Adventure Log: Pilgrimage to the Olympic Peninsula

25 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by Gretchen Staebler in Adventure Log, writingdownthestory in Memories, writingdownthestory in Photograph

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#adventurelog, Adventure Log, Big cedar, Kalaloch beach, Kalaloch Tree of Life, Lake Quinault Lodge, Olympic National Park, Olympic Peninsula, Rialto Beach, Ruby Beach, scattering ashes, Stellajoe Staebler

Adventure is not always to unfamiliar places, and the western edge of the Olympic Peninsula is one of the places I have most often been to over my 66 years. On Easter Sunday, my sister and I returned to a favorite place of our childhood to scatter some of our mother’s ashes on this one year anniversary of her death.

As children, we traveled on the sticky vinyl back seats of the one-tone-green ’56 Chevy station wagon, hauling with us whatever out-of-town guests were visiting. My father pointed out the commercial timber forests to the visitors, citing the year they were clearcut, replanted, would be ready for harvest again, while we rolled our eyes from the back.

With our Tucson cousins. A family story of my father being incensed that the boys sat in the far back of the station wagon reading comic books on the drive to the beach, missing his running commentary about forest practices.

Our first stop—Rebecca and I—was at Lake Quinault Lodge, where we spent the night in the oldest part of the hotel. Franklin Roosevelt had lunch in the dining room there in 1937 and is rumored to have decided to create Olympic National Park while sitting in the lodge, perhaps in front of the enormous stone fireplace. The lodge sits in one of the three temperate rainforests in the world and is one of the wettest areas in the contiguous US, so there is a fire pretty much every day.

My mother and I stayed at the lodge a couple of times in recent years when I came home for a visit. We always sat at the same table for meals, her with her back to lake and the light that hurt her eyes, me across from her watching guests playing lawn games, the hummingbirds at the feeders, and the sinking sun setting over the pristine lake. Rebecca went to the dining room for breakfast ahead of me. When I followed a minute or two later and found she had been seated at the familiar table, my eyes filled with tears.

After breakfast, and some time reading in front of the fire, waiting for the fog to lift, we drove on to Kalaloch beach. It was not our childhood destination, but was the beach my parents enjoyed in later life, staying in the cabins on the bluff. They took the grandkids there when they came to visit, digging in the sand and making sand casts on the beach. My mother’s “Purple Arts Festival” group gathered there each year too, doing art in one of the cabins and on the lawn. I’m not sure why we didn’t visit the so-named Tree of Life, or at least I have no memory of it, perhaps because the riverlette has to be forded to get there. It should be one of the natural wonders of the world.

Three of the grandkids.

Next stop, the Big Cedar. The ancient tree (estimated to be over 1000 years old, according to the internet) is my Notre Dame. It sits in a forest of other large trees, the mother cathedral among the lesser cathedrals. Its immensity, even after losing a “spire” in a storm in 2014, is almost too much to take in. It is not a single tree, making it difficult, I suppose, to determine age; or just how much of it is original. It is a true “mother tree,” pulling to her many children of other ethnic origins and giving them life. The simple sign at the road “Big Cedar” with an arrow, is tantamount to a sign pointing to Notre Dame that says “church.” The park service, just this month, is finally giving her her due, constructing a fence to keep worshipers from climbing on and into her, and improving the trails around her and her fallen spire as well as back to other huge, ancient trees.

A favorite hymn of my mother’s: I know a green cathedral, a shadowed forest shrine, where leaves in love join hands above, and arch your prayer and mine…

Mama in examination mode, age 88.

Rebecca with Mother Cedar.

On to Ruby Beach, the favorite of mine and my sisters. We were greeted on the trail down from the parking lot by the smell of a fire, flashing us back to tiny fires built between the drift logs to protect us and the flames from the wind, roasting hotdogs for lunch, before or after we stacked and leaned logs to build a fort and searched in high competition for the roundest stone. On nicer days we, floated on logs in the river—the water play alternative on these beaches with too strong an undertow to venture into the ocean. We had the best childhood.

Roasting hot dogs with our Aunt Helen. (I’m not sure where the fire is; looks like a posed shot.)

(This is actually Rialto Beach, a little farther north, me waving with sister Jo Ann.)

Rebecca

No place really felt right for scattering ashes, but we wanted to leave some of Mama on this wild coast. We returned to Kalaloch with our collection of heart rocks (none of the round ones we found would have met our father’s strict criteria and the test of his calipers) and set a small shrine in the sand to hold a bit of her. As I write this, it has long since washed into the sea, taking her a little farther away from us.

And now I am the grandmother, passing love for the beauty of this place to my grandchildren. I am hoping to take them at this summer’s Camp Gigi. What lives in hearts and is passed to the next generations is never truly gone.

In Celebration of My Mother—and Seminary Hill Natural Area

21 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by Gretchen Staebler in writingdownthestory in Memories

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#seminaryhillnaturalarea, Bill Moeller, Centralia Chronicle, Helen Hoyt, Kalaloch beach, Lake Quinault Lodge, Seminary Hill Natural Area, Stellajoe Staebler

A bit of straightening up the home my mother lived in for 58 years uncovered several things she wrote. Her creative writing—and to-do lists—was on scraps of paper, stationery, the first few pages of notebooks, in the middle of otherwise empty spiral pads. She loved to write, but for whatever reason (probably lack of self-confidence) she didn’t share it. Except for notes on cards to friends in need of cheering, which she did beautifully up to the end when she had to dictate them.

She died one year ago today. She left behind her writing and her championing of what is now Seminary Hill Natural Area. In 1980 she conceived of and led the march to save the hill she lived on from the loggers’ chainsaws. (I’ve written about it here and for the local newspaper many times, and you can read a column in the Chronicle here about the history, written by then mayor, Bill Moeller and a post by me last year about my mother’s love for the natural world is here. A search of her name at Chronline.com will bring up more. She is locally world famous.)

But before that she spent hours walking the trails, leading Girl Scout day camps there, paying attention to the seasonal changes in the forest, and getting dirty.

Here is a poem she wrote (with apologies, she writes, to Helen Hoyt, who penned a version of the quoted lines):

Seminary Hill Natural Area

“Little park that I pass thru
I carry back a part of you.”
To make a cloudy day less drear
the memory of you more dear.

I took “some of your cleanness
some of your shade
some of your sky
some of your calm
as I passed by.”

I took some of your sweet vanilla leaf,
tasted your grapes
your green salal
I heard your busy little wren
—Lost track of time
under your spell.

Little park!
I’m glad you were there
when I passed by.

—Stellajoe E. Staebler
December 22, 1979

The park is still here because you passed by. Thank you, Mama. Thank you.

My sister and I are at two of the other places she loved, to honor her on this anniversary: Lake Quinault Historic Lodge on the Olympic Peninsula where we sat in front of the fireplace last night and toasted her memory, and later today at Kalaloch Beach, where we will scatter some of her ashes. She is with us.

The annual Seminary Hill Natural Area clean-up, usually on Earth Day, which is tomorrow, will be held this year on May 4 from 10-12. Meet at the Barner Drive entrance. All are welcome.

365 Days: Life After Death

18 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by Gretchen Staebler in Daughter Off Duty, writingdownthestory in Memories, writingdownthestory in Photograph

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Tags

#seminaryhillnaturalarea, death anniversary, death in nature, death of a parent, Easter, gratitude, life after death, memories, resurrection, Seminary Hill Natural Area, spring

Spring was busting out. Leaves were popping into being around chartreuse flowers that dripped from branches of big leaf maples. Oregon grape was decked out in yellow and fronds were unfurling in sword ferns. Apple and cherry trees in the neighbor’s orchard were dreaming about exploding. Though she couldn’t see it, the dogwood below her window at her assisted living home was blooming. Though she could no longer walk there, the forest she’d spent hundreds of hours exploring for more than five decades were full of the trillium she loved best of all, in their annual death throes. She’d told us she loved us over and over.

And then she was gone.

And so it is now. 365 days later spring is bursting forth again. I love that the first anniversary of my mother’s death falls on Easter. I trust she has experienced her resurrection. That she has been reunited with her love. That they are communing with their parents and siblings and beloved spouses. That maybe she has let go of her rigid refusal to enjoy adult beverages and joins the cast in daily “fivesies.”

I have enjoyed a resurrection too. Rising at my usual early hour a few days ago, the sun casting rays through the maple tree, as it did that weekend last April; the mountain emerging through the fog; the updating I have been doing on the house—it seems like forever—nearly complete and fresh and beautiful and filled with light, I thought:

I have never been as happy as I am right now.

I have emerged from the tight bud of the long years of caregiving, and just as my mother has been set free to burst into bloom again, so have I. Sometimes we all require proper distance from what we have loved, to be reminded of its beauty. So it is with winter and spring, with death and resurrection, with the return of the light.

I also love that her youngest great-grandson will turn three on Mother’s Day. They are coming to the homestead (I think) to celebrate, and we will honor three generations of mothers, one just out of reach, the other two carrying on into the future—carrying her into the future.

I took a walk in her beloved woods yesterday and felt her there walking just ahead of me, showing me the way. I will be forever grateful that each year from now until the end of my own days, her resurrection date will coincide with the new life all around me. I miss her. And she is with me every day.

…it became difficult to tell just what it was that was singing—
it was the thrush for sure, but it seemed

not a single thrush, but himself, and all his brothers,
and also the trees around them,
as well as the gliding, long-tailed clouds
in the perfect blue sky—all, all of them

were singing.
And, of course, yes, so it seemed,
so was I….

—excerpted from “Such Singing in the Wild Branches”
by Mary Oliver

(Read my words about my mother’s death here and the days following here.)

And now, come with me into my mother’s woods.

A grave marker proclaiming that she lived and she died is in a cemetery twenty miles away; but she will always live here on these trails in these trees she saved. And in the hearts of those she loved and who loved her.

My Family of Storytellers for 385 Years in America: Part 3

11 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by Gretchen Staebler in writingdownthestory in Blog, writingdownthestory in Memories

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Civil War letters, family history, genealogy, Goodale family history, Goodell family history, Grand Mound WA history, Joel Goodell Baker, memories, old letters, saving family heritage, They left us everything, Washington Territory history, WWII letters

Someday I will transcribe Joel Brigham (Goodell) Baker’s letters from the Civil War; they are truly amazing. For now, we start with why his last name is Baker, instead of Goodell.

Jotham and Annie Goodell; July 5, 1881

While Jotham and Annie were still in Canada, Jonas Baker and his wife, Phebe Goodell Baker, came from New York State to visit. Phebe was the sister who cared for Jotham during his childhood [after their mother died when he was seven months old]. Phebe and Jonas had no children and begged Jotham and Annie to give them their four year old son, Joel Brigham. Jotham felt he owed his sister a debt and only by giving up one of his children could this debt be paid…. From that time on he was known as Joel Brigham Baker. In 1881, before her death, Annie made a formal legalized statement of these facts. —From Ethel Goodell’s “My Goodells in America.”

Anna Glenning Goodell in said County and Territory being duly sworn says that she is the mother of Joel Brigham Baker deceased. While a resident of [?] when Joel was but four (4) years old Jonas Baker and his wife Phebe [Goodell] visited us and insisted on adopting Joel as their Son and [?] to make him their heir we reluctantly consented and from that time he took their name and became a member of their family. —Signed Anna Glenning Goodell

Subscribed to and sworn to this the 5th day of July 1881. —W.M. (?) Goodell, Justice of the Peace

Cpt. Joel (Goodell) Baker, Civil War

Army Potomac
May 19th, 1864

My dear Wife:
…Such mangled as I saw on the field were awful. One boy had his right cheek torn off, leaving the teeth all exposed. Arms and legs were lying around and everything else looks awful…

12 miles from Richmond
May 31, 1864

Dear Wife:
All well, fighting every day. Nobody killed in my Co. yet.

Prospect Hill, 11 miles from Richmond
June 1, 1864

My dear Wife:
We have been long quite still for a few days and are getting rested and I am as well as ever but somewhat thin as I must have lost at least 30 pounds since leaving Baltimore.

Cold Harbor Battlefield
June 5, 1864

Dearest Wife:
Oh how sad I am today. Day before yesterday our regiment was ordered to charge the rebel fortifications before us. They were very strong with many large cannons so placed as to rake us in every direction and manned with thousands of rebels with muskets. Our lines were about 100 rods [550 yards] from the rebel lines. (A man not six feet from me is just shot so you see under what circumstances I am writing.) The ground over which we were to charge was undulating…On we rushed down into the ravine…[?] of canister which mowed down men by dozens. The muskets also opened upon us but in the face of this terrible storm of lead and iron the men still unhurt pushed steadily on but dropping with fearful rapidity. The company seemed to melt away. Lt. Nichols was near me. I saw him seize his left arm and cry out with pain.… On I pushed with the little handful of men left. A moment more and alone I stood…. A moment I paused – – looking back the ground was covered with my poor boys lying down. I ran along the line and shouted for them to get up and press on. Only one boy answered my call. ‘Captain, I can’t. I’m wounded.’ O God, what an awful moment. All alone. Where could my men be. Dead or wounded? or had they quailed before the storm and laid down to escape the bullets? A moment longer I spent to look…. Then I turned and ran back into the ravine where I was out of danger…. I was the target for hundreds of rifles and the bullets flying around my head seemed like a sworm [sic] of angry bees. But not a scratch did I receive except that several holes are in my pants and coat.

…Don’t publish my letters.

God keep you all
Your husband, Joel

And to his sister. Interestingly, we know from the letter to this sister with an undisclosed name and his mention of a “brother William’s death” and his shock to hear of “Emeline’s death,” that he apparently kept in touch with them after his adoption, or perhaps reconnected. According to the genealogy records, William and Emeline were sisters of Joel Brigham (Goodell) Baker, children of Jotham and Annie. The rest of the family had crossed the country to Lyndon, Washington Territory, saving them, I suppose, from conscription into the Union army. But, they were busy fighting the Indians.

November 13th, 1864
Near Petersburg, Va

My Dear Sister:

…Whilst I have been in great danger all summer many, very many, have been killed around me, and more have received painful wounds. I have escaped unharmed, but my dear friends who lived in less danger have been taken away. Indeed I have great cause to be thankful for that kind watchful care Providence has bestowed upon me. But is there less evidence of the dealings of Providence in those occurrences which cause us grief and mourning than in those which afford cause for rejoicing? I believe not….

I am your Affectionate Brother
Joel B. Baker

And now fast forward to WWII. Why is there nothing about WWI?

In the drawer was also another file of stuff from my father’s service in WWII. Reading the requisition lists, the lists of what he was sending home, the certificate of embarkation to go home on the S.S. Frostburg Victory more than 70 years ago, I was suddenly in his head, in my mother’s head; waiting, waiting, and finally it was over and he was home.

There was one more letter from my aunt to him, as well. As I have read these 1500 letters, especially the few between the siblings, I hear their personalities clearly. And their love for their family.

In her letter, I believe the “I’m about to do my part” was code for her hospital unit was about to move, getting around the censor, hoping he would understand, I imagine. As non-combatants, they both moved from country to country, keeping behind current action as the Germans were pushed out. She from Africa to Italy and now about to go to France. He from England and at some point to France. I wonder if the ham and eggs was simply humor or something more.

Lt. Helen Staebler Martin Kranish

September 1st, 1944

Dear George,

Received your letter of the 18th yesterday. As to your first question about a meeting = I’m about to do my part. How about you doing yours? I have the ham – you get the eggs! … Yes, I’m sure that we have the finest parents and the best family in the world to go back to. Was there ever a mother more faithful about writing…than our mother? I doubt it…. I feel so sorry for the people in our unit who say that they would just as soon stay over here – that they have nothing to go back to.

Sincerely, Helen

From Ella (my grandmother) at age 83. Written to her daughter Helen and husband Carl. After her stroke in 1975, she couldn’t do anything but write. Between the stroke and her nearly lost vision, her handwriting—never very good—was nearly impossible to read. But my aunt kept her 12 page letters…and now I have them. This one is from an earlier time, because I could read it.

March 19, 1964

Dear Helen & Carl

…Well, I made it by 8:30. Up, bath, fixed my hair, had breakfast and done some repair work on the chicken house window so the dog can’t paw at the glass. He gets so wild at being tied up all the time.
…I don’t know as there is much to relate today except it’s nice weather but cold. Did have a nice blizzard again on Tues. but didn’t last long. Don says he thinks maybe the frost is all out of the ground. Ice went out of the lakes just over nite and a day of wind. The ice fisherman will be unhappy….

Love, Mom

From my father to his mother on the first anniversary of his father’s death.

October 25, 1952

Dearest Mother –

It doesn’t seem possible that a year could fly by so quickly. Perhaps to you it hasn’t seemed so short.. But if it has seemed long, Mom, it is the longest one you’ll ever experience. Perhaps tonight you find it hard to forget the agony of lonesomeness. But being you, I have not the slightest doubt that you’ll find it easier & easier to remember the good times & happiness & to go on making your life full & useful. I pray that when I’m as old as you are I will have lived & been living as worthwhile a life as you.…

Love,
George

There was also a letter from my mother to my father on the occasion of his mother’s funeral. She was not able to go due to illness.

9/18/1977

Dearest George,

It was so hard to say good-bye to you this morning. It was one of the most – if not the most – frustrating moments I’ve experienced since that early foggy morning at Jefferson Barracks —- wanting you to know how very much I care, how much I want to be by your side, yet for your sake not wanting to break down.
…I also feel very frustrated and “left out” because I can’t be there to honor “Mom.” She was a great woman in many ways. She meant a lot to me (especially during those long months and years you were away), in spite of some things I’ve said which I could not adequately express to you, and for which I’m sorry I tried….

Always, Stellajoe

And finally, from my sister who was living in Ann Arbor when my grandmother (Goodell) Staebler lay dying, writing to my mother.

September 7, 1977

Dear Mother,

…It’s quite an experience to see all 6 of the “kids” in one place, caring about Grandma and supporting each other. I watched 4 of them arrive and go into Grandma’s room: First myself, at midnight, then Daddy came and sat beside her holding her hand and talking gently to her, and Melvyn bending down and saying cheerfully, ‘Hi, Mom.’ A little later Lloyd was there, sitting with his head bowed down on the bed. And the next day Helen came, walked straight into the bedroom, and Grandma was weeping in her arms as Helen said over and over ‘I’m here, Mama, I’m here now.’ Donald stood in the background or sat in the next room but always came running when he was needed… And Ruth was always there—hasn’t had much sleep. All in all, it’s quite a thrill to watch them.

I love you – Jo Ann

My family Goodell. I miss them. There is a hole in my heart that their absence has hollowed out and only the memory of them can occupy. And now I am it, with my sisters and cousins and our children and their children, and legions of family out there in the world whom we will never know; writing down the story, adding to the story, and saving and passing on all the words—with maybe a little more organization.

Thank you for taking this wordy journey through time with me. What can I say: I come from a wordy family.

My Family of Storytellers for 385 Years in America: Part 2

11 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by Gretchen Staebler in writingdownthestory in Blog, writingdownthestory in Memories

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Tags

A Pioneers Search for an Ideal Home, Aurilla Stevens, family history, genealogy, Goodale family history, Goodell family history, Grand Mound history, Indian Wars, Joel B. Goodell, Mormons in the 1800s, old letters, Phoebe Goodell Judson, pioneers, Rev. J.W. Goodell, saving family heritage, the Goodells in Massachusetts, wagon train, Washingon Territory history, William Goodell

Aurilla Stevens, c. 1823

Aurilla Stevens, my great-great grandmother, was born in 1803 the town of Painted Post in New York State, the eldest of a family of four. She came to Michigan with some neighbors when a young woman, leaving her father, mother, brothers, and sisters. From Detroit she rode an Indian pony to what is now Ypsilanti [40 miles on the current interstate], following an Indian trail of notches cut in trees. (Source: a 1931 speech given by her niece, Rilla Goodell Dunlap, who lived with her aunt from an early age following the death of her mother.)

After being acquainted one year, Aurilla Stevens and Jothan Goodell were married and…bought 80 acres of land [near Ypsilanti, Michigan) from the government at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre… They fenced a little yard around the house with bars to protect themselves [from wolves]… In felling a tree, it struck the corner of the house, knocking their gun down and damaging it so they could not use it. A very large bear got in the enclosure. [Jothan] told [Aurilla] to watch it while he ran to [the neighbor’s] to borrow a gun. She climbed a ladder and went on top of the house. [The bear] came and put its feet on the rounds of the ladder then went around out of sight. She climbed down, grabbed the axe, got in and closed the door and said if it tried to get in the window she would chop its feet off.—Rilla Goodell Dunlap, 1931

William Goodell, 1837

December the 23, 1837

My Dear Son and Daughter these lines leave me in comfortable health though I feel old age creeping on me very fast: This puts me in mind to lay my head on Jesuses breast and breathe my soul out directly there and let my body moulder in the ground: …Last September I looked for my Son Jonas and my Daughter Phebe to come see there old Father but I looked in vain: I know it is a long journey…: I do not blame you for not coming tho I want to see you and all the rest of my children: …I find my Blood is cold and I don’t go out much only from the house to the barn: Yes my work is most done: I can’t write much it makes my head crazy: …My son Jonas and Daughter Phebe the God of all Grace enlighten your path and give you grace to help in every time of need is the Prayer of your Father William Goodell

William died in 1843, so he was not on death’s door. Before his death, he went to live with Jonas, who told him he would have to work as long as he was able, and when he was no longer able, he would have to hand over his $8/month pension from his service as a private in the Revolution to pay his keep.

Joel B. Goodell, 1855

Cambria
Jan. 8th, 1855

Dear Brother & Sister,

… I should like to take a peep into your happy home and if all is favorable as soon as my school is out I shall take a short trip up there. So you must not be abashed at all if the Pedagogue gives you a call sometime unaware. There is to be a donation party this week at a Rev. Bent [?] in my district and perhaps I may seek enjoyment at his abode too, as it is quite a popular place and large company generally attend. It so happened that I could not help taking his daughter to a “visit” one evening and the old mans attention to me since is remarkable. He often pauses and never fails to bow through the window. I tell you the success of a teacher is insured when can by some such simple means make firm friends with the old fathers and mothers in his district. All must use policy in settings through the world.… Joel B. Goodell

Rev. Jotham Weeks Goodell (father of Phoebe Goodell Judson, founder with her husband of Lyndon, Washington, and author of A Pioneer’s Search for an Ideal Home, written from her journals at age 95). Jotham also wrote a series of wordy articles for the Oregonian about the wagon train’s forced winter layover in “the great Salt Lake” among the “depraved” Mormons who threatened their lives and extorted their money, copies of which I also have in my possession.

Grand Mound, Washington Territory
Nov. 28th, 1855

Maria wishes me to set down and give you full particulars of our indian war. At different times last summer there were rumors afloat that the indians through the entire region had conspired to exterminate the inhabitants but no one believed it. It now turns out that it was too true… Fifty men were immediately sent out from this place to cross the Cascade mountains and demand the murderers. They crossed the mountains and had nearly reached the plains on the opposite side when they met a frenchman who had just passed through a body of not less than 3000 indians lying in ambush ready to receive them. The french were not molested as the indians did not intend to make war upon any but the Bostons as they term the Americans. Our men thus fortunately warned made their retreat.

Rev. J.W. Goodell

Original letter.

J.W. Goodell, Jr. 1859, ten years old at the time he and his brother and buddies “sallied out for adventure and got it” near Grand Mound, Washington Territory.

Four boys had planned for some time to escape for half a day from the [military style] discipline that had become so irksome that at times there was a feeling that we had rather be killed by the Indians than to live in a fort…. We were free out on the bounding prairie alone. I do not now remember that we intended to kill [the Indians] outright, but the best of my recollection, we had decided to torture them with slow death…. Our weapons were manvine pods, about the shape and size of a baseball, which exploded on impact in a puff of blinding smoke.

From Phebe Goodell to her sister Maria, 1850s. A letter full of religious pomposity but for a reference—written sideways across the top of the first page—to the…

…dreadful murder of poor Lucretia…. Two of the Williamses were murdered soon after [they] were left down there. I believe it was a judgement sent down upon them.

Original letter.

Melanchthon Zwingle Goodell (another son of J.W. Goodell, the preacher of wagon train/Mormon/Indian Wars fame) wrote this in his old age of his youth, in a letter to his sister.

…After Will moved to Pacific County Henry and I walked to his place over the old mail trail from Gleneden (upper Lincoln Creek) to Willipa. As Henry decided to stay sometime at Will’s it was up to me to return home to Adna alone. Being a kind of nervous kid I dreaded such a long lonesome walk through the woods so Will took me as far as South Bend and got me started on a roundabout way. I crossed the bay on a tug, took a stage along the ocean beach to Peterson’s point, then on a small steamboat across Grays Harbor and up the river to Montesano. From Montesano I went by stage to Olympia and then by train to Chehalis and then home. It was quite a trip for a kid like me then.

Coming up in Part 3: first hand accounts of the Civil War battlefield. Warning: Graphic descriptions may not be suitable for all readers.

My Family of Storytellers for 385 Years in America: Part 1

11 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by Gretchen Staebler in writingdownthestory in Blog, writingdownthestory in Memories

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

family history, genealogy, Giles Corey, Goodale family history, Goodell family history, Robert Goodell, saving family heritage, the Goodells in Massachusetts, witch trials

It is a family tradition that a Goodell either talks or writes.” —Ethel Goodell Clark, my 4th cousin once removed, in her history, My Goodell Family in America.

I’m embarking on my next writing project, to story the 1500 letters my dad and two siblings wrote during WWII that were saved by the recipients, collaged with memories they and my grandmother wrote of their lives on a farm in Michigan. At least that is my intention; I’ve yet to figure out how.

I was sure I had seen a book a non-family member wrote that included a section, at least, about the history of the farm and the family who lived there. (Really dry, I recall thinking. It may have been when I first thought about having a go at it myself.) I thought I saw it in a file drawer in the basement storage room disaster area some time ago. I finally went looking for it this week, not that I really need any more material.

I knew there was a (large) drawer full of family history stuff. I did not know the extent of it. I didn’t find the book, but oh my oh my! I dragged half of it upstairs to my father’s desk by the electric fireplace where I now spend any time I don’t have to be doing something else. (It’s blessedly rainy this week, plus I’ve been nursing that torn trapezius muscle, storied here—which is much better, BTW—so I can put off all that needs to be done outside.)

The first thing I looked at contained the quote at the beginning of this post. She sure got that right.

My paternal grandmother was Ella Louisa Lucretia Goodell Staebler. Our ancestors came to America 385 years ago this month. It seems like a good time to see what they had to say over the 13 generations from them to me.

On April 30th, 1634, Robert and Catherine Kilham Goodell and their three small children set sail from Ipswich, England on the ship Elizabeth and landed at Salem, Massachusetts. They were on the first ship of English emigrates to come to America, seeking freedom from the religious persecution of King James I and subsequent political persecution of King Charles I.

Subsequent generations participated in the Civil War, the Indian Wars, and World War II, (interestingly, I’ve not found anything about WWI), farmed the land, crossed the country by wagon train, founded and settled towns, were leaders in their communities, lingered at the edge of the Salem Witch Trials, lived the Great Depression, and raised families. And they wrote about it. They wrote letters and newspaper stories, memoirs and family histories, and passed on oral narratives. And the saving didn’t start with my parents’ generation!

Here are a few juicy bits. Of course there is more to all of these stories, but the point is that I come from a family of storytellers, and savers, and people who cared to learn the stories of their forebears and pass them on. Not all of these stories are of those in my direct line (e.g. those who crossed the country by covered wagon and settled not twenty miles from where my parents set down roots in 1946, and less than ten from where I now live), but they are family.

(Note: There are a Joel (Goodell) Baker and a Joel Goodell; two Phebes and a Phoebe, and two Jotham Goodells, along with Jothan. I haven’t completely straightened all of it out yet.)

Robert Goodell, 1675

In the beginning of December (1675) Giles Corey unreasonably beat Jacob [Robert’s son] with a stick of about an inch in diameter nearly a hundred blows…About ten days later, Corey went to the house of Zachariah Goodell and told him that his brother, Jacob, had a fall. He was afraid he had broken an arm…Jacob was then thirty-four years of age and up to that time, he had been lusty. Now Jacob went very ravel and stooping and was very pale and his eyes sunken…Jacob died a few days later and an inquest was held. They made the following report: ‘we find several wrongs he hath in his body as upon his left arm and upon right thigh a great bruise which is very much solid and upon the veins of his back in color differing from the other parts of his body we caused an incision to be made much bruised and run with a jelly and the skin broke upon the outside of each buttock.’ For this Corey was fined. Later, as the time of the witchcraft trials, Giles Corey was found guilty of ‘stomping’ Jacob to death and himself was ‘pressed’ to death as the penalty.” (Ethel Goodell Clark)

And this, after Robert had sold some of his land to Giles Corey! But what ho? It seems “there is a different slant on this story” says Robert Goodell, a 20th century descendant of the first Robert, and a retired M.D., as reported by a Leland Goodell.

It seems Jacob was very troublesome to his family, indicating that he was probably ill. He kept running away from home and Robert had to make long trips to bring him back. It was in desperation that he was apprenticed to Giles Corey. It is not surprising that he and Corey (who was noted for his bad disposition) had a fight. After the fight, Mrs. Corey put Jacob in an ox cart and took him home. An autopsy showed that Jacob’s heart was not normal and for that reason Corey was acquitted.

However, an internet search collaborates the first story, that Giles Corey was found guilty—not acquitted—and fined. And later put to death for witchcraft. Corey, of course, was not my family, but even Henry Wadsworth Longfellow included the Goodells in his play about the Trials (taking poetic license, perhaps, and saying it was Robert, not his son, who was murdered).

Look! Look! It is the ghost of Robert Goodell
Whom fifteen years ago this man did murder
By stamping on his body! In his shroud
He comes here to bear witness to the crime!

Back to the internet story:

Seventeen years later, when Martha Corey was arrested for witchcraft, Giles testified against his wife and then recanted. Perjury! Leading to further suspicion of witchcraft. He was convicted for ‘standing mute,’ thereby refusing trial. In the entire history of the United States, Giles Corey is the only person ever to be ‘pressed to death’ by order of a court. It took two days to slowly crush him to death by placing weights on his body. Infamously, his last words were, ‘More weight.’ His wife, Martha, was later convicted and hanged.

Next up in Part 2, jumping a century and a half forward: My great-great grandmother in the wilds of Michigan and horrific letters from the front lines of the Civil War.

Honoring the Past…and Cursing the Remains

21 Thursday Feb 2019

Posted by Gretchen Staebler in Notes from Three of Earth Farm, writingdownthestory in Blog, writingdownthestory in Memories, writingdownthestory in Photograph

≈ 4 Comments

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#ThreeofEarthFarm, award plaques, cleaning out my parents' home, letters from World War 2, living in my childhood home, memoir, memories of my father, nostalgia, this old house, William N. Williford, writing memoir, WWII marriages

I’m immersed in the past living in this house, even as I continue to update it. I’ve moved more stuff to the storage room permanently as I empty rooms temporarily for the installation of new flooring. I hold in my hands a pink and white crocheted hot pad, that perhaps my grandmother made, from the dining room buffet drawer and wonder what I’m to do with it.

I find three small plates in the back corner of the buffet cupboard and read the note my mother wrote eight years and eleven days before she died in her strong script that held no hint of what was to come. Of course she included instructions. The plates don’t bring me joy, but they are heirlooms. Sigh. Three plates, three daughters. At least I only need put one back in the cupboard.

Knowing they would eventually come down to paint the wall, I removed the award plaques and certificates from my father’s study several weeks ago and crammed them into a cupboard in the basement. I talk to my friend Elizabeth who has been my caregiving pen pal for years as we cared for our mothers on opposite coasts and tried to stay in touch with our sanity. Her mother just died. Finally. She’s cleaning out her mother’s apartment, bringing boxes to her house. She also cleaned out her childhood home when she moved her parents closer to her a few years back, and took boxes to her house.

“Think of all the wood and metal award plaques in this country,” she says. “What are children to do with them in the end times? They mean nothing to anyone but the recipient. [Even that, only at the moment of the handshake.] We’re filling up landfills with things that will last thousands of years!” I hadn’t thought of that. The cheap trophies every child who plays t-ball gets at the end of the season… “They should be banned,” Elizabeth says.

I am proud to say I haven’t a single plaque or trophy to my name. My children can thank me later for being so unremarkable. The tiny plaster of Paris busts of dead musicians I got as a piano student were long ago sent to the landfill, before I knew to worry about that. I did not inherit the Depression era saver gene—or my parents unknowingly drove it from me.

The margarine containers our mothers didn’t throw out so as not to fill landfills are left to us to discard. (Hopefully when they are put in recycling bins, they actually do turn into something new.) The military uniforms. (The local museum has all they need.) Eleven 3-inch binders of letters written between 1942 and 1946. (I’m told there is a national museum in Louisiana that might take them when I’m finished with them.) All! This! Stuff! Multiplied by hundreds of thousands of parents who came of age at the confluence of the Great Depression and the beginning of WWII who have or are leaving it all behind at the speed of light.

This is sounding remarkably similar to my post at the beginning of the month. (Read it here if you missed it.) It’s my life right now, and some day my sisters and I really will have to figure out what to do with the pink hot pad and all the rest. But that is not today.

I spent a rare full day Sunday working on my new writing project. Not actually writing, mind you, but preparing. I’m still revising my memoir of years of elder care and accompaniment too. 138,000 words is down to 113,000. It needs to be fewer than 100,000 before I can even hire an editor.

I’m itching to move on to my epic undertaking involving the 11 binders of letters and a collection of stories my father and his siblings wrote about their childhood on the farm if I have any hope of finishing it before I die. And I need full days to immerse myself. But there’s this old house and its stuff and the roof needs to be cleaned off again and there is a blocked trail and at least three large branches down to saw into firewood and spring weeds and blackberry vines are coming soon to the overgrown property and someone needs to be hired to rebuild rotting steps and paint the deck.

I’m reading my aunt’s letters now, and it’s throwing me back in time to the departed generation of my family long before I knew them. She’s in Africa, Italy, and France in 1943 and 1944, washing clothes in cold water in an army helmet, trying to breathe on frigid days when the wind blows through the pipe of the coal stove and fills the room with smoke and soot, and the hospital unit has moved again and she’s back in a tent with dirt floors. She falls in love, twice. I’m wondering with her what happened to her navy man Roy when letters are returned “whereabouts unknown.”

I unfold a letter to her little brother and a photograph of Bill, her second love, falls out. “The next addition to the Staebler family” is written on the back. I read that they applied for a wedding license, but she doesn’t know if they will still be in the same country when, or if, it comes—or if he will even be alive. I know there is drama to come; he was not my uncle.

I’m there with my grandmother as she provides shelter for my mother while my father provides weather forecasts for bombardiers in England; imagining her writing hundreds of letters and reading those from her far away children, making notes on envelopes to remind her of what they have asked her to send them: film (if she can find it), popcorn, chocolate, pajamas.

I have a lively communication with two of my cousins who accompany me on this journey through the Staebler archives. David, bless his heart, is executor of our uncle’s estate, which included cleaning out the farm house the family lived in for a century. At least there are no 30-year-old jars of canned tomatoes in my house. His sister Linda sorted through my aunt’s and uncle’s letters to their mother and put them in five of the binders to go with those my father wrote to his young wife and his mother. She’s downsizing her living space soon and is sending me our aunt’s scrapbooks, photographs, and account of her service. (Insert wide-eyed emoticon.) David has found photographs our grandmother took of life on the farm and is scanning them for me. I’m thrilled to receive it all; and…more stuff.

I sit here at my desk now and wonder how I’m going to pull all this together and get it between book covers. And will anybody care? Which reminds me, I still have my mother’s tapes of her life story to transcribe. I care. Maybe all that matters is to know that I honored their living. And that I remember them.

Love Letters from the Footlocker

14 Thursday Feb 2019

Posted by Gretchen Staebler in writingdownthestory in Memories

≈ 4 Comments

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#loveletters, courting in 1905, letters from World War 2, love letters, valentines day

Back in the olden days, when lovers were apart—a few miles or thousands—they explored love on paper. There were few telephone calls filled with words that would fall into the void after they were spoken and heard once; no email that generations to follow will never see. Of course, only the savers will pass on old letters. For better or worse, I come from a family of savers.

My paternal grandfather, Albert, died the year before I was born. I have photo copies of two letters he wrote to my grandmother before they were married in September 1905. Yes, that first one is six sentences of creative spelling in beautiful penmanship.

…your true and loving boy, Albert

I have hundreds of letters written by my father to my mother during WWII, in which he poured out his longing for her. The first one here was written while he was in officer training a year before they were married in November 1943; the second is from Europe a few months before the end of the war. Most of their developing relationship, from the time they met until he came home in April 1946 and they finally began their life together, was poured out in letters.

I miss you, and for the first time I know what it is to miss someone I love.

Ypsilanti [Michigan]
May 10-1905

Dear Ella:

I thought I would write you a few lines to let you know that I am still liveing, it is rather late to write a letter as it is eleven P.M. so dont look for a long one this time. I thought I must write to night in order to get an ans. this week I have been looking for a letter from you every day this week but havent recieved one yet if you remember you said you would write no doubt it is my place to write first but you didnt give me your adress so I am going to guess at it so perhaps you will not get this but I will chance it this time as I am anxious to hear from you, you dont know how lonesome I have been since you have been gone, last Sun. in pertucelar I didnt know what to do with my self I was not home all day of course that helped some it was seven P.M. when I got back, I didn’t know of any things else to do so I went to bed at nine oclock now isnt that pretty good for Sun. evening?

Well Ella how are you enjoying your self any way supose you are haveing such a good time that you don’t even think of me leting alone finding time to write, I am going to Detroit next Sat. and if you are going to be there and care to have me call on you Sun. you will have to let me know where you live now I trust you will do this as it seems a month since I saw you last.

I dont know of any news in pertucelar to write as every thing is about the same as useal it has been very cold this week and rained all the forenoon. If it hadent looked so much like rain this evening I should have went out to call on Lou seeing you dont write to me you surely have writen to her perhaps I could have found out how you are geting along ha: ha; no doubt you have got another fellow by this time.

Well Ella it is bed time so I will draw this to a close hopeing you will excuse this poor writing as I am in a hurry so I will say good night with a sweet kiss I remain as ever your loving friend

Albert Staebler

(write at once)

November 26, 1942—Thanksgiving
New York, N.Y. to Knoxville, Tenn. 

Dearest Stellajoe –

I’ve been in a quandary the past few days whether to write you & pour out my black mood, whether to try & cover it up or maybe not write at all. I wrote a letter Sunday night that I didn’t mail. I had the satisfaction of telling you how badly I felt but didn’t get any comfort from what you might have said. I guess it was better that way since it didn’t bother you. Anyway, I thought I’d snap out of it in a day or two.

But I didn’t. I can’t remember when I’ve been any unhappier…

Why the blues? Mainly I suppose because I’m too dumb to adapt myself to a new situation. But I miss you so much. After 6 years of college & working around here & there I land in exactly the spot & situation I’d always wanted. That includes a job I liked in a country I liked but mainly it means the girl I love. It’s tough to head off from that all of a sudden, at least for me…

What a Thanksgiving! Never had so much to be thankful for & never felt so little like being thankful. I thought it would be better not to mail this letter either, but found I couldn’t write anything else and I know you’ll be expecting something. Anyway if I could see you it would help me so much to tell it to you. It would be one of the times when I’d call you up at 8:00 o’clock to find out if I couldn’t come see you.

We went down town with the intention of eating at the “Cafe Francais” in Rockefeller Center, the place I told you about beside the skating rink. We decided that the $2.75 was a bit steep for a couple of $75 per month soldiers so we went to a “Child’s” restaurant. For $1.35 we got an imitation turkey dinner. Then we went to see “For Me & My Gal” with Judy Garland. And that’s not exactly a picture that a guy in my mood should see.

New York’s dimout seems to have worked fine on the city but not at all on the moon which is big & round tonight and makes me miss you even more.

I tried to convince myself how foolish I was to feel this way. I could be so much worse off but I’m always thinking how better off I was before I came here. When I learn to look at it the first way I’ll see how lucky I am & feel better.

The rumor is “no Christmas furlough.” When I think of being here 10 months without seeing you I actually shake right in my shoes.

Gee, Stellajoe I miss you, and for the first time I know what it is to miss someone I love. And I read & reread your letters just to satisfy that longing – and then look at your picture, then close my eyes & recall all the good times we had together. I’d hate to have the term “lovesick” applied to me because I don’t like the word. There must be a more descriptive name for the way I miss you. Do you know what I mean?

I guess I’d better shut this stuff off. Next time I write I’ll try and answer that nice long letter you wrote. And when you write remember I love you & when I read you letters I like nothing better than to find something that makes me think you know that & maybe (?) feel the same way.

Love
George

September 12, 1905
Ypsilanti

My dear Ella

I will now full fill my promise and write you a few lines, it will be short but sweet so I will start with a kiss or two to let you know that love you more then ever. I hope that you arrived at Sister Minnie’s all safe and found them all O.K no doubt you enjoyed your trip as there was probely lots of nice boys on the car ha: ha:

I was glad that I came home when I did Sun. evening as it rained quite hard before I got here, but it has worried me quite a bit sinse to think that you was so down hearted because I came away so early but my dear girl it isnet very plesent to walk two miles in the rain, but never mind my dear it wont be long before I will be with you always just think how happy we will be.

Now if you will excuse me for a few min. I will eat one of thoughes nice apples you gave me.

Well Ella I dont know of any news so I will close with many good wishes and kisses to you from your true and loving boy

Albert
P.S. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
thoughes are all yours from your old Goose ha: ha:

June 13, 1945
France to Florida

Dearest Stellajoe —

Gee honey, I’ve been putting this letter off and off. I just haven’t felt like writing. And I’m forcing myself to tonight. Capt French, the 21st weather pilot, brought us mail day before yesterday. I got eight letters, three from my darling wife, so I have letters to answer. That is no excuse. There is no excuse. There are just times when I can’t do anything. Except search my mind for something that can give peace, put me at ease, cure my restlessness, my longings, my desires. When I can’t find it, I can’t write letters. There is very little I can do.

How I wish I could be with you on this June evening! My mind just runs from one thing to another. Little details of things we’d do. Sometimes it’s a pattern – a day dream of how we’d spend a whole day. But more often it’s just a vision of holding you in my arms. Then perhaps strolling thru the woods, or climbing a mountain. Or sitting before the fire in our own home. Or around the dinner table at home with everyone there. Driving thru the country with you. Of undressing you.

It ain’t good, honey. They’re pleasant thoughts, but they’re overshadowed, absorbed in an atmosphere of frustration generated from a knowledge that it just can’t be, and I don’t know how long it will be before it can.

I’m going to leave this till morning, sweetheart. If I still don’t feel like adding to it, I’ll mail it anyway. So even if it ain’t much, you’ll have a letter anyhow.

All my love

George

Happy Valentines Day! 💜

MeMoRy MoNdAy: Another Goodbye

15 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by Gretchen Staebler in writingdownthestory in Memories, writingdownthestory in Photograph

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

#memorymonday, cleaning out my parents' home, death of a parent, memory Monday, old furniture, updating old furniture

It’s time for someone else to enjoy the bedroom suite my parents purchased circa 1964. At least that’s when I got their old dresser for my first-ever room of my own. They bought the old one when they set up housekeeping after the war, purchased from a hotel going out of business.

I used that dresser for 48 years, until I moved back across the country six and a half years ago. My mother didn’t want me to take it back in 1976. “It’s mine,” she said. She finally relented, realizing it had become more mine than hers; and I began homemaking with it too.

I’ve changed its look twice. The first time I removed the blue-grey and Dijon-mustard marine deck paint my father covered the natural finish oak with; updating it. I reattached the mirror with the arms that of course he had kept for 30 years after altering the heavy mirror to hang on the wall, and changed the chrome knobs he put on in favor of something more in keeping with its original period. The second refurbish included painting the drawers and mirror frame black and changing the knobs again; updating it.

The scrap of label on the back that I preserved when I refinished it. I assume they got it in Michigan, my father’s home state.

I guess my mother and I were both sentimental about it; I have kept it all these years. Now it has come out of storage and back into use, and I’m so happy to see it again. Someday, when she has room for it, I will make my daughter take it. My modest wardrobe doesn’t need that much room, and it has to stay in the family. (Heirlooms are hell.)

Meanwhile the Early American reproduction dresser and mirror, along with bedside tables and bed, have been donated for use by someone who will, I hope, be as ecstatic to have them as I expect my mother was. There was a lump in my throat when the guys from the charity carried it out. It’s the bed I crawled into when I had a bad dream, next to my mother on the far side. It’s the bed my parents slept in together for 30 years. It’s the bed she died in.

The chair my mother rocked her babies in stays with me.

The Twelve Days of Christmas: My mother saved everything, or my life in crafts

05 Saturday Jan 2019

Posted by Gretchen Staebler in writingdownthestory in Memories

≈ 4 Comments

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childhood crafts, crafts through the years, crafts with popsicle sticks, death of a parent, fabric art, fabric memory box, knitting, living in my childhood home, memoir, memories of my mother, my mother kept everything, needlecrafts, paper crafts, photo transfer to fabric, plaster hand prints, The 12 days of Christmas

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas

The last gift I gave to my mother. You may recall, if you regularly read my Daughter on Duty blog, that my mother was obsessed with writing her mother’s story. Though she had written stories on scraps of paper, in notebooks and on paper pads for decades, they were scattered throughout the house in drawers, boxes, and on shelves and countertops. Each time, she had to begin again.

In the last years of her life she started over again, this time on a tape recorder. “I thought you would help me with it, Gretchen,” she said to me once. That was news to me; and I couldn’t do it and keep my sanity. She got patient Dan, her handyman, to help with the business of recording. I recruited Jo Ann to transcribe them and told Mama I would edit them.

Jo Ann transcribed a few of the tapes—highly tedious work, particularly without benefit of modern technology—and I began the equally tedious work of editing the verbatim transcriptions. It was not chronological, though she intended it to be, as she would remember some often inconsequential bit she may or may not have already told. Then forgetting where she left off, would pick up in the wrong place. There were details I knew were inaccurate, because I have heard much of the story before—and read those bits found around the house.

I think the need to finish this project she claims she promised her mother she would do (my grandmother died in 1988 at the age of 99), was keeping her alive, both in the sense of giving her purpose and in not allowing her to leave when she very much wanted to.

Last Christmas, I decided to put the part that was transcribed into a book for her, hoping she would feel—literally holding it in her hands—that her project was being taken seriously, and that she would know I intended to help her get it done after all.

Rebecca read it to her, and she wasn’t happy with it. She said I made stuff up. Maybe I did, in the way memoirs from time before memory does, to make the narrative more interesting. I was a little shocked at her anger about it, but she moved on in the end and thanked me for doing it.

And now I am want to finish it—at least to the point she left off, I don’t think she completed what she wanted to say before her mind became too jumbled. Jo Ann brought me the rest of the tapes last month to transcribe myself, as she doesn’t have time. It’s daunting, and I have my own new epic project—now that my own memoir is approaching last steps to get into the world—telling my father’s story of growing up in a family very different from my mother’s, and then being scattered during the war years, communicated via hundreds of letters from three of the siblings that have been kept for eighty years.

Do I have enough time before my end comes? I need a tower and someone to bring meals.

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas

And representing the reprise of the knitting years (scarves, fingerless mittens, baby hats, all sold at Hubbub), I made her a second infinity scarf. They fit the needs: lightweight, not scratchy, not hanging down, not bulky, covered the neck she hated, and kept her warm–or at least gave the illusion of warmth. Another favorite. Until she got hung up on wheather or not they matched her outfit. Or they got lost in her drawer.

On the Tenth Day of Christmas

More printing on fabric. My parents and things they loved through the years. Funny thing was, it turned out she had been making (with help) a full size quilt for me of me and the things I loved through the years (photos on fabric). She gave it to me maybe for my birthday or Christmas the following year. Or was it the same Christmas and I hadn’t opened it yet? I can’t remember now. I felt bad then, that maybe she felt bad when I she opened this that Christmas; that I’d stolen her brilliant idea or something. I feel bad again just looking at this photo. Monkey mind.

On the Ninth Day of Christmas

The year I made bags and sold them at North Carolina craft fairs and Hubbub. My mother bought this one and was still using it the last days of her life. “It was perfect,” she said.

On the Eighth Day of Christmas

The beginning of the fabric art years and printing photos on fabric experimentation. This gift may have been my crowning achievement. A box covered with and full of how I saw my mother, and of all she had done in her life. Why I was proud to be her daughter. It’s covered with things I found around the house on a visit home: silver thimbles for feet, pins, old jewelry, a leaf from the yard, shells. I’m pretty proud of this one.

On the Seventh Day of Christmas

The paper years: A little book with pockets holding inspirational words. Hmm. Well, they were fun to make, anyway, and she actually bought some from me to give as gifts; except she wanted to tell me what colors and words to use, and to fix what she saw as flaws. It was in keeping with her philosophy: “If I’m paying for something, shouldn’t it be like I want it?” Took the fun right out of it for me, a dabbling non-perfectionist.

On the Sixth Day of Christmas

Putting nature to work. I believe young children helped me with this gift. There were two of them; maybe I will find the other one someday, or maybe it broke. (I think this one cracked in the creating.) I took it off the wall a year or so ago.

On the Fifth Day of Christmas

The cross-stitch years, a craft I stuck with longer than any other. The note cards were meant to be used, of course, but 35 some years later the collection remains unbroken in her stuffed-full greeting card drawer. (She bought multiples each time she needed one, and seldom, it seems, used one from her drawer, even after I organized them for her.)

On the Fourth Day of Christmas

Fast forward to my wheel pottery class. Either there wasn’t much crafting between elementary school and marriage, or my mother didn’t keep anything. Or I didn’t give her anything. Or I just haven’t dug deeply enough into the backs of cupboards and to the bottom of boxes. I took some painting classes from a neighbor, but the cupboards are full only of my older sister’s flat art. Clearly mine didn’t measure up.

On the Third Day of Christmas

She wore the earrings made in third grade every Christmas until, apparently, one broke. They are still in her jewelry box.

The paperweight, made in fourth grade, with its crumbled pink foam backing, still holds paperclips in the kitchen desk drawer. Finding it empty three years ago, Mama bought a box of paperclips (with her caregiver’s help), not asking me if there were more somewhere. Uh, yeah. In the back of the same drawer. In the desk in the study. In the desk downstairs. In the cabinet downstairs.

On the Second Day of Christmas

Popsicle stick art. I think this was made in Girl Scouts, or maybe fourth grade with an arts and crafts enthusiast teacher. The center elastic is broken now, but it still lives in the dining room buffet.

On the First Day of Christmas

Every child made some version of this in preschool or kindergarten back in the day. I have two of them. This one is pretty classy with its glaze. The other one is simple unfinished plaster of Paris. This one hung in my mother’s bedroom until I took it down to paint the wall. I put it back up. Some things are just classics.

Writing Down the Story

Category Archives: writingdownthestory in Memories

Adventure Log: Pilgrimage to the Olympic Peninsula

In Celebration of My Mother—and Seminary Hill Natural Area

365 Days: Life After Death

My Family of Storytellers for 385 Years in America: Part 3

My Family of Storytellers for 385 Years in America: Part 2

My Family of Storytellers for 385 Years in America: Part 1

Honoring the Past…and Cursing the Remains

Love Letters from the Footlocker

Happy Valentines Day! 💜

MeMoRy MoNdAy: Another Goodbye

The Twelve Days of Christmas: My mother saved everything, or my life in crafts