Sunday, April 26, 2015

The Teller of Tales: Stevenson, Samoa, and The Last Bookaneer


I have been a long time Stevenson fan. I loved A Child's Garden of Verses as a girl. In third grade I discovered a slim biography on R. L. Stevenson in my classroom's small library. I read it several times, fascinated by his varied and romantic life. Some years ago I happened upon a tattered copy and picked it up. It was published in 1954, written by G. B. Stern and entitled Robert Louis Stevenson: The Man Who Wrote "Treasure Island. I had copies of Kidnapped and The Black Arrow; I loved the movie versions of Treasure Island. Some years ago I happened upon The Lighthouse Stevensons by Ella Bathurst and enjoyed it.

I have also been a Matthew Pearl fan since reading his first novel The Dante Club. His latest novel is The Bookaneers, a rollicking good read with lots of twists and turns and red herrings. A Bookaneer is Pearl's imagined literary pirates, back before the United States accepted European copywrite laws, vying to steal manuscripts to be sold to printers. Their idealized rationale was that literature must be available to the readers. Their motive, more than money, was pride in being the best thief.

Bookaneer Pen Davenport has asked bookseller Fergins to travel to Samoa with him as his sidekieck. Fergins was to record Davenport's last act as Bookaneer before the July 1, 1890 deadline when copyright laws are enacted in the United States. His object is to steal Robert Louis Stevenson's current novel. Their arch rival Belial has arrived before them, taking the role of a Marist priest to worm his way into the Stevenson household. Davenport is posing as a travel writer.

In 1889, after wandering the South Pacific, Stevenson settled in Samoa where he built a home, Vailima , where his and his wife and her children lived until his death in 1894. In The Bookaneers we meet Stevenson and learn about his life in Samoa and his 'lordship' over the natives who called him Tusitala-- The Teller of Tales. In a preliterate society without books, memorizing the tribal stories by a story teller was an important and revered role. Stevenson is a real presence, his lanky frame draped sideways over chairs, or sprawled on a bed surrounded by papers while writing.

The story is framed with Fergins telling his adventures with Davenport to a young friend, Mr. Clover, a dark skinned train waiter in love with books. Fergins himself is a Teller of Tales. This device allows Pearl to manipulate the plot in ingenious ways, keeping the reader on a roller coaster ride as Clover hears the story in pieces,and in the end goes on his own search for knowledge. Several times I thought the story had concluded; but one more twist was in store.

The book reminded me of an adventure tale, a romance like the old school stories of the 19th c. I enjoyed every minute.

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

The Last Bookaneer
Mathew Pearl
Penguin Press
Publication April 28, 2015
ISBN: 9781594204920
$27.95 hardcover




Saturday, April 25, 2015

April in "A Year With the Fairies"

The Gardeners

When April comes with sun and showers
The Pixies plant a million flowers;
Each Pixie brings his little spade
And digs and delves in vale and glade.

The whole day long he spades and weeds
And gives to Earth his little seeds,
And begs from April sun and showers
Til little seeds grow into flowers.












April Wakes the Flowers

April clad in crystal rain-drops
Danced across the sunny skies,
Found Earth's children still lay sleeping,
Yearned once more to see their eyes.

So she pelted them with rain-drops,
Sprinkled them with soft warm showers,
Till the pattering of her crystals
Waked the sleep, smiling flowers.












from A Year With the Fairies, by Anna M. Scott, illustrations by M. T. Ross
1914, P. F. Volland & Co,

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Roots of Understanding: The Poetry of Robert Hillyer

"Quite simply, for a long long time now, You've made me happy, sad, and tremendously alert with your poems. For all this, I want to thank you." Letter written by Ray Bradbury to Robert Hillyer on September 10, 1959
As I wondered how to address Poetry Month I perused the poetry books on my bookshelf. When I saw the first book of poetry I ever purchased for myself I knew what to write about.

As a girl I would bring home books of poetry from the school library, reading everything from Walt Whitman to Catullus over the years. The Collected Poems by Robert Hillyer was one of my early favorites. My copy was purchased on December 31, 1968 for $4.75 with Christmas money. I read those poems over and over. I didn't know anything about Hillyer. I realized I never heard anything about him in my classes.

I Goggled and found Robert Stillman Hillyer won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1934. He was part of the Harvard Aesthetes, a group that included Malcolm Cowley, E. E. Cummings, John Dos Passos, S, Foster Damon, and John Brooks Wheelwright. He was an ambulance driver in the war, and taught in many universities.

The poems were very nostalgic, which appealed to me. I've written before about how moving when I was ten years old affected me, that I was full of longing and nostalgia for the 'old days' of my first home. I found especially poignant the poem Julia's Room, which was one of Hillyer's poems set to music.

He went up the dark stairs and knocked at Julia's door;
It opened, and a blade of light cut the dim hall,
But the girl was a stranger and when he spoke to her
She could not--or would not--understand at all.
She looked at him a moment--horrified, he thought--
Then slammed to door shut.

Bewildered, he guessed that while he was away
Julia must have invited a friend he had never known;
Sometimes when she asked an old friend to stay
She moved to the attic room and gave her own away.
So he climbed the second flight, but that floor was dark
As rain-drenched bark.

"Julia!" he called but no light flashed on.
"Julia!" he called down the stairwell gloom...
"Whoever you are, for God's sake be gone!"
Then he remembered it was fifty years ago
And he melted like snow.

Oh, I loved nostalgia! Like this poem remembering a childhood scene of skipping pebbles with a friend:

Of lives that intersect, then go their way
At last to lose themselves alone against
The shores of silence, our brief hours of play
Seem now the symbol; the bright memory fenced
With deep, oblivious forest, and condensed
Into one flash, one fragmentary scene
That skips the surface of the years between.
from A Memory

Another poem I especially liked was The Victim.
The hummingbird that darts and hovers
Made one fatal dart--alas!--
Against a counterfeit of flowers
Reflected in the window glass.
When four-o'clocks had sunk in shadow,
The window caught an extra glint
Of color, like the sudden rainbow
Arching the purple firmament.
Transcendent are the traceries
Illusion weaves to set a snare;
The quick competitor of bees,
Trusting his universe of air
Fr flight and fancy, dazzled so
In quest of sweetness, was waylaid
By something hard that had a glow
Brighter than the garden made.
Illusion shatters; the ideal
Is much more ruthless than the real.
The visionary hummingbird
Hit nothingness, and hit it hard.
This poem was a little morality tale, like The Spider and The Fly in my One Hundred and One Famous Poems, which I wrote about here.

Throughout the volume I underlined lines that caught my heart or mind.

"Is there nobody now 
Who can speak with my speech
But the wind in th ruin,
The waves on the beach? 
from Manorbrier

In Thermopylae he wrote, "Men lied to them and so they went to die. Some fell, knowing that they were deceived, And some escaped, and bitterly bereaved, Beheld the truth they loved shrink to a lie."

This was deep stuff!

"For life deals thus with Man, to die alone deceived or with the mass, Or disillusioned to complete his span. Thermopylae or Golgotha, all one, The young dead legions in the narrow pass, he stark black cross against the setting sun."

I didn't know what Thermopylae was, or hardly even Golgotha although the cross reference may have helped me on that. It gave me something to think about.

His long poem The Gates of the Compass II. The Nightmare was quite horrible and Gothic to me. It starts,

We come on leaden feet, we come with leaden
Tread along the haunted corridors
Through darkness void as in a dying brain
Where one by one the thoughts have flickered out.

We are told the unknown dead loved life, and not to dismiss his death, for "In him you weep the doom that is your own."

Traditional verse fell out of favor. Hillyer seems to be a forgotten poet. I had not picked up this volume in years. But the poems spoke to my girl's mind and, like Ray Bradbury, I want to thank him.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/robert-hillyer
http://library.syr.edu/digital/guides/h/hillyer_r.htm

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

"Recycling" Vintage Hexie Quilts

Recycled Hexie Quilts: Using Vintage Hexagon Quilts in Today's Quilts  ins't the most gripping title but once you see Mary W. Kerr's quilts you will be hooked. I was prowling eBay looking for Hexie quilts within the hour. I have a sudden need to accumulate cutter quilts, particularly those based on hexagons!

Kerr first presents vintage quilts using Hexagon patterns, including Grandmother's Flower Garden variations, Seven Sisters Hexagon, flower baskets, floral wreathes, stars, lozenge, and mosaic diamonds. Scrappy and planned patterns are included.

Then we see 52 new quilts made with 'recycled' Hexie quilts. I already love using vintage textiles in quilts. I have, after all, 800 handkerchiefs, four drawers of old laces and trims and ribbons, a big drawer of embroidered linens, and who knows what else squirreled away.

Kerr demonstrates how to use Hexies as sashing, blocks, or borders combined with vintage embroidered linens, embroidered quilt blocks, and applique blocks. They are just wonderful!

I loved her use of cutter hexie tops as wide sashing and borders around vintage embroidered linens. A modern looking quilt can be made by floating hexie 'blocks' on a solid background fabric. She also has examples of some non-hexie recycled tops. Her examples range from pillows to bed sized quilts.

A chapter on how to work with vintage Hexie textiles can be applied to other pieced tops. Labels, quilting, and using fusibles also merit chapters. A nice step-by-step tutorial on applying crocheted doilies to a quilt is given.

The book has 148 full color photographs of inspirational quilts and is beautifully laid out.

This is not a pattern book, but you will get tips and inspiration to create your own recycled Hexie quilt project. This is a great book for the quilt guild library, too.

Mary W. Kerr is a quilt appraiser with the American Quilt Society and has published several books, teaches about vintage textiles, and restores quilts.

I received a free ebook for a fair and unbiased review.

Recycled Hexie Quilts
Mary W. Kerr
Schiffer Publishing
ISBN13: 9780764348204
$19.95 soft cover
Publication Date: April 28, 2015

Monday, April 20, 2015

My Lancashire Greenwood Family

My great-grandfather was Cropper James Greenwood. According to his Baptismal entry he was born February 13, 1882 in Bacup, Lancashire, England and baptized May 7, 1882 by A. Phillips, Vicar of St. John's church. His parents were William and Elizabeth Greenwood of Underbank St. in Bacup. William was a warper. Underbank was over the Irwell River.

Their 1875 marriage certificate shows William 23, warper of Underbank and son of Hartley (dec), sizer, married Elizabeth Hacking, 20, weaver of Vale St, daughter of Daniel Hacking, greengrocer. They were married at Christ Church, Bacup, by John M’Cubbin Vicar. Witnesses were James Greaces and Sarah Statt.

Cropper's first name was his great-grandmother Sarah Cropper's last name. The name has been traced back to the 16th c in Lancashire, England.

Greenwood is an ancient Anglo-Saxon name prevalent in the area. The middle name James does not appear anywhere but on the 1940 New York census where he is listed as James Greenwood.

Rossendale, Lancashire 
The Forest of Rossendale, once a royal hunting ground, was deforested for cultivation in 1507 by Henry VII, opening the land for settlement; towns that grew there included Bacup. Newchurch, and Waterfoot, all districts within the Rossendale township. Read more about Newchurch at  http://www.british-history.ac.uk 
The moors were used to raise sheep for their wool. Until the Industrial Revolution weaving was a home based industry. Around 1780 muslin or cotton lawn was being woven in Bacup, with Fustian, a thick and rough but long lasted cotton, soon being made. The Fustian was good for warp thread in weaving. The local damp climate was good for spinning yarn. Cotton dealers gave warp and weft to local weavers who brought back the manufactured cloth. From The History of the Forest of  Rossendale; read the full text at http://archive.org/stream/historyofforesto00newb/historyofforesto00newb_djvu.txt
A Hartley ancestry page notes that her ancestor Greenwood Harley left Colne for Bacup for work after the industrial revolution put the home cottage weaving industry out of business. 
 By the mid-1800s the Lancashire cotton mills had reached their heyday turning out 8 billion yards of cloth a year.http://www.saburchill.com/history/chapters/IR/014.html 
 For information on the Lancashire spinning industry see http://www.spinningtheweb.org.uk
Lancashire Roots

The 1891 Census for Newchurch, Lancashire shows Cropper, age nine, living with his family at Blackthorn Terrace. His father William, age 48, was a warper; that meant he set up the long parallel warp yarns on the loom in one of the mills. His mother Elizabeth was age 34. The eldest son, David H. (Hartley) at age 15 was a weaver. Thirteen-year-old Eveline, eleven-year-old Roland, nine-year-old Cropper, six-year-old Sam and baby Fred kept Elizabeth busy.
Photographs of warpers at work can be found at:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lincoln_Cotton_Mills,_Evansville,_Ind._Girls_at_weaving_machines,_warpers._Evansville,_Ind._-_NARA_-_523100.jpg
http://textileranger.com/2014/04/04/a-little-commemoration-here-please/

Bacup in 1900
The 1901 census shows the family in Bacup, Dry Corner, Rossendale. William was still a cotton warper. Cropper was working in a quarry and Sam was a farm laborer. Children at home included Fred and seven-year-old Alice. David was living elsewhere.
Quarrying in the moorlands dates back to the 15th century when the stone was used locally, especially for roofing slates. Sandstone outcrops rise above ground high on the sides of the valley. With the growth of cities like London a demand for paving and building stone increased quarrying. By 1902 the local landscape was no longer recognizable, rubbish heaps and machines dominated a ruined landscape. http://www.valleyofstone.org.uk/media/Downloads/Valley_of_stone_History_of_Quarrying_Early_Quarrying.pdf
Immigration to America
The Majestic
September 1906 Cropper, age 24, immigrated to America on the Majestic out of Liverpool. His occupation was given as 'farmer.' On September 27 he arrived in New York City. He was described as single, a farmer born in Bacup, England. He was 5'3", with dark hair and dark eyes. He paid for passage himself and had $50. He was going to Mechanicville, Saratoga Co., NY. He had traveled with women and children from Bacup going to Mechanicville to join their husband and father; they settled in Troy, NY.

In America- Marriage

On December 12, 1906, Delia Smith, age 17 and born September 6, 1889, arrived on the Majestic. Age 20, Delia had been a domestic in Manchester. She was going to the home of 'friend' C. Greenwood, 24 Williams St. in Mechanicville, NY. Delia was 5'3" with a dark complexion, brown hair and gray eyes. She had $45.

Delia, or Della, was born at Chat Moss, Barton on Irwell to Irish parents John Smith and Bridget Allen. John Smith came from horse breeders and his children could 'ride before they could walk' I was told. He was also called Pigeon Jack, so perhaps he participated in the popular sport of pigeon racing. His father bred horses in Ireland. The story is that John was given horses to sell in England; instead of returning with the money he stayed in England. He died in a tragic train accident in 1901. His wife had died several years before. Delia was twelve at her father's death. She worked as a domestic servant in the Manchester area. In 1906 she immigrated to American to join her fiancée Cropper Greenwood.

Delia and Cropper married on February 21, 1907, in Troy, NY. They had children Emmett Howard, born 1908 and died of a heart ailment at age 9; Frederick Edward 1912-1957; and my grandmother Evelyn, 1913-1996.

Cropper next appears in the 1907 Troy, NY city directory working as a stable hand. The 1909 directory shows he was still a stableman but had moved. In 1910 they had moved again--but Cropper was now a chauffeur. Mom told that he was a 'chauffeur for a rich man." They moved again in both 1914 and 1915 with Cropper still a chauffeur. 

His WWI Draft Registration shows Cropper's birth as February 15, 1877. This is quite different from the birth records found. He worked as a chauffeur for Thomas Connor. The 1920 census shows a Thomas Connor living in Watervielet, born in Ireland, and 47 y.o. Cropper and Della Smith Greenwood were living on Parameter St. in Troy, NY. He was described as short, medium weight, with black hair and brown eyes.

The 1923 city directory shows Cropper was a machinist and living in a new location. From 1926 through 1931 Cropper was a 'machinist' living with Della on Central Ave in Troy.

In 1933 Cropper returned to England. The ship manifest gave his last address in England as Scout Holme St, Waterfoot, Lancaster.

May 23, 1927, Cropper Greenwood became a naturalized citizen at the District Court, Troy NY. In 1943 Delia became a U.S. citizen.
Actually, they lived in Troy,  NY
Cropper with his grandchildren, my twin uncles Don and Dave, in 1930
Sometime after 1947 Cropper and Delia moved to Kenmore, NY. Cropper died on December 11, 1956, when I was not four years old. My father said Cropper had sold us his old Dodge. He loved it and missed it and when he visited he would just sit in it.
 +++++
I was recently contacted by a "distant cousin" who shared the first photos I have ever seen of my great-grandfather's family. This family photo is circa 1989.

Back Row: Sam (1884), Rowland (1880), David Hartley (1876), Cropper (1882) 
Middle Row: William (Father) (1852), Eveline (1878), Elizabeth (Mother) 
Front Row: Alice Jane (1894) and Fred (1891)

Elizabeth Hacking Greenwood
My great-great grandmother reminded me of her great-granddaughter, my Aunt Nancy, in her face shape and diminutive size.
William Greenwood
The Greenwood, Hartley and Cropper families were cotton mill workers for generations. William's parents were Hartley Greenwood, a cotton warp sizer born in Colne, and Sarah Cropper, born in Bacup.

In 1861 William Greenwood lived on Underbank in Bacup. Their oldest son John was a cotton warp sizer and their eldest daughter Sarah E. was a cotton broadloom weaver. In 1871 Sarah was widowed. Cropper (21), William (18, stripper & finder), and Sarah (12, cotton washer) worked in the mills and Alice, age 8, was at home.

Mill work was dangerous. The work conditions were harsh, with high heat, lint affecting breathing and eyes, long hours and tedious repetition. Children were employed in dangerous work. Delia's younger sister Susan worked as a 'scavenger', crawling under the moving looms to collect lint.
Articles on Bacup mills:
http://www.bacuptimes.co.uk/mill%20life.htm

I wish I knew which mills my ancestors worked in and what products they made. I wish I knew how their work impacted their health and life.

Sunday, April 19, 2015

The Power Of Music in a Hard Land: Children of the Stone by Sandy Tolan

When I was eight years old my grandmother bought me a piano and mom enrolled me in piano lessons. I used to think that if anyone where to break into the house with hostile intent, some monster from the movies, all I needed to do was sit and play music and it would calm and subdue the monster. Perhaps this is not true literally, but today research is showing that music education has therapeutic value, relieving stress, releasing emotions, improving mood and resolving conflicts. I knew that as a teen when playing classical music gave order and discipline and romantic music allowed expression and release. Instrumental music further, like the choral singing I participated in since Third Grade, has an added benefit of being part of a team, achieving something beautiful together. Add the benefits of discipline and the neuron growth of the brain, music education today is known to be as important as other knowledge skills.

Children of the Stone: The Power of Music in a Hard Land by Sandy Tolan is a novelized account of Ramzi Aburedwan, a Palestinian boy of the Ramallah refugee camp. At eight years old Ramzi was photographed with stones in his hands, participating in the first Intifada when Palestinian boys began throwing stones at the Israeli soldiers occupying their country. 

Ramzi discovered music and the viola. Music gave him a voice and a new way of protesting his political reality. He won a scholarship to study in France for three years. He started a traveling musical group. He returned to Ramallah to found a music school for children among his own people. 

Ramzi joined the East West Divan orchestra organized by Argentinian-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim and Palestinian American academic Edward Said. It is composed of 40 Israelis, 40 Palestinians and 20 Spaniards as an example of peaceful coexistence. The Divan orchestra elected to be apolitical and eventually Ramzi left the orchestra believing their ideals were false to reality.

Music is wielded by Ramzi as a sword--first to slay the oppression and depression felt by the refugee camp children. Tolan relates the stories of the kids whose lives are transformed by their instruments. Prodigies are discovered in the rubble. Music offers them a respite, a slice of beauty, a feeling of control and self esteem. 

Ramzi's story is told against the shifting political landscape of his time. It is a hard story to read. The centuries of persecution faced by Jews across the world is not to be discounted, but the apartheid and persecution the Palestinians have suffered under Israel is atrocious. 

Tolan does not idealize Ramzi. He has a remarkable and relentless drive to achieve. He is also a wounded man, a private man, an idealist whose high expectations can be hard for his students. 

The book was five years in the writing, drawing on interviews and accounts. Tolan's journalistic approach does not mean the reader avoids feeling drawn to side with the Palestinians. Merely offering facts and numbers of those killed, hurt, or imprisoned bring an awareness that those who have suffered most are the women and children of Palestine, and the refugees of sixty years. The story is open ended. Ramzi carries on his mission and Israeli-Palestinian relations have reached no peaceful accord. Sometimes all we can do is change the world one person at a time. And that is whay Ramzi has been doing.

I received a free ebook through NetGalley for a fair and unbiased review.

Children of the Stone
by Sandy Tolan
Bloomsbury USA
Publication April 21, 2015
$28.00 hardcover
ISBN:9781608198139