Thursday, May 7, 2015

May Brings Smiles and Sunshine

May has me smiling. The snow is over. Sunshine has returned.

Last Saturday I took an all day painting class. Everyone in the class was far more advanced and were quite adept. Teacher had to finally give me a little one-on-one to catch up.


 I received my first real--not ebook--for review! Thanks Schiffer!
Our apple trees have loads of buds after a good pruning.

We will be signing the contract for the kitchen remodel soon. We are going with the natural cherry cabinets, the Betty laminate from Wilson Art, and a lighter cork floor.

Our new tree is blooming. (We planted it in September:
 http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2014/09/a-new-tree-comes-to-yard.html)

 And we have had daffodils and now tulips in bloom.
Our doggies have had needed dental care and teeth removed and they are eating with relish again.
Suki
Kamikaze

I also started writing again...something creative and not related to quilts or books I have read. We were at the Detroit Symphony concert last Thursday and during Schumann's Spring Symphony I was given an opening line and a character. I hope this time I finish what I have started!

Life is good!


Wednesday, May 6, 2015

The House of Hawthorne by Erika Robuck

My reading of Nathaniel Hawthorne came after my formal education. When other high school freshman were reading A Scarlet Letter I was in a team English class, in the 'advanced' reading group, and we were given different books to read. Taught by Mr. Botens we read The Catcher In The Rye by J. D. Salinger--with parental approval. I had never read anything like it and that summer I read all of Salinger. (In senior year I would have Mr Botens for World Literature, sending me off to the library to read in full the excerpted philosophers and writers we covered.) But A Scarlet Letter and Silas Mariner and even Romeo And Juliet became part of my 'catching up' reading after university.

I was in my later twenties when I first encountered A Scarlet Letter. I loved it and read it again. I then read other works by Hawthorne: (click on title to links to ebooks) Rappicini's DaughterThe House of the Seven Gables and even A Blithedale Romance. I later realized that one of my favorite books as a girl had been A Wonder Book For Boys and Girls.

As to Hawthorne's personal life, outside of his ancestors being involved with the Salem Witch trials and his working at the Custom House, I knew little.

The House of Hawthorne by Erika Robuck surprised me. I was unsure I would like it. The cover made me think of, well, a romance novel. But I was carried into the narrative world of Robuck's fictional Sophia Peabody and enjoyed every page.
Sophia Peabody, later Hawthrone
Sophia was one of the "Peabody Sisters of Salem."  Her sister Elizabeth never married; she became an educator and was the first woman publisher. Sister Mary also taught but later married educator Horace Mann. Sophia was artistic, but suffered migraine attacks that disabled her; the treatment included morphine. In 1833 it was arranged for Sophia to visit Cuba for her health with Mary as her companion; Mary acted as governess to their hosts children in exchange for room and board.

Cuba changed Sophia's life. The exotic atmosphere and environs inspired her as an artist. She felt her first attraction to a man and gave up all ideals of remaining unmarried and dedicated to her art. And she encountered the horrors of slavery.

After she returned home her sister Elizabeth received a visit from their neighbors, two sisters and their brother Nathaniel who Elizabeth declared more handsome than even Lord Byron. For Sophia it was love at first sight.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Who could blame Sophia? When I first saw this portrait about, oh, thirty years ago I thought he was very handsome and bought the postcard!

Robuck has written her story through Sophia's viewpoint. The novel begins at her last parting with her ailing husband Nathaniel, looking back over her life and the love shared with her husband. They were spiritual soul mates and intellectual equals who shared a deep sexual attraction. Nathaniel was a loner, uncomfortable with notoriety and with society, a man who dwelt too much on his ancestors and his personal failings. He set Sophia on a pedestal with the angels and calls her his Dove. She she gives him a painting he considers it too precious to share and he keeps it behind a black curtain for personal viewing.

Their physical attraction overcomes Nathaniel's hesitancy to marry and Sophia's desire to become an artist of repute. Nathaniel was 35 and Sophia 30 at the time of their marriage. The new lovers kept a diary of their marriage, and love letters survive. Their marriage brought personal joy although they live in near poverty as Nathaniel struggled to find employment to support them as he wrote.

Sophia is the stronger of the couple. Her motto is "Man's accidents are God's purposes." She supports her husband and neglects her own art.

They moved from place to place, and Nathaniel from job to job including a stint in England when his college friend Franklin Pierce gave him the position of Consul. Sophia longed for permanence.

Sophia was able to give up morphine when she began treatment under Dr. Fiske who used mesmerism. Nathaniel was uncomfortable with the process of Fiske's hands-on technique and objected to his wife's later belief in the occult and obsession with contacting the 'other world.'

New England was the center of America's intellectual world, and the Hawthornes knew all the movers and shakers. The Alcotts, Thoreau, Melville, Longfellow, Margaret Fuller, the Brownings, and Emerson were friends.

Tragedy came easily in the 19th c. Friends and family drown at sea, malaria takes lives and health. Children and spouses die, leaving broken families. Sophia describes her husband chopping wood and giving food to his family, growing thin, and agonizing over his inability to provide for them. Their daughter Uma nearly dies from "Roman Fever" while in Italy.

Photograph of Nathaniel Hawthorne 
Nathaniel became America's first novelist of repute after the publication of A Scarlet Letter. They were able to purchase a home and find financial security.

The story of the Hawthorne marriage proves that fact can be more romantic than fiction.

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

The House of Hawthorne
by Erika Robuck
Penguin Group
ISBN: 9780451418913
$25.95 hard cover
publication May 5, 2015



Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Charles Dickens Quilting Coming Along

Thanks to the weekly  quilters gathering I am getting Charles Dickens quilted. All the center is done!




1942 Military Designs from "Press-On Fabric Decorating and Mending"

The 1942 book Press-On Fabric Decorating and Mending includes military themes patterns.  I love the gal pictured above--a Rosie the Riveter--reporting to work with her lunch box and military insignia on her sleeve.
 These nautical appliqués are not quite authentic WWII "Navy" but darling.
 
Thanks to my friend Bev for sharing this treasure!

Monday, May 4, 2015

"Press-On Fabric Decorating and Mending With a Flat Iron" from 1942


My quilting friend Bev has been sorting out her treasures and came across this gem. She allowed me to scan the pages. The booklet was published in 1942. Today I will share the patterns for adults and children. Tomorrow I will share the military themed patterns.



There are drawings showing garments with the different motifs used as decoration.










 Soldiers appear throughout the booklet. Below they have notived the girl.






Friday, May 1, 2015

Jim Crow Racism, Murder, and the Methodist Church

"Evil flourishes when good people sit idly by and do nothing." Attorney General Hood

As I read One Mississippi, Two Mississippi:Murder, Methodists, and the Struggle for Racial Justice in Neshoba County by Carol V. R. George I experienced shock, depression, and sorrow.

In the early 1970s I married a seminary student at The Methodist Theological School in Ohio. During our three years on campus I audited classes and managed the campus bookstore. I took a class with Dr. Jeff Hopper and Dr. Everett Tilson. Dr. Van Bogart Dunn was the Dean of Students. I knew Dr. Paul Minus. These four men, all with Southern roots, participated in the 1964 Easter Sunday in Jackson, MS when an interracial group of Bishops and pastors endeavored to worship in a black congregation. Local law officers arrested them at the door. Read the story here.

I was so very young and had no idea that 1964 was 'yesterday' to these men in 1972. After reading this book I better understood their courage and conviction.

+++++
I requested One Mississippi, Two Mississippi because of the subtitle Murder, Methodists, and the Struggle for Racial Justice in Neshoba. The author is a history professor who spent nine years researching the Mt. Zion Methodist Church in Neshoba and the relation between Methodists and the murder of Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and John Chaney.

Goodman and Schwerner had come to the area to work for voter registration of Blacks. Chaney was a local black man. The organizational meeting to create a Freedom School was held at Mt. Zion Methodist Church in Neshoba. The young men were abducted and murdered, their bodies buried and bull dozed over, and the Mt. Zion church was burned to the ground and church members severely beaten.

If you want to know about the events the book covers you can visit the Oxford University page on the book here. Or watch the movie "Neshoba" or Mississippi Burning. The internet is full of articles about the murders.

The Methodist church is a world-wide connectional system; every four years a General Conference consisting of laity and clergy meet to vote on the denominational policies, goals, and regulations. Change does not happen quickly. The stated ideals often lag behind practice. Founder John Wesley allowed free thinking beyond basic Christian tenets. The denomination is diverse in opinion. In theory members are to think and let think. In practice, strife, conflict, and schism occur--particularly over social issues. Segregation was one of those divisive issues. The denomination showed little prophetic leadership in demanding equality, giving Southern segregationists and the status quo a nod.

This book reveals that the Southern White Methodist church laity and clergy were not only complicit in maintaining segregation but were actively involved in KKK hate crimes, murder, and a decades long cover-up.

In 1939 the denomination created the Central Jurisdiction composed of Black pastors and churches, effectively establishing segregation as official church polity until 1972 when it was finally disbanded. See more about this at:
http://www.credoconfirmation.com/Leaders/LeadersArticles/tabid/292/ArticleId/449/The-Central-Jurisdiction-and-the-Story-of-Race-Relations-in-the-Methodist-Churches.aspx

It was not until after the Methodist Episcopal church merger with the United Brethren church in 1968, creating the current United Methodist Church, that implementation of federally mandated integration began. In 1970 the Neshoba County accomplished full integration without mass violence; but there were viscous attacks and harassment that led to the (white) School Superintendent's suicide.

It took years and several trials before the mastermind behind the murder plot was convicted. In 1999 The Winter Institute began a study of global models of reconciliation, particularly the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, consulting with Peter Storey.

It was hard to read this book, the events are so harrowing. I felt angry and ashamed and disheartened. I remembered a Facebook friend's comment about the hypocrisy of the Methodist Church, which had baffled me then. Now I get it. The friend is particularly interested in Civil Rights history.

I thought about issues the church avoids today, the injustices we allow. This statement from a United Methodist Church website on confirmation materials says its all:
As United Methodists—even United Methodists who weren't alive when the Central Jurisdiction was around—we have to think critically about how a faith tradition birthed by abolitionists and weaned in part by mixed-race house churches could cling to institutionalized segregation for so long. And, as we move forward, we need to make sure that we don’t repeat past mistakes. We need to be mindful of ways in which we exclude people or create divisions within the church, whether based on race, nationality, language or culture, age, or any other factor. Paul in Galatians tells us that we are “all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). We should be sure we act that way.
In church on Sunday I could barely keep from crying. It seemed insipid, 'feel good', shallow. Last week we heard of a church being closed; the pastor preached 'too much' about acceptance of Gay and Lesbians. The world cries. Do we listen?
+++++
Contents:
Part I
History and Memory Settling Longdale, MS and Mt. Zion Methodist Church reviews the founding of the church in 1833 through the Jim Crow Years to 1954
Part II
"The Great Anomaly" The Methodist Episcopal Church and Its Black Members looks at segregation and the creation of the Central Jurisdiction, the politicization of Mississippi Methodist church, the Methodist church's debate over segregation, the Neshoba murders and their relation to Mississippi Methodism
Part III
Mt. Zion's Witness: Creating Memories considers how Neshoba struggled to fulfill equality in church and school, the retrial of accused murderers, and reconciliation

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

One Mississippi, Two Mississippi: Murder, Methodists, and the Struggle for Racial Justice in Neshoba County
by Carol V. R. George
Oxford University Press
Publication May 1, 2015
$29.95 hard cover
ISBN: 9780190231088