two months in the hospital and one day in the hospital Hospice. Every day I went to the hospital at 9 am and left when my brother arrived at 5 pm. My brother and I were with dad his last days. The language of dying, the special lingo of death, the practices of caring for the terminally ill and the strange rituals that become everyday is captured in this moving novel.

But there is another level to the story, the wild creature that comes in the night to lure our heroine to another world.

"Well, now that we have seen each other', said the Unicorn,/'If you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you.' Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There

She first saw the vision the night her mother left the family. It haunts her at pivotal moments in her life, a summons to come away. Call it fantasy, magic, or projection, in this novella the unicorn represents a place of belonging and the freedom of new life. "This creature and I belong together. I know it and so does he," she thinks. He is nothing like the archetypal unicorn, he is black not white, his horn is twisted and deformed. He brings her "joy, pure and bright" before disappearing into the night. She knows it waits for her. When will she be ready to follow?

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Language of Dying
Sarah Pinborough
Quercus
Publication August 2, 2016
$9.99 ebook
ISBN: 9781681444345

Quilts and Gardens

Children's time at the Blair Memorial Library

This month our Clawson library quilt display includes two that I made quite a while back.

 Children of the World is a vintage pattern which I crayon tinted and embroidered and hand quilted.

Saucey Senoritas is a commercial pattern that uses handkerchiefs for the skirts of lovely Spanish ladies.

Quilts by my Tuesday quilt group include:

The library is next door to the Clawson Historical Museum which has lovely gardens courtesy of the Garden Club.

Blair Memorial Library

Garden Path at Historical Musem

 

I am progressing on the MODA Bee-autiful Quilt-A-Long blocks. They are a great summer project!

Dreams and Dust: I Will Send Rain by Rae Meadows

I Will Send Rain by Rae Meadows is a beautifully written portrait of a family and a community struggling to survive during the early Dust Bowl days in Oklahoma. The characters are memorable and complicated, their story heart breaking and vivid.

Annie left her parent's parsonage home to follow Samuel's dream. Starting life out in a sod hut, they built a farm and a family, a life that brought them joy until the death of their child brought a distance between them. Now in 1934 everything they had built together is being torn apart by dust storms and crop failures.

Their eldest, Birdie, at nearly sixteen has fallen in love with a farmer's son but dreams they will leave Oklahoma for a better life. Their youngest, Fred, does not speak but has a great heart and deep understanding.

Samuel loves farming, and watching all he worked for drift away in the wind leads him to wonder what sin must be atoned for. Dreams haunt him day and night until he decided God has spoken and called him to show his faith by building a boat.

Annie lost her faith with the death of her child. She dreams about another version of herself, a woman who wasn't reduced to sharp angles by the endless hardships of the failing farm. The mayor's attentions offer an escape to seek that other woman.

Families flee silently in the night, men kill themselves in despair, and society breaks up. And this part of the story I find most intriguing.

The community comes together to hire a charlatan who promises that shooting fireworks into the sky will bring rain. The magic does not work.

The mayor's assistant comes up with a way to deal with the proliferation of rabbits that destroy the struggling gardens: the community will round them up and kill them. The killing of the scapegoat rabbits is like a primitive ritual, an appeasement to the God who has punished them with dust, locusts, and eventually even the death of the son.

At once particular point the authorial voice breaks through with an omniscient prophecy of what it will take to save the land, including tapping the Ogallala aquifer-- a limited resource. And at that moment the book is not just about the past but our future, a prophecy of life to come if we do not change our ways. When that ancient water source is gone---it is gone, and the cycle could start all over again.

I had just read The Water Knife about the Southwest water wars after climate change. This historical novel has as much to tell us about the future as any dystopian novel. Because if we don't learn from the past we will repeat it.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

I Will Send Rain
by Rae Meadows
Henry Holt
Publication date August 9, 2016
$26.00 hard cover
ISBN: 9781627794268

The Heartland's Grass Roots Movement of Barn Quilts

Ogemaw County, Michigan is a few hours drive away. The primeval forest land was logged off in the 19th c and Amish and Mennonite farmers from Ohio and Indiana moved in. Farm land, open fields, and snug towns cuddle between rolling hills. Just off the expressway is West Branch with its smilely face water tower, voted the favorite tourist sight for those traveling 'up north'.

West Branch has a deep history in quilts. The historical musem has several 19th c quilts in its collection. Quilt pattern designer and teacher Kay Wood lived here while her PBS show demonstrated how to simplify quilting. I have attended the annual Quilt Walk Hospice fundraiser (read about it here and here).

Inspired by Donna Sue Groves, whose first Barn Quilt was erected on her Adams County, Ohio barn to honor her mother, Ogamaw County created their own Barn Quilt Trail. (Read my post about the Ogamaw County Quilt Trail here. )

Since 2001 Donna has inspired communities across the country to organize Barn Quilt Trails, with the movement now crossing international borders.

In 2008 Suzi Parron was on holiday when she noticed a painted quilt block on the side of a barn. She had to return and find it. It led her on a journey, discovering Donna Sue Groves and the first Barn Quilt installations.

There was little information available about Barn Quilts and Parron decided to document the art grass roots movement. It involved extensive travel across the nation, photographing the barns and their quilt blocks and interviewing hundreds to learn the stories behind each installation.

Parron's efforts have yielded two books, Barn Quilts and the American Quilt Trail Movement and Following the Barn Quilt Trail.

Barn Quilts and the American Quilt Trail Movement documents Suzi's journey to discover the origin of the movement and its growth. The book is an homage to America's heartland farmers and farm wives, their barns and quilts symbolizing root American values and a heritage of industry and family.

The quilt blocks are painted on wood and attached to the barns. A form of communal art,  Donna Sue Groves likens the trails to quilts on a clothesline strung across the land. The quilt blocks often represent a beloved heirloom family quilt and Suzie's interviews are full of heartwarming personal stories.

Suzie's first book includes travels to Adams County, Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

The Barn Quilt Movement spread like wildfire. Suzi quit her job and moved into a bus to travel full time to research her second book, Following the Barn Quilt Trail. This books is more relevetory about Suzi and Glen and the ups and downs of traveling. Beginning in Michigan, she includes Canada, New York, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Vermont, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Louisiana, Kansas, Nebraska, Louisiana, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois, Wisconsin, and finally west to Washington and California, and south to Texas, Kentucky, South Carolina, and the Deep South.

The books are beautifully presented with an attractive layout, quilt block chapter heads, and every page or two includes glossy color photographs of  barns and quilt blocks. They are not comprehensive picture books; it would be impossible to show every Barn Quilt. What Suzi does is capture the human side of the movement, the women and men, and sharing their stories. Most come from generations of farmers. Often a Barn Quilt saved an old family barn from loss, inspiring its preservation. But the movement also inspired towns to create quilt blocks for family businesses and shops.

The Barn Quilt movement's speaks to America's nostalgia for simplier times, the pride, independence,  hard work and satisfaction of the family farms of our grear-grandparents.

Tourists now pick up Quilt Trail brochures and seek out Barn Quilts down dusty lanes and two lane roads, driving past fancy modern farms and the farms of  Plain people, searching for an America few of us today know.

The movement has peaked and Suzi does not plan a third book on the subject.

This spring my quilt guild hosted Suzi for a lecture and a workshop. A former teacher, Suzi has a wonderful presence, articulate and personable, with a great sense of humor. Her worskshop was well organized and we had a marvelous time making our own mini-Barn Quilt.

Following the example of so many I chose an heirloom quilt to reproduce: Gary's great-grandmother's Single Wedding Ring quilt in Turkey red and white, made about 100 years ago.

My Barn Quilt, Single Wedding Ring block

We suburbanites mount our blocks in yards and on houses. Just a few blocks away is a Mid-century ranch house with two 'barn quilts' already!

I received free books from Ohio University Press in exchage for a fair and unbiased review.

Memoirs of Eugene Gochenour Part I

My father Eugene Gochenour wrote a memoir about his life growing up in Tonawanda, NY. I will be sharing excerpts. Over the next months I will share what Dad wrote, starting with his memories of his father.

Alger Jordan Gochenour was born on March 25, 1904 on a farm at the community of Fairview, Virginia, located in the Shenandoah Valley.

The first Gochenour came to America in 1735, years before we were a nation. Jacob Gochenour and his family were Mennonites who came to America to avoid religious persecution. He acquired 400 acres in 1735 in the valley.

Henry David Gochenour, Dad’s father, was a fifth generation descendant and he was born on December 5, 1861 and died May 28th, 1924. He married Mary Stultz, born on June 4, 1864 and died on April 23, 1927. Her nickname was Mollie.

Dad’s father had operated a tanyard which had been operated by his father. Most of my father’s decedents of his lineage are buried at the Mount Zion Lutheran Church cemetery, located near the farm. I never met my grandparents, as they had died before I was born.

Father never told me why he ran away from his home as a youth but I was told that he only had an eighth grade education. He and a friend ran away together and their travels took them to New York City. They earned money by cleaning and polishing office furniture far business people. Dad was a good salesman and he and his friend had unique skills.

Dad, dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase, would go into an office building and ask the receptionist if he could talk to the person responsible for cleaning the office furniture. Since no one had ever done this service for them before he would often be taken to talk to the owner or manager of the office. Dad knew that their office was the showplace where business people met with their clients, and that their office furniture and desks were very expensive. Many of their chairs were upholstered with leather, and the desks were made from cherry wood.

After he introduced himself, he gave them a demonstration on one of the office chairs. To show that the cleaner would not harm the finish, he drank some of it. This impressed the customer, but it was harmless, since it was only water with baking soda. I don’t know where Dad learned about the cleaner but it did a great job. After he cleaned the chair, he took a clean white cloth and wiped it dry, and showed all the dirt he had removed. Then he applied the polish, and when he buffed it, it looked like new. He explained that he was aware how important the clothes business people wore were, and that the polish he used would not soil them. Dad told them he would work in the evening after they had left for the day, and would not expect to be paid until the job was finished.

Dad and his friend had many jobs at New York City but eventually he went to Tonawanda, leaving them behind. I don’t know why father left New York City, or how he came to live at Tonawanda, but once there he became an insurance salesman. In those days insurance salesman went from door to door to collect the money for the policies and that is how I suspect he met Mother. Mother at that time was living at home with my grandparents and worked at the Remington Rand Company that was located at Wheeler Street and Military Road. [Note: I heard that Al and Emma meet because Al went to the factory and he noticed her. He asked her out several times before she agreed.] Father lived at the Lincoln Hotel in North Tonawanda.

Emma Becker and Al Gochenour seated; wedding photo

Al Gochenour, 1927

They were married on December 24, 1927. Mildred Behner was the witness for mother at the ceremony, and she also became mother’s lifelong friend. It was just a small wedding. Times were good and since Dad made good money as an insurance salesman, they bought a new car and a new house. The house they bought was built by my grandfather and it was located across the street from his own on Morgan Street.

Tonawanda, NY 

Mother quit working and sister Mary was born in 1929. The Depression started in 1929 when the stock market fell and in 1930 I was born. The insurance business deteriorated and Dad lost his income and in 1935 my parents lost their new car and the house and they had to move.

Before we moved Dad wanted to take us all to his childhood home in Virginia. The trip was made in an Erskine automobile. To me the trip was an attempt to temporarily escape the problems they had left behind. Mother, Father, Mary, and I visited relatives that lived on the farm that had been Dad’s boyhood home. Both his mother and father had died years before, and a brother and his family lived in the old homestead.

1865 Military Road in 1935

After the trip to Virginia we moved to an old farmhouse on Military Road in the Town of Tonawanda. The house was [made into] a duplex and there was a family living in the large side; their name was Morrow. Roy and Winnie Morrow had five children: Buster, Audrey, June, Sunny, and Tommy. Tommy was my age, the rest were older. I was five years old when we moved there but I still remember how impressed I was with the huge grassy front yard.

Our side of the house had not been lived in for years, but the rent was only ten dollars a month. In the kitchen was a wood burning cooking stove that also heated the house. An outhouse served as our toilet. During the winter blankets were hung over the doors to keep the heat in the living room and kitchen. The upstairs bedrooms where we slept were unheated. Thick comforters made it hard to roll over when sleeping since they were so heavy. Chamber pots were kept under the beds during the winter. As a boy I do remember opening my bedroom window and urinating outside. There are some advantages boys have! Mother never questioned why she never had to empty the pot.

Dad worked jobs like cutting fire wood and at a cemetery until he was hired at the Buffalo Bolt Works located in North Tonawanda.
Mother would  take Mary and I to visit our Becker grandparents and mother’s brother Levant who lived at 520 Morgan Street in the City of Tonawanda. It was a fairly large house with a porch that went across the whole front. When you walked in the front door there was a large banister that went to the upstairs bedrooms. It had a large living room, a dining room, and in the kitchen sat a large wood burning cooking stove. During the winter shoes were all around the stove drying.

John and Martha Kelm Becker, German refugees from Russia

One of the favorite foods my grandmother cooked she called perugans [pierogies]. They were about the size of a ping pong ball and consisted of a cheese coated with ground up potatoes then deep fried.

Grandfather raised pigeons and would occasionally kill some young ones for dinner. One day when I was back by the garage where the pigeon coupes were I stumbled on to a hornet nest. I had never seen hornets before and when one stung me I just jumped up and down, and hollered. This caused more hornets to sting but I finally ran away from them. Grandfather heard all the noise, and came
back to see what had happened. When he saw that I was all bit up he put on some mud on to take the sting away.

Sometimes when we would visit I would play with the neighborhood kids. We played kick the can, hide and seek, and sometimes we would stomp on cans till they stuck to our shoes then klomp around the street.

I am not sure how old I was when my grandmother died but I do remember she was laid out in the dining room of their home. After a few years grandfather married a lady called Mrs. Pete. Grandfather also outlived her and spent the rest of his life a widower. My uncle Lee was still living with grandfather when he married Mrs. Pete but soon after joined the army, and served in Korea. He was the youngest, and the last of the children to live on Morgan Street.

Amish Quilts: How 'Ugly' Quilts Became High Art and Changed Quilting

Amish Quilts: Crafting and American Icon by Janneken Smucker was a revelation.

My quilt life began in 1991. My mother-in-law quilted in the 1980s. I saw quilts being sold at Philadelphia's Head House Square in the 1970s. I taught myself to sew, and dabbled in macramé and needlepoint. But it was that first quilt that changed my life. I quickly became interested in quilt history and antique quilts, which meant reading books because I was too poor to collect, and making quilts inspired by antique quilts.

Over the years I learned about the quilt revival, how quilts became 'art' and not just 'craft'. I saw the names of people whose books I have read (Roderick Kiracofe, Julie Silber), and who now I follow on Facebook. I thought I was pretty savvy about the history of quilting in the 20th c. But Smucker's book on Amish Quilts took all I knew and put it in a narrative that enlightened me and broadened my knowledge.

http://www.antiquesandthearts.com/amish-quilts-from-the-espirit-collection-return-to-lancaster/

The book begins with an introduction to the Amish and their life and values. She tells how antique Amish quilts, relegated to closets as old fashioned and ugly, suddenly were valued for their simple 'modern' minimalist design and deemed worthy for walls and art galleries. Pickers and dealers went door to door buying the quilts, which they resold for increasingly higher prices.

The demand for affordable quilts for home decorating brought in cottage industries, and the cottage industries hired out to non-Amish, including the Hmong people who settled in the Lancaster, PA area. (Read about the Hmong here.)

1990s cheater cloth quilts which I hand quilted

Oddly, while the black and solid color minimalist quilts were becoming identified with the Amish, contemporary Amish quilters were using new easy-care fabrics and designs for their homes.

Quilts were created to meet the demand for affordable quilts for home decorators. The Country Bride Quilt, developed by Rachel Pellman of Lancaster's The Old Country Store, was in the popular country rose and blue colors and had an appliqué design of hearts and birds.

'Amish' made 1990s quilt owned by Diane Little

My Disselfink, a pattern from a 1990s Old Country Store publication

With 100 color photographs of Amish quilts, this book on quilts, art, and economics is a must-have for anyone interested in the history of quilting in the 20th c.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Amish Quilts
Janneken Smucker
John Hopkins University Press
Hard cover $36,95
ISBN: 9781142141053