As a child and teenager, I spent countless hours at the Rocky River Public Library and my children became intimately familiar with it on our many visits back to see my parents. Growing up, if we ever couldn't find Dad, we knew to look at the library. Though long gone, I can tell you exactly where the enormous card catalog used to sit. And my mom enjoyed immensely her terms on their Board of Trustees. So it was very special for me to speak there last week. I even made their marquee!
Thank you to all of the kind folks who came to listen, especially my fantastic family, a wonderful high school friend who has kept in touch and helped me out all these years, the mayor and her husband, one of my mom's friends, and the friend who drove by the marquee at 6:50pm, looked it up online because she is interested in family genealogy, and came in to listen when she recognized my name!
It was a very special event for me, made more so by my nephew who went home and began a genealogy search of his own (in the lull before driving to UC Berkley for grad school). See?! Everyone can find a little time to find their family story.
Thanks for joining me on my journey.
It is not every day that someone says to me, "It never would have happened without you." Maybe the three days when my boys where born fall into that category, but little else. That is one of the reasons why I was so touched when my neighbor stopped by to hand-deliver a letter that included those words. Rose and I live less than 40 yards from each other, but I hadn't met her until a few days before I gave my genealogy talk at our local library. She had been frustrated by the experience of having secured an agent to help her find a publisher for the book she had written, but seeing nothing come of the agent's commitment. She ditched the agent and was tentatively wading into the pool of self-publishing when someone at our library steered her toward me.
Rose has written a biography about Katherine Gibbs, the (1911) founder of the secretarial schools that bear her name and which became the best in the world. I am confident Rose's book, Katherine Gibbs: Beyond the White Gloves, will have broad appeal among alumnae, educators, women's history experts, New Englanders, and many others. It is wonderful that the bureaucratic world of commercial publishing did not prevent Rose's book from being published. I am very proud and honored that my guidance and encouragement played a small role in the publishing of her book.
As I look forward to reading Rose's book, I read about Rose's subject and see why Katherine Gibbs was recently honored by The National Women's History Project as a woman of character, courage, and commitment. I see my grandma's adaptability in Katherine Gibbs' story. I also see in the Gibbs story my great-grandmother, Maggie Kelley Saunders, who succeeded for many years in business after, as a young mother of two toddlers, losing her firefighting husband in a winter blaze -- advancing on no more than a high school education, her natural skills, and her determination to succeed.
Our history is full of women who have adapted to difficult circumstances. The National Women's History Project encourages us all to write women back into history. This is what Rose Doherty and I have done - Rose with a famous subject and I with a family subject. Writing my grandma's story was a very personal project for me, but it took on a broader perspective as I dove into her story, better appreciated what she overcame, and recognized how understanding the lives of our ancestors gives our own lives deeper meaning and value.
When I delivered my presentation at our local library, I focused primarily on genealogy, with just a small primer on self-publishing. My goal was to come out of that talk having inspired at least one person to begin or restart their genealogical journey. I'm pretty sure that happened, based upon the conversations I had after the talk. So to have also helped someone overcome the publishing hurdle is a wonderful bonus.
Do you know someone who should be written back into history? Man or woman, it is well worth the effort.
If you are on the west side of Cleveland this July 23rd, please consider stopping by the Rocky River Public Library for my 7:00pm presentation: "Are You Ready to Find Your Family Story?" If you know someone in the area who likes genealogy or is interested in self-publishing, please spread the word. It is a bit of a homecoming for me and I promise to give it everything I've got!
We all have to adapt to survive. In fact, even though we don't like to admit it, we are in a constant state of adaptation. We like to believe that we are in control of our lives, as well the lives of the dependents in our care. And we can usually perpetuate the mirage of control, until one of life's larger forces rears its head - such as illness, accident, or death.
My grandma, Esther, mastered the art of adaptation, but I don't believe she purposefully schooled herself in adaptation. I think her ability to adapt came out of a deeper drive, lodged down in her soul, that placed survival above all else. Adaptation became a by-product of survival for her, as it does for many of us. Esther adapted to her nomadic life as a Preacher Kid, the chasm created in her family by her marriage to a Catholic, the sudden death of her 11 year-old son, the taking of her home by the state, and the deaths of her three spouses. Her story of adaptation in the face of adversity is an inspiration to people facing challenges of their own.
Whether it is a chronic illness, handicap or death of a child, depression or mental illness, relentless addiction, the premature death of a spouse or parent, a dooming medical diagnosis, a tragic accident, or a dramatic shift in life's course, we all have experienced tragedies or watched others navigate their own. But we adapt. We soldier through. We give support. We accept help. And what was once unthinkable or nightmarish, becomes the new normal. If it weren't for role models of resilience, we would be lost.
On this anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing, I think about the Richard family who lost their little boy, Martin, in the blast. As Denise Richard surveys her surroundings through her one eye that she did not lose to the bomb fragments, she may see her husband's permanent scars and compensate for his hearing loss. She would see her daughter with her prosthetic leg and her surviving son with his lost innocence who saw more horror and loss in an hour than most Americans see in a lifetime. But she also would see the living room full of friends and supporters who sit down with her family to discuss and decide the best course on which to move forward to honor Martin's life. The Richards have chosen the shadows in which to learn to acclimate to their new normal. But today forces them into the limelight. And their presence and resilience is nothing less than heroic. I hope these days and weeks under the microscope are not too hard on them.
I have had the sad experience of feeling the shroud enveloping the community that lost a child. The heartache of everyday activities is soothed by the love of the community that understands the space the family must be given, but also the arm stretched out at just the right time and length to assure the family that they are not alone. One of the most poignant moments of my grandma's life was when a couple reached out to her family after the death of her son, when everyone else around them chose only distance.
I look to my grandma for inspiration when I am conscious that I must adapt. If I didn't have to adapt, I would be heading to Rocky River this July to visit my parents. But instead, I have the honor of presenting at the Rocky River Public Library. I am looking forward to the evening with great anticipation. It will be a genealogy discussion similar to the presentation I gave in Needham, MA in January. I am a bit overwhelmed - in a positive way - at the prospect of presenting my genealogy journey and my book at the library that helped foster my love of reading. If you are in the Rocky River area, I hope you will come! If you are busy that day, you will soon be able to check my book out from the library. And I hope my donated books will be given book plates in memory of Jack and Peg McCarthy, who will be at the presentation in their own, special way.
Author Visit: "Are You Ready to Find Your Family Story?" Wednesday, July 23rd, 7:00pm, Rocky River Public Library Community Room
If you would like to support the MIT community and survivors and families who lost loved ones in the Boston Marathon bombing, here are some great sites:
If you planned to go to an author visit at your local library or book store and your two choices were to see:
(a) a local author, discussing her first book about a 20th century woman who spent most of her life in a distant state or
(b) an author visiting her childhood city, discussing her first book about a 20th century woman who lived in your city, grew up in your state and had family connections throughout your region,
I think most would choose the latter. With this in mind, I’m focusing my initial marketing efforts in the Cleveland area, with a parallel campaign in the markets near my current home.
Two Cleveland Plain Dealer (PD) columnists I enjoy reading are Connie Schultz and Regina Brett. So they have landed on the top of my target list. Ms. Brett was even nice enough, two years ago, to suggest a Cleveland publisher to me. That publisher is also on my list – I’m always open to allowing second chances! When I crafted my letters to these Clevelanders, I leaned heavily on my Grandpa Joe’s memory, even though I think they will find my grandma’s story compelling purely from their own personal vantage points.
Amazingly enough, the man at the PD who edited my grandma’s obituary and both of my parents’ obituaries knew my grandpa personally. There are still people at the Plain Dealer who were starting out as my grandpa was exiting, who remember him. Columnists for the Plain Dealer should recognize his name. If not, I would highly recommend that they set aside some quality reading time in the PD archives with some of Joseph F. Saunders’ columns, getting to know him and Cleveland in the mid-1900s.
Here is what I hope will pique these Clevelanders’ (and others’) interest:
- One of the book’s main characters is Joseph F. Saunders who was a reporter, editor and columnist for the PD from 1937-1968.
- Joe Saunders’ PD columns helped Carl Stokes win his election as the first African-American mayor of a major US city.
- Esther lived in Cleveland from 1932 to 1969 after escaping a life of near-poverty, moving around rural Ohio as a “Preacher Kid.” Esther married Joe Saunders and moved into the house where he was raised on W 74th Street, the heavily Irish area of Cleveland’s near-West Side.
- Joe was a graduate of John Carroll University and his father was a Cleveland firefighter who was killed in the line of duty when Joe was 2.
- Bernice Secrest Pyke (the first woman appointed as a delegate to the DNC – 1920) helped her niece, Esther, land a job in Depression-dimmed Cleveland in 1932. Esther’s job was with the newly-formed Federal Reserve Bank where she was paid in script.
I am hopeful that these writers, as well as the independent bookstores scattered around Cleveland, will be drawn to Esther’s story. My friend, Leslie, made the very true comment that people whose lives are mostly put down as “ordinary” by all accounts, are anything but. I hope others see that in Esther’s story.
One of my personal goals is to interest Rocky River Public Library in an author visit highlighting Preacher Kid. Not only did I spend hundreds of hours in that building in my pre-internet youth, but Esther was a patron as a Rocky River resident, it never stopped being one of my dad’s favorite places to explore, and my mom served on their Board of Trustees for a number of years. If I were given the opportunity to discuss Preacher Kid at the Rocky River Public Library, I would most certainly be visiting in my family’s honor.
The Cleveland area is my starting point. But I’m pulling out my map of Ohio again and charting my course to match my grandma’s journey. And figuring out who I can stay with along the way! Cleveland is all set – thanks Anne!
