Reading Thomas Cahill



Thomas Cahill

Since the semester has ended, I've indulged greatly in reading for pleasure--and, oh, has it been a pleasure!  I began my literary sojourn with an author I have never read before, one Thomas Cahill.  I picked up two of the books from his Hinges of History series, a series in which he means "to retell the story of the Western world as the story of the great gift-givers, those who entrusted to our keeping one or another of the single treasures that make up the patrimony of the West."

I love the idea behind the Hinges of History, but I must tuck in a disclaimer before I get started with my reviews.  Thomas Cahill is not a trained historian.  While he has a great deal of academic prowess behind him, I tend to be a little skeptical of anyone who hasn't undergone the rigorous training that I'm undergoing right now.  Yet, I try not to be snobby.  Cahill has credentials from Fordham, Columbia, Union Theological Seminary, and the Jewish Theological Seminary.  If that's not the next best thing to a history degree, then I don't know what is.

How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe

Cahill loves the Irish.  Every line of this book simply glows with his reverence for the people of the Emerald Isle.  He provides a quote from Edmund Campion that "rings true to this day:"

"The people are thus inclined: religious, franke, amorous, irefull, sufferable of paines infinite, very glorious, many sorcerers, excellent horsemen, delighted with warres, great almes-givers, [sur]passing in hospitalitie....  They are sharpe-witted, lovers of learning, capable of any studie whereunto they bend themselves, constant in travaile, adverterous, intractable, kinde-hearted, secret in displeasure."

If there was anyone who loved the Irish more than Cahill, it was St. Patrick.  Cahill provides a charming biography of the famous Brit-turned-Irishman, underscoring his importance in establishing the Church in Ireland.  Through the efforts of Patrick and those who followed him, scribes in Irish monasteries set about copying the great literature of Latin antiquity.  Through this work, Cahill argues, the words of Cicero, Virgil, and others were saved from extinction.  While Europe was in decline after the fall of Rome and while its great libraries were being destroyed by barbarian hordes, it fell to Irish monks, safe on their island, to protect the Latin inheritance for the world.

While telling the story of the Irish scribes and St. Patrick, Cahill also describes the manner in which the Catholic church in Ireland developed with very little, if any, influence from Rome and Papal authority.  Because of this, customs and rituals differed between Irish Catholic and Roman Catholic churches, with, among other things, the Irish creating the idea of private rather than public confession.  When Irish missionary efforts brought their brand of Catholicism into Scotland and then down into England, they came up against the Roman Catholics who had come across the Channel from the European continent.  The two groups eventually merged together at the Synod of Whitby, with bits of each taking hold and melding into the orthodoxy of the Catholic church in the British Isles.

Patrick's world did not last forever in Ireland--the Vikings saw to that.  But the work of the monks and missionaries who followed in Patrick's footsteps would carry on.  Irish-trained monks established monasteries on the continent, bringing with them their copies of Latin works and proving Cahill's point that the Irish saved the Latin patrimony.

What makes How the Irish Saved Civilization such a good read?  Well, first Cahill's narrative style is wonderful (more so in Mysteries of the Middle Ages).  In addition, Cahill includes a great deal of information about, and samples of, Irish vernacular literature.  These long-ago tales provide a glimpse into early Irish history, and Cahill tells them with relish.  His passion comes through on each page--very compelling to this reader.

Mysteries of the Middle Ages and the Beginning of the Modern World

 

This book caught my attention because it was so damned pretty.  The illustrations, the typeset, the entire layout of the book are eye-catching.  Add that to my new-found fascination with the Middle Ages, and I was hooked. 

First, the bad news.  There was nothing "mysterious" about what Cahill included in the book.  While he does a good job at showing the connections between the late antique world and the Middle Ages, that is nothing new.  His stories of some of the more fascinating characters of the time--Hildegard of Bingen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Dante Alighieri, Abelard and Heloise, Francis of Assisi--are well-written and compelling, but not new.  In fact, the source he used for his section on Eleanor of Aquitaine rests on my bookshelf already.

Now the good news.  Cahill's writing style is absolutely captivating.  I love reading a book that really challenges my vocabulary.  And Cahill delivers!  I was reaching for my phone's dictionary app over and over.  And he's a little snarky, which I also adore.  One example can be seen in his description of England's Henry II:  "The red-haired Henry had the face of a lion, the body of a bull, and the voice of a crow."  Not exactly Peter O'Toole in The Lion in Winter, is he?  (Eleanor:  "Henry?"  Henry:  "Hmmm?"  Eleanor:  "I have a confession."  Henry: "Yes?"  Eleanor:  "I don't much like our children.")

Another excellent description comes from Cahill's section on Hildegard of Bingen:

"As I see her, she is a small woman, wrinkled in old age--"Schrumpilgard" (Wrinklepus)....But she is a know-it-all, always right about everything.  Her sisters could find her unendurable because of her 'insufferable hammering way' and they would glower at her and, in her words, 'tear me to pieces behind my back.'"

While there may not be any new material provided, this book still makes for an excellent read.  It is smart and classy, full of beautiful illustrations, and well-written.  The little biographical sketches bring to life the famous men and women who were so important in their time and whose accomplishments linger to this very day.  Unfortunately, Cahill slips every now and again into commentary on today's political hot topics; any of my liberal friends who may read this book will likely nod along with Cahill's contemporary yammering.  As for me, I found it easy to skim through these parts and move on to the better stuff.

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Anyone reading either of the above works by Thomas Cahill will not be sorry.  They are fun, challenging, interesting, evocative, and accessible.  I imagine there are more Thomas Cahill books in my future....

Euphoria

Quite some time has passed since my last posting--and its been an eventful five and a half months.  Now that I am suffused with the euphoria that comes with the end of the school semester, I can devote some time to catching up on my blog.

This past semester has been a learning experience in more than one way.  I read nearly 40 books, skimmed probably a dozen more, enjoyed all three pieces of Dante's Divine Comedy, wrote a historiography on Nazi cinema, wrote a paper on the Cult of the Saints, and gave a "press conference" as Dante's Beatrice.  I studied social, political, and cultural history.  I engaged in terrific discussions with some of my fellow students and endured mind-numbing idiocy with some others.  I had instructors who encouraged me, who disappointed me, and who engaged my mind with lively interest.

More than school went on in my life over the past several months.  My first published work, Daisy's Legacy: A Tale of Sacramento in the Progressive Era, was put out by the good people of the Sacramento County Historical Society.  I signed my first autographs--for strangers as well as for friends and loved ones. 

Penelope Pitstop
Camille Dias Herbon

I have a job that I love, with co-workers that I admire.  The crew at the Pacific McGeorge Housing Mediation Center are passionate and dedicated, intelligent and caring.  Former coworkers from the olden days at the court remain in my life, for whom I am very grateful.

I made new friends over the past several months.  I also lost touch with some old friends and reconnected with others.  I enjoyed time with my daughters and their significant others.  A new member of the family, Penelope Pitstop Camille Dias Herbon, joined the household. 

It's been an amazing few months.

Review of Rest for the Wicked by Naida West

While I miss the rigor of school, I do not miss the insistence of my instructors that I write with an academic style.  Because it is summertime and there is no Dr. Rose to tell me to write more formally, this review of Naida West's Rest for the Wicked will sound like the casual me, not the scholastic me.

A few years ago, my beloved beautician, Carol Huson, handed me a book called Eye of the Bear by Naida West.  I was immediately skeptical.  I don't much enjoy reading about Native Americans--too sad, too much (or too little) white-girl guilt, whatever.  But Carol raved about the book, and insisted that both she and her husband Bob had loved it.  And, after all, I was trying to be an historian with a California focus.  So, after Carol had colored and cut my hair, I took the book home and gave it a shot.

I was enthralled!  Eye of the Bear was an amazing read.  From the beginning, it was clear that West had a beautiful writing style, a deep knowledge and understanding of California's indigenous peoples, and a vivid imagination that enabled her to take her readers back in time.  The book was gritty and realistic enough, but the emphasis on native culture and the belief system within it spoke volumes to me. 

Carol insisted on having her book back after I had finished it (can you imagine?).  But I very much wanted a copy for my own, so I checked the usual places, Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com.  While the book could be had from used booksellers on both sites, the price was staggering.  Sadly, that seemed to be the end of my time with author Naida West.

Fast forward to this year's California State Fair and Exposition.  Coerced into attending by friends, I was resisting the temptation of cinnamon rolls when I came across an exhibit dedicated to California authors.  I wandered over, and at the first table I approached there were copies of Eye of the Bear.  Not only that, there were other books there by Naida West.  One in particular caught my eye--Rest for the Wicked, billed as a story set in the Sacramento region during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.  As those are the time periods in U.S. history that most interest me, I decided then and there to spend some of my Fair money on the book.  I wish I could have purchased Eye of the Bear at the same time, but I am on a tight budget these days and had to resist. 

There was a woman seated behind the table, clearly there to sell the books.  In my enthusiasm (and I am very enthusiastic in moments like these), I began babbling all about how excited I was to see Eye of the Bear and to learn that the author had written other works.  "You liked it?" she asked, referring to Eye of the Bear.  "Oh, yeah," I babbled further.  "That's me," said the lady, now with a shy little smile. 

There I was, at the State Fair, meeting Naida West, the woman who had created Eye of the Bear!  Then the babbling really started.  She was a lovely woman, kind enough to talk with me about writing styles, about education, and more.  She graciously autographed my copy of Rest for the Wicked, and I stepped away to let her speak with other customers.  Well, "stepped" isn't exactly the right word.  I "floated" away from the table and back to my friends, who were now sticky with the remains of their cinnamon rolls. While I enjoyed the rest of my visit to the Fair and the company of friends and family, I was secretly chomping at the bit to get home and start reading.

Finally, on a Saturday morning, life settled into enough stillness that I took up Rest for the Wicked.  As it began with some of the very same elements that had enchanted me in Eye of the Bear, I was immediately hooked.  At over 600 pages, Rest for the Wicked took me four days to finish, but it was well worth it.

The main protagonist of Rest for the Wicked is Mae Duffy, a spoiled young girl who comes to California with her parents and brothers from Iowa in the early 1890's.  The family settles in the region around Sloughhouse and today's Rancho Murieta, rubbing elbows with familiar folks from that area's past, including the Sheldon and Miser families.  Sadly for Mae, her parents are completely unsuited for the challenges of starting a new life in a new place.  Mae soon strikes out on her own, leaving the Sierra foothills for life in the "big city" of Sacramento.

Mae's story then unfolds like a roller coaster, many dips and few climbs.  She is used and abused by men in Sacramento, including both a corrupt policeman and an ambitious political hack, but she also manages to meet many figures from Sacramento's past, including Hiram Johnson and Lincoln Steffens.  She even catches a glimpse of an aging Collis P. Huntington, by the 1890's the only member of the Big Four still alive.

New trials await Mae at every turn.  Even when she finds love, with half-Indian Billy McCoon, it ends in tragedy.  Mae's life, as imagined by Naida West, is filled with all the pain, dirt, nastiness, beauty, and splendor of real human existence at the close of the nineteenth century.  Nothing is held back, from a botched back alley abortion to the brutality of the railroad strike of 1894.  Yet Mae is resilient enough to grow and learn from her experiences, to open herself to new ways and new ideas, to find love again, and to eventually live a happy and contented life. 

The research Naida West must have done to complete Rest for the Wicked is amazing.  She made use of the usual secondary sources, but I can also spot her use of contemporary newspapers, city directories, census records and other sources common to genealogists, interviews with descendants of the real-life characters in the book, and much more.  This was fiction written by an historian, with all of the historian's drive for accuracy coupled with the novelist's flights of fancy.  If at times it seemed that West tried too hard to bring her fictional characters into contact with historical figures (i.e., the introduction of Butch Cassidy and Gertrude Stein), it was all in keeping with the way historical fiction is written.  Amitav Ghosh did the same thing when writing Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke.

For me, Rest for the Wicked brought to life the very historical period that I find so fascinating.  It was the time in which my great-grandparents were coming of age, marrying, starting their family, in Sacramento.  They were living through the same times as the fictional Mae Duffy, experiencing the same highs and lows of life.  West's meticulous research and spellbinding storytelling make me feel as though my own ancestors are just as accessible as the characters in her novel.

If you love a good piece of historical fiction, check out Rest for the Wicked and the other works of Naida West at http://www.bridgehousebooks.com/.  You won't be disappointed.

An Ancestor to Remember, Part III

The Great War was over, and the American doughboys who had served so valiantly in Europe came home again to their families.  For Guy Evan Blake, it was a return to North Dakota and a decision to make--what would he make of the rest of his life?

As the 1920's began, readers of the Daily Northwestern in Oshkosh followed the political maneuverings surrounding the newly formed League of Nations.  While French Premier, Georges Clemenceau, was sending invitations to an initial council meeting of the League, American politicians were hotly debating the question of United States participation.  With a presidential election on the horizon, the debate over the League played a large role, as did the issue of the prohibition of alcoholic drink.  A "Red Scare" also made headlines as Americans worried over the importation of Bolshevism from the newly formed Soviet Union.  "Reds" from Milwaukee and Racine were rounded up, and Oshkosh citizens must have worried about radicals in their own midst.

When the census taker came around to the town of Wing in Burleigh County, North Dakota, in January of 1920, he found Guy Evan Blake, then 25 years old, living in a rooming house belonging to one Albert Little.  Little, a 35-year-old Canadian, managed his own farm while his wife, Iva, kept the rooming house.  Other roomers included Alec Miller, a British-born citizen who had come to the United States in 1907 and worked as a day laborer, and young Naomi Henderscheid, only 20 years old and living with her two-year-old daughter, Ellen. 

Guy Evan got work when and where he could during the warm North Dakota summer of 1920.  His experiences during the Great War remained with him, the things that he had seen while serving in the ambulance corps, the work of the doctors and nurses who had tended so faithfully to the fallen soldiers.  Inspired by their dedication, Guy Evan considered returning to school in the fall of 1920, this time with the idea of training to become a doctor.

But during that summer, he had to earn the money to turn his medical dreams into reality.  Getting work on a crew building Burleigh County roads, Guy Evan found himself performing difficult and dangerous labor, often involving dynamiting obstacles to the proposed roadway.

Back in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, John Arza Blake, Guy Evan's father, had moved into the home that had belonged to his parents, originally built in the 1880's by John Arza's grandfather.  This house at 277 Vine Street would eventually pass to John Arza's daughter, Emily.  (The photograph to the left came from Emily's daughter, Mary, who added the notations.)


As the sun set on the evening of June 9, 1920, there was a knock at the door of the little house on Vine Street.  A telegram passed into the hands of John Arza Blake notified him that his son, Guy Evan, had been seriously injured in North Dakota.  John Arza made plans immediately to travel to his son's bedside, stopping in Shawano, Wisconsin, to pick up son James Harvey Blake along the way.  The two made their way to Bismarck.  The train ride to North Dakota must have evoked terrible memories for John Arza as he recalled the long ride to Seaside, Oregon, just seven years before at the time of the death of his youngest son, Lester.  Now it was an accident happening to his second-youngest son, Guy Evan, that called him from home at a moment's notice.


Bismarck Railroad Station
1910-1930

Upon arrival in Bismarck, John Arza and James Harvey found Guy Evan's condition to be grave; he had lost both hands, one arm, and the sight in both eyes in a dynamite explosion while working on a Burleigh County roadway.  While there was a chance that Guy Evan would survive his injuries, the prospects for his future, blind and crippled, were not good.

Recovery was slow and arduous, but Guy Evan almost certainly benefited by the advances made in medical science after the treatment of men wounded in the Great War.  He was also fortunate that North Dakota had an effective workers' compensation program, a legacy of Progressive Era politics that remains with us today.  According to an estimate given in the Bismarck Tribune on July 24, 1920, Guy Evan would be eligible for benefits of $18 per week for the rest of his life.  This may not seem like much now, but it would have allowed Guy Evan to rent a room and live a modest life at the time.

Workers' compensation benefits were not the only services available to Guy Evan as a result of his injuries. The Civil Rehabilitation Act (CRA) of 1920 was enacted effective June 2, 1920, just one week prior to Guy Evan's accident.  Originally entitled the Smith-Fess Act, the CRA called upon each state to institute a program to address the rehabilitation needs of its injured citizens.  The states and the federal government would share the costs on a 50-50 split.   

Each state was required to submit a plan for the establishment of its rehabilitation program to the newly formed Federal Board for Vocational Education which would oversee the program on the federal level.  North Dakota began their program on September 1, 1920, although their plan was not officially accepted until March 11, 1921 (even back in the 1920's, the Federal government was slow to act).  By the end of June, 1923, North Dakota had spent just over $16,000--a portion of it on Guy Evan Blake.

An Ancestor to Remember, Part II








John Arza Blake with his 11 children.
Daughter Allie sits to the far left,
Daughter Eva Ann to the far right.
Son Guy Evan sits next to Eva Ann,
while the baby of the family, Lester,
sits on his father's knee.






When last we left the family of young Guy Evan Blake, the nineteenth century was drawing to a close.  The family was still feeling the loss three years before of 43-year-old Ann Eva McCammond Blake, whose death occurred just a few weeks after the birth of her last child.  But a new century was about to begin....

In Oshkosh's Daily Northwestern newspaper, readers learned of troubles far away in South Africa as English colonizing efforts met resistance from local Boers.  In Chicago, a huge fire took the lives of nine firefighters.  And from the Philippines, readers learned of the death of Spanish-American war hero, General Henry Lawton, whose remains were to be transported back to the United States.

Residents of Oshkosh could find plenty to entertain them as they contemplated the future on New Year's Eve 1899.  At the Grand Opera House, the comedy Hogan's Alley would star Joe Flynn and feature "13 Big Vaudeville Acts" and "12 Handsome Girls."  For those seeking a less secular way to ring in the New Year, the Blake family's church, the Algoma Street Methodist Episcopal Church (now Algoma Boulevard First United Methodist), was featuring sermons entitled "The Voices of the Centuries" and "The Bloody King."

When the census taker visited the family of John Arza Blake on June 4, 1900, he found a full house of people.  Eldest daughter Allie had married in February, and she and her husband August Gumz, along with their daughter, Ollie, were living with John Arza and six of the children.  The three oldest sons, John Orva, Franklin, and James Harvey had left home prior to the census visit.  John Orva, suffering from asthma, had left school after his junior year in high school and in 1900 was working as a day laborer in Wells, North Dakota.  Perhaps his adventures in North Dakota proved enticing to younger brother, Guy Evan, as he would follow his brother to North Dakota more than a decade later.  While the whereabouts of John Arza's second son, Franklin, are unknown in 1900, younger son, James Harvey, left a colorful memoir of his life that sheds light on the adventuresome nature of the Blake boys.  Leaving school at 13 (over his father's objection) to take a job in town, James Harvey Blake by age 20 was working as a lumberjack in the northern woods of his native Wisconsin, a career choice that he would pursue for a decade. 

Ida Belle Gallagher



Changes happened rapidly for the Blake family in the first decade of the new century.  The year 1902 saw John Arza and at least one of his daughters stricken with small pox.  In 1904, the second-oldest daughter, Eva Ann, married grocer Bert Bessex and left the small house on 10th Street.  And in 1907, ten years after the death of his first wife, John Arza married schoolteacher Ida Belle Gallagher.  They would welcome John Arza's 12th child, daughter Emily, in 1910.

By 1910, John Arza's parents, Norman and Hannah Blake, were getting along in years, and John Arza purchased a home on Vine Street nor far from their home.  John Arza, his wife, Ida Belle, new baby Emily, and the two youngest boys, Guy Evan and Lester, were counted there in the 1910 census in April of that year.  By this point, Guy Evan was 16 years old and would soon follow in the footsteps of his older siblings by dropping out of school. 

According to son James Harvey's unpublished memoir, John Arza understood the value of education and wished to see all his children graduate from high school.  This was not to be, however.  Of John Arza's dozen children, only Emily, the daughter of former schoolteacher Ida Belle, would actually finish high school; sadly enough, she graduated one month after her father's death.

An Ancestor to Remember, Part I

Every now and again a family historian runs across an ancestor that comes as something of a surprise.  Perhaps you trace your geneology to Richard the Lionheart, to a Mayflower Pilgram, or maybe to a famous Civil War general.

Researching my maternal grandmother's Blake-Gumz family line, I found an ancestor who really amazed me.  He was an uncle of my grandmother, Fern Gumz Stratton, the brother of her mother, Allie Buella Blake.  While he was not a crusading King of England, he had just as much courage and fortitude.  I share his story now as an example of the amazing people family historians run into as part of this fabulous geneology hobby.

Guy Evan Blake

Oshkosh, Wisconsin, 1867

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched...but are felt in the heart."  ~~ Helen Keller.

The family of John Arza Blake and Ann Eva McCammond was already well established by the time their tenth child, Guy Evan Blake, arrived on the scene.  John Arza Blake, born in New York in 1851, had come to the frontier community of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, on the shores of Lake Winnebago, when he was just a toddler.  Ann Eva McCammond was born in Canada and immigrated to the United States when she was just six years old, settling with her parents and siblings in Janesville, Wisconsin.  By the time she was 16, she, too, was living in Oshkosh.  We will never know how the two met, but on September 15, 1875, John Arza Blake married Ann Eva McCammond in an Episcopal ceremony in Oshkosh.



By June of 1877, John Arza and Ann Eva welcomed their first child, son John Orva Blake.  In quick succession, a series of brothers and sisters appeared for John Orva, including:  Allie (1878), Franklin (1880), James Harvey (1881), Eva Ann (1883), Elbert (1885), Margaret (1887), Mary (1889), and Willie (1892).  





C&N W Railroad Depot in Oshkosh

On October 24, 1894, another son, Guy Evan Blake, joined the family.   At that time, John Arza was working as a yardmaster for the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad in Oshkosh.  The family lived in a home at 346 10th Street.  With so many children in the home, the new baby would have gotten the lion's share of his mother's attention, while older sister Allie would have played a large role in helping to care for her younger brothers and sisters.  Older brothers John Orva, Frank, and James Harvey would have been responsible for the upkeep of the home and yard, in addition to jobs outside the home, while their father worked hard at the railroad.

By the time Guy Evan was two years old, his mother was pregnant again, this time with her eleventh child.  On January 4, 1897, the family welcomed son Lester, but the happiness brought by the new addition was tinged with sadness.  At 43 years old, Ann Eva did not seem the same after this last birth.  In fact, her condition deteriorated rapidly, with her doctor diagnosising a case of peritonitis, an inflammation of the membrane lining of the abdomen. 

Ann Eva's suffering would not have been easy for her family to watch.  According to a 1911 encyclopedia offering, a patient suffering from peritonitis:

[symptons] usually begin by a shivering fit or rigor, together with vomiting, and with pain in the abdomen of a peculiarly severe and sickening character, accompanied with extreme tenderness, so that pressure, even of the bed-clothes, causes aggravation of suffering....the breathing becomes rapid and shallow....  The face is pinched and anxious. These symptoms may pass off in a day or two; if they do not the case is apt to go on to a fatal termination. In such event ... the temperature falls, the face becomes cold and clammy; the pulse is exceedingly rapid and feeble, and death takes place from collapse, the mental faculties remaining clear till the close.

For two-year-old Guy Evan, the illness and then death of his mother must have been devestating.  The new baby, Lester, was sent to live with his material grandparents, Charles and Mary Ann McCammond, while John Arza kept the rest of the children with him, relying more than ever on his older sons and daughters to help run the household and rear the younger children.

The Blake family would not bid farewell to the nineteenth century without more turmoil.  The year 1898 saw labor unrest across the nation, including in the lumber industries in and around Oshkosh.  At this time in its history, Oshkosh had grown to a population of 28,000 and was known as the "Sawdust City" thanks to the proliferation of lumbermills and other outgrowths of the timber industry.  There were seven companies in town that manufactured doors, blinds, sashes, and custom millwork, between them employing approximately 2,000 workers--over seven percent of the total population. 

Obsessions

Since I was a little girl, I've gone through what I call "obsessions." The first obsession I can remember came in the Mark Twain Elementary School library. For weeks, I looked at seven very pretty books on a shelf just to the right of my desk. They all stood in a neat little row, their pastel bindings making them look like a selection of Brock's candies.   I thought and thought about those books until one day, I reached up and pulled one down.  It had a mint-green cover and was Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter.  This was outside my comfort zone!  I usually read books about horses; this book was about a girl and her family, and they didn't even seem to own a horse.  But I gave it a try, checking it out and taking it home that afternoon.  Tucked into my bedroom, I read through the night until I learned that the Ingalls family had made it safely through that winter of blizzards.  And thus my obsession with the Little House books was born.  In no time at all, I had read all the pretty pastel-colored books in the series.

There have been many obsessions since then.  Through junior high and high school, I was obsessed with English history, especially as it pertained to royalty.  I couldn't get enough of Elizabeth I and her cousin Mary Queen of Scots.  A teenage visit to Winchester Mystery House, strangely enough, was my first encounter with a photo of Clark Gable--after that, it was all old movies all the time.  A trip to Sacramento's historic City Cemetery sparked a desire to know more about my family history, an obsessions that currently takes hold of me every few months or so.  And thus it goes on....

Right now, I'm passionate about the study of German.  This, too, has been an obsession that reappears every few years or so.  From German classes in junior high and high school, to self-taught German before my first visit to my ex-husband's family in Berlin, to German classes at American River College, I've loved studying the German language.  For all that I get this German language bug every now and again, I'm no where near fluent in the language.  But that doesn't stop me.  I practice vocabulary every day right now, and I struggle with conjugating verbs and understanding sentence structure.  And I love it.

I never know when the next obsession will appear.  But the old favorites linger on--family history, German, old movies, and my all-time favorite, attending college.  My wish for myself is that I always have obsessions, that I am never content with what I have already learned.  I want to constantly strive to learn more, to feel that rush when a new obsession is discovered and pursued.  As my sister so nicely put it recently, I'll likely be found in the "Alzheimer's Wing of Sac State" when I'm 90, still going to school, still learning.  And that's fine with me.

End of the Semester

She leans back in her chair and takes a deep breath.  A feeling of serenity washes over her like the cooling waves found at Venice Beach.  Reruns of Grey's Anatomy stare out from the television, and even the dishes are done.  This is a good feeling. 

She has only a moment to enjoy this new experience before the same old anxiety takes over.  What should she be doing?  There certainly must be some schoolwork to complete, some reading to do, some writing to finish?  Is there something left undone?  Surely there must be something left undone!  Argh!!!

Wait!  She's finished all her work for the semester. It's summer break!

What on earth does she do now?

That's me tonight.  I just turned in my final paper, and my work is done.  Wilson paper?  Done!  Vann paper?  Done!  DiMare paper?  Done!

The first days after the end of a school semester are the most confusing of the entire year.  It takes a week, sometimes two, before I begin to feel like a normal person again, not a harried student.  Having spent the last five months scurrying to keep up with books, papers, discussion groups, and lectures, I am now a lady of leisure--at least as far as school goes.  Day-to-day drama still goes on, the search for a job, the worry about money, but all that recedes into the background as I contemplate such exotic pleasures as reading non-academic books, playing with family history, working around the house, etc.

I wouldn't trade my chance to be a part of a history graduate program for anything, including all the tea and opium in nineteenth-century China (yes, I am still afflicted by some of the reading I've done this semester).  But there is no feeling so fine as that of having completed all my work.  Unsettling?  Yes.  Delightfully so?  You bet!

She takes another breath.  Serenity washes over her again, lasting a little longer this time.  She knows that it will last longer tomorrow, then longer.  It won't be long before she'll realize that no school work will be required until August.  It's going to be a great summer.

Review of River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh

Many fans of the film Raiders of the Lost Ark were disappointed with the sequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  The second film just did not live up to the quality of entertainment that had been established by the first film.  Sadly, this same pattern also fits Amitav Ghosh’s second book in the Ibis trilogy, River of Smoke.  Where Sea of Poppies was fast-paced, interesting, and entertaining, River of Smoke falls short of that mark.  Several factors contribute to the failure of River of Smoke to live up to expectations, including characters that are sluggish and inactive, the inclusion of many real-life historical figures, and far too much descriptive narrative.

Readers seeking to know more about the continuing adventures of the characters from Sea of Poppies, like Deeti, Jodu, Ah Fatt, and Zachery , will be disappointed not to learn more about their fates.  While several make minor appearances in River of Smoke, the story line generally follows the life of Ah Fatt’s father, Bahram.  While readers learn of Bahram’s early life through flashbacks, once those flashbacks are complete, the character becomes lifeless and one-dimensional.  He floats along with the decisions of others, his place in the story being told only through his emotions and some very vivid descriptions of the food he eats.  The character of Paulette loses the agency and exuberance that were hers in Sea of Poppies, her only place in River of Smoke seeming to be as a vehicle for the author’s lessons on the exchange of flora amongst the nations of the world and China.  Zadrig Karabedian begins the book as an active character, only to fall into victim to a second-rate role as told through the letters of Robin Chinnery.  As for Chinnery himself, he is mainly seen through his interminable letters, the content of which appears solely designed to “tell” rather than “show” activity.  The tone of Chinnery’s letters is so ridiculously fey as to set a reader’s teeth on edge.  His commentary may befit a book written for teenage girls, but it is out of place and jarring in a work from author Amitav Ghosh.



Canton with the Thirteen Factories



The characters that do exhibit agency and drive are those taken from real life.  In River of Smoke, there were many historical figures included in the story, including George Chinnery (painter), William Jardine (merchant), Lancelot Dent (merchant), John Slade (editor of the Canton Register), Charles W. King (merchant), William Wetmore (merchant), James Innes (troublemaker), Samuel  Fearon (translator), and more.  It is through these characters that we see the build-up to the First Opium War, the thinking that led the siege of Fanqui-Town (the Thirteen Factories). 

This use of historical figures is not uncommon in works of historical fiction.  It does, however, come with risks.  Staying reasonably close to an historical figure’s actual character, words, and actions requires a great deal of research, and it appears from his sources that Ghosh has done this admirably.  The only suggestion that might be made to Ghosh is to take the example from other authors, such as Sharon Kay Penman, who also write historical fiction using true-life figures.  Ms. Penman is careful in her afterward to provide information on just who was real and who was not in her work, and she also confesses to any literary license she may have employed when telling her story.  While Ghosh provides wonderful information on his source material, he does not distinguish for the reader the characters who really lived and those who lived only in his imagination.  As some of the historical figures in River of Smoke are somewhat obscure (to those not intimately familiar with nineteenth trade in China), this would have been a great help to the reader.



In the book, the character of
Paulette pursues the elusive
Golden Camellia



Unfortunately, there is one historical figure who stands out as completely foreign to the entire plot of the book—Napoleon Bonaparte.   The author uses a visit by Bahram and Karabedian to Bonaparte in exile only as a means of providing the reader with a great deal of information on the establishment of, and life in, Canton during this period.  This use of Napoleon Bonaparte exemplifies another flaw prominent in River of Smoke—the overabundance of descriptive narrative.  One of the features that made Sea of Poppies such an enjoyable read was the near seamless way in which the author wove historical fact with fictional action.  It was through the characters themselves that readers could learn more about the history of the opium trade in India, the technology of sailing, etc.  Sadly, in River of Smoke, Ghosh relies heavily on description rather than action to give the kind of background historical information that readers of historical fiction generally enjoy.  For example, much of the information on the exchange of flora around the world is conveyed through Chinnery’s letters, while the background of Canton is explained in the discussion with Napoleon Bonaparte.  At several points, the author completely disregards both action and character, launching into pure descriptive narrative that could have found a suitable home in a textbook on world history.



William Jardine is one of
the many historical
figures included in
River of Smoke



All the above does not detract from the valuable information contained within the pages of River of Smoke.  Readers of world history will recognize facets of the Columbian Exchange (flora exchange) and The Plantation Complex (the “drug” commodities).  Perhaps the most interesting connection with world history comes from Ghosh’s description of the route taken by Lin Tse-hsu on his journey from Beijing to Canton.  Along the way, Lin is described as stopping to meet with intellectuals and academicians who are considered experts on foreign peoples.  These experts have determined, among other things, that Europeans cannot live without rhubarb.  This fact that the Chinese compiled a body of information on Europeans is a mirror reflection of what James Hevia wrote in English Lessons about the information gathered by the British on the Chinese people.  Sadly, neither nation knew the other very well.

It is true that River of Smoke did not live up to the promise of Sea of Poppies any more than Temple of Doom lived up to Raiders of the Lost Ark.  All is not lost, however.  Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade may have been the best of the series of Indiana Jones movies.  This gives one hope that the third book in the Ibis trilogy will recapture the glory of Sea of Poppies, teaching as it entertains.

All About Uncle Dale

I have a totally cool uncle, my Uncle Dale (and another cool uncle, my Uncle Rickey who is not the subject of this post).  Uncle Dale was brazen enough to toss me fully clothed into a swimming pool.  He understood when I was hungover and swore I would never drink again--and he didn't believe that for a minute.  When his son, my cousin Kevin, asked me to look into his father's family history, I was only too happy to help out.  Any excuse to look into family history!

As part of my research, I located my Uncle Dale, with his parents, in the 1940 census. 

Lewis Orth and Barbara Layne

Voter registration records and recollections from my mother and father gave me an address where I should find my Uncle Dale and his parents in the 1940 census. 

Just because I had an address, though, did not make the little Orth family easier to find.  They did not live within the city limits of Sacramento, and I did not know enough about the old names of county areas to readily identify the correct enumeration district.  I checked each County area, and under the name of the Brighton area, I found an ennumeration district that contained Parker Avenue.  And, sure enough, there I found Lewis Orth, his wife, Barbara, and the baby version of my Uncle Dale.

Lewis Orth is 30 years old at the time of the census, born in California.  From earlier research, I know that this parents were both immigrants from Germany who settled in the area around Murphy's California, up in the foothills of Calaveras County.  Lewis' father, Frederick, died when Lewis was just 11 or 12 years old and is buried in the cemetery in Murphy's.  Lewis' mother, Katherine, at one point worked as a laundress to support her seven children, of whom Lewis was fourth born.  That Lewis finished four years of high school, in spite of the fact that his mother was a widow with seven children, is an indicator to me of the importance that Katherine placed on the education of her children.


Uncle Dale's great-niece, Heidi,
visiting the grave of
Frederick Orth in Murphy's.

Barbara Layne Orth is 21 years old at the time of the census.  She was born in Washington, Tacoma to be exact.  Like her husband, Lewis, she finished four years of high school.  Her son, my uncle, listed by his "real" name of Lewis D. Orth, is just three months old at the time of the census, having been born in California.  Over the next several years, Uncle Dale and his parents would welcome additions to the family--Kathleen and Steven. 

Lewis and Barbara own their home on Parker Avenue, valued at $2000.  Their house was modest in comparison with those of their neighbors, whose homes had values between $1,700 and $7,000.  Lewis works as a utility man at something called an "auto agency."  From voter registration records, I know that Lewis is actually an auto mechanic.  As auto maintenance (and race cars!!) has been a huge facet in my Uncle Dale's life, it does not surprise me that his father was involved with cars.  In 1939, Lewis earned just about $100 per month, a respectable salary in 1940 although far from allowing the family to live in any kind of luxury.

From voter registration records, I also know that both Lewis and Barbara were Democrats.  They would likely have supported Franklin D. Roosevelt, who in 1940 would be running for his third term as president.  They would be supporters of Roosevelt's New Deal policies, and I am sure that they would be keeping an eye on news of the war raging in Europe in 1940.  The fact that both Lewis and Barbara were Democrats would have put both of them at odds with Lewis' mother, Katherine, who was a Republican for much of her life.  Political conversations around the Orth house must have been interesting.

Lewis and Barbara Orth with their children, Steven,
Kathleen, and the great Uncle Dale.

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I hope that my Uncle Dale, my Aunt Sandy, and my cousins will enjoy this little peek into their family history. 

Review of English Lessons by James L. Hevia

In English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century China, area studies specialist James L. Hevia takes a look at imperialism through the lens of cultural pedagogy, striking a different tone than the traditional view of Western imperial action through military might.  In doing so, Hevia makes the case for what is really colonializing action taken by Western powers (specifically but not solely the British) against China as comprised of four key elements.  These include:  (1) the use of violence against the people, institutions, and culture of China, through military means but also through diplomatic and linguistic coercion; (2) the “universalization of pseudo-scientific racial categories;” (3) the anxiety of the Western powers over the contrast between civilization and barbarism and the actions taken in response to that anxiety; and (4) the “practices of military plunder, the public exhibition, and the art market.”

James Hevia

Hevia bookends his work between the Second Opium War and the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion.  Certainly, the military violence of the period is undeniable.  Hevia, however, points to other methods of violence, including the use of diplomacy and the treaty system by the Western powers as a tool to produce Western hegemonic power.  Hevia effectively demonstrates  the manner in which language is manipulated to Western advantage and used as a tool against the Chinese.  Matters such as the development of a standard translation of Chinese ideograms and the restriction of certain words from official Chinese communications demonstrate the lengths to which language was used not only to instruct the Chinese in their relations with the West but to control their actions.

Hevia focuses a great deal of attention in English Lessons on the standard compilation of knowledge of China and the Chinese people developed during the latter half of the nineteenth century.  Western scholars combined the new access to China that arose from the Opium Wars with the sociological, demographical, geographical, and anthropological advances of the time to designate a set of characteristics for the Chinese people, their government, their culture, and more.  The end result was a hierarchical categorization of the races encountered by the Western powers during the course of colonialism, knowledge which was then used to direct policy.



The sack of the Summer Palace



Certainly the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion led to the third element of Hevia’s focus noted above, that of the anxiety of the Western powers over the contrast between civilization and barbarism.  Here Hevia loses something of the strength of narrative that held the reader’s interest to this point.  He writes of the atrocities committed at the time by the Western forces with a sense of detachment, a style which serves as a strange echo of the response of Western leaders to the actions of their troops.  Perhaps this was intentional, perhaps not.  In any event, while Hevia notes the concerns raised in the imperial centers over the actions of their military (and missionary) men, this seems to have had little effect on the powers themselves.  Rather, they turned from the simple process of executing prisoners with bullets to the somehow less-barbaric (?) means of beheading.  To off-set the stain of barbarism that attached to Western soldiers during the Boxer Rebellion, Hevia details the cultural methods used to justify the atrocities, including the introduction of the victim-martyr amongst the Christian missionaries and the symbolic place given to such martyrs.

With both the Boxer Rebellion and the sack of the Summer Palace during the Second Opium War, Hevia focuses on the significance of looting.  He does an admirable job providing detail on the objects looted, their cultural significance, and the manner in which they were then displayed to the larger world.  He identifies looting with the Western pedagogical project, and he is convincing that this was a large part of the process.  Where he may be lacking, however, is in attributing other motives to the act of looting.  What happened to sheer human greed?  Certainly the average British private had more on his mind than teaching the Chinese a lesson?   In his zeal to find cultural significance, Hevia might have stepped just a little too far in this area.

Troops used during the
Boxer Rebellion

If there is one criticism to be made, it is not really a very important one.  From the very introduction to his work, Hevia makes it clear that this will not be another “China-centered approach” to the study of Western relations with the Chinese empire.  By focusing on the period of the Opium Wars through the Boxer Rebellion, Hevia sought to reexamine the role of the Western powers in an effort to rescue the actions of the West from its position as a “reified historical agent.”  He does this admirably, while also admitting that the Chinese were not totally without agency.  Sadly, that agency is not included in this work (can one not hear Andre Gunder Frank shouting in the background “Eurocentrism” with the appropriate exclamation points?).  In fact, while Hevia indicates at more than one point in English Lessons that the Chinese eventually adapt Western military techniques and instruments, he does not follow through on the promise to explore this topic.  The Chinese appear at best as passive-aggressive agitators and at worse as mere bystanders to their own history.



Monument at Oberlin College
originally built to honor
missionary victims of the
Boxer Rebellion



In a work dense with analysis, James Hevia gives his readers a lot to think about in terms of the processes of colonialism through culture.  His section on the pop culture outcomes of the Boxer Rebellion (boy adventure books, films, etc.) is fascinating in its level of detail and its excellent analysis.  Yet, while Hevia provides more than ample information on the role of the teacher in the Western pedagogical project in nineteenth-century China, a modern-day scholar will have to look elsewhere for the experience of the student.  With Hevia as a starting point, however, it will certainly be worth the effort.

More from the 1940 Census

My quest to find ancestors in the newly released 1940 census continues.  This time I took on my Gumz-Stratton family line, hunting for a few of them in the census records from Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

Gus and Allie Gumz

I took a chance when I went out looking for Gus and Allie Gumz, my maternal great-grandparents.  I had an address from the 1960's, along with a pretty good idea that Allie and Gus had lived in that house for years.  I used the tools at http://www.1940census.archives.com/ to identify the enumeration district that would contain that address in Oshkosh, then looked at each image in the set from that district until Gus and Allie popped up, right where they would live for another 20+ years.

The home that Allie and Gus occupied in 1940 was located at 303 Prospect Avenue in Oshkosh, Wisconsin (since renumbered to 807).  The home was owned by Gus and he gave it a value of $2,800.  The homes around 303 ranged in value from $2,000 to $5,000, putting the home at 303 in just about the middle in terms of value.  The fact that most of the homes on the same census page were owned by their occupants tells me that it was a pretty stable neighborhood, a well-settled and established section of Oshkosh. 



Allie's father, John Arza Blake, with
his children.  Allie is seated at
the far left.

 At the time he spoke to the census taker, Gus was 62 years old, Allie 61, and both of them were born in Wisconsin.  Gus went through the 8th grade in school, while Allie finished through the 7th.  Allie was the second oldest of eleven children and the oldest girl in her family.  It is likely that she quit school to help her mother run the large and bustling household.  When her mother died shortly after the birth of her eleventh child, Allie was just 18 years old.  As her father did not remarry for several years, it fell to Allie to tend to her younger siblings, even as she had her first baby herself when she was just 21.

Gus, too, came from a large family, being the third born in a family of twelve children.  Like Allie, it would not be hard to surmise that Gus, too, left school to help out with the family.  However, even if neither one of them had to leave school to meet the needs of their families, it was not uncommon for children to quit school after the 8th grade to begin their work lives.


Living with Allie and Gus was their daughter, Norine, known to her friends and family as "Sis," and her husband, Arnold Zuelke.  Sis was 26 years old, Arnie 29, and both were born in Wisconsin.  While Arnie quit school after 8th grade, Sis went through all four years of high school. 

Gus and Allie Gumz along with their children
photo taken about 1920

Everyone at 303 Prospect Avenue except for Allie worked outside the home.  Gus was employed as a tent-maker at a tent and awning company, an occupation he had worked at for over ten years by the time of the 1940 census.  His daughter, Sis, worked as a clerk in a dry goods store, and his son-in-law Arnie worked as a "machine hand" in a woodworking concern.  The daughters in the Gumz family were no strangers to working outside the home.  Sis's older sisters, Fritzie, Fern, and Marian, had all worked as bookkeepers at one time or another.  It is to Gus' credit that he told the the census taker that his daughter, Sis, made $780 in 1939 while he himself made only $750.  Some men may have shied away from admitting to making less than their daughter, but I imagine that Gus was proud of all his daughters and the manner in which they made their way in the world.  Arnie was the big breadwinner in the home, bringing in $1,040 during 1939. 

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A friend once found a saying that really speaks to genealogists.  It says that a person dies three times.  The first is when they stop breathing.  The second is when their heart stops.  And the third is when their name is no longer spoken on earth.  I'm trying to make sure that my ancestors never reach that third stage.



The 1940 Census is a BIG DEAL!

 
If you are a genealogist exploring your American ancestors, you know that census records are your bread-and-butter.  The U.S. census, taken every ten years since 1790, anchors each family in a particular place and time, providing insight into who and what our ancestors were.  Census questions about a person's parents provide clues to the identities of more ancestors, and questions about employment and military service tell us how our ancestors lived their everyday lives.  Using census material as the skeleton, a skilled genealogist can employ cultural and social history to fill in the flesh, creating a real connection between the twentieth-first century genealogist and the times and people of the past.

Aggregate census data is usually released by the Census Bureau not long after the completion of each census.  To see individuals, however, genealogists must wait until 72 years after the census was taken to view the population schedules.  In 2002, I was just a beginner, and I was thrilled when the 1930 census records became available.  Quickly exhausting those records, it has been a long wait for the 1940 census to come along.  Happily, the big day arrived on April 2, 2012.  The National Archives released digital copies of the population schedules, and eager genealogists began pouring over them.  Unfortunately, there are no online indexes as yet, so you need an actual 1940 address and a lot of patience to find your family members.  I used address information from City Directories (the precursor of telephone books) and all of my patience (that being a very limited commodity) to find a few of my family. 

Bart and Lorraine

The 1940 census was the first to show me my paternal grandparents living together with my two-year-old father. 



Rickey E. Dias



The record tells me that Bart V. Dias, his wife, Lorraine M., and their son, Rickey E., were all living at 223 T Street in Sacramento.  They rented their home for the astonishing sum of $25 a month.  Bart is 30 years old, Lorraine only 22, and Rickey is probably a pretty rambunctious 2-year-old.  All three are noted as being born in California.  The record indicates that they were all living in the same house in 1935, but that is something I would question, as Bart and Lorraine were not married in 1935 and, of course, Rickey wasn't born until 1937. 

New to this particular year's census is a question regarding education.  Bart notes that he has finished two years of high school, with Lorraine finishing only one.  Bart is employed as a janitor at a rooming house, while Lorraine tends to the home.  In 1939, Bart's total income was $720, averaging out to $60 per month.  After rent, this would leave Bart and Lorraine with $35 a month to spend on food, clothes, entertainment, etc.  As gasoline was $0.18 per gallon, and a loaf of bread cost $0.11, I imagine Bart and Lorraine could get by but they were definitely not living in luxury.