Eugene Gochenour Memoirs: The Becker Family of Tonawanda

Martha Keen [Kelm] Becker and John August Becker

Dad began his memoirs with his family history. Our roots in Tonawanda, NY  dates to the immigration of  the Becker family to America. They were German nationalists living in Volhynia, Russia, now the Ukraine. 

Waves of migrations of Germans to Russia occurred over hundreds of years. Germans were first invited to Russia by Catherine the Great who wanted their farming skills to develop new agricultural centers. With the freeing of the serfs, a labor market opened up and more Germans arrived in Russia. With the war between France and Germany decimating areas of Germany, some refugees went to England and America, but others went East into Prussia or Poland. When conflicts arose there, they escaped into Vohlynia.

The Germans who settled in Russia remained German nationalists. They did not have to serve in the Russian army. The early settlers were lured by advertising of free land. They arrived in Russia with basic instruments and had to start from scratch to build a house and prepare the land for farming. Over time they created prosperous farms. Tides of Germans from Poland, Prussia, and Germany came to Russia, including to Volhynia where the Beckers settled.

Martha Keen Becker, my great-grandmother, was from the Kelm family in Volhynia. The Kelms were part of a movement of German Baptists who left Poland to establish some of the earliest Baptist churches in Russia. Her ancestor was one of the first settlers in Paris, Bessarabia. Read about the German Baptist movement at http://www.volhynia.org/articles/germanbaptistmovement.pdf

As tensions between Germany and Russia increased, leading up to WWI, the Germans living in Russia were persecuted with confiscation of lands, arrests, and deportation. They could no longer buy land and were made to serve in the Czar's army. Many Germans were deported to Siberia. Others left Russia before it was too late, including my Grandmother Emma Becker Gochenour and my husband's grandfather Gustaff Bekofske.

"Born Eugene Vernon Gochenour on the 13th day of August, 1930, I am the only son of Alger Jordan Gochenour and Emma Becker. My sister Mary Martha was born two years before me, and my younger sister Alice Beverly six years after. Mary and I were born in the City of Tonawanda, and Alice in the Town of Tonawanda. Located between Niagara Falls and Buffalo are three communities with the name Tonawanda. There is the City of Tonawanda, the city of North Tonawanda, and the Town of Tonawanda. The Town of Tonawanda contains an incorporated village named Kenmore.

John Becker

"Mother’s maiden name was Emma Becker. Her father, my Grandfather John Becker, was conscripted into the Russian army. He once told me that when he was in the army the lice were so bad they would roll a string across their arms, legs, and body to remove the hair to get rid of them.

"Documents, written in Russian, show John was born in 1876, was taken into the Russian army during 1898, and married during 1903. [Ed. Note: I found a birth record showing John August Bacher born to August Bacher and Margaretha Bodner on October 29, 1876 in Andrejew, Volhynia, Russia. His parent were married in 1899. I also found a birth record for his sisters Pauline Baecker born November 3, 1870 in Zhitomir, Russia and Rosalie born December 12, 1873 in Andrejew, Volhynia, Russia.]

"May 21, 1910 he arrived in New York City on the George Washington out of Bremen. [The passenger list shows a Johann Becker, saddler, a German from Torchin, Russia with $22 to his name, who last lived with his wife Marta; his destination was Tonawanda, NY, where he had a friend, Julianna Tolz, residing at 121 Clinton St.]

"When John Becker was established at Tonawanda he purchased steamship tickets and sent them to Grandmother so the rest of the family could join him. The tickets were bought May 15, 1911 #46969, from the North German Lloyd Steamship Co for the SS George Washington from Bremen to New York, for the cost of $178.50 plus $4.50 per boarder, a total of $183.

"Grandfather had deserted the Czar’s army and lived the rest of his life in fear that he would someday be forced to return to Russia." [I recall hearing that when letters came to John from Russia he was afraid to open them, but family members were concerned they contained family news.]

Dad later had his grandfather's passport translated:

Perpetual Passport issued by Chernyakovski Local Elder Council of Zhitomir District of Voyhn County, March 15, 1910 to peasant Iogang August Becker, D.O.B. January 29, 1876, Lutheran, residence Kolkhoz Sofievka, Goroshkoc Area, Zhitomir Dist.
Military Service: Private of Ulyanov reserve of Warsaw Regiment.
Height: above average; hair: light brown
Wife: Marta August, 26 yo
Children: Arthur 7 yo, Reuben 4 yo, Alina 6 years [must be Emma]
Military Service Discharge Card Iogang August Becker
184 private of Warsaw regiment discharged per order of demobilization #43m. of Okhotsk Regiment, transferred to the reserve in 1905 until January 1, 1916. Admitted into service by Zhitomir military summons and recorded in the military list #84 on October 27, 1897, starting date of service January 1, 1889. No participation in military campaigns, no awards. Trained in Formal Drill. Age January 27, 1826, single, Lutheran, dismissed honorable, Volynsk region, Zhitomire Dist, Chernyavki area, village Kolkhoz, Pekarshina.

"Grandfather was a carpenter. He built the house his family lived in, and many more. When my parents were first married they bought a house he had built, across the street from him.

John Becker's Certificate of Naturalization

"In 1926 my grandfather obtained his certificate of naturalization. He was 51 years old, 5'4" tall, medium complexion, brown eyes and hair, and he had a growth in his left ear. His children living at home included Reuben, Alfred, Edmund, and Adeline.

"Grandfather died December 17th, 1951. He was 75 years old.

"Grandmother Becker's maiden name was Martha Keen. She was born at Torchin, Volinski Russia, on March 30th, 1871. During 1903 she married my grandfather John Becker. By 1910 they had four children, and that year Grandfather came to America by himself to prepare a home for his family.

Martha Keen Becker

Keen relatives

Unknown Ancestor--A Becker or 'Keen' in Russia

Russian Funeral of unknown ancestor, a Becker or Keen

Unknown Keen family member

"The names and birth dates of their children were: Arthur, born October 5th, 1903; Emma, born February 8th, 1904; Reuben, born May 5th, 1906; and Benjamin, born during 1909. All the children were born at Torchin Volinski, Russia. While Grandfather was in America, Grandmother had another child. His name was Edmund, and he was born on November 9, 1910.

Back row: Mrs. Rinkey, Martha Becker, John Becker, Mr. Rinkey.
Front Row: Alfred Becker, Elsie Rinkey, Walter Kinkey
Adeline Becker, Albert 

Martha Becker

"Grandmother received the steamship tickets purchased by Grandfather May 15, 1911. The tickets cost $183 dollars. They were to sail on the George Washington out of Bremen to New York City.

"Grandmother started her journey to the ship with her five children. She had to pay bribes at some of the borders they crossed as they traveled through Europe. [My grandmother said they traveled by night, sleeping during the day, while traveling to the border. A system had been set up to help German Russians once they reached the Germany border.]

"When they arrived at the German border they were held up for five days because Reuben had an eye problem that had to be treated. [Trachoma, or pink eye, meant no admittance into the States. My husband's great-grandfather and family had to return to Germany because their daughter Wanda had Trachoma upon arriving at Ellis Island; the family was lost during WWII.] This caused them to miss the ship when it left port. On July 29, 1911 they boarded to Neckar and arrived in New York on August 9, 1911.

"Finally on July 29th, 1911 she bordered the ship “Neckar” and sailed from Bremen. The ship arrived at New York on August 9th, 1911. Martha was 31 years old, born in Torchine, Volinski;  Arthur was 8 yo and born October 5, 1903 in Tochine; Emma was 6 yo, born Feb 8, 1905 in Torchine, Volinski; Reuben was 4 yo, born May 5, 1906 in Torchine, Volinski; Benjamin was 2 yo; and Edmund was 8 months old, born Nov. 3, 1910. Martha's father's name is given as August Kiln, and her home was in Tortschine, Volh., Russia. She was joining her husband John Becker at 121 Clinton, Tonawanda, NY. Martha had red hair, the children were blond.

"I am thoroughly amazed at the courage and tenacity it took for Grandmother to venture across Europe, the Atlantic Ocean, through Immigration, and on to Tonawanda with five children, one an eight-month-old baby.

Martha Becker at right

"Two more children were to come, Adeline, born January 11th, 1903, and Levant, born September 8th, 1926. Benjamin was to die when he drowned in the Erie Canal."

The Becker kids, Art, Rube, Emma, Abby and Adeline

Becker kids in front of their house build by John Becker

Adeline and Abby Becker

Adeline holding baby brother Levant Becker,
 Eugene Gochenour's uncle and good friend

Adeline, Abby, and Reuben Becker

Art Becker

Adeline and Emma Becker

"Martha died February 23, 1943. I am not sure when my grandmother died but I remember she was laid out in the dining room of their home.

"After a few years, my Grandfather married Lane M. Pedt, a widower. Grandfather also outlived her, and spent the rest of his life a widower. Lane passed June 2, 1949 and John on December 17, 1951.

520 Morgan Street, Becker family home

520 Morgan St with Becker boys

"My mother Emma Becker Gochenour was born at Torchin Volinski, Russia, on February 8th, 1904. She came to America with her mother and her brothers in 1911 when she was seven years old.

Emma Becker at her home located at Wheeler and Morgan Streets,
with the Murray School in the background. Later the
fire station was built on the site.

"The earliest photograph of Mother one was taken in 1921 when she was sixteen years old. The school in the background was the Murray Grade School, located on Morgan and Wheeler streets where mother lived, in the City of Tonawanda. The school was soon to be torn down and a fire station built on the site.

"When mother was old enough she got a job at the Remington Rand factory that was located at Military Road and Wheeler Street. It was only about a mile from her home. She worked there for a few years, until she met father and they married.

Emma Becker graduation from high school

"On December 24, 1927 my parents were married. At that time Father lived at the Lincoln Hotel in North Tonawanda, and mother lived on 520 Morgan Street in the City of Tonawanda. Mother's maid of honor was her life long friend Mildred A. Behner of 12 Park Ave. Mother was working in a factory and Father was a salesman. Mother's parents names were given as John Becker and Martha Kean.

Wedding of Emma Becker and Alger Gochenour

"Times were good and since Dad made good money as an insurance salesman they bought a new car and a new house. It was a house built by my Grandfather Becker, located on Morgan Street across from Grandfather.  Morgan Street is about three blocks from the Niagara River and between our house and the river. Mother quit working and sister Mary was born in 1929.

Al with the new car

Al and Mary Gochenour at Morgan Street

"The Depression started in 1929 when the stock market fell, and in 1930 I was born. Sister Alice was born in 1936.

"The insurance business deteriorated and Dad lost his income. [In the 1926 through 1928 city directories Alger is a salesman for F. Becker Asphaltum Roofing; on the 1930 Census he is an insurance collector living in a Morgan Street home valued at $2,500. In 1945 Al was working at the Chevy River Rd plant until he opened his gas station.]

In 1935 my parents lost their new car and the house. I was five years old when we moved to 1851 Military Road.

Emma in the center; her father John Becker at her right
and daughter Mary and grandchild Linda at left.

"On February 3, 1944 Mother received her certificate of naturalization. She was described as 39 years old, married white female, Russian descent, with fair complexion, brown eyes, brown hair, 5'4" in height, weight 116 pounds. Actually Mother had red hair as did her brother Alfred. 

"On December 27, 1965 mother applied to the U. S. Naturalization Service requesting information about her date of birth so she could apply for Social Security. The information that was sent back stated that her name was on the New York Census of 1915, and listed her age as 10 years old. Her Certificate of Naturalization was acquired on February 3, 1944, and it lists her as 39 years old, female, white, fair, with brown eyes, and brown hair. She was 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 116 pounds."

Emma Becker Gochenour
Sheridan Park Volunteer Fireman supporter

After the death of Al, Emma lived with my family until 1964 when she moved in with her daughter Alice. She died in Tonawanda in 1997.

Art Becker married Florence Neale Groffenberg. They lived on Grand Island, NY. Art served in the military. He died at age 87 in 1990.

Reuben Becker married Dorothy Holmes in 1931. They had five children. He died at age 62 in north Tonawanda in 1969.

Edmund Becker married Bessie Spencer in 1938. They had one child. He died in 1970. He lived on Wheeler St in North Tonawanda.

Adeline married Harold Chester Killian in 1935. They lived on Grand Island and had two children. She died in 1991.

Alfred married Olga Shenk and they had three children. He served in the army during WWII. He lived in Rome, Ohio and died in 1988.

Levant Becker married Mary Kolb and they had three children. They lived on Grand Island. He served in WWII and was a volunteer fireman. Lee passed in 2009.

Benjamin died in 1910, drowning in the Erie Canal.

Moonglow by Michael Chabon

Sometimes I finish a book, and I loved it, but I feel too puny a mind to say anything to do it justice. I just am not learned enough, wise enough, deep enough. I am at a loss for words.

Moonglow by Michael Chabon sat on my Edelweiss shelf for 45 days until I could finally make a space to read it, read 'out of order', as I read based on a book's publication date.

I have enjoyed all the novels I've read by Chabon: The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, The Wonder Boys, and The Yiddish Policeman's Union. I have The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and Telegraph Avenue on my TBR shelf. (The real books bookshelf, not ebooks!) And I'd been hearing a buzz that Moonglow is Chabon's best book yet.

Chabon makes me laugh. That's golden. Especially in a novel about the effect of war on the lives of the narrator's grandparents, where happiness is found 'in the cracks' between failure and mental health breakdowns, and heroes are found to be villains, and fiction is better than knowing the truth.

Stories told to Chabon by his terminally ill grandfather inspired Moonglow. In the novel, a grandfather reveals what had remained unspoken, a gift for his grandson (Chabon) to turn into an orderly account, with the admonition to 'make it mean something.'

His fictionalized grandfather, a Drexel Tech graduate, joined the Army Corps of Engineers before WWII; his wartime experiences leaves him with a 'form of spiritual aphasia' and searching for purpose. He meets a beautiful girl, another victim of the war, who has a daughter, and struggles for mental stability. Together they hope to 'fly to the moon', but the journey is fraught with crash landings and heartbreak.

The back story is told in bits and pieces, interwoven with stories from other time frames, slowly revealing the grandfather's history.

"You think this explains everything?" the grandfather queries, "Me and your grandmother. Your mother. My time in prison. The war." The grandson replies, "It explains a lot." "It explains nothing,,,It's just names and dates and places," the grandfather retorts, "It doesn't mean anything." And then he adds, "I'm disappointed in myself. My life....you look back and you see all you did with all that time is waste it." And the grandson sums it up, "Anyways it's a pretty good story."

Which is all we can ask from life. A pretty good story in spite of the failures, dreams deferred, the heartbreak, and the craziness.

See photos that inspired Chabon while writing Moonglow at:
http://www.ew.com/article/2016/09/22/michael-chabon-photos-inspired-moonglow

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

Moonglow
by Michael Chabon
Harper/Collins
Publication Nov. 2, 2016
$28.99 hard cover
ISBN: 978006222559

What I'm Working On

My 1857 Album blocks for October need corner pieces. Its been great fun!Thanks to Gay Bomers of Sentimental Stitches for providing the free patterns!

 My next poet quilt is TS Eliot, featuring The Naming of Cats!

 I am hand quilting it.

 St Martin's Press sent me this Domestic Noir thriller...

 And then a letter...

Look for a $2.99 sale on Behind Closed Doors.

I won The Mortifications which I am enjoying.

Next week my weekly quilt group is going to the White Horse Inn in Metamora, MI and visiting a quilt shop in Hadley, MI, home of this covered bridge:

Photo by Tom Gochenoujr

I just had to end with this bit of home decor. The bucket was painted by a dear lady who said her mother always displayed Indian Corn.

The roses are still blooming, the grass is bright green, my parsley is thriving; we haven't had a killing frost yet; today its in the 70s again. The leaves are just beginning to fall--although the city has been scheduled to pick them up for several weeks! I can't believe it's November! At least I can be thankful that the election will soon be over...although I know the political battles won't end with a new president...

Truevine: Two Brothers, A Kidnapping, and a Mother's Quest: A True Story of the Jim Crow South

Truevine is the remarkable story of George and Willie Muse, born to a sharecropper in a part of the country that had hardly changed since slave days. And they were born albino African Americans, with white skin, pale hair in dreadlocks, and blue eyes unable to focus or stand light. The boys faced a brutal life in the tobacco fields of Virginia.

The brothers were six and nine when they were stolen from their home in Truvine to be exhibited in circuses, told their mother was dead. Called Eko and Iko, Ambassadors from Mars, or the Sheep-headed freaks, or touted as cannibals, they performed across America and in Europe. Uneducated, told to talk in mumbo jumbo and to act wild, they also learned any instrument by ear and loved to sing It's a Long Way to Tipperary.

Their heartbroken mother spent twenty-eight years trying to reunite with her sons.

When the circus arrived in the brother's home town their mother was in the audience and was recognized by her sons She went to court to seek justice for her sons: remuneration, better living conditions, correspondence with their family, a retirement savings account. Her sons, after all, were one of the biggest draws in the sideshow.

In Roanoke, VA, African Americans lynch mobs dealt out 'justice' and the descendants of slaves were considered genetically inferior. The Muse brother's mother took on one of the biggest entertainment businesses in a courageous act that could have brought fatal repercussions.

Not that the battle was fought once and for all. The boys contracted to return to the circus, this time with a salary. But they were handed off to a new manager who took off for another venue and kept all the proceeds for himself. The brothers spent 28 years exploited, in virtual slavery.

I was reluctant to read a book about 'freaks' until I saw the reviews. Macy considers the Muse brothers' story in context of African American history from slavery through Jim Crow laws, the eugenics movement the early 20th c., and cultural and political changes including urban renewal.

The author spent 25 years building a relationship with the woman who cared for the last Muse brother in old age. Truevine is impressive in it's scope, exploring human trafficking, the heyday of the circus, the racial history of Roanoke, VA, and offers sympathetic, human portraits of the Muse family.

There is question about how the brothers came to be discovered by the circus and if the circus life was better than the lives they would have had, especially as they developed blindness. What is not under question is the love and respect given the aging Willie who lived to be 108; his tombstone reads, "God is good to me."

As I read this book I remembered the elementary school boy with a hook for a hand. And I realized the white haired, white skinned boy with dark glasses in my high school had albinism. Differences were something I took in stride growing up, for as my mother used to say, in another day and economic status, she would have been a circus freak.

Mom suffered from psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. At times 90% of her body was covered by psoriasis. Her nails were thick, yellow, and bumpy. She took long soaking baths and applied creams to loosen the dead skin, leaving her with red patches of new skin. Arthritis too mobility in her neck, hands, and major joints. Her treatments included mercury salves, cortisone that caused weight gain and thin skin that easy tore open, application of smelly tar ointments followed by body wrapping in saran wrap, applications of olive oil on her scalp (which I helped apply with cotton balls), Ultra Violet light treatment that caused pre-cancerous growths, and finally Methotrexate which allowed her a quality of life she had not experienced in decades.

Mom figured she would have been touted as a scaly Fish Lady.

To me, Mom was pretty, smart, and generous, a loyal friend, an incessant reader. Yes, she needed help with her personal care, and had trouble opening jars or lifting heavy things. But I was not ashamed of her, as she feared, nor did I feel the need to explain or hide Mom's autoimmune disease.

The Muse brothers didn't have what Mom enjoyed: a loving mother and father who provided for their children, a loving husband, a community that supported her, affordable medical care. The Muse brothers did have a mother who never gave up wanting the best for her sons.

"One of my advisers, a sociology professor, says that black people really want people to know that they have survived something – emotionally, physically, spiritually – that would have killed most people," Macy says. "That's the heart of this book." http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2016/1027/Truevine-untangles-a-tale-of-exploitation-and-grace

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



Truevine: Two Brothers, A Kidnapping, and a Mother's Quest: A True Story of the Jim Crow South
Beth Macy
Little, Brown & Company
$28 hard cover
ISBN 9780316337540

A Lyrical, Pastoral Novel: On the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin

"--they would stand over her patchwork quilt and peer at the black velvet stars and the hexagons of printed calico that had once been her dresses."

Identical twin brothers Lewis and Benjamin sleep in their parent's 1899 oak four-poster bed, hung with the cretonne hangings of larkspur and roses their mother made as a newlywed, with linen sheets worn to holes, the mattresses sunk into two troughs. On the bed was the patchwork quilt their mother had made, "to remember me by," cut from the calico dresses of her youth in India and her best black funeral skirt. From their bedroom window they could see the Black Hill.

The house remained unchanged for the twins were unwilling to dismantle the memories of their mother embedded in the wallpaper, the Georgian pianoforte, the Coronation and Jubilee mugs. Hereford had been their home; though Lewis loved maps and far off places, he never left. Benjamin's love for his twin was like a binding vine holding Lewis back from pursuing a greater life. People come into their world bringing love and tradegy, hope and disappointment, and a few answered prayers.

On The Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin is a quiet story spanning the 20th c, full of eccentric and memorable Welsh villagers whose lives remain rooted in a past rapidly crumbling around them. A world outsiders consider quaint, antediluvian, or collectible, or a haven from the modern world.

I love this kind of novel that elicits a nostalgia for a world I have never known, bringing forward the forgotten people whose lives merit our compassion and admiration.

Toward the end of the novel a 1960s drop-out comes to Black Hill and becomes friends with the brothers. Theo invites the twins to his yurt, and taking a lotus position recits poetry, sharing his favorite poem by Li Po:

What is the use of talking, and there is no end of talking,
There is no end of things in the heart.
I call in the boy,
Have him sit on his knees here,
To seal this,
And send it a thousand miles, thinking. 

The poem, Exile's Letter, translated by Ezra Pound is one of my favorites as well, the story of parted friends and the nostalgia and longing for their shared days together.

On the Black Hill is lyrical nostalgia, though few of us would be willing to return to the rugged and harsh rural life depicted, we envy the characters' connection to the past, their community, and rootedness to the earth.

This new ebook version of On the Black Hill includes an illustrated biography of Bruce Chatwin.

Bruce Chatwin is the author of In Patagonia and The Songlines (also available from Open Road Media), books I enjoyed reading when they were first published in the 1970s. On the Black Hill won the Whitbread Literary Award for First Novel.

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

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/uk/bruce-chatwins-wales-one-of-the-finest-one-day-walks-in-britain-9765731.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1983/01/02/books/a-novel-of-pastoral-vision.html?pagewanted=all

On the Black Hill
Bruce Chatwin
Open Road Media
Publication Oct 18, 2016
ebook
ISBN: 9781504038348

Halloween Costumes of the 1950s

My Halloween costume in 1955 

I remember trick or treating on Rosemont Ave as a girl, walking down the streetlight lit sidewalks in the early dark, getting goodies from all the neighbors, most of whom I knew. I recall being a 'gypsy' several years, wearing Mom's full gathered skirts, loads of beads, and a scarf. I believed myself quite lovely and exotic.

My relatives loved a party and I found these great photographs of a costume parties held in 1958 and 1959.

My Grandmother Gochenour was the only clown I was not afraid of!

My Grandmother Emma Becker Gochenour in a clown costume.
Taken in the kitchen on Military Rd, Tonawanda.
I remember that red wall paper.

Dad's big nose and mustache and glasses looked funny in 1958, but later in life he did have a mustache and glasses!

My father Gene Gochenour

 Mom as an old fashioned, white haired lady...not like the Jitterbug Queen she really was!

My mother Joyce Ramer Gochenour

Chubb and Adaline (nee' Becker) Killian and
Rube and Dot Becker.
Chubb and Rube were my grandmother's siblings.

My Aunt Alice Gochenour Ennis with her mother Emma.
I believe the lady sitting in the background is
Mary Becker, wife of Levant (Lee).

Alice Gochenour Ennis and Rube Becker

Alice Gochenour Ennis

 My aunt and uncle were characters from Lil' Abner. Note the saddle shoes on my aunt!

Ken Ennis

Friend of the family Helen Ensminger and friend

Dorothy and Rube Becker

Us kids mostly wore store bought costumes.

From 1957, my cousins Steve and Linda Guenther
children of  Dad's sister Mary

And myself in 1957 as Mickey Mouse! I still have that clock shelf seen on the wall.

I wonder what was in the bag?

And later in life I was still wearing a costume for special parties. This is my costume for the senior costume day in 1969. Yes, that is an Avocado green piano! Mom and Dad made thewall  clock circa 1960 and I still have it.

A neighbor made me this pilgrim costume for Halloween 1969.
Seniors were able to wear costumes to school.

 My husband and I were invited to a costume party in the early1990s.

In the early 1990s my husband and I wore these costumes to a party.
I was wearing a pillow as if I were pregnant. My hubby had taken
Mime classes and this was his costume. That's the Phillies Phanatic in his arms.

 Then our son came along, and Halloween was fun all over again.

Our son's earliest costume was Peter Pan which I made.
He is posed with our first Shiba Inu, Kili.

 My friend Jan made this costume inspired by my Poe quilt!

My quilt group friend Jan was inspired by my Edgar Allan Poe quilt
to make a costume with a purple curtain and a raven!

Edgar Allan Poe by Nancy A Bekofske

Have a safe and fun Halloween!

Restoring a Sense of Order to the World: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

I was eager to read Amor Towles novel A Gentleman in Moscow after reading rave reviews from my Goodread friends and enjoying the opening pages through the First Look Bookclub. I loved the writing and tone of those first pages. When I got my hands on a copy I read it in three days and was in happy tears at the end.

Count Alexander Rostov, recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, Member of the Jockey club, and Master of the Hunt is a Former Person, a member of the aristocracy slated for execution but for having his name linked to a 1915 revolutionary poem. Count Rostov is instead placed under house arrest in the Metropol Hotel in the heart of Moscow. It is June 21, 1922. The Count is 33 years old. It is his luckiest day.

He will not return to his luxury suite stocked with priceless heirlooms and beloved books; he is moved into an empty 100 square foot room, former servant quarters in the attic. The Count chooses a few items to take with him. And when I read these following lines, I knew their truth from having moved many times and carried 'things' that brought a sense of home with them:

"...we come to hold our dearest possessions more closely than we hold our friends. We carry them from place to place, often at considerable expense and inconvenience...allowing memories to invest the with greater and greater importance...Until we imagine that these carefully preserved possessions might give us genuine solace in the face of a lost companion. 

But of course, a thing is just a thing."

I found myself marking passage after lovely and insightful passage that elucidate the characters and our common experience.

The Count adapts to his new reality, mastering his circumstances. He takes a job as the head waiter in the hotel restaurant. He is befriended by Nina, a whimsical nine-year-old girl whose parting gift is a universal pass key to all the hotel rooms. Nina grows up, then leaves her daughter Sophia with the Count to follow her husband sent to the Gulag. The child is ignored by the police only because there was doubt about her patrimony. A Soviet official hires the Count to educate him in the culture of the West, and over fifteen years they develop a mutual respect. And Sophia grows to become an accomplished pianist. (Hear the music of the novel here.)

As the world the Count knew and loved is dismantled under the Bolsheviks, "who were so intent upon recasting the future from a mold of their own making, would not rest until every last vestige of his Russia had been uprooted, shattered, or erased." The Count's university days friend Mishka has been struggling, asking, "What is it about a nation that would foster a willingness in its people to destroy their own artworks, ravage their own cities, and kill their own progeny without compunction? " Mishka answers his question with his realization that self-destruction was not an abomination, but Russia's greatest strength, "We are prepared to destroy that which we have created because we believe more than any of them [The British, French or Italians] in the power of the picture, the poem, the prayer, or the person."

Sophia asks the Count why he returned to Russia from Paris. His only answer is that, "Life needed me to be in a particular place at a particular time, and that was when your mother brought you to the lobby of the Metropol." And the last pages of the novel become comedy, a happy ending, a righting of things knocked over in the skirmish, "an essential faith that by the smallest of one's actions one can restore some sense of order to the world."

You may think a novel about thirty-two years living in the Metropol Hotel would be dull and without interest. The novel is episodic, skipping from one important time to another, but new people enter the hotel and affect the Count's life. Read the author's comment on the structure of the novel at http://www.amortowles.com/gentleman-moscow-amor-towles/gentleman-moscow-qa-amor-towles/

But I was mesmerized, charmed by the Count, drawn in by the slow revelation of his past and enticed by his plans for his future.

Eugene Gochenour's Memoirs: Running a Coffee Truck

In this installment from my dad's memoirs he talks about running a side business, a coffee truck in Lockport, NY.

Gene Gochenour

"A few years after we opened the station a friend talked me into going into the coffee catering business with him. His name was Sam Letcher and he had worked for a coffee catering service so he had some knowledge about the business. Since neither of us had established credit we asked my father to cosign for a loan at the bank for us, which he did. The loan was for two hundred and fifty dollars. 

"We bought an old truck and I painted it green, built shelves for the coffee and donuts, and had our name painted on it. We called our business “S & J Coffee Service” When Sam applied for our business license, he put down Jean, instead of Gene, on the form. I was not about to go to the trouble to change it. We decided to run the business at Lockport, a town about twenty-two miles away. There were several coffee catering businesses in our area, but none there. We rented the second floor of an existing business on Market Street in Lockport. The second floor had not been used years so we had to clean it up, then install our coffee urns and supplies.

"Every morning, Monday through Saturday, I got up early, and went to Gallager’s Bakery at the city of Kenmore where I picked up about twenty dozen donuts, then drove to Lockport. I drove a 1950 Dodge sedan then, and I filled all the seats with trays of donuts and on the way I would eat one. But after a week or so, I did not eat any, and I would open the car windows, because I didn’t even like the smell of them! 

"When I arrived at our building in the morning I made about sixteen gallons if coffee, and then loaded the coffee urns and donuts on the truck. After I had loaded the truck Sam would come in and drive to various businesses to sell the coffee and donuts, Then I would go back and work the rest of the day at the station. On Sundays I drove to Lockport to get the truck and bring it back to the station to wash and service it. Then I drove it back to Lockport so it was ready for the next week. Each day the unsold donuts were dropped off at the station, so our customers always had free donuts. Of course we had a coffee machine at the station also. 

"The vehicle we used for our coffee business was a step van that we had paid one hundred and twenty five dollars for. We decided we needed another vehicle so we bought an old Ford panel truck. It had been used by a paint contractor so it needed a good cleanup. I painted it, put in shelves, and had it lettered with our business name. On the first trip to Lockport, Sam flipped it over on a curve, and totaled it. Luckily he did not get hurt in the accident.

"I stopped going to Lockport when we hired a lady to work for us a few months after we started. I never made any money from that business, and after a few years I sold my part of the business back to Sam for the original amount I had invested. I never should have been talked into getting involved in another enterprise, because I had all I could handle at the station!"

Clyde Bellecourt Tells His Story as Founder of the American Indian Movement

After reading The Apache Wars and The Sand Creek Massacre I was ripe to learn about the Native American civil rights movement that occured while I was in my late teens and early twenties. As if on cue, Edelwiss offered The Thunder Before the Storm, The Autobiography of Clyde Bellencourt, the founder of the American Indian Movement.

"We started a movement to take back everything that belonged to us: our spirituality, our hunting and fishing rights, our water rights, our gold and minerals, our sacred rites--and our children."

Starting with his childhood on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, Clyde Bellecourt (his colonial name; The Thunder Before the Storm, Neegonnwayweedun, is his Ojibwe name) relates a grim story. Clyde grew up hearing his father's stories of being taken from his family to be educated in a boarding school so hateful that he enlisted during WWI. Later he discovered the origin of his mother's limp: at boarding school her punishment for speaking her native language was to scrub floors with bags of marbles tied to her knees.

Clyde grew up without knowledge of his native culture, spiritual traditions, or language, which had been violently supressed for generations by a Eurocentric majority culture. He was deemed "incorrigable," a truant and runaway, resistant to the mission school authority, repeatedly in juvenile detention, and in solitary confinement in prison. His life mirrored that of many Natives on the reservations, with high rates of alcoholism and drug abuse resulted in a typical lifespan of 44 years.

While in prison Clyde became part of an Indian cultural program and an Indian Folklore Group. He learned his native language, ceremonies, prayer songs, and history.

"I was typical of the other Indians there: spiritually and emotionally bankrupt."

It was the beginning of Bellecourt's spiritual revival that lead him to becoming an activist, using "confrontaion politics" to demand the end of discrimination on the local and national level. European education, organized religion, and the Bureaus of Indian Affairs were the institutions that needed to change. He became the leader of the American Indian Movement (AIM). The goals included addressing immediate concerns in housing, youth, employment, education, communication, and citizenship. The long range goals included unification of the Indian people, participation in local affairs, and fostering economic equality. Bellecourt brought back the Sun Dance which had been banned.

AIM found friends in civil rights workers including Coretta Scott King, religious leaders such as Dr. Paul Boe of the America Lutheran Church, and local political leaders along the way, but they were also targeted as 'terrorists' by local police, the FBI, and the American government. AIM was besieged, spys infiltrated the group, including assasins, and members were murdered.

Like many visionary leaders, Bellecourt is not a paragon of perfection; he struggled with demons-- alcohol, drugs, and infidelity; he was imprisoned on drug related charges; and he survived assasination attempts.

I was glad to read about Bellecourt's work to remove racism from American sports, particularly the National Football League and the Washington Redskins name. It helped me to understand the associations of this kind of branding from the Native American viewpoint. "Redskin" was used to "denigrate and dehumanize" the natives, who believe the term refers to the bloody scalps taken by  bounty hunters. The "tomahawk chop" to Native Americans is a reminder of the weapons used to scalp their people.

I consider how I grew up with cowboy and Indian TV westerns and movies, the cliches and easy stereotypes, racism in the form of entertainment. We kids didn't know about the drive to exterminate First Peoples, the lies and broken treaties, and the continued supression of Native culture that was still ongoing. I had a cowboy hat and a holster, squinting my eyes as if always looking into the sun, a little blond-haired girl imitating what she saw on tv.

At college a friend told me about going to Pow Wows and of his interest in the Indian ways. It just seemed like a fad. And while I was working my husband through school, barely in my twenties, Wounded Knee seemed far away and alien.

I have been spending a great deal of time, now in my 'golden years', making up for the ignorance of my youth. It is frustrating to know that the entertainment industry still forms most of young people's historical knowledge. I know--the goal of public education is to make good citizens, and somehow that means supporting the image that America was always right. But I think that making good citizens should include the understanding that America has committed heinous crimes, but that we are continually learning to see the error of our past choices. Right now I am afraid that we may not be learning, as a culture, to recall history and resist making the same mistakes.

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

The Thunder Before the Storm: The Autobiography of Clyde Bellecourt as told to Jon Lurie
MNHS Press
Publication Novemeber 15, 2016
$27.95 hard cover
ISBN: 9781681340197

Brilliant Reimagining of Shakespeare's The Tempest: Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood

Contemporary novelists reimagine Shakespeare's plays in the Hogarth Shakespeare series. I have read Anne Tyler's Vinegar Girl (The Taming of the Shrew) and Jeanette Winterson's The Gap of Time (A Winter's Tale) but have not yet read Howard Jacobson's Shylock is my Name (The Merchant of Venice).

I was particularly eager to read Hag-Seed, Margaret Atwood's versions of The Tempest, because I'd read so many glowing reviews, and because I had read and enjoyed Atwood's last book The Heart Goes Last (my first time reading this author, which amazes me).

Hag-Seed is definitely my favorite in the series so far.

I won't concentrate on a plot synopsis since so many other reviewers have already done that. I'd rather address what aspects of the novel particularly impressed me.

I loved Hag-Seed's play within a play structure, so Shakespearean, where all the contemporary characters in the novel correspond to the original play and perform The Tempest while creating a live theater situation where the audience becomes a part of a play based on the Tempest.

I'll try to explain this again.

The protagonist, the brilliant and original artistic director Felix, was about to direct The Tempest when he was disposed from his job as artistic director by self-seeking men. Felix retreats to a primitive cabin in the middle of nowhere, his only companion the memory of his deceased daughter Miranda. After many years he takes a job under a false name and becomes Mr. Duke, literacy teacher in a local prison, teaching inmates Shakespeare through performance of the plays. When Felix learns his old enemies are now Ministers who want to end the prison literacy program he decides the time has come for him to take his revenge. The Ministers come to the prison to see a video of The Tempest performed by the inmates. But Felix and his prisoner actors plot a live theater experience that will bring his enemies under his power.

The intricate structure of the novel knocked my socks off. Additionally, as Felix teaches The Tempest to the prison inmates the reader is also educated about the play's themes and characters. And then at the end of the book the inmates offer reports on what happens to the characters after the events of the play. They offer original insights, such as Prospero's lack of oversight allowing Antonio to usurp him; a questioning of the strength or weakness of goodness; the theme of second chances; and theorizing that Prospero is Caliban's father. I also liked how the minor characters, the prisoners enrolled in Felix's course, have distinct personalities and back stories that relate to the roles they are assigned.

"The last three words in the play are 'set me free'," says Felix." Felix has identified nine prisons within the play, and so we understand how Atwood conceived of Hag-Seed.

Readers of this series don't have to be experts on Shakespeare's plays to enjoy the novels, although an understanding of the plays heightens the enjoyment. If you are rusty on the play, you can skip to the author's synopsis at the end and read it first.

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

Hag-Seed
Margaret Atwood
Hogarth Shakespeare
Publication Oct. 11, 2016
$25 hard cover
ISBN:9780804141291

For an interesting follow-up to this book read Shakespeare Changed My Life by Dr. Laura Bates, telling how teaching the Bard to prisoners impacted their lives.