Category Archives: Strong Women

Sports, Strong Women

Cookies in the Fields

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Professional Baseball has had some highly creative owners in its history.  Some were showmen trying to improve fan participation and attendance.  Some wanted to improve the game.  Some left us with features that lived well beyond themselves, and have become integrated into American culture.

Bill Veeck

The first such owner who comes to my mind is Bill Veeck, Jr (1914-1986), owner of the Cleveland Indians (now: Guardians), St Louis Browns and Chicago White Sox.

New scoreboard at Wrigley goes operational

Veeck Jr had some ideas to help dwindling attendance in the Depression 1930s.  As a 13-year-old lad working for his dad (Bill Sr was an executive with the Chicago Cubs and eventually club president) young Bill dreamed up the concept of the outfield walls covered in ivy.  Ten years later, as a team executive (his dad passed away in 1933) he had the now famous ivy on Wrigley Field’s outfield walls planted.

Veeck had the also now famous Wrigley scoreboard installed in center field. Modified several times over the decades, it still carries that feeling of yester-year.  It’s been recognizable by every MLB fan for many decades. [It’s one of only two such hand operated scoreboards in baseball; the other is Fenway in Boston.]

In the ‘30s Veeck was the first to suggest inter-league competition.  He surely had an eye toward a Chicago northside-southside rivalry (Cubs, Sox).  That took decades to be accepted.

Ivy going in at Wrigley, 1937

Veeck Jr. served in the Marines in WW2 for 3 years, suffering an injury in an artillery accident that ended his military duty … and cost him his right leg.

Veeck Jr. still had baseball in his bones.  Now a recovered veteran, he took on heavy loans to become the controlling owner of the Cleveland “Indians” in 1946, aged only 32.  Here he’s remembered for signing Larry Doby, the first African-American in the American League. [1]

He also signed pitcher Satchel Paige. He was 42 years old!

Eddie Gaedel, shortest person to ever appear in a Major League Baseball game makes his only appearance.

After a sensational Hall of Fame career in the Negro Leagues, Paige had finally moved to the Majors; until recently completely “mayonnaise”. He’s still the oldest rookie in MLB history.   On the roster for fewer than two months of that rookie ‘48 season (the last two months, in the pennant stretch), Paige was starting pitcher 7 times, recording six wins against one loss, with a stellar 2.48 ERA, while also tossing two shutouts. And an opposition batting average of only .228. The Indians went on to win the World Series. [More on Paige later] Oh, by the way, the Indians set an attendance record that year, over 2.8 million.

Veeck sold the Indians and bought the Saint Louis Browns in 1951.  With low attendance and poor teams Veeck tried to work his promotional magic.  Most famously he signed (for one game) the 3 foot – 7 inch tall (or short) Eddie Gaedel to take one single At Bat.  Wearing the number 1/8 he walked on four pitches. [He bowed to the crowd as he waltzed to first base; he was immediately removed for a pinch runner]

Veeck also had a “Grandstand Managers Night” — Fans were polled to make decisions in critical game situations.  The promos all failed to achieve significant attendance increases.  In 1954, Veeck was forced to sell the team to a group of investors, who moved the team to Baltimore (renaming the team the Orioles).

A few years later Veeck bought the Chicago White Sox.  Here he originated shooting off fireworks after games. Under Veeck the Sox were the first team to put players’ names on their jerseys.  More stuff too: “exploding” score boards with fireworks after home runs, Disco Demolition Night (tix were only 98 cents; riots ensued, leading to a forfeit).

His son, Mike, didn’t fall far from the family tree.  Among other things, while running the Sox, he had a “Tonya Harding Bat Night.”  No kidding. They gave away “Tonya Harding Bats!”  She even appeared as part of the promo and actually signed baseball bats.  As owner of a Florida class A team, he scheduled “Vasectomy Night” … on Father’s Day.  Thankfully, the “promo” was cancelled.

Bill Veeck Jr is in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame.

Charlie O. Finley

Better known, to me and my generation I suppose, is Charlie O. Finley.  He bought the Kansas City Athletics in 1960 (formerly Philadelphia A’s).  He ditched the traditional dingy grey and white uniforms for bright gold and green hues.  Considered garish at the time, many teams today sport bright, colorful uniforms. Although not every game.

Charlie’s favorite mascot: Charlie-O, the mule [photo credit SportsBroadcastJournal.com]

He also thought the team needed a mascot.  A mule.  Yep, a mule for a mascot. A real live mule. Maybe because they’re known for being stubborn <?>. He named it “Charlie-O” (after himself) and dressed it in the team colors. For a while, Finley had relief pitchers ride in on Charlie from the bullpen when they entered the game.  Fans loved it.  Lawyers and insurers not so much.  The mule remained, but riding it did not last long.

Mr Finley rides his mascot

The A’s had a horrendous season in 1965.  In that season Finley put a pitch clock on the scoreboard. He hoped it would make pitchers and catchers aware of how the time between pitches extended a game’s duration.  Didn’t work well then, but now in the 2020s it’s part of every game – as a rule, not a suggestion.

Two of his most memorable stunts came near the end of that miserable ’65 season. First, he had his shortstop, Bert Campaneris, play all 9 positions in a single game – one for each inning.

Soon after, Finley signed the aforesaid Satchel Paige, now 59 years old!  Paige, who would be voted into the MLB Hall of Fame just 6 years later, had not pitched professionally in 12 years.  And even that was at a very, very advanced age for a Major Leaguer.

On September 25, in his sole appearance that year, Paige strode proudly to the mound as the starting pitcher against the Boston Red Sox at the A’s KC stadium: Municipal Stadium. [2] Paige was magnificent, going three scoreless innings, allowing only a single hit.

In ’65 the Red Sox were also struggling, but it was no cakewalk for Paige: The Sox had Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski and slugger Tony Conigliaro. Only 9,300 attended the game.  [Yaz got the only hit, a double.]

In KC, Finley continually struggled with low attendance and poor performance.  He moved the team to Oakland in 1968, where they’ve been ever since. Well, for now, at least.

When the team moved, Finley kept the 1,200 lb mule; Charlie-O the mule followed the team to Oakland. [When Finley sold the A’s in 1981, the mule was eliminated as mascot.  The A’s reverted to their traditional decades-old mascot: an elephant.  But only on the logo.]

In Oakland the team achieved a three-peat, 1972-4, three consecutive World Series wins. Finley kept going with innovation.

More from Charles O. Finley:

Fans couldn’t see the baseball?  He proposed orange baseballs; even getting authorization to try them in spring training games.  The idea didn’t go far and never made it into a regular season game.

Game too slow?  Too boring? He proposed the count going only to 3-balls and 2-strikes.  The late ‘60s games had been dominated by pitchers and seemed boring to many fans.  He thought the 3-ball walk would increase scoring.  And to a quicker game. Tried in a spring training game, the approach led to a game with 19 walks.  Hardly entertaining.

Boring Schedule? Finley proposed interleague play in the early ‘70s (as Veeck had done decades before); this finally came to fruition in 1997, only a year after he died.  It’s been part of MLB ever since.

Rollie Fingers and his famous handle bar mustache

During the A’s great success of the 1970s slugger Reggie Jackson refused to shave his mustache.  Wishing to not appear as caving in to his star, Finley encouraged all the players to grow facial hair; at least one chose exotic facial hair, Rollie Fingers.  Most of the team joined in with their own styles.  The ‘60s had changed a lot of things.  People were eager to express themselves, and Finley allowed his players that freedom. [3]

He instigated Hot Pants Day and Mustache Day at the stadium.

He was also instrumental in getting the Designated Hitter into professional baseball.  I’m not a supporter, but this idea won over the American League — and the non-position “position” DH-role has been part of American League baseball since 1973.  Since Covid, it’s also in the National League (ugg).

It’s 1973.  Oakland resident Stanley Burrell was 11 years old and a baseball fanatic.  He was particularly fanatic about the Athletics (A’s) [that’s what “fan” means, it’s short for “fanatic.”]  He’d hang out in front of the stadium before games, dancing and even doing James Brown Splits getting the fans revved up as they came through the parking lot.  He had been emulating Brown and other performers for quite a few years.  His other hobbies included writing poetry and lyrics and music that he could submit for product promotional jingles.

One day Finley saw young Stanley dancing. He was quite amused.  So, he hired Stanley, as a lark, for the team’s executive vice-president position.   As exec-VP, he traveled with the team on road trips, doubling as the team’s bat boy.

After college Burrell tried to follow his dreams of professional baseball and communications.  He flamed out at both.  The US Navy offered stability, discipline and a salary.  He needed all three.

Long story short, after his 3-year military career, Stanley went back to his original passions: singing, lyric writing and dancing.  As he performed successfully more and more often, first locally then branching out, he took the nickname “MC” – for Master of Ceremonies.  Soon after he also took the name Hammer:  MC Hammer.

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The last Finley innovation we’ll address is Ball Girls.  During a baseball game many balls are grounded foul, just outside the 1st and 3rd base lines.  This might occur a dozen or two times each game. The balls eventually hit the fan/field wall and roll or bounce along the wall, toward the outfield.  For many decades teams have placed a “retriever”, usually a teen boy, out along the line to pick up or catch these foul balls before they ricochet into the outfield.

Finley said he wanted more female participation in the game; but he was surely looking for more male interest too.  In 1971 he hired two striking local 15-year-old blonde girls as the first Ball Girls —   Debra Jane “Debbi” Sivyer and Marry Barry.

Debbi Sivyer on delivering for a cookie and milk break

They were fetching to behold, especially for males’ eyes, attired in short and rather tight white shorts (Hot Pants), tops of white, gold or green, and usually long stockings, often of A’s gold.  They were a huge hit.

Creative Debbi Sivyer began a cookie break for the umpires. She served them her homemade cookies with milk.  Sometimes coffee or water, too. Young Ms. Sivyer was passionate about her baking hobby; she’d been working on her cookie recipes for years.  She used the five dollar per hour ball girl wages to purchase baking supplies.

The ball girl thing died out pretty rapidly, a couple of years – the players’ wives started complaining. First Finley adapted by having the young ladies wear less skimpy clothes and white slacks.  Not enough. To keep “matrimonial stability” Finley phased them out.

No worries for Debbi Sivyer.  She was soon Homecoming Queen and graduated at 17.  While attending Foothills College, in the south Bay area, she met a successful businessman who had founded his own successful investment company, Randall Keith Fields.  They were soon married, he was 29, she 19.  She took his surname, Fields.  She became Mrs. Fields.

Her cookies were good.  Great. Everyone loved them. The possibility of a profitable business began to appear.  Starting slowly, by beating the pavement, alone, and word-of-mouth, she gritted out a profitable business.  In a few years Mrs. Field’s cookie business began growing and growing.  She ran and eventually expanded the business to many hundreds of franchises and about a dozen countries.

Despite Randy’s business acumen, he poo-poo’d the idea for the first several years.  He did get “on-board” the cookie team as its success began blooming, becoming  company chairman and bringing the Fields Cookie company into the computer age by integrating software and databases for planning and tracking building needs, inventory, ingredients and product delivery.  This was pretty important as the company was expanding rapidly.

Debi and Randy had five daughters before they split in ’97.  Debi was the visionary and creative spirit of the team. She sold the company in the early ‘90s for $100 million.  Not bad at all.  She remains their spokesperson.

Debi “Mrs Fields” herself

She’d had a dream and a plan all along.  And she made it work.

Debbi married Michael Rose a few years later after the divorce. He was the former CEO of Holiday Corporation, and later Harrah’s after it merged with Holiday – mostly managing hospitality and casino operations.  They remained wed until his recent death, in 2017.

Ball girls Marry Barry and Debbi Sivyer Fields remain friends today.  Debbi now resides in Nashville, TN; Marry in Pleasant Hills, CA.  They’ve been featured at A’s games on throwback days, even throwing out the ceremonial “first pitch.”

Thanks for reading.

Joe Girard, 2024 ©

Thank you for reading. As always, you can add yourself to the notification list for newly published material by clicking here . Or emailing joe@girardmeister.com

 

Many of these characters have quite the collection of life stories.  Paige, Gaedel, Conigliaro, Yaz, Doby.  Even the ones mentioned at length here have much more.  But you get the idea.

[1] Indian Team Manager and Player Lou Boudreau took Doby around to meet his new teammates.  They were all eager to meet him and put their hands out for a shake.  Three players did not.  Veeck removed all three from the roster as soon as he could.

[2] In wonderful irony, or perhaps coincidence, the new Kansas City Municipal Stadium was built on the very site where the Negro League team Kansas City Monarchs had played – the team Paige played for when he made many of his significant successes in the Negro Leagues.  It’s about a half-mile walk from the Negro Leagues Museum, a must see for any fan. Next door is the American Jazz museum, and of course, there is great KC-style BBQ all around.

[3] There are other versions of this facial hair story.  I picked the one that seemed most likely and entertaining to me.  “I refuse to shave” is so Reggie Jackson.

Biographical, Edwardian/Pre-War, History, Strong Women

A Cross fror Higbee

Lenah, circa 1918

Lenah Higbee, a life that deserves to be remembered

Originally Canadian, born May 18, 1874 (*1) in New Brunswick, Canada, Lenah Higbee (nee: Sutcliffe), immigrated to the US to attend nursing school at the New York Post Graduate Hospital [now NYU Medical], where she completed her nurse’s certification. She did further graduate study at Fordham University, in the Bronx and she also began her own private nursing practice.

In 1899 she met John H Higbee, a widower and retired Marine Lt. Colonel. They courted and were married that year.(*2) He was in service for many years, beginning in 1861, in the US Civil War.

Through marriage Lenah immediately became a naturalized US citizen, by laws at that time (which stood until 1922, when US sentiment turned largely anti-immigrant).  John was approximately three decades older than she.

In April, 1908 Lenah became a widow when John passed away.  They had no children, although it’s possible John had children from his earlier marriage.

The very next month the US Congress passed legislation to form the Navy Nurse Corps. It became law when it was signed by President “Teddy” Roosevelt.  On 1 October, 1908, Lenah Sutcliffe Higbee became one the first twenty nurses in the original Navy Nurse Corps (Historians call it The Sacred Twenty). Now widowed, she was unmarried, a requirement to serve.

The 20 were initially trained at Portsmouth, Virginia.  She soon earned the role of Chief Nurse at Norfolk Naval Hospital (Virginia), and in January 1911 became the second ever “Superintendent” of the Corps.

Over the next 11 years of her military career Higbee was never given an official military rank (unlike Major “Hot Lips” Houlihan) and was paid less than other skilled Navy professionals with similar demands.  Throughout the remainder of her Naval career, she carried the simple and non-military title “Superintendent”, an unofficial title (it is, however, the title of the commander of the US Naval Academy).

Superintendent Higbee

During this period, up until The Great War, she implemented universal training programs with demanding criteria to ensure Corps-wide competency in all situations.  She helped grow and train the Corps to nearly 1,400 nurses. Higbee was a well-placed powerful activist for military nurses, advocating for better pay, better working conditions and better recognition.  She served on many military and national medical committees, including the Red Cross, to help prepare for the Great War, in which America’s entry was appearing ever more likely.

In 1916 Woodrow Wilson was re-elected to the presidency under the slogan “He kept us out of war.”  That wouldn’t last long.  Just 10 weeks after the election, the Zimmermann Telegram was intercepted and de-cyphered by the Brits.  A month later the message was relayed to President Wilson, who then released the text to the US public. [the one-month delay, was because the Brits feared revealing that they had broken the German code.  Perhaps the first use of “Gentlemen don’t read each other’s mail”].   The Public outcry was enormous … and angry.

Coincident with the cable’s public release, the Germans resumed unrestricted submarine warfare; that included sinking unarmed ships of all sorts.

Thus, the US gave up on non-interventionism and, as of a Congressional Declaration of War requested by Wilson, April 17, was on the way to war: “Send the word over there: That the Yanks are coming.”  [By Year’s end, Over There made it to #1]

The military was mobilized, but not all that quickly – the US wasn’t really prepared; they didn’t have a large military with respect to Gross National Product at that time.  Recruiting was lagging, armaments and training were severely lacking.

But the Naval Nursing Corps was ready.  With Lenah Higbee acting effectively as Naval Nurse Chief of Staff, in charge of everything within the Corps, working long hours at the Navy Bureau of Medicine & Surgery in Washington, she managed the recruitment, deployment to hospitals and ships, matériel, and logistics of all Navy and Marine Nurse contributions to wartime healthcare.

During the war, the Navy Nurse Corps served on every combat ship, transport ship, and supply ship.   Nurses were also attached to the US Railway Battery in France.

Higbee’s nurses were also called upon to train the recently recruited Navy Corpsmen. About 350 in total.

The demands on Higbee were extremely challenging, made worse as the Spanish Flu pandemic (*3) that swept across the World (*4) and affected every nation of  the war’s belligerents; the flu hit US servicemen just as its battle casualties began mounting [The US Military suffered some 117,000 deaths in the war, twice the loss in Viet Nam, in just a year and a half, with half the population; this includes about 45,000 from the flu].

Corpsmen and nurses assigned artillery land-duty dealt with shocking human trauma of every sort: Shrapnel, blast shocks, piercing bullet wounds, psychiatric troubles (“shell-shock”, now PTSD).  Not to mention trench foot, vermin like rats, and gas warfare and STDs. And, of course, the Spanish Flu.

Higbee’s contributions were more than equal to any on the battlefield, or at sea.  Her tireless and steadfast devotion were instrumental in providing high quality healthcare to servicemen.  Success of the Nurse Corps, a vital component of the war effort, would not have happened without Lenah Sutcliffe Higbee. Her dedication and professionalism motivated not just the entire Corps, but all those working with and around her.

Her contributions were rightly recognized.  On November 11, 1920 (1st official anniversary of Armistice Day) she and three other Navy nurses — Marie Louise Hidell, Lillian M. Murphy and Edna Place — were the first women to be awarded the Navy Cross.  Sadly, the awards to the other three were posthumous – they had succumbed to the Spanish Flu, contracted from patients they had treated.  Higbee is, consequently, often regarded as the first woman to be so honored.

The Navy Cross

Thanks to the nurses’ and Higbee’s wartime efforts, which was carried on by their successors, military nurses were given official military rank beginning with World War II.

To this day, the Navy Nurse Corps continues to provide quality care to Navy Staff and families.  The memory of Lenah Higbee is held as an inspiration to all who serve.

Higbee retired from the Navy on November 30, 1922. Throughout her very distinguished career, despite the ever-present discrimination from the still male-dominated medical professions, she had maintained her dignity and service commitment. After retirement she filled her life with pursuits not possible during her service to the nation.  She eventually moved far from New York and Washington to central Florida.

  • The SS Orbita manifest shows her, as a widow, arriving at Ellis Island, New York, on May 23rd, 1924 from Cherbourg, France – with an address in New York City at East 76th Street (no bldg number); that’s in mid-Manhattan.
  • Another manifest, SS Dominica, shows her arriving February 2nd,1926 at Ellis Island from Trinidad and Tobago (then part of British West Indies).
  • She arrived in New York on June 23rd, 1935 from Southampton, England on the SS Statendam. Her Current residence now listed as Deer Isle, Maine. A remote island near no major cities. I surmise she moved to Florida after this trip.

    Lenah Higbee at 49, passport photo

She received her first US passport in September 1899.  I’ve found that she renewed it in December 1923; one of many renewals; in ’23 she was still residing at 55 East 76th Street, NYC.  When it was approved, her passport showed she had blue eyes — and a scar on her right wrist (injury?)

After retirement she also remained active in American health care.  She was involved in, and soon became president of, the American Nurses’ Association.  Among all her duties, she also campaigned for improved health care for all US residents.

Going back a bit … Because of the relatively close proximity to NY City, I will presume she attended the 1901 World’s Fair, in Buffalo. There are teasers that John may have spent some time here, although born in Manhattan. There, at that fair, many wonderous things were to be discovered; modern advancements in medical science were on display, including Roentgen’s X-Ray machine. Also exhibited were early manometers, improved stethoscopes, ophthalmoscopes, very early incubators, antiseptic techniques, and more.  President McKinley was assassinated there in September. [See this girardmeister essay]

Lenah Sutcliffe Higbee passed away from natural causes on January 10, 1941, in Winter Park, Orange County, Florida, at age 66 years. Like her husband, she is interred with full Military Honors at Arlington National Cemetery.  In fact, they are buried side-by-side –— Section 3, Site 1797.

Two naval vessels have been named for her Lenah Higbee.

USS Higbee, DD-806

The first, the USS Higbee (DD-806), was the first combat warship named after a female member of the U.S. military. It was commissioned in 1945, serving in Viet Nam and as part of the NASA Mercury missions Pacific Ocean recovery team.  She was decommissioned in 1976 and, I guess sadly, was sunk in 1986 as part of an aerial bombardment exercise about 100 miles west of San Diego.

The second, the USS Lenah H. Sutcliffe Higbee (DDG-123), was laid in January 2020.  It’s an Arleigh Burke-class* guided missile destroyer. It was christened in 2021, commissioned in May 2023 and due for official fleet entry later in 2024.

USS Higbee DD-123

Thanks for reading.

Joe Girard © 2024

Thank you for reading. As always, you can add yourself to the notification list for newly published material by clicking here . Or emailing joe@girardmeister.com

 

 

L. Higbee at rest

Some final notes and linked sources

  • John’s data is scarce. He was born in New York, NY, 1840, and passed in Buffalo, NY, 1898
    In the 1840 census, a John Higbee (father?) shows up in Brooklyn with two children under age 5 and a woman (name? wife?) aged 20-30. If this is our John’s family, our John Higbee would then be a “Junior.”
  • Can’t find any marriage, birth, or fatherhood records. However, it seems that all boroughs were not officially joined into New York City until 1898. So, perhaps, this is not the “John” we are looking for.
  • They may well have decided to dwell in Buffalo after visiting the Fair (where McKinley was assassinated, Sept 1901).
  • When I saw the name Edna Place (Navy Cross recipient) I couldn’t help but think of Etta Place, of “Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid” fame, often considered the most beautiful woman of that era.
  • *For Colorado readers, Admiral Burke was a native of Boulder; The Burke school and Park are named for him. The school has been renamed Horizons Charter School
  • Tags in the text:
  • (*1) – Several Documents say 1873
  • (*2) – A very good guess is that John served in the 1st New York Marine Artillery Regiment. This regiment was first mustered in Nov, 1861, just after John’s joining, at age 17. Most 1st NY recruits were from New York City, his hometown. It’s also the only Marine group of any sort from New York state. Records show this group in combat, securing many ports from North Carolina up through Virginia.
  • (*3) – here I use pandemic, not epidemic. The former connotes worldwide; the latter something more local, as in epicenter.
  • (*4) – Spanish Flu: India lost 12 million, China almost 7 million to the flu. US “only” 675,000

Side by Side graves

[1] https://usstranquillity.blogspot.com/2012/01/echoes-of-navy-medicines-past-navy.html

Finding Lenah and John. Section 3

[2] https://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/communicate/press-media/wwi-centennial-news/1198-women-of-world-war-one-honored-by-u-s-navy.html

[3] https://usnhistory.navylive.dodlive.mil/Recent/Article-View/Article/2686863/lenah-higbee-a-continuing-legacy-and-trailblazer-for-navy-women/

[4] Military Medicine, forgotten nurses, Spanish Flu in WWI — https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/world-war-i/history/terrifying-experience.html#return7

[5] https://navylog.navymemorial.org/higbee-lenah

[6] https://usstranquillity.blogspot.com/2012/01/echoes-of-navy-medicines-past-navy.html

[7] https://www.taraross.com/post/tdih-lenah-higbee

[8] https://books.google.com/books?id=zoEfAQAAIAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=higbee&f=false
Page 126

[9] https://news.va.gov/113991/veteranoftheday-navy-lenah-s-higbee/

[10] https://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/communicate/press-media/wwi-centennial-news/1198-women-of-world-war-one-honored-by-u-s-navy.html

[11] https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?q.anyDate.from=1941&q.anyPlace=new%20york&q.givenName=lenah&q.surname=higbee

[12] https://myokaloosa.com/bcc/lenahhigbee

[13] I also found familysearch.org to be very useful here.  See [11] for one such item.

Biographical, History, Strong Women

Kate Chopin

The Women’s Convention of 1848, in Seneca Falls, NY, was an early major milestone in the US Women’s Rights movement. It was arguably the first. Two years later, in Saint Louis, a girl was born who would go on to become an unwilling icon of that movement: Catherine “Kate” O’Flaherty.

Catherine O’Flaherty was born, in Saint Louis, Missouri, in February, 1850, to an Irish immigrant father (Thomas) and a Saint Louisan mother (Eliza) of well-heeled lineage, including French-Creole [1] and Quebec ancestry.

_________________________________________________

Thomas O’Flaherty was born in 1805 in County Galway, Ireland.  Ireland had been ruled by, and oppressed by, England for centuries. He emigrated to the United States around 1825 seeking opportunity — before the infamous Potato Famine hit in the mid-1840s.  He settled in the country’s most prosperous and fastest growing heartland city, Saint Louis, Missouri.

Catherine “Kate” O’Flaherty Chopin, 1890s

He did well financially almost immediately. He ran a boat shop along the river and a small store. He expanded into cotton and grain trading.  Now entitled to rub shoulders with city’s oldest and wealthiest families he moved in the highest circles.  There, through arrangement, he met and courted Eliza Faris – she from a first class family in St Louis society, with well-established St Louis Creole roots.  On August 1, 1844 they were wed.  She was barely 16 at the time.  Thomas 38.

Eliza was his second marriage – this time an arranged marriage. From the 1850 census, we see a child George O’Flaherty, age 9 in the household – Eliza’s stepchild. Eliza is some 22 years younger than Thomas.  Besides George, Eliza, and several of her family, there are 2 more children: Thomas, age 2, and Catherine.  The later shown as 0 years old; she was born on February 8 of that census year.  Thomas’ profession in the census is shown as “Merchant.”

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At age 5 Catherine, now going by “Kate” was sent to a private Catholic boarding school, across the Missouri River, in St Charles.  There her studies lasted but a few months.

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Thomas extended his business interests.  He saw opportunity in the nation’s expansion, and its need for more railroads.  He was an initial investor in, and one of the founders of the Pacific Railroad (later the Missouri-Pacific Railroad).[2]

Thomas and Eliza, circa 1845

In 1855, shortly after Kate was sent off to school, the Pacific’s first major line from St Louis to the state capital – Jefferson City – was finally completed after four excruciatingly long years of construction.*  The inaugural trip to Jeff City, the state capital, was to occur on October 1.

[* Excruciating long: it took only 6 years to complete the “transcontinental” 1,800 mile line from Omaha to the San Francisco Bay area. From Saint Louis to Jefferson City was about 110 miles of rail line].

Again, a delay … this time to complete a temporary trestle bridge over the Gasconade River, just west of Hermann and some 20 miles short of the capital.

Finally, the line was complete by the end of October.  A large freighter pulling a dozen Gondola cars, each with tons of gravel, traversed the entire line, confirming its safely.  It was good to go.

Eliza & stepson George, ~1850

November 1, All Saints’ Day, ominously the day after Halloween, the inaugural full-length passenger run set out. The train carried some 600 passengers; among them were dozens of St Louis dignitaries, including O’Flaherty, Thomas O’Sullivan, and Henry Chouteau. O’Sullivan was the Pacific’s chief Engineer, Chouteau a direct descendant of St Louis’ founding family.

At 9AM, after much fanfare, band music and speechifying, the 14-car train pulled out of the Seventh Street Station (just south of the site of today’s Busch Stadium, and under ½ mile east of where the landmark Union Station would stand four decades later). Pulled by the small but mighty 4-4-0 locomotive Missouri* the train made its way west through a heavy rainstorm, over many creeks and small rivers, mostly along the right bank of the Missouri River, toward the capital city.   About 25 miles from the route’s terminus, some 9 miles west of Hermann, the line crossed the Gasconade River bridge via the temporary mostly-timber trestle.

[* The locomotive had recently been re-named “O’Sullivan” after the engineer.  He was also a prominent St Louisan and member of one of its oldest families].

At 1:30 PM the train reached the Gasconade bridge.  A notion to stop and check the bridge was dismissed, as that heavy gravel-laden train had crossed the day before – with chief engineer O’Sullivan himself aboard that run as well.  Plus, it was raining hard and the train was running late for the scheduled ceremonies to be held in Jeff City.

As the engine and tender rolled onto the first of six 150-foot spans the bridge gave way.  Complete collapse. All cars but one left the track and tumbled down the thirty-five-foot embankment, most of them all the way into the swollen river.  A historic catastrophe. Among the 30 fatalities were O’Sullivan, Chouteau and Thomas O’Flaherty. [This line along the Missouri River is still used by Amtrak today. It’s called the Missouri River Runner.  The bridge has, of course, been replaced and upgraded several times].  Thomas is buried in Calvary Cemetery, in St Louis.

Trains were to proceed over the bridge by creeping at just a few miles per hour. The O’Sullivan “dared” to cross at over 10 mph. This was determined to be the catastrophe’s cause.

_________________________________________________________________________

This Missouri/O’Sullivan

Fatherless, Kate was returned home from school.  For the rest of her youth she was raised in a household led by only women, all strong matriarchs: her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother.  All had been widowed young, never re-married, and developed into fully self-sufficient, self-directed and independently minded women. They raised Kate to be likewise.  She was home-schooled, mostly by her great-grandmother, Victoria Verdon Charleville, assisted by her grandmother, Athenaise “Mary” Charleville Faris. They ensured she was well-educated, and that she was well-rounded, including extra studies in classic & contemporary literature, music and her ancestors’ French language.

After she completed what amounted to Elementary School at home – about the time her great-grandmother’s health began fading (she died in 1863) – Kate began attending the nearby Catholic Girl’s School, Academy of the Visitation, in St Louis’ Visitation Neighborhood around 1859.

Kate must’ve been quite the catch.  Handsome, well-off, well-educated, much attention was directed at her by local young men.  But it was on a family vacation to New Orleans where she met her future husband – Oscar Chopin.

These locomotive wheels were found at the accident site in the river 147 years later and are now on display at the Union Pacific Museum in Council Bluffs, Iowa. (The Missouri Pacific was acquired by the Union Pacific in 1982)

Chopin was also of French Creole decent; his surname is pronounced like the famous composer’s.  They were married in 1870. By all accounts they had a good relationship and loving marriage. This despite Chopin’s father having a notorious reputation as a tyrant with an irritable disposition.  Their relationship and marriage blossomed, and over the first 10 years of marriage they had six children.

Oscar held Kate in very high regard.  He admired her intelligence, creativity and devotion to duty, all wrapped in a free spirit.  He allowed her many freedoms not normally seen in the south.  She was involved in his business, managed many of his contacts, went unescorted in public, and dressed as she wished. Oscar praised her publicly.

After an extravagant honeymoon that took them across Europe they settled in New Orleans.  Following a few years of prosperity, Oscar’s cotton trade business failed due to a series of economic crises that struck the post-war South.  They moved to Natchitoches Parish, started a General Store and helped manage local plantations.   Although the store’s sales were healthy, Oscar was well-known to be excessively generous in extending credit to his customers, and then not bothering much with debt collection.

Buried in debt and struggling to support his family, the good-natured Oscar was under great pressure – to which he succumbed. In 1882, aged 38, he contracted “Swamp Fever”* and died after a period of brutally painful suffering.

[*a generic name for local diseases; it was probably malaria].

Kate was now a young widow, like three generations of women before her, at age 32, with 6 children and shouldering over $12,000 in debt (worth about $350,000 in 2023).  She took over the business and ran it well for two years. During this time, she shamelessly flirted openly with local men – not all were single.  Outrageous! She had a brief affair with a local wealthy plantation owner, Albert Sampite. (Although married, Sampite was estranged). He encouraged her to further reach for her own aspirations. He inspired her to boldly engage her imagination – something she’d do the rest of her days. It was a brief, yet exciting, liaison.  But this was all just too much work. Her life was too full, too busy. At her mother’s urging she sold the store, packed up and returned to her hometown in 1884. Permanently, as it turned out.  Saint Louis was home.

The main reasons for the big move were to get financial relief, emotional support, and help raising the children.  The support was short-lived, however.  Within a year of Kate’s arrival Eliza fell ill.  When she died Kate was alone again.  [Phone book records show them living at 1122 St. Ange Ave, in the Peabody Darst Webb neighborhood]

Through her mother’s illness Kate fell into a depressive funk.  The doctor who attended to her mother through failing health, Dr Kolbenheyer, noticed Kate’s struggles. He recommended she try writing for solace.  When Eliza died, Kate did start writing.  Oh, how she could write. She wrote about what she knew.  She was almost immediately successful, writing about people and things she knew about and had seen in Louisiana.  With her inheritance and money she earned from writing she was pretty well-off.  Enough to support herself and her children. She moved to a very nice home at 4232 McPherson Ave, in the Central West End neighborhood.

Inspired by this success, she tried writing novels.  By the later 1890s she was well-known nationally and famous locally.  She had hundreds of articles and short stories published, as well as novels that critics reviewed highly.  In 1897 she embarked on writing her pièce de resistance: The Awakening.

After two years it was complete. Published in 1899, The Awakening caused quite a stir.  Briefly it’s about a woman, Edna Pontellier, who is married to a wealthy businessman in New Orleans.  She feels trapped in her life and hemmed in by the expectations of a wife and mother in the old south.  She seeks independence and self-discovery.  She seeks, and finds, her own desires – outside the bounds of polite society’s expectations.  Her desire includes enjoyment, which includes sexual pleasures.  The rest of the story is about the conflicts and crises that arise as she finds fulfillment of those desires. In the end, it’s a tragedy.

It was a scandal!  In mixed reviews most critics found it disturbing.  Readers thought the same. Shameful. Immoral.  Outrageous.  Women don’t do that!  And if they do, we don’t write about it.  Feminists praised her as a hero.  Feminist “Hero” was a mantle she never accepted.  She was just a writer.

The result? Chopin’s writing career crashed. Publishers eschewed her work. Copies of The Awakening were stashed away in unlit corners of libraries and homes.  She was largely forgotten. Even by feminists.  A decade after her death, her works were briefly re-considered, and some critics, like Fred Lewis Pattee, began considering her among the best writers of the late 19th century. Alas, her works soon again drifted into the realm of cob-webbed dust-covered attics.

Her works lay largely dormant and forgotten until after the mid-20th century when scholars, many of them feminists, re-discovered The Awakening. It’s now held in high regard as an early classic of feminist literature.  It’s widely studied and celebrated for its exploration of themes like repression, gender roles, identity, sexual awakening, and women’s individuality and freedom.

Authors and readers since have been inspired by Chopin’s female characters.  Two popular and very successful novelists of our era who nearly always include female protagonists who face challenges and grow to become heroic figures are Kristin Hannah and – gasp, a man! – Ken Follett.

________________________________________________________________________

Excitement for Kate.  Her hometown, Saint Louis, hosted the 1904 World’s Fair. The main entrance was just two miles from her home in the Central West End neighborhood.  Instead of going to see the world, the world had come to her: a perfect fit for her hungry and inquisitive mind.  She bought a season’s pass and delighted in roaming the grounds –  a nearly 1,300 acre expanse with over 1,500 buildings, 12 Palaces and a mile of Pike with curiosities of all sorts,  all connected with 75 miles of roads and walkways  –  to learn of countless technical and cultural advances in the world.

A Saint Louis native, she certainly had already experienced many a warm day with oppressive humidity. Most Fair visitors that summer remarked on this unpleasant “feature” of Midwest weather.  In the late morning of August 19, a huge storm system developed over Kansas, then moved slowly east.  The intense storm dropped two inches of overnight rain on Saint Louis – much after midnight –  before drifting east, dumping buckets all the way to Buffalo.

The next day Kate was at the Fair again. The heavy rain had driven the humidity to the point of being nearly unbearable in the 87-degree heat. With so much to see and learn, Kate soldiered on. In the afternoon she began feeling very tired and woozy.  She began feeling faint.  Then she passed out.

She was taken home. Victim of a cerebral hemorrhage.  She passed away in her own bed, two days later, age 54.  She is also buried in Calvary Cemetery and Mausoleum, St Louis, near her parents.

A legendary figure in Saint Louis history, literature and feminism, Kate Chopin aspired, achieved, and inspired many.

Thanks for reading.  I enjoy sharing almost forgotten history from my own perspective.  Be well. Be like Kate Chopin. Color outside the lines. Live your dreams. Aspire. Be you.

Peace,

Joe Girard © 2023

Thank you for reading. As always, you can add yourself to the notification list for newly published material by clicking here . Or emailing joe@girardmeister.com

Author’s notes (footnotes follow):

Note 1: Many will wonder, after reading this, whether I am a “feminist,” or not. My position is nuanced, and largely depends upon how one defines the term. First the affirmative.

I am a feminist in a practical sense. No society can reach anything close its full potentional in areas of human progress – economics, arts, philosophy, or technology – while restricting the participation of one-half of its population. Yes, I’m a feminist insofar as that means fully empowering all of the population to contribute to society … legally and without infringing the rights of others. Everyone has something to contribute to society … as they see fit. This is consistent with classical liberal philosophy.

And the negative. I am not in harmony with fringe opinions attributed to “feminists.” These include notions of “male toxicity”, “all heterosexual intercourse is rape”, destruction of capitalism, attacks on trans-woman as they’re perceived to be “hogging” their victimhood spotlight, banning religions with a patriarchal history, renaming anything with the sounds “her, him or his” in the word: e.g. Hurricanes become Him-icanes. In any case, much may all be well on its way to history’s dustbin as women in the US now earn 38% more college degrees than men at nearly every level. This last point is very interesting – perhaps a topic for another essay.

I might have uncovered some disagreement here. OK. Tribal rules don’t care about nuance.

Note 2: As many of my readers reside in the St Louis area – and I’m hopeful more will join as I often write essays with St Louis themes – I have included reference to the St Louis neighborhoods, streets and addresses so that they can place events in the region.

[1] The term “Creole” has many definitions. Herein I use it to refer to those who trace their ancestry to Europe, of French and/or Spanish ancestry, often mixed with black. This ancestry often goes back to upper classes or upper-middle classes, whether the status was attained in Europe or in the New World. Most of these Creoles do not speak “pigeon English” and are definitely not Cajun, which is a unique Louisiana background and culture altogether – although in some parts of Louisiana they overlap.

It appears that O’Flaherty’s first marriage was also to a society St Louis Creole, named Catharine Reilhe. They wed in November, 1839. Catharine was born in 1819, in St Charles, and passed in 1846. It’s likely that Kate was named for her. His son from his first marriage, George, was born in 1841; he died in 1863. As with most of the O’Flaherty and Chopin family he’s buried in Calavary Cemetery, St Louis. It seems he died in Arkansas, as a member of the Confederate Army, as a consequence of the Battle of Prairie Grove, December 1862, in Northwest Arkansas.  As Saint Louis, indeed most of Missouri, was very fractured over slavery and the Confederacy.

Reihle sounds like, and is, a name of Germanic origins — mostly Austrian, some from Württemberg.  As multiple sources state she’s from a Creole background, I suspect this is either due to interpretation, or something acquired by ancestral marriage, separate from her maiden surname.

A much abbreviated list of sites for resource, plus there was familysearch.org, a great free resource.
https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=research_awards
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/mwre/32/8/1520-0493_1904_32_357b_lsaslm_2_0_co_2.xml
Kate Chopin
https://www.stltoday.com/news/archives/nov-1-1855-a-bridge-disaster-derails-st-louis-dream-for-a-transcontinental-railroad/article_b7f82a8b-90b6-56a8-88fd-da1e93c31d54.html

Autobiographical, Strong Women

Der Brief

News to some of you: I spend a little time almost every day studying German. Even though my surname is French, I find German more interesting. For one thing, they pronounce pretty much all of the letters in all words, seldom resorting to dropping consonants and blowing snot bubbles. [1]  For another, my parents were each ½ German, thus making me ½ German.  Finally, my wife and I enjoy traveling there occasionally, and I must admit – my German skills there are rarely very useful.  I can read signs. Sometimes in small villages it helps when no one can (or wants to) speak English.

As you might guess, Buchladen is Bookstore.

On some study days I will read short stories for variety, instead of the regular vocabulary and grammar lessons. Those can be a real grind.

Following is a very short story I read recently during a study session (my translation to English is good enough).  Most stories are enjoyable, but I especially liked this one.  It’s called “Der Brief”(The Letter).

Here goes.  Translated by me.

_________________________________________________________________

Sari and Lilli are standing in front of a bookstore.

Immensee, famous 19th century German novella

Sari says: Let’s go in! I love old books!

Lilli: And that’s why we are friends.

They go into the bookstore. Sari takes a book and opens it up.

Sari: Lilli!! There’s an old letter in this book!

Lilli: What kind of letter?

Sari: A man named Joseph is writing to his good friend, Doris. He needs some advice.

Der Brief

Lilli: Why? What kind of advice?

Sari: He says that he loves two women, Marianna, and Ruth. Marianna is highly intelligent. But Ruth is very funny. He doesn’t know which one he should marry!

Lilli: I hope he stayed single.  [Lilli is often the Debbie Downer in the lessons and stories]

Sari: Now I really need to know what his friend Doris had to say.

Just then, the woman who owns the bookstore comes over to them.

Owner: Oh! That is a terrific book! … It belonged to my husband. … He died last year.

Sari: Oh, I am so sorry!

Lilli (spark in her voice now): Was your husband’s name Joseph?

Owner (a little surprised): Yes!

Sari (excitedly): And what’s your name?  Marianna … or Ruth?

The woman smiles, a fresh gleam in her eyes.

“My name is Doris.”

Well, hope you liked it at least half as much as I did.

Until next time …

_____________________________________________________________

[1] In some spoken instances they do drop final parts a word. E.g. Einen often becomes Ein because, quite frankly, who really cares if you get the gender and grammatical case correct?

Joe Girard (c) 2022 — story snagged from Duolingo.

Thanks for reading. As always, you can add yourself to the notification list for newly published material by clicking here. Or emailing joe@girardmeister.com

Autobiographical, Biographical, Culture, Current Events, History, Strong Women

Presenting: The Tippi-Review, the Trailer too

The One

“There!  That’s the one!”  A celebrated famous movie director and producer is shouting at his television.  He’s also famously morbidly obese. He’s watching NBC’s Today Show, when up comes a commercial for a diet nourishment drink, one of scores of Ultra-Slim-Fast-type products of the day. 

But he’s never been interested in dieting or health. He is one of the 20th century’s great story tellers and film makers.  He’s been looking for someone.  Someone special. And now he’s captivated by the lithe and pretty blond pitching the diet drink.  She has the beauty, the poise, the elegance, and the charm to play the characters in some films he’s been itching to make.  She’s the one.

You’re never too old to change.

I’ve been biting my fingernails since my earliest memories.  My parents tried every way possible to help me stop. It’s such a disgusting habit in several ways.  If nothing else, it’s atrocious hygiene; and people will – unconsciously or not – often judge your character poorly for it.  And it looks terrible.

Nancy and Sluggo. Famous cartoon characters since 1938

But I couldn’t stop.  As Sluggo said to Nancy when asked about it: “But they’re so convenient.  They’re right at my fingertips!”

I worked for a few decades with a fellow who gnawed his nails constantly. Way worse than even me. Every digit’s nail bitten right down to the quick.  Catch him thinking about work stuff (another aerospace engineer) and his saliva covered fingers were jammed into his mouth. 

“Well”, I could tell myself, “at least I’m not that bad.” 

But, I did even disgust myself.

I tried many times to quit.  Eventually, about 10 years ago, I started making great improvement and finally was able to cut back to almost never.

But a new problem arose.  When nails grow long, they crack and split.  Then what?  Back to biting?   I never replaced nail biting with a proper new habit, which – one would naturally think – would be to regularly trim my nails.  So, even though I’ve mostly quit biting, my nails still look like a mess, as I will nervously pick at the splits and cracks, or maybe trim them with my teeth, or resort to a deep gash with clippers to remove the nick. 

Nails, Nails, everywhere

During the 2007-2009 economic recession, I found myself looking at what was going on in brick-and-mortar businesses.  Who’s closing? Who’s staying open?  What businesses are resilient?  I’ve been doing this ever since.

Typical Salon Sign, for the ubiquitous Nail Salon in most metro areas

One curious thing that I noticed is that our urban and suburban areas are absolutely loaded with Nail Salons.  They are everywhere.  Even now, I can’t help but scan strip malls and shopping centers to find the almost-always-present *NAILS* marquee signs.  Usually in neon.

One reason, I suppose, is that people (mostly ladies) like to have very nice looking nails.  I appreciate that.  It’s a fairly inexpensive splurge (for most) that allows them to feel good about themselves, a bit feminine, and attractive.  Any more reasons?

Go inside a nail salon and … wait!!, I don’t go in those.  Maybe I should. Probably could use a good manicure occasionally (but no fake nails for me). 

Anyhow …. look inside and you’ll very likely observe that the professional manicurists are Asian ladies.  And if they are Asian, they are almost certainly Vietnamese ladies.  [Yes, I’ve peered in the windows, and peeked through the doors to verify this.  I usually don’t get pleasant looks in return.]

Tippi

Nathalie Kay Hedren was born in 1930, in New Ulm, Minnesota, the second child (and daughter) to first generation immigrants.  New Ulm, probably with the closest hospital, is about 10 miles from her first hometown, the tiny hamlet of Lafayette, lying in the fertile south-central breadbasket of Minnesota.  There, in Lafayette, her Swedish father ran a small general store.  She was small and precocious, so her father called her “Tippi”, Swedish for “little girl”, or “sweetheart.” Tippi: The nickname stuck for life.  

When Tippi was four, the family moved to Minneapolis, probably because of the impact of the great recession on her father’s farmer-customers.  Genetically blessed with good looks, naturally blonde hair and bright hazel eyes, Tippi started appearing in local fashion shows and advertisements in the Twin City area when just a lass. When she was 16 her parents sought a gentler climate, as her father’s health was slipping.  Upper Midwest winters will do that. They settled in San Diego, where she finished high school.

She then began studying art, at Pasadena City College, and also developed an interest in modeling.  Soon, her good-looks, grace and aplomb would take her to New York. And on to a very successful decade in modeling. Over those years her face (and lean figure) graced the covers of Life, The Saturday Evening Post, McCall’s, Glamour and other magazines.

A failed marriage and one child later (she is actress Melanie Griffith’s mother), Tippi was back in southern California, making commercials for various brands, including Sego, a meal-replacement drink of only 225 calories.  Thin was “in”, even then.

Tippi Hedren, in opening scenes in “The Birds”

The Find

Alfred Hitchcock’s wife and film-making partner, Imelda Staunton, noticed her first.  A brilliant blond, on a diet drink commercial.  She knew “Hitch” was looking for another blond to cast in a movie he was hoping to make.  And she knew he had an eye for beauties, especially blonds, and putting them in terrifying situations; as in Eva Marie Saint (North by Northwest) and Janet Leigh (Psycho).

Hitchcock profile and silhouette. Used on his two TV series, both called “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”

An interview was set up.  That paved the way to screenings.  Hedren was no actress. But she worked very hard on her lines, which were generally from earlier Hitchcock hits.  She impressed him with her determination; plus she had grace and class. Hitchcock intended to make her a star. He’d be her coach.

Tippi’s career

Hedren starred in the 1963 thriller “The Birds”, generally regarded as a top Hitchcock classic.  Hedren went on to make one more movie with Hitchcock: the not-so-popular “Marnie” (1964, with Sean Connery) which was met with mixed critical reviews. Then they had a falling out (lots there, maybe watch the movie “The Girl”, a Hedren/Hitchcock biopic). [1]

And this reminds you of ….?

She then floated in-and-out of acting the next few decades, mostly spot appearances on several TV series. She appeared with her daughter in an ’80s Hitchcock TV episode. Nothing so significant as “The Birds.”  But she had developed new interests along the way.

The late 1960s found her in Africa for filming. There she became enchanted by exotic cats and she grew concerned about their exploitation and mistreatment. Inspired to act, in the early 1970s, Hedren began what would become a mission for the rest of her life: working with wildlife charities to assist in the rescue and protection of such beautiful animals.  Land was bought north of Los Angeles to establish the Shambala Preserve as a wild feline sanctuary. Later, she established the Roar Foundation to further support this charitable activity.  In fact, she lives at Shambala now, aged 90, with her beloved big cats.

Refugees

For the United States, the Vietnam war ended in 1973, when the treaty known as the Paris Peace Accord was signed in January.  Although the US was out, the war continued.  Treaty or not, North Vietnam bore down on South Vietnam.  The South’s capital, Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), fell in April, 1975. 

Fearing for the fate of so many who had been loyal to South Vietnam and the US, the US government evacuated over 130,000 refugees and brought them to the United States.  They were put in camps around the country: to be fed, clothed, and trained for employment and integration into the US society and economy.

Hedren was moved to act. She visited the first non-military camp for refugees, Hope Village, near Weimar, CA, along I-80 in the foothills about 40 miles outside Sacramento. This was a humanitarian visit to encourage them and find a way to help.  She came with typists and seamstresses, hoping to find careers the refugee women could connect with. [2]

Now 45, Hedren was still a strikingly beautiful blond.  At 5’-5”, she was tall to them.  Blond and tall: that’s not all they noticed about her.  They noticed her beautiful nails.  They were long, perfectly shaped, … and painted.  They had never seen anything like that.  They all wanted nails like that.  How do you do that? They wanted to become manicurists!

Hedren watches teaching demonstration at Nail School, Camp Hope, 1975

Trying to find employment: why not work with what you love?  Hedren flew her personal manicurist to Camp Hope, to help train them. Then she recruited a local beauty school to work with them. In that first class, they trained a group of about 20 Vietnamese women.  She guaranteed them all jobs, when they graduated, mostly in southern California.  And she flew them to LA too.  And they continued to train more refugees who wanted to become manicurists.  Not pure coincidence that LA county has the highest population and concentration of Vietnamese of any place in the world, outside Vietnam. [Many other refugees from nearby Camp Pendleton eventually settled there, too].

One of the first graduating classes at Camp Hope (Weimar, CA)

And from there the nail phenomenon exploded.  In the US, the nail salon industry grosses over $8 billion in sales annually.  There are about 55,000 nail salons in the US – you can see them in almost any strip mall and shopping center – and about half of them are owned and operated by Asians.  And over 95% of those are Vietnamese. Of these Vietnamese professional manicurists, most are only one or two degrees of separation from Tippi Hendren and her nail salon school for Vietnamese refugees. [3]

Until next time, be well,

Joe Girard © 2021

  • Notes:
  • [1] the veracity of Hedren’s sexual harassment claims against Hitchcock are much disputed, including by actors and stage hands who worked with them on “The Birds” and “Marnie.” I tend to concur with the skeptics. At 5’7″ and 300 pounds, one can hardly imagine that the rotund 61-year old Hitchcock thought he had any romantic chance with the 5’5″ 110-pound 30-year old blond bombshell. But, stranger things have happened (ahem: Harvey Weinstein). Plus, she returned to work with him, briefly, in the ’70s on a TV show.
  • [2] Hope Village is now the home of Weimar Institute, a health oriented college.
  • [3] US Nail Salon sales, staff and salary stats here
Autobiographical, Biographical, Culture, Entertainment Industry, Music, Strong Women

Analysis: Bobbie and Billie Joe

“There was a virus goin’ ‘round,
     Papa caught it and he died last spring.
Now momma doesn’t seem to want to
     Do much of anything.”
– From Ode to Billie Joe, by Bobbie Gentry

Introduction. Those lyrics popped into my head – I wonder why? – during one of my recent daily social-distancing long walks and bike rides that I’ve been taking during this time of coronavirus isolation.  The lines are a couplet from the last verse of Bobbie Gentry’s 1967 smash hit, Ode to Billie Joe. [Note: if you haven’t heard the song in a while – or ever heard it – then maybe have a listen by clicking the link].

Album Cover: Bobbie Gentry’s Ode to Billie Joe

The tune became an earworm. I hummed it over-and-over to myself. Most of the melody and lyrics of the song came back to me – and of the story they told. The song remains as catchy and haunting as when it first came out. It mixes matter-of-fact family life in the Mississippi Delta with references to things mysterious and wrong, all packaged within a simple, non-distracting melody. The catchy, yet minimalist, musical arrangement even suggests naivety, such as an adolescent innocence. 

“The hardest thing in song writing is to be simple and yet profound”
 – Sting, in the documentary “Still Bill”, about Bill Withers.

Well, the song “Billie Joe” is profound … if initial and sustained popularity are any measures.  It’s simple. But it’s more. It’s memorable. It’s catchy. It sticks with you. It tells a story.  It’s moving. A story that is both awkward and incomplete. As humans, we crave completeness.  Closure. But in Ode to Billie Joe it’s not there … just out of reach. And so, we always want a little more.

“… a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” 
–  Winston Churchill, describing Russia during WW II. 

Similarly, the mysterious story of Billie Joe McAllister, is wrapped inside the enigmatic life of author/singer Bobbie Gentry.  We don’t ever get to know the “why?” of the story of Billy Joe.  And Bobbie Gentry – reportedly still alive – simply disappeared four decades ago when she was still a culturally popular and gorgeous brown-eyed brunette.  She hasn’t been seen or heard from since. 

Tons of research and speculation about the song’s background and meaning have been published. Go ahead. Google “What happened to Billie Joe McAllister?” You’ll get a zillion hits. None has the answer.  Almost as many hits for “what happened to Bobbie Gentry?”  Again, there just really are no fulfilling answers.

Nonetheless, my analysis follows. Why? This is largely a product of this bonanza of extra time — thanks to the novel coronavirus. I’ve contemplated the details of the lyrics, in the context of Gentry’s life. The lyrics are richly textured. They reflect an uncommon authenticity, even for country songs.

The musings and reflections herein are based mostly on: my own memories from my years living in the South; my book-learnin’ for the Ag Engineering degree that I earned there; fading memories; a little internet research; as well as my thoughts and imagination.

______________________________________________________

The first Verse:

It was the third of June – another sleepy, dusty Delta day.
I was out choppin’ cotton, and my brother was baling hay.
At dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat.
And mama hollered out the back door: “Y’all, remember to wipe your feet.”

Gentry was born Roberta Lee Streeter in northern Mississippi in 1944 (or 1942, depending on source).  Her family moved a few miles west when she was young, to Delta cotton country.  Not unlike eastern Arkansas, where I lived for four years: also Delta country. In the South, it’s not hard to imagine she was called “Bobbie Lee.”  She lived in Mississippi until age 13, when a messy divorce took her and her mother to southern California to stay with family. 

During those early years, her family reportedly had no electricity and no plumbing. It must’ve been a hard life.  One that gave heartfelt credibility to songs like “Billie Joe.”

Analysis: In Ode to Billie Joe, verse one starts out as a set up. Seems like regular, work-a-day life in a hot, dusty early June in the deep South.  I’m not a musician, but it’s neither a happy key, nor a somber key. It sets a mood of ambivalence and ambiguity. Not joy. Not sadness.  As in: I’m just here telling a story.

The song is a first-person narrative (“I was out choppin’ cotton …”). We instantly suppose that there are some autobiographical aspects in the story.  What details support that supposition?

— “Chopping Cotton”: This does not mean picking cotton. Picking is done in late summer to early fall. “Chopping cotton” is done shortly after the cotton plants begin to emerge; so, the June 3 date makes a lot of sense.  Using a manual hoe, the “chopper” turns over the weeds among the small, vulnerable cotton plants.  It takes a good eye to tell the weeds from the cotton – an eye that usually has sweat dripping into it.

Chopping Cotton: many weeds are herbicide resistant. Chopping requires a good hoe, sun protection, gloves and a strong back

Chopping also includes thinning the cotton plants if they are emerging too close together.  It is back-breaking grueling work. Bent over, in the sunny Delta humidity, hour after hour, row after row, acre after acre. It’s obviously a labor-intensive task that is physically demanding and boring. Yet, it’s an important task you can screw up with a slight amount of inattention, or clumsiness.  If Bobbie Gentry didn’t do chopping herself as a girl, one can surmise she saw others doing it. 

“Brother” is baling hay.  The June 3 date again makes sense.  “Hay” is usually a grass or a legume (alfalfa).  It is richest in nutrients when it is fully leafed, just as after it blooms; as it prepares for seed growth. Once pollinated, the plant puts ever more energy into its next generation: healthy seeds. So, it is cut, dried and baled before seeds can form, when its nutrition is dense. In fertile Delta country, “Brother” is harvesting the hay, probably the first hay harvest of the year.  It’s not clear whether this is done manually or with a mechanized hay harvester/baler.

Whether the family has farm animals to feed is not clear.  If they don’t, they would sell the hay to others in the area who do.

Mechanized cotton equipment slowly became more and more available, affordable, and prevalent in the decade or two after the 2nd World War. Since this is the 1950s, it’s likely that this family baled their hay – and picked their cotton – by hand. Perhaps with migrant workers, as in John Grisham’s novel A Painted House.

“At dinner time we walked back to the house to eat.”  Clearly, this is southern-speak.  Until several generations ago, across America, the mid-day meal was the main meal of the day, and hence called “dinner.” The evening meal was “supper.” 

In most of America, “dinner” has become lunch; “supper” has become dinner, and the term supper … has just faded away.

In many ways the south is traditional and slow to such changes. Lunch is still quite often called “dinner.”  I worked various factory jobs in Arkansas in the mid-70s; the mid-shift meal was always called “dinner break.”

[Close of the first verse, mama still speaking]

Then she said: “I got some news today from up on Choctaw Ridge.
Today Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.”

Boom.  Someone they all know has jumped off a bridge. A suicide. This is a sudden change. It’s not an everyday southern thing, like the song until now.  You’re on edge the rest of the song: why?

Yet Bobbie continues in her matter-of-fact and I’m-just-telling-a-story-here tone of voice, strumming gently.

_________________________________________________________

The second verse:

And papa said to mama, as he passed around the black-eyed peas,
“Well, Billie Joe never had a lick of sense. Pass the biscuits, please.
There’s five more acres in the lower forty I’ve got to plow.”
And mama said: “It’s a shame about Billy Joe, anyhow.

Seems like nothin’ ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge.
And now Billie Joe MacAllister’s jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.”

Talahatchee Bridge, Mississippi

Roberta had shown a knack for music at a young age. She sang in the church choir and learned to play piano by watching the church pianist. Her grandparents encouraged her musical interests.  They traded a milk cow for her first piano.

After the divorce, when she and her mother were in California, living at first with relatives, her life prospects improved. Especially after her mom re-married. She started writing and singing songs.  She taught herself guitar, banjo and bass.

A promising music and entertainment career took her briefly to Vegas – with a new name, Bobbie Gentry – where she performed in shows as a dancer and backup singer.  She returned to LA after a couple years and attended the UCLA Conservatory of Music, working side jobs to get herself through. There she learned, among other things: music theory, composition and arranging. She had been writing songs since she was a girl.  Now she had all the tools to do something with it.

She was completely prepared in all aspects to be a star. Mature beyond her years, she could write, sing, arrange, produce and play the music for her own songs.

Summer, 1967: Ode to Billie Joe was recorded as a demo. The session took only 40 minutes. The song immediately took off. Bobbie Gentry, an unknown country singer, crossed over to pop, and bumped the royal much revered Beatles (“All You Need is Love“) off the top of the chart. Until now, virtually totally unknown … she’d soon be awarded three Grammys. She was an instant star. Her story would be the unbelievable stuff of fancy, if it weren’t true.

Analysis: the song now mixes more everyday life on a family farm with recent news. “Papa” is very calm and unmoved.  He clearly doesn’t think much of Billie Joe (“never had a lick of sense”), then barely pausing for breath to ask for some biscuits.

“Lick of sense” is a southern and rural expression that has migrated to some other areas.  “Lick” means less than the bare minimum and is used to refer to things like “give your hands a lick” instead of a wash.  It’s merely a perfunctory effort. Less than sufficient. That’s what Papa thought of Billie Joe.

Biscuits and black-eyed peas.  Again, this is a true southern experience. The mid-day dinner is meant for a good dose of calories to replenish what’s been worked off in the morning, and for the long afternoon in the hot sun ahead. 

Black Eyed Pea stew, southern style

Black Eyed Peas are a staple of southern diets.  They are easy to grow, especially in rich Delta country, healthy to eat, full of protein, and are quite good for the topsoil.  Being a legume, they deposit nitrogen, leaving healthy and fertile earth for the next crop. So, it is often built into the regular crop rotation (as is hay). As southerners — whether share-cropping farmers or not — the Black-Eyed Pea would certainly have been a family diet staple.

And what southern meal would be complete without biscuits?  Easy to make, and so tasty (calorie rich) when smothered in gravy. 

Other thoughts and possible clues for Billie Joe’s fate. Black-Eyed peas came to the South with the slave trade. They are generally pale in color, with a small dark spot – the Black-Eye. Could there be a black-white thing between the narrator and Billie Joe? Many have surmised this. I think not. This was mid- to late-1950s Mississippi Delta country. Like “pass the biscuits”, the “Black-Eyed Peas” reference is just settling the listener into day-to-day southern life.

Whereas “Papa” doesn’t feel any pain for Billie Joe, “Mama” seems to briefly manage a modicum of pity: “It’s a shame about Billie Joe” and then she immediately minimizes even that by adding “anyhow.”

Finally, Papa must plow another five acres on the “lower forty”, meaning forty acres.  That’s a lot of land, and it implies they have quite a bit more. Whether they own it, or just work it, we don’t know. 

The lower forty is also an expression for “way out yonder.” And there’s a reason: the “lower 40” is the acreage that is on your lowest land; the house and farm buildings are built on higher ground.  The “Lower 40” would probably be the last acreage plowed in the late spring, or early summer, as they’d have to wait for it to dry out from the winter and spring rains.  You can plant that late in the South, in fertile Delta soil, and still get a crop.  So yes, June 3rd again fits.  And yes, it dried out: it’s a “dusty Delta day.”

In any case, it sounds like Papa has a tractor to pull the plow.  So, they are not completely destitute. 

Southern diet, southern language, southern rural farming workdays. The timing of chopping, baling and plowing. I conclude Gentry wrote from personal experience: both her own, and things she’d seen up close. This is authentic southern life. Her life. Not stuff you pick up from listening to stories and reading books. I judge this song to be largely autobiographical.  Gentry has pulled back some veils from her history.
_________________________________________________________

The 3rd verse:

And brother said he recollected when he, and Tom, and Billie Joe
Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show.
And wasn’t I talkin’ to him after church last Sunday night?
“I’ll have another piece of apple pie. You know, it don’t seem right.

I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge.
And now ya tell me Billie Joe’s jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.”

Bobbie Gentry, on Music Hall TV, 1968

Bobbie Gentry worked her fame into a great career that must’ve been financially rewarding. She took personal control of virtually every detail of every tour, every show, every arrangement.  The lighting, the sound, the production.  And, she was very successful at it.

She returned to Vegas with her own show; she was a huge hit in Vegas. Her show ran quite a few years and always got rave reviews and a packed house of adoring crowds.  I was lucky enough to see her Vegas show, August 1974. I was not quite 18 years old.  I was blown away:  Great show, beautiful woman, really good music. Just, wow.

Analysis: Brother – and the whole family for that matter – still has no name, but a new name pops up: Tom.  I suspect this is only to give the line a more even meter. (As an Ode, it technically has minimal lyrical meter requirements — just a lick).

The “frog down my back” comment is, to me, very apropos.  The kind of light, odd, funny comment someone would make at the wake of a deceased person.  Or during a get-together after the funeral and burial. But … There is not going to be a wake, funeral, or get-together for Bille Joe. Or, if there is, no one from this family is going to attend. 

“Brother” and Billie Joe were friends once, perhaps just a few years ago.  This is a stunt one or two boys would dare their friend to do. I can imagine that Billie Joe had a crush on the narrator and his friends have figured this out – they tease him about it and eventually dare BJ to put a frog down the back of her shirt.  Wanting to fit in, he complies.  Billie Joe is a bit of an outsider.  He’ll put a frog down the shirt of a girl he likes just to show he “fits in.”

And what is a “picture show”?  It’s another phrase that left most American lexicon long ago but remains in parts of the South.  It’s just a word for “movie”, and “movie theater.”  Carroll County is not very populated.  Even now the entire county has only 10,000 scattered souls (although it has two county seats).  So, it’s not hard to imagine that in the ‘50s there was but a single “picture show” in the entire county.

No doubt: This song has a reverberant ring of southern authenticity.

Why did “Brother” see Billie Joe at the sawmill up on Choctaw Ridge?  I think this is a possible clue to the story.  “Brother” could be there for two reasons: 1) he worked there (when he wasn’t baling hay on the family farm); or 2) he was buying lumber.  #2 is rather unlikely (he’d probably go to a lumber yard in town), but in any case, he was there, at the mill.  But: why was Billie Joe there?  I suspect he was looking for a job.  And he got turned down. 

Conjecture: Billie Joe wanted a job to impress the narrator, or rather, the narrator’s father – who clearly disapproved of Billie Joe. Partly because he didn’t have a job. He’s not worth a lick.

_________________________________________________________

The 4th verse:

And mama said to me: “Child, what’s happened to your appetite?
I’ve been cookin’ all morning, and you haven’t touched a single bite.”
That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today.
Said he’d be pleased to have dinner on Sunday. Oh, by the way:

He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge,
And she and Billie Joe was throwing somethin’ off the Tallahatchie Bridge

Mmmmm. Southern biscuits and gravy

Bobbie Gentry started slowing her career down in the mid-‘70s.  She had a few TV specials, mostly for Canadian and BBC viewers. Appeared on some talk shows. 

In kind of an odd twist – and very fitting for the song and story – she re-recorded the song in 1976.  It was released again, and it made the charts.

But – she insisted – the title and words to the original song were incorrect.  It should have been Billy Joe, not Billie Joe.

Bobbie Gentry, 1969, Show Promo Pic [citation below, fair use here]

Ode to Billy Joe was the last song she recorded to make the charts (peaking at 46 in Canada, and 65 in the US).  That’s probably the only time in music history that a singer/songwriter’s last song to make the charts was the same as their first song to chart – and with different titles no less.

“Billie Joe” remained very popular in decades that followed. The song – and the mystery of what happened – was still so intriguing that it was made into a movie, in 1976.  In fact, the song was re-recorded for the movie (see album cover).

Cover to soundtrack album for movie: Ode to Billy Joe

The movie, also called Ode to Billy Joe (like the re-released song), was produced and directed by Max Baer, Jr. He’s better known as Jethro of The Beverly Hillbillies – not authentic southern – and also the son of Heavyweight champion boxing champion, Max Baer.

Gentry was originally cooperative in helping with the movie.  She worked with Herman Raucher on the screenplay, which has the lead female role named “Bobbie Lee.”  If she agreed to that name (her own!), she clearly saw the song as autobiographical.

At some point Gentry pulled her support for the movie. Raucher and Baer seemed too attached to the idea of setting up the mystery, and then revealing it to the audience at the end – a la Sherlock Holmes.  She might not have liked the movie’s purported reason for Billie Joe’s suicide (no plot spoiler here). But she was most disappointed that they failed to fully present the casual and unfeeling way that the family reacted to the suicide and her situation. 

About the time of the movie’s release Gentry started to reduce the frequency of her public appearances. This, as she went through two marriages.  One was short.  The other – to another country music star, Jim Stafford of “Spiders and Snakes” and “Wildwood Flower” fame – was extremely short.  Although she and Stafford did have one son, her only known child.  I simply cannot imagine anyone who wrote and sang “Billie Joe” being married to someone who sang about Spiders, Snakes and Wildwood Flowers.

Anyhow, by 1981 she was twice-divorced and had completely vanished.

Analysis: Verse four is curious because it is all “mama” talking (as verse three was all “brother” talking).  I suspect she is babbling nervously to fill space and mask her own discomfort.

There is only one verse left.  You can tell the song’s almost over, because if it lasts much more than four minutes it would never have made it on the radio in 1967.

What can we tell here? The narrator is nauseous. She was well enough to chop cotton in the field all morning, walk up to the house and wipe her feet … but now she’s ill. Clearly, Billie Joe meant something to her. The news of his suicide has disturbed her. But even mama has missed her own daughter’s quiet emotional pain. She’s even offended that the girl isn’t eating: “I’ve been cooking all morning!” [more evidence that the mid-day meal, dinner, is the largest of the day: cooking all morning].

Worse, Mama calls her “child.” This is a truly southern term, and one that – to my understanding – is usually part of the Afro-American lexicon.  Yet, whites use it too, especially when emphasizing that someone is not yet adult. Or they are a young adult, but not acting like it.  As in: “Lordy, child! What’s gotten into you? Clean your hands before you come to this table.”

We don’t know any other details, but we can guess the girl is at least mid-teens, maybe a tad older, and had done something(s) recently that made mama (and papa) think she’s sliding back into childhood.  Like maybe confiding to them that she thought Billie Joe (who doesn’t have a lick of sense) might be “the one” for her. 

The narrator is hurting, yet mama is thinking of her as a petulant, unappreciative adolescent who can’t act proper.  “Rub some salt in that wound for me, please, would you?”

Is it coincidence that the same day that Billie Joe jumps off the bridge, the “young preacher” stops by and announces he’d be “pleased to have dinner next Sunday” with the family? Dinner would be lunch to us non-southerners, and Sunday – especially in summer – is an all-day church-related series of events in many parts of the South and even Mid-South.  Church all morning, Church in the evening, with a church-congregation-centric social dinner in between. [Recall in verse three, the narrator was talking to Billie Joe “after church just last Sunday night”].

So, Brother Taylor.  He gets a name, and a title.  He’s young.  He’s nice. Does he have an interest in the narrator?  And, since mama gives him a proper title and name, does Mama have an interest in the “nice young preacher” as a mate for her daughter?  The inference is certainly there. Safe to assume that Gentry wants us to recognize it.

And what was he doing up on Choctaw Ridge?  Doesn’t he have pastoral duties?  In many small southern congregations preachers have a career outside of the church. These congregations tend to be small and poor; there’s not enough money to support a full-time preacher. Brother Taylor probably wasn’t up on the Ridge for work. Was he stalking the narrator?

Regarding the “Brother” title for a preacher: this is a form of address that many Christians, especially in the South, address each other with.

And the second biggest question of the whole song, besides “why did Billie Joe jump?”  — What were they throwing off the bridge?  Is this a clue to their relationship, and, hence, a clue to the whole mystery?

Ruminate on that while we tackle the final verse; the one that first popped into my head during that lovely spring afternoon.

__________________________________________________________

[5th and final verse]
A year has come and gone since we heard the news about Billie Joe.
And brother married Becky Thompson; they bought a store in Tupelo.
There was a virus going ’round. Papa caught it, and he died last spring.
And now mama doesn’t seem to want to do much of anything.

And me, I spend a lot of time pickin’ flowers up on Choctaw Ridge,
And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

So many flowers to pick

Well, papa died.  Mama, sensitive soul that she is, has fallen despondent and unable to do anything. The narrator is left alone; her older brother got married and moved away. Who could blame him?  This family is emotionally detached from each other. — Besides: farm work (and sawmill work) are hard labor.  So, brother’s gone, probably after getting a small inheritance.  It’s easy to surmise that “Papa” did not approve of Becky Thompson either. Given freedom by Papa’s death, “brother” marries Becky and runs away.

A little more insight into “Papa” is provided by another song on the very same album with “Billie Joe” — this one called “Papa, Won’t you let me go to Town?” [lyrics]. Papa is not a very nice man.

Oh, if Billie Joe had only waited a few more months – Papa would have been gone and then he could have courted our little darling narrator. Alas, things happen the way they do, and they can’t be undone.

The story’s narrator.  Where is she?  She’s not working the farm. Is anyone working the farm? It’s been nearly at least half a year. In fact, what is she doing?

She is up on the ridge, picking flowers.  Then she wanders over to the bridge and drops them into the water.  Apparently over and over.

Analysis: The narrator is as emotionally detached as the rest of her family, just like they were toward her and Billie Joe when he jumped.  What goes around, comes around.  With papa dead, Mama is clearly suffering; yet darling daughter is off alone, feeling sorry for herself. And Brother is off in Tupelo, with his new bride.

There’s a lot of theories about the song. What it was about? What really happened?  The song’s real meaning – the why? – will always remain a mystery.  Bobbie Gentry – mysterious, beguiling – has never really said.

______________________________________________________________________

Bobbie Gentry disappeared.  At first she made sporadic appearances — ever the mystery woman, as if she had planned to deceive us all along. She appeared on a Mother’s Day special in 1981, then disappeared for almost one full year — until the next April, when she showed up at the Country Music Awards (CMA) in Nashville, Tennessee. [We were there during CMA week in 2018 — the town is really fun anytime, but super abuzz that week]. No one has seen or reported on her since.

Fruitless analyses of the song and her life have been going on for decades.  We’ll never really know why Billie Joe jumped to his death, what was his relationship with the narrator, or what they were throwing into the muddy waters of the Tallahatchie River.  Pressed hard for an answer during an interview once, Gentry finally answered, with practiced carelessness: “Oh, I don’t know.  Maybe it was a ring.”

Endless research by inquiring reporters and fans have suggested that Gentry lives quietly in an upscale gated neighborhood near Memphis, not far from her birthplace and childhood Mississippi Delta roots.  She takes no visitors and takes no calls.  And the song? It’s meaning is left to the listener — which can change with mood and even time of day.

By many accounts, Jim Stafford is still in love with Bobbie Gentry. As a hopeless sentimental romantic, I sympathize. Alas, they simply weren’t meant for each other. In rare interviews, he is still probed about the meaning of Billie Joe.  Through a lot of digging I have found one website, wherein a reporter claims that – in an interview through an alcohol lubricated night – Stafford suggested that Gentry one time shared some dark details of her youth with him.  Details that fit with the story.

The details that Stafford recalled, and that the reporter recalled (hearsay), are all probably hazed, and the implied dark story are not worth repeating. [I lost the webpage, so I won’t tell the reporter’s text of Stafford’s take on the story.]

But I think the story/song is exquisite and sufficiently complete just the way it is.  If Gentry had told us anymore, then it probably wouldn’t have been such a hit. Let alone a long-lasting hit. That’s the genius of good song writing. We’ve been hooked for decades just trying to figure it out.  It still generates a regular healthy royalty check for her today.

Final analysis: Papa is a harsh man and stern head-of-the-household. He probably felt he had to be that way as the patriarch of a family working its own farm in 1950s Mississippi. Perhaps a WWII veteran and feeling the pain of the Great Depression. He didn’t want to lose his children (workhands) via marriage to some slackers who didn’t know the value of hard work.  He was dismissive of his children’s yearnings to find a mate.  Sadly, his emotional distancing set the tone for the family.

No one wanted to challenge Papa by expressing sympathy for Billie Joe, who’d committed suicide because of Papa. Nor did anyone dare show sympathy to the narrator, Billie Joe’s probable love interest.

Then, Papa got a virus and died. Probably between 35 and 45 years of age.  Not old. Mama fell into depression and had to sell the farm. Whatever money “brother” got, he used to buy a store in Tupelo (Elvis Presley’s birthplace). He ran away with the girl Papa wouldn’t let him court. And all the narrator-daughter got was lots of free time to pick flowers.

In the end, the children were just like their parents. They didn’t know how to console others and show compassion in difficult times. Unable to respond to Mama’s and each other’s suffering …. they just ran away.

That’s sad.  It’s a strong message.  It’s a warning, delivered by a story, wrapped in a song.

With this virus “goin’ ’round” us now, and time on our hands, let’s remember what’s really important: family, understanding and support.

Peace

Joe Girard © 2020      

Thanks for reading. As always, you can add yourself to the notification list for Joe’s newly published material by clicking here . Or emailing joe@girardmeister.com

 

Footnotes

[1] Some bio links: http://performingsongwriter.com/bobbie-gentry-ode-billie-joe/
Bobby Gentry Found?
Jim Stafford breaks silence on Bobbie Gentry for interview, 1988
[2] Photo citation: By Capitol Records – http://rock60-70.ru/albums/bobbie-gentry-%E2%80%8E-patchwork-1971-usa-folkpopsoul.php, PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58064389

Afterthoughts & Things not included
Ode to Billie Joe changed country music and paved the way for new heartfelt types of music, telling stories where something is quite wrong, like Tanya Tucker’s Delta Dawn and Jeannie Riley’s Harper Valley PTA.

The Tallahatchie Bridge is only about 20 feet above the muddy river waters.  Jumping to one’s death there is unlikely. But it fit the song well, and rhymed with Chocktaw Ridge. So unlikely is fatality, in fact, that jumping off the bridge became quite common, due to the song’s popularity.  You can’t jump off that bridge anymore.  It collapsed in 1972 and was rebuilt.  Jumping was made more difficult and a fine for jumping was imposed. Other hints.  Bobbie Gentry’s original draft was said to have been eleven verses.  It was cut to five verses for marketing, so it could fit on a 45rmp record, and manageable for radio airtime.  Gentry donated her handwritten lyrics of the first page of draft lyrics to the University of Mississippi (see below).  The only new information is in an alternate verse one, which starts out “People don’t see Sally Jane in town anymore.”  Some have speculated that what they threw off the bridge might have been the body of Sally Jane.

 

Biographical, Guest Essay, Sports, Strong Women

Young Champ

Guest essay, by John Sarkis

July 7, 1962 – 56 years-ago today, Karen Hantze Susman, a teenaged bride from St. Louis, won the Women’s Singles Championship at Wimbledon. She had also won the doubles title at that year’s Wimbledon, along with her partner, 17-year-old Billie Jean Moffitt. A year earlier, they had become the youngest team to ever win the women’s doubles championship. Moffitt would (of course) become better known by her married name, Billy Jean King.

Karen Susman in July 1962, after winning Wimbledon; and six years ago, at her home, on the 50th anniversary of her victory.

Karen Hantze, a native of San Diego and just eighteen years-old, moved to St Louis, the hometown of her husband, Rod, who had attended Ladue’s Horton Watkins High School before becoming a professional tennis player. Marrying against the advice of her family and friends, she and Rod just celebrated their 56th wedding anniversary at their home in suburban San Diego.

Karen would win three Grand Slam Doubles titles in her short career, but gave up playing competitively because there wasn’t enough money in women’s tennis to earn a living at that time.

Wimbledon didn’t award prize money until 1968. The winner of this year’s Wimbledon Women’s Championship, which is currently underway, will take home 2.25 Million British Pounds, the equivalent of just under $3 Million. Each of the Doubles Tournament winners this year will win 450,000 Pounds, or about $600,000.

[editor’s note: gently edited essay by John Sarkis, a Saint Louis native and retiree, who posts and writes regularly as a hobby about St Louis history]

 

Autobiographical, Biographical, Philosophy, Sports, Strong Women

Last At Bat, Good Sport

Three remarkable young women
+ Two unlikely events
+ One selfless decision
=
One unforgettable moment in sports history
Plus two great life lessons

“Being nice matters and I think sometimes our society forgets that.” – Mallory Holtman-Fletcher

Central Washington University is a medium-sized state university of some 10,000 students.  It is a solid school, providing a breadth of education to students for about 150 different majors. It provides fantastic value; it was recently rated by The Economist magazine as providing the most positive economic impact on its students of all colleges and universities in the state of Washington. It offers 17 NCAA sports, usually competing at the Division-II level. You don’t hear a lot of noise from or about CWU; they just go about their job, doing it well and moving along just fine, thank you.

Central Washington University’s Historic Barge Hall

Students and alumni of other Washington state schools often disparagingly refer to CWU as “Car Wash State.”  But CWU, staff, students and grads don’t mind much.  And they don’t retaliate.  It is a respectable school.

Ellensburg, Washington – located just over 100 miles east of Seattle, across the Cascade Range, where the mountains blend into the drier Kittitas Valley, and then to the even drier and flatter semi-desert of eastern Washington – is the host city to CWU.  Ellensburg is a small, functional and well-located town of under 20,000 hearty souls.  Ellensburg is a lot like CWU to me: there is no chest-thumping, no braggadocio, no flash.  Just simple efficiency.  Folks from Seattle and other towns west of the Cascades often like to knock it – sometimes as they breeze past on Interstate-90 – as a nothing, sleepy town.  As the equivalent of fly-over country for road trips.

Due to a fleeting, shiny fleck of personal history, both CWU and Ellensburg will forever occupy a tiny, but special, place in my heart.  A soft spot.  Let’s call that soft spot a piece of cake.

Due to one of the most unlikely series of events (and sportsmanship) in all of NCAA history – if not all of sports history – that Ellensburg/CWU piece of cake now has a nice crown of icing.  Very tasty.

There are a lot of sports that I don’t pay much attention to, except maybe into and through the playoffs when the best teams are playing, and they have something important to play for. NCAA Women’s Softball is one of those sports.  I’ll catch a glimpse when in a sports bar, or channel flipping. Then I’m like a moth around a late-night light: I just can’t help myself. My attention is drawn to the pure athleticism and grace of the players under pressure; the pace of the game; the strategies and the drama.  Perhaps their reflexes are the most impressive.  Pitchers can throw the ball – underhand mind you – at speeds that approach major league pitch speeds.  But the pitching rubber is some 14 feet closer than the majors! What a softball pitcher can make that ball do as it speeds along that distance of 46 feet at 80+ mph is astonishing! The pitches rise; they dip; they slip, and they slide. How do batters even touch the ball?

One thing that always amazes me is the size and physique of so many of the young women.  I’ve always thought that most of the better players could swap uniforms with their school’s football players and you could use them as actors in making a realistic movie about linebackers.

I knew of the following story, and at least one other somewhat similar.  Somehow, I forgot almost completely about it.  But sportsmanship in competitive dramatic moments came up in a conversation with my wife recently, and my non-linear brain pulled up this story and quite a few details.  At first, I contorted my brain to try and recall much more. Well the internet is an astounding resource.  After finding many more details there, including some school records, I was overcome with the urge to write it down.

__________________________________________________________________________

When the Western Oregon University women’s softball team traveled to Ellensburg to play a double-header against Central Washington University on April 26, 2008, the teams were neck-and-neck for the season conference title, which would end in about a week.  It was a special day at CWU: Senior Day.  Their seniors were being honored as they would be playing the final home games of their career.

Playing first base for CWU that day was senior Mallory Holtman.  During those last few weeks of the season she was playing through terrific pain.  She really needed two knee surgeries. Those would have to wait; she did not want to let herself or her team down.  She wanted one last chance for a conference championship. She was certainly one of the stars of the team – in fact the entire Great Northwestern Athletic Conference.  At the time she was the conference’s all-time home run and RBI leader; she is still the all-time conference leader in those statistics. At season’s end she was chosen the GNAC Player of the Year, leading it in home runs and batting nearly .400.

Across the infield was friend Liz Wallace, another senior and team leader – also hoping to help lead CWU to the league championship and playoffs. Liz stood second to Mallory at almost every offensive statistic, and she held down the very important defensive position of shortstop.  She had played in almost every single CWU game over her four years there.  The day and the games meant a lot to these young women.

___________________________________________________

In 2008, Western Oregon was having one of their best seasons in years.  In fact, their best season ever. They had momentum and they could feel it.  And on that last Saturday in April they had just rolled into town from Idaho, having taken both ends of a double-header from Northwest Nazarene, in Nampa.

Petite and plucky Sara Tucholsky was a senior on that 2008 Western Oregon squad.  She had been through the WOU bad times with good cheer.  [The previous three years the team’s won-loss records were 14-33, 17-32, and a promising 26-25].  And, although she had only briefly been a full-time player –  during part of her sophomore year – she was certainly enjoying being part of this team.  It was a team of extraordinarily deep talent and chemistry. When she got a chance to play, she gave it her all – athletically, energetically and enthusiastically.

At only 5-foot 2-inches tall Sara stood nearly a head shorter than most other players.  Add to that her rather slight frame and she would never be confused for a linebacker, no matter what she was wearing.  This season, as during most of the previous three, Sara played only sparingly, sometimes against a non-conference foe, or – like today – in a double-header during a long stretch of games so that some players could rest.

Western Oregon took game one easily by a score of 8-1, behind star pitcher, team MVP and conference all-star Katie Fleer. (Fleer won 25 games that year).

For game two, Sara was inserted into the 8th batting position and right field.

Her career batting statistics until this day raised no eyebrows.  They were fodder for little conversation.  Her college batting average was a humble .149, and she had but one lonely extra base hit in those four years – a double that fell in way back in her freshman year.  Not only did she not have a single college home run, she had never hit a home run – ever.  Not in high school, not in youth sports.

When Sara’s first turn to bat came up in that second game of a double-header, April 26, 2008, in the top of the second inning, her batting average for that 2008 season was an unimposing .088 – a mere three singles in 34 at bats.  Yet she battled on.

She had diligently taken her turn at regular batting practice; taken advice from coaches; worked on drills.  She exhibited a commitment to improvement when many others would have given up.

With one out and two runners on base Sara now made her way to home plate.  A few jeers and giggles came from the crowd when her lack of height and brawn became evident during her stroll. She gave herself a little pep talk: ignore them, be brave, be focused, don’t give in, do your best, Sara – whatever that may bring.

She dug in to the right-handed batter’s box.  The first pitch was a rising fast ball, about letter high.  A borderline pitch. Sara let it go.  Strike one!

Well, whatever happened next, she told herself, she wasn’t going to let that happen again.

She doesn’t remember where the next pitch was.  Sara simply remembers swinging.

And that’s when the first unlikely event happened.  Sara made solid contact.  Very solid contact. Contact like she had never made before.  Right on the sweet spot.

The batted ball soared out to centerfield and kept going … and going.  The two base runners paused so they could tag up when the ball was caught– Sara certainly couldn’t hit the ball over the fence.  Could she?

She did.  That ball cleared the fence.

While the other runners jogged around the bases to home, Sara – a very jubilant lass – jumped and skipped as she ran to – and past – first base.  In her excitement she initially missed the base.  Every player and fan knows that a ball hit over the fence is not a home run until the batter touches all the bases, in order.  Even though she had never hit a ball over an outfield fence before, Sara of course quickly realized she had missed the base. She stopped. Then she turned around – maybe a bit too quickly in the excitement. She had to return to, and touch, first base.

And that’s when the second unlikely event happened.  Sara let out a short yelp – and crumpled to the dirt. Something was terribly wrong with her right knee.  As it turned out, she had torn her ACL.  She crawled back to first base, practically in tears.

And now the dilemma.  Sara could not be expected to crawl around the bases like that, let alone walk or trot.  The rules of baseball and softball do not permit physical assistance by a player’s teammates or coaches. If so, she would be declared out, and her home run would not be counted. If she were replaced by a pinch runner, it would be a dead ball substitution: The replacement runner would begin the next play at first base, Sara would only be credited with a single, and her run would not count.

After a few minutes of discussion – frustrating discussion between WOU coaches and umpires – there occurred the third surprise event: the unselfish act.  Perhaps not quite as unlikely as the long hit and the sudden crippling injury, but one of the most wonderful decisions and events in sports EVER.

Just as Western Oregon’s coach was about to put a replacement runner at first base for Sara, Central Washington’s star first baseman, Mallory Holtman, asked if she and her teammates could help Sara around the bases.  They conferred with the umpires, who concurred that this would be within the rules. Holtman, joined by teammate Liz Wallace, carried lame Sara the rest of the way around the diamond, pausing a moment at each base and gently lowering Sara so that her left foot could tap second, then third base … and then home plate.  Whereupon Sara was handed over to her teammates.

Three great young women [photo credit: NCAA.ORG and Blake Wolf]

It was now official! Sara had hit a three-run home run!  Those were her only three RBIs (Runs Batted In) for the entire season.  It was, of course, her last at bat in college.  Her improbable hit – and CWU’s extraordinary act of sportsmanship – were the unlikely difference in what turned out to be a 4-2 victory for Western Oregon.

________________________________________

The idea of carrying Sara around originally occurred to Holtman.  And she had the gumption to approach the umpires and WOU coaches on her own. But she has always brushed off the praise.  She’s always insisted that it’s something anyone could have thought of; and almost everyone would have done.

The event was highly documented and discussed at the time.[1]  The three young women won an ESPY for “Best Sports Moment” of the year that summer.[2]  They all would go on to a few years of notoriety, giving motivational speeches, usually Sara and Mallory, who formed a lasting friendship as a result. The video of their performance is still burned into their memory and that of many sports fans.[3] 

2008 ESPY Winners: Best Moment in Sports

Western Oregon indeed went on to win the conference championship.  It was the school’s first conference championship – in any sport.[4] They were eliminated from the Division II sectionals a few weeks later by another conference rival, Humboldt State (from California).

All three young women soon graduated.  That was ten years ago. They are all now married and, near as I can tell, still live in the Northwest or West.

Mallory Holtman went to graduate school at CWU, became the school’s assistant softball coach, and just over two years later, became the head coach, beating out nearly 50 other applicants for the position, aged only 25.  She recently retired from the demands of that position to spend more time with her family.

Liz Wallace is very involved in youth softball, helping to develop the coming generations of good athletes, and good sports. She also works as a human resources administrator. She’s living the life of a military spouse, so locating her at any time can be difficult. 

Sara works as Area Manager of recruiters and representatives for various therapy services: physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech pathology, etc.  She still gives motivational talks.  She volunteers for various agencies, including Ronald McDonald House.

Sara and Mallory remain friends, although they live about four hours apart.

The two CWU young women [5] — Mallory and Liz — gave us all something to cherish and remember –  whether or not we are sports enthusiasts.  It’s this lesson: We must consider our fellow humans as part of the same team – before we can consider them competitors.

The second life lesson is thanks to Sara: no matter how down you are, no matter how bleak the outlook, you are never defeated if you don’t give up.

To this day Central Washington, Ellensburg and those three very special women don’t brag about it.  That’s class. Actions speak for themselves.

Peace

Joe Girard © 2018

 

Acknowledgement to my good friend Marcy, who helped with proof reading and editorial suggestions. She is a delight. It turns out she rather enjoyed the story for personal reasons as well: her cousin attends CWU. I apologize, Marcy, if any typos, errors, or uneven reading have crept through into the final draft. Your effort, as always and in all regards, is greatly appreciated.

 

Notes:

1)     The umpires were in fact wrong.  NCAA rules did permit a substitute runner in such a rare event to continue running the bases in a dead ball situation such as this. It’s an understandable error, and the sports world is better off for it. The rules have been amended to make this clearer.

2)     ESPY = Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly

3)     Watch a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jocw-oD2pgo

4)     However, as a club sport, the WOU men’s lacrosse team won the non-NCAA sanctioned PNCLL conference that year, 2008.

5)     I almost used “Young Ladies” here and throughout.  It was sort of a title, as in “Lord and Lady”, or “M’Lady” – as they had certainly earned a title.  Upon reflection I was led to conclude the term could be considered disparaging, so used “Young Women” instead.

6)     Box score for the game: http://www.wouwolves.com/custompages/Softball/SCStats/2008/wou41.htm

7) Yes I know that I named an earlier essay Last At Bat, but I couldn’t help myself. So this essay got an appropriate subtitle: Good Sport

 

Some resources:
NCAA: Where are they now?

Sara Tucholsky – An Inspiring Softball Story

Western Oregon Softball historical stats:    http://www.wouwolves.com/sports/2018/1/15/SB_0113093741.aspx?path=softball

 

Biographical, Edwardian/Pre-War, History, Strong Women

Young Kate Shelley

Young Kate Shelley (the girl with two first names)

Table of Contents
Preview
1. Kate falls asleep
2. Transcontinental Railroad?
3. Prelude to The Storm … and Destiny
4. The Shelley Family
5. The Storm, July 6, 1881
6. Kate & the Bridges
7. Aftermath and Later Life
Notes and Author’s comments
More Notes and afterthoughts

Preview

Some swear they have seen it.  Many refuse to look. Others, those who deny the romance of heroic history, say it is just plain nonsense.

Two mighty railroad bridges stand side-by-side out in the middle of Iowa. One is well over a century old; its steel trusses betraying its age. The other is gleaming and new … a 21st century engineering marvel.

The older structure is slowly being retired. At first it no longer carried passengers.  Now the engines of trains that cross her are required to crawl slowly as they haul their freight over the Des Moines River. Someday even that will cease; the clack of steel on steel will be relegated solely to the new bridge.

The New Kate Shelley High Bridge, under construction, 2008, next to the Old Kate Shelley Bridge.

And yet, as a National Historic Site, the older sibling may never be torn down – preserved forever as an American icon.

Until then the tiny, lonely, swaying light on the older bridge will still shine for those who believe. For them, late at night, when swollen rain clouds roll across Iowa’s fertile center, a faintly visible figure will move along the rusting old bridge, gently and deliberately swinging a light from side-to-side.

Some say it is the ghost of famous civil engineer George Morison, who passed away shortly after the older bridge was built. But most believers – trainmen, history buffs and lovers of local lore alike – well they know that it is something and someone else.

_____________________________________________________

1. Meet Kate as she Falls Asleep

Out in the plains of Iowa, on a small family farm, there once lived a 15-year old girl named Kate Shelley.

Most nights she lay in bed keenly awake until very late. Until long after the sun went down. After the chores were done. After her mother and siblings were fast asleep.

What was Kate doing? She was patiently waiting, carefully listening. She heard the sounds of sleep – snorts and sniffles, tossing and turning – coming from her three younger siblings. She not only shared a room with them, she had become their principal care taker.

That’s not what she was listening for. Wait for it Kate. Be still. Be quiet. Be patient.

She heard the creaks of the boards and nails in the farmhouse her father had built. She remembered him building it; she could recall many evenings he had continued to work on that modest farmhouse, keeping it in fine repair through all sorts of weather until just a few years ago.

House creaks were not what she was listening for. Wait Kate. It will come.

She heard the gentle sweep of prairie breezes, as they bounced over Honey Creek – with its swales and cottonwoods. She heard the shimmer of leaves, the waving of grasses, and sway of weeds up against the barn walls and farm fences.

That’s not what she was listening for. Be still Kate. You can do it … It won’t be long now.

She paced her breath. She wanted to be able to hear it as soon as possible – at the earliest possible moment. It was her trigger. Her window to an escape. An escape of fantasy from this life on the farm, to places far away from her endless duties.

A bullfrog croaks, then jumps into Honey Creek. Kind of late for mating season. Maybe that sly vixen fox had scared him; she does have a litter of kits to feed. Or maybe that Great Horned Owl had tried for the frog; she thought she’d seen one way up in a cottonwood along the creek last summer.

She was not listening for frogs, or foxes, or owls.

A horse from the barn whinnies – that would be Sady, Kate’s frequent companion in sleeplessness. Maybe she was waiting in anticipation, too. Or maybe arthritis; or maybe too many apples from that Thomson girl up the road.

No, not listening for Sady either.

There! Could that be it? She heard the distant clack-clack-clack of steel on steel.

Kate’s bed trembles ever-so-gently. Was that her quivering? Or the ground?

She can surely feel it coming now. The Midnight Express is coming! It is crossing the river now.

[1] The Midnight Express was formally known as the “Chicago Limited”, which ran from Omaha (with the new Union Pacific bridge across the Missouri since 1872) to Chicago. It was also sometimes called “The Fast Atlantic Express”, depending the locality. Of course it was known as the “Express” or “Limited” since it made only a few stops along the way – to pick up passengers from connector lines, or to get coal and water. Lighter loads and tender cars had allowed the Express trains to speed past most of the tiny railroad towns.

The Express is heading to Chicago. From there many passengers will go on to any exotic distant land. To whatever places they go, all are far from this farm. Soon people on the Express will be visiting with important people – Kings and Queens; beautiful princesses and handsome princes. They will be doing important things – selling lumber, buying steel, building factories, trading grain contracts, building the country.

The Express draws nearer quickly. It rumbles across the largest river she knows, by far: the Des Moines River. She knows well the hum and buzz of the trestle bridge under a heavy load.

She imagines herself as one of the well-dressed passengers, well fed, with finely coiffed hair. She imagines her own head full of worldly thoughts. A Pullman Porter checks on her to make sure that last jostle hasn’t disturbed her – or her precious cargo. Is it a briefcase of bonds, important coal contracts, or simply valuable jewels?

In less than a minute the coal-fired steam engine will cross another bridge, at Honey Creek, right behind the Shelley Farm. There’s the coming crescendo: one last loud set of rumbles and trembles. The boiler chugs some steam to push the mighty pistons; the engine belches smoke. Steam, having done its work to move the pistons, hisses out the steam ports. She can hear the rattle as the tire flanges clatter on the steel rails. [2]

[2] Train wheels have a very hard layer of steel around their perimeter, called tires. Much like car wheels have special tires around them. Tires have flanges made integral with them to help keep the train “on the rails.”

Kate holds tight to her fantasy most nights; she cherishes each night the Midnight Express rolls by; she is only a few hundred yards from a journey to the world.  Outside of Iowa.

Then the sounds of the Express begin to slowly fade. As long as she can hear it, Kate stays awake. After the rattle of the bridges, after the chug of the steam engine. After the last cry of the steam trumpet [3] as the Iron Horse passes a distant depot, and when the jangling blast-furnace strengthened wheels screeching around turns laid out by steel rails have faded completely away … after all that, Kate allows herself to drift away.

[3] Steam Trumpet: name for the train’s whistle on a 19th century steam engine train. To use it was “to blow off some steam.”

 

Some nights, when the air and breeze are just right, she can catch a whiff of something more: The air grows perceptibly denser, as if perfumed by some unseen censer [4]; it’s that Iowa bituminous and sulfur-infused coal. With the fading sound of the Midnight Express, the faint hypnotic smell of locomotive smoke, and carried by her fantasies, Kate Shelley hopes for a night of sweet dreams.

[4] This text is inspired by Poe’s The Raven, wherein the 14th verse begins: “Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer // Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.”

 

Soon enough a new day will dawn and, with it, hard reality.

And so the days passed. And the weeks. And the summer months…. One after another.

Although Kate loved her family and liked her life on the farm … well, maybe one night it would be different. Maybe one night, one special night, Kate’s life and the Midnight Express would come together in much more than fantasy.

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2. Transcontinental Railroad?

Most people know as certain fact that “The Golden Spike” driven at Promontory Point, in Utah, on May 10, 1869, joined the Union Pacific line with the Central Pacific line, thus completing America’s first transcontinental railway.

Fewer know that this is actually false. There was, technically, not then a true “transcontinental railroad.” At the time of “The Golden Spike” the eastern end of the Union Pacific line terminated in Omaha.  There was yet no bridge across the Missouri River to connect Omaha to Council Bluffs, Iowa, and to America’s much more populous east.

The construction of the “transcontinental railroad” to connect Omaha with California’s Great Bay had begun in the summer of 1865, shortly after the Civil War ended.

Yet the Mississippi had been crossed with a railroad bridge way back in 1857, at Rock Island, Illinois – near what is known today as the Quad Cities. This was a magnificent transportation achievement for its day, and was accomplished largely thanks to an engineering survey conducted some years earlier by a young Army officer named Robert E. Lee.  That the Rock Island bridge maintained this vital rail connection after a severe accident shortly after it opened was thanks largely to a railroad lawyer, named Abraham Lincoln.

Linking Chicago to America’s heartland, the Rock Island bridge had the effect of almost guaranteeing Chicago’s ascendancy (over front-runner St Louis) as the King City of America’s western empire.  Through Chicago would flow the great bounty of grain and coal from America’s Breadbasket.  And through Chicago to the Breadbasket would flow the great pine timbers to build towns and cities; the endless manufactured goods, such as stoves, furniture, tractors, cutlery …

By 1867, the railroad had made it all the way across Iowa, to Council Bluffs – directly across the Mighty Missouri River from Omaha. A bridge across the Missouri was finally completed in 1872; until then trains were ferried across the Missouri.  Along the 300 miles across Iowa – as the railroad linked up cities, railroad towns, distribution centers, and coal mines –  the rail line had to cross many rivers and streams.  The largest of these was the Des Moines River, in Boone County, near Moingona, Iowa.

Built rather quickly, the bridge was quite narrow – only a single track with a slender maintenance walkway beside the line.

The walkway was not intended for pedestrian traffic.  To discourage foot-travel, the nails on the boards were not pounded down flush.  The boards were unevenly spaced. They were roughhewn, with open spaces between them; Looking down between gaps in the walkway’s board, one could quite intimately see and feel the river flowing below. There was no safety of a hand rail.  Nonetheless, it was a remarkable bridge: its four spans over the river traversed about 675 yards.

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______________________________
3. Prelude to The Storm & Destiny

As she had hoped – but surely not as she had dreamed or imagined – the destinies of Kate Shelley and The Midnight Express were forever joined one night: July, 6, 1881.

The rain came down all afternoon like Kate and her mom had never seen before.   It was hard to tell when the sun went down, the sky was so dark.  The barn, and windows and doors were all shuttered; but they all rattled in a way that made relaxing impossible.  Lightning flashed across the sky every few seconds; then down to the ground.  Heaven was letting loose some sort of evil rage.

After an anxious dinner none even tried to sleep.  Sleepy little Honey Creek roared almost as loud as when the Midnight Express came by.  Kate, by virtue of listening so intently almost every night, grew very worried.  She wasn’t worried about the fox den getting washed out. Or the branches coming off trees; or trees falling into the creek.  She wasn’t worried about the livestock. She wasn’t worried that the rain flattened their crops.  She wasn’t even worried about the house or some small leaks that began moistening the kitchen.

She was worried about the Midnight Express.  It was “her” life; it was “her” fantasy that was in jeopardy. In her own way, Kate considered the 100 or more souls on that train to be her friends. Would the Express come?  And if it did: Would it be safe?

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_______________________________________________________________-

4. Shelley Family History

The Shelley family had emigrated from Ireland in 1866, before Kate, her parents’ first-born, was even one year old.  They ended up in central Iowa, near the tiny town of Moingona, where her father could get some land, run a farm, and work for the railroad.

Like most of the country, the economy there was beginning to really boom. Countless repeated ebbs and flows of glaciers from multiple ice ages had deposited rich soil across the great American Midwest.  Thus blessed, farms produced grain and livestock to feed the county’s rapidly growing population.

Many ages before that, ancient seas had left vast deposits of aquatic biomass: these became the Iowa coal fields that helped feed the region’s rapidly growing industrialization and railroad tender cars.

It was a place rich with opportunity for those who were ready to work.

Michael Shelley built a small but sturdy farmhouse overlooking Honey Creek.  Four siblings followed. Kate was a big sister.

Michael Shelley was especially fond of Kate, his oldest daughter.  From her youngest memories they were very close. She especially loved when he came home in the evening. He would place his trusty railroad lantern on the mantle, then give her a hug, tousle her raven hair, and tell her how beautiful she was.  Kate’s usual expression – and the look in her eyes – gave the impression of a deep sense of seriousness and resolve; a seriousness and resolve that could not easily be dismissed with a smile or a laugh.

Yet her father could make her seriousness melt and her spirit soar. He’d glide easily from hugs and tousles into a round of stories about his work in the railroad yard.  The excitement of so many cars – so much cargo, so many people – moving from place to place. And it all depended on him.

At the end of every night’s telling of stories – some tall, some true – Michael would tell his daughter: “Kate, you can do anything. When the time comes, you will know what to do.”

Then, calamity.  When Kate was only 13 her father fell gravely ill, and quickly passed away.  Only a month later her 10-year old brother James, the next child after Kate, drowned in the nearby Des Moines river.  Kate’s mother fell into despondency, perhaps depression.  Now young Kate was more than just the big sister: over the next few years she took on more and more of the family’s responsibilities … raising her siblings, managing the house and farm. Her solemn nature of serious resolve became a great asset.

Soon enough, her resolve would grow stronger.

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__________________________________________

_________________________________________

5. The Storm – 2: July 6, 1881

There’s no telling what Kate was doing when her attentive ears first heard the noise on that fateful Wednesday, July 6, 1881.  Perhaps she was finishing a turn at churning the butter. She could’ve been making lye, being careful not to give herself a chemical burn.  Possibly feeding livestock, hoeing or weeding.  Fixing a fence.  Putting up hay. Plucking a chicken. Darning some socks, or repairing a shoe sole. If she wasn’t doing these herself, she was seeing to it that one of her siblings were on the tasks.

But she heard it.  A deep long, ominous rumble.  Most definitely: a thunderstorm was coming.

No doubt she found a way to quickly finish what she was doing. She put her things away … and had her siblings do the same … maybe in the shed, or in the barn, or in the cupboard.

Then she ran to the clothesline.  Those skirts and shirts, pants and knickers would never dry if the storm came before she could get them inside.

Once inside, Kate and her family watched the storm clouds build, grow dark, and move over them – from horizon to horizon.   They probably began preparing some stew or soup, heated over the wood or coal-fired stove. The rains came hard and fast, like they’d never seen before.  This was no ordinary summer thunderstorm, what they sometimes called a “gully washer.”  The clouds poured buckets down on central Iowa for hours.  The lightning flashed; the thunder roared.

To fortify their nerves, Kate led her siblings in faux bravado through retorts to the thunder and wind.

“Is that all you’ve got??” They shouted. And: “Oh! That was nothing! Show us more!”; or: “Fart like you mean it!!”

It was whistling past the cemetery.

On and on it went.  The rivers rose.  The creeks rose. The streams and rivulets that fed the rivers washed out over the gently sloped Iowa fields.

Around dusk – with clouds so dark it was difficult to tell when dusk was – young Kate feared for the livestock sheltering in their humble barn, down close to Honey Creek.

Kate realized the animals in the barn might drown should the creek swell much further.  She donned a shawl and straw hat, then ran down toward the creek, sloshing through the mud and puddles, skittering along like a water beetle.  Just as she opened the barn door, a mighty gust of wind swept her hat away … and vigorously tousled her wild mop of dark hair. The mussing of her hair gave her a momentary sense that her father was near.  She re-focused and, undistracted by the wind and storm, she opened each stall and led their few livestock – two horses, two cows and a sow –  up a gentle rise to some woods behind the farm. Then she returned to the barn to fetch two piglets, which she carried up to the farmhouse.

Safely inside the farmhouse, her clothes and hair drenched, and sticking to her slender frame, Kate’s senses grew even more alert. Now she could not just keenly hear and see the storm; now she could feel and smell the evil in this storm. She sensed the potently electrified atmosphere, and the way the rain and low pressure sucked the primordial scents of the earth right out of the soil.

As her siblings and mother nervously poked at their dinner after watching Kate’s heroics, Kate sat by the stove to warm up. She had changed out of her work clothes and into her pajamas, and was wrapped in a woolen blanket. They all looked nervously at each other, taking bites between gusts of howling wind and peeling cracks of thunder.

Right after the Midnight Express of the Chicago & Northwest railroad crossed the wide Des Moines there was a much smaller bridge, across Honey Creek, at the edge of the Shelley farm. It really was just a tiny bridge, as far as railroad bridges go.  Perhaps 25 yards across.

Rebuilt bridge over Honey Creek.

But the growing intensity of the creek’s roar gave Kate reason for great concern.  The Midnight Express was due to cross in just a few hours. Would the bridge hold up?

Kate adjusted her ears to listen even more closely. Beyond the rain, beyond the thunder, beyond the wind she listened to the whoosh of Honey Creek. It was normally just a trickle.

Suddenly. Around 11 PM … she heard a booming colossal “CRACK!” through the cacophony of the storm.

About a mile and half to the west of the Shelley farm, across the Des Moines River, at the railroad station in Moingona, the night station manager grew anxious too. He’d never seen a storm like this either, and the Chicago & North Western crossed numerous creeks on its way east to tiny Harmon Switch, on the Jordan River, and then to Ames, home of the still rather new Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm. [5][6].

[5] – The town of Harmon Switch was first called Midway, for its central Iowa proximity. In the 1850s it was renamed Harmon Switch after a local farmer and large landowner (William Harmon), and its small railroad junction. Later it was changed to Jordan, and remains so named today, the same as the river, which runs there. [History of Boone County, Iowa, Volume 1.(1914) Edited by Nathaniel Edward Goldwait. Pg 222.]
[6] – Iowa Agricultural College and Model farm is now, of course, Iowa State University.

 

Layout of Locations for events of July 6, 1881. Photo of sign outside the museum. (At the you are here pin). North is up. [credit to Kate Shelley Railroad Museum and Park]

At about 10:30PM, he sent out a pusher locomotive to check on the line … at least as far as the next station, near the Jordan, some 10 miles away. As soon as the boiler was fired, it took off east, across the river.

Leaving the station with four men the locomotive almost immediately crossed the long bridge across the Des Moines River. As lightning flashed they could see the water had risen nearly to the bridge.

A few minutes later they came to Honey Creek, with its tiny trestle bridge.  They could not have known – they did not see – that some support timbers beneath the bridge had cracked and others washed away.  As the locomotive crossed the bridge it failed completely, collapsing into swirling Honey Creek.

 

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6. Kate and the Bridges

Kate knew immediately what had happened.  She re-wrapped herself in a shawl, took her father’s railroad lantern off the mantle and lit it. Then she fetched her father’s oversized railroad mackintosh – a rare extravagance in Iowa in those days – and briskly strode to the door as she slid her arms into the Mac.

“Mother.  There’s a train in the creek!  There are people down there.”

“Kate”, her mother yelled. “Please don’t go outside again.  It’s too dangerous.”

Kate paused pensively. Then: “Mother, if father were still alive, that could well be him in the water. And if it weren’t him down there, then he’d be going down to help. I have to go.”

Her mother’s eyes softened and she tacitly nodded her consent.

Kate made her way down to the bridge.  As it turned out, two men had perished in the collapse; but Kate couldn’t know that. But, there were two survivors. When they saw the light of the railroad lantern they yelled with all the energy their lungs could muster.  One man clung to the upper branches of a collapsed tree; the other to bridge timbers.

You can do it Kate.  You know what to do.

Indeed, Kate knew what had to be done.  She had to cross the Des Moines River bridge, in the dark, in the storm, go to Moingona station, and stop the Midnight Express … otherwise it would surely plunge into Honey Creek atop these men.

The time was too short, and the slopes too muddy and steep, for Kate to try and save them herself.  She violently swung the lantern from side to side to let the men know they’d been seen. Then she set off to the Des Moines River bridge.

Guided by her father’s lantern, Kate nimbly danced along the line, over the ties and between the rails – through the wind and rain –  about a quarter-mile to the Des Moines River bridge. At the bridge’s beginning she paused a moment – to gather her courage and resolve – before stepping onto the perilously narrow walkway.

Suddenly, the mightiest gust of wind yet staggered her.  Rain beat upon her face and her hands like sand … and stung as if they were a thousand tiny salt pellets.  And worse: the lantern’s light went out.

Without the lantern’s light Kate could not possibly walk across the bridge without a dangerous, deathly stumble.

For a moment Kate lost her resolve, her focus.  Dark was all around.  The wind eased, whispering into her ears — it seemed to carry her father’s voice: “Kate. You can do this.  You know what to do.”

Then she began to crawl across the bridge, plank by plank.

By her calculations, she had about 45 minutes to get across and make it to the Moingona station.

As Kate crawled on and on – board after board – splinters and nails tore at her coat, her pajamas, at her knees and at her hands.  When she looked down she could see that the river had risen nearly up to the bridge.  Halfway across, in a flash of lightning, she could see an enormous tree coming right for her. At the last moment a swirl in the river –  or was it Providence? –  diverted the tree … its mighty trunk and groping branches slipped safely past her.

At some point, perhaps halfway across the bridge – reaching almost blindly for each successive plank of the walkway – hypothermia began to set in. Now soaked and chilled from the rain, Kate fought back the delirium with determination. She must save the Express.

You can do it Kate.  You know what to do.

On and on she went, feeling her way for each plank.  One after another.  And then … Finally! … Kate had reached solid ground!

She had a half-mile remaining to get to the station.  Stiff, sore and cold, Kate managed to get up off her scratched and bloody knees, onto her feet, and begin running to the station along a footpath she had walked before in better weather; it paralleled the line’s north side.

The men at the station were astonished to see a dripping wet, exhausted 15-year old girl collapse in front of them.

Through her chattering shivering jaw she managed to squeak out: “S-s-s-top the ex-s-spress.  S-s-stop express.  Honey Creek Bridge ….”

As the men rushed to help Kate, one recognized her.  “That’s Michael Shelley’s girl. That’s Kate. From Honey Creek.  The bridge is out.”

The express did not stop in tiny Moingona. But it was scheduled to stop at the next station up the line, Ogden.  Immediately the station’s telegrapher started tapping a message for Ogden station.  The Morse read: STOP XPRESS. BRDG OUT.

The telegrapher did not receive a reply.  It turned out that at that moment all the telegraph lines along the Chicago & North Western went down from the storm’s ferocity.  A backup plan: The night’s head switchman ran out with a lantern to stop the Express.

Well, it turned out that the telegraph message got through.  The Express stopped in Ogden.

Kate Shelley had saved the Midnight Express.

As Kate sat shivering by the stove, sipping some hot tea, she suddenly stood bolt upright.  “There are two men in the water at Honey Creek! We’ve got to save them.”

Another engine was fired up, pulled up from the yard’s sidetrack, and three men and Kate climbed into the cab, behind the firebox. In a minute they were safely crossing back over the very same bridge Kate had just risked death to crawl over.

When the train’s headlight revealed the calamity at Honey Creek bridge, the engine stopped. In the dark, by the light of two faithful flickering railroad lanterns – one Kate’s father’s, the other the switchman’s – they found that the two men were still alive, clinging desperately to stay above the water.  But they were on the far side of the creek; there was no way to get to them from the west side.

The wind, ebbed momentarily, and sounded like a ghostly whisper: “You can do it Kate.  You know what to do.”

“Follow me!” Kate yelled above the roar of rushing waters.  Carrying her father’s lantern, she led the rescuers upstream, nearly a quarter-mile, above the farm, to the next bridge across Honey Creek, which they found intact. Her sure feet showed them the way along the slippery soil of the creek bank. They crossed over the bridge, went back past the farm and then down to the collapsed bridge.

By the light of  the lanterns they located one man close to shore clinging to a trestle timber. The rescuers, with Kate holding “her” lantern, risked their own drowning, linked their arms, and pulled him from the water.

The other was too far out in the flow to rescue that night. The three railroad men returned to the engine, dropping Kate off at the farmhouse, making sure her mother knew of Kate’s heroism.  They spent the night in the engine’s cab, keeping an eye on their co-worker and friend, thanks to the light of a lantern.  He was rescued the next morning, after the creek flow had abated, when sunlight had returned and evil had left.

 

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7. Aftermath and Later Life

As it turned out, there were 200 people on the Midnight Express that night. They took up a donation for Kate; it came to about $200 – no small sum. The Chicago and North Western Railroad gave her a cash award too; the state gave her a gold medal.

Soon enough, Kate was a national hero.  Songs and poems were written to praise her.

The Railroad raised money for the Shelley children’s education.  Kate was given a lifetime pass on the railroad; whenever she came home, she was able to get off right next to her family’s farm. For a few years the train frequently stopped at the Shelley farm so that admiring and well-wishing passengers could get out and greet Kate.

Even with her lifetime pass, Kate left Iowa only once. Of course she went to Chicago. That was to visit the Columbian Exposition, also called The 1893 World’s Fair.  Despite her dreams and fantasies, as it turned out, Kate’s heart really was in Iowa. There she remained the rest of her life.

Kate got an education at nearby Simpson College, and tried teaching for a while. She bounced between various jobs, always in central Iowa, including working for the state and even running the Moingona station for a while.  A woman running a train station; her dad would have been proud.

Many men were interested in courting Kate, especially a switchman at the station. Always her own woman – fierce, serious, determined, resolved – she never married, although she was engaged once.

In 1901 a new bridge was built across the Des Moines by George Morison a few miles to the north. It was called the Kate Shelley Bridge. When it was re-built, just a few years ago, the new bridge was dubbed The New Kate Shelley High Bridge. In the 1950s the Chicago and North Western began running a very modern streamlined train from Chicago through Iowa: It was called The Kate Shelley 400.

During the 1890s and first decade of the 20th century, the Shelley farm fell into mortgage arrears.  The railroad helped the farm stay afloat.  Kate’s mom remained always in poor health – perhaps that’s the reason Kate never married or left Iowa – and Kate spent much of her time and energy on her mother.  Mrs Shelley passed away in 1909.

Shortly after her mother’s passing, Kate began to fall into poor health herself. She struggled through a variety of illnesses. In 1911 she had her appendix removed.  Very sadly, she never recovered, and passed away in January, 1912—age 46 – from Bright’s Disease, an acute failure of the kidneys – probably due to infection.

Kate Shelley is a true American Heroine.

The railroad line no longer crosses the Des Moines River at Moingona.  Amtrak passenger trains pass far to the south, freight to the north, over the New Kate Shelley High Bridge. But you can go to what remains of the railroad station there. It now houses a museum, most of which is dedicated to honor the life and heroism of Boone County’s most famous resident: Kate Shelley.

In one of the museum’s most special and cherished displays stands an aged railroad lantern.  That’s Kate’s father’s lantern, the one that led her to the barn, led her to the creek and led her to the brink of the Des Moines River bridge that fateful night, July 6, 1881.

The Kate Shelley Railroad Museum, Moingona, Iowa

If you go there, and you are all alone, and the museum is very quiet, and you are very patient, and you stand motionless before the lantern, and you listen very, very closely, history calls to you. “You know what to do.  You can do it.”

The museum is closed at night. Even on summer nights when thunderstorms roll across Iowa. On such dark and stormy nights, when the “believers” have seen a swaying ghostly light appear to crawl slowly along the old High Bridge, no one has ever, ever gone to the museum to see if the lantern is resting in its display.

Joe Girard © 2017

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_______________________
Notes and Author’s comments – 1

Other Notes:

Kate and locals were not unfamiliar with train disasters. Evidently there had been a significant derailing near Stanwood, Iowa, the previous year.

Author’s Comments.

I initially came across this story in a small display at the “Steamtown National Historic Site”, a sort of museum to steam locomotion, in Scranton, PA, several years ago.

Since then I’ve been poking around libraries, book stores and the internet to find more information. I was astonished to find that no significant magnificent single body of work exists to relate this remarkable story of a heroic young woman.

I came across many, many sources … most very brief … that often conflict with each other in details. For this story, I chose to interpret everything in the most exciting and extravagant way possible. For example, some sources say Kate was 15-years old; others say 17. Which is more exciting? I say 15.

Some sources say the train had already stopped in Ogden; some say Kate’s message saved the train. Which is more extravagant? Kate saved the train.

Some say the telegraph went down before Kate arrived at the Moingona station; others say well after she arrived. I dramatically split the difference and chose to say it happened just as the message was received.

Where there were no details I did historical research; it was important for me to place Kate and her story appropriately within US, Iowa and railroad history.

Where other details were missing, well, I simply made them up – or skipped over them. For example, I have no idea what life was like for the Shelleys – life on the farm and schooling for the children. I do not know if or how Kate got the lantern across the long bridge. I have no idea what Michael Shelley might’ve done for the railroad — except that he DID have a lantern — whether he had a Mackintosh, and what Kate’s relationship with her father was like. I made all that up. Still, it’s all very plausible. I make no apologies.

Many Boone County locals do insist that the ghost of Kate Shelley roams the region and is partial to railroad lines and bridges. Of course this is silly. Or is it? I chose to include it as a possibility. For me, after this much study, Kate Shelley lives.

Finally, I had to finish this story and publish it for two reasons. First, it had rolled around in my addled head for so long that it was more or less “now or never.” I nearly deleted my work: the drafts and notes. Thankfully my wife not only talked me out of it, but she lovingly helped craft the structure of final drafts. Second, there appears to be a fairly substantial book to address Kate’s life and heroics coming out soon, called Boone County, by Misty McNally. I wanted to get this out so that I could not be accused of plagiarism.

I also must acknowledge the final draft editing help I received from my good friend Marcy.

As many of you know, I’ve been fighting headaches on-and-off for quite some time. My periods of intense focus are often quite short – and longer “free” periods are often devoted to the many details of life; so this was a bit of a labor of love. I worked on it a few minutes at a time, sometimes an hour or two, over the past many months. Why? It’s important to tell stories and personalize history. And I feel called to do so. Despite the desire to personalize the story, I chose not to include a picture of Miss Shelley. None I found did her any justice. Yes, I love history, I love writing, and … now … I even love Kate Shelley.

“I do believe in ghosts. I do. I do. I do.” – Cowardly Lion, Wizard of Oz

 

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Even more Notes and Author’s comments
More notes:

Another reason I was fascinated by this story, and how it evolved, is that it reminded me of a rather obscure song I like, by an obscure singer/writer I like. I call the song “Old John Joseph, the man with two first Names”, although the song’s singer/writer, Harry Chapin, named it “Corey’s Coming.”

Old John has worked for decades in a slowly dying railroad yard. He has stories and visions to share. You can listen here: Corey’s Coming.

I’ve written about Harry Chapin (Another Love Story) here: Another Love Story

The first Kate Shelley High Bridge was completed in 1901, essentially replacing the bridge Kate crawled across 20 years earlier. It’s one of the last projects of noted bridge engineer George Morison. He was trained as a lawyer. A famous civil engineer in his day, he was influential in getting the location of the great Central American canal changed from Nicaragua to Panama.

He does not appear to have aged well, was likely in poor health even during the Boone Viaduct (first official name) construction, and died two years after the structure was completed, aged only 60. The bridge was the longest and heaviest viaduct of its time, and also may well be the longest extant double-track railroad viaduct in the world. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. So, it will stay up as long as nature permits. Some say his ghost haunts the bridge as well.

Joe Girard

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Biographical, Current Events, Guest Essay, Strong Women

Remembering Lisa

By Ken Hutchison, Feb 3, 2017

Yesterday was a sad day for me. I walked in the building, along with hundreds of my co-workers, former co-workers and friends. I was handed the folded piece of paper; on it was one of my photographs. It’s happened before to me. I should be used to it, but not this time.

It was the portrait I took of Lisa Hardaway (that’s DR. Lisa Hardaway). In the photo, she’s holding a scale model of the New Horizons spacecraft. The spacecraft that passed Pluto last year, capturing the first ever, high resolution, up close and personal images of the furthest thing in our solar system. I remembered taking the shot; it was for various press releases, social media, education outreach, and because she was recently named as the Engineer of the year by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Lisa was so proud, and who wouldn’t be, because that’s the Holy Grail of aerospace engineering. Lisa was the program manager for the Ball part of the mission.

Then, on the paper, were the dates. The date she was born, and the day when she left us with only her memories and legacy. On the cover were two other pictures, of her and her husband, and the shot of her kids. Lisa, mother, wife, friend, co-worker, and damned smart American, died at the young age of 50.

We filed into a beautiful light filled room, hundreds standing and sitting, hugs, tears, handshakes that turn into hugs because men have that awkward “do I hug?” thing that we do.

The Rabbi came out. Now, I’m a flunky Presby kid from Pueblo, not exposed to the Jewish religion at all. I’ve never been to a Jewish funeral, only a wedding. That dance with the bride and groom in chairs is, well, different from our fussy traditions. Looks a lot more fun.

This, hands down, was one of the most beautiful services I’ve been to. The Rabbi began with what I guess was a call to worship or mourning, I’m not sure. It was Yiddish, ( 2/4/2017, author’s update: Hebrew, not Yiddish; pardon my ignorance) and my depth of that language is about as deep as saying “Oy!” Still, it was haunting, moving, having an ancient tone of thousands of years long. The Rabbi spoke, and then gave an outline of who would be talking with us. First up was her husband, James.

I’ve known James for years as a customer and colleague. He proceeded to wrap the entire room around his little finger with stories of how they met, the food and wine they loved, their children, and the things he learned from his wife. The last thing he mentioned that he learned was “courage”. At that point, and that point alone, is when his voice broke… Along with all of the hearts in the room, for we all felt the same. Next, her daughter Jaella Hardaway came up, and captured the room with her charm and grace, her laughter, humor, and stories, some of which she’d never shared. That girl has a future, you could see why Lisa was so proud of her.

There were a couple of more speakers, family and friends. Then the Rabbi addressed the family. At this point, the tears started for me, because she was a rockstar with her words. She asked the folks in the room that would be willing to provide life guidance to the children should they ever need it to stand up.

The entire room stood.

Then there were the closing prayers, chants and other Jewish customs which were alien to me, and the service was over. Upon exiting, I walked past the two men I noticed on the way in. They had pistols on their belts…private armed guards. You see, the Jewish Community Center had a bomb threat phoned in two days prior, along with dozens others around the country.

It was not only a sad day for us, but for our country as well, when those who are grieving need to be protected.

May God bless the family of Lisa Hardaway.

Editor’s Notes: Ken Hutchison is the Senior Staff Photographer at Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation.  He also gives tours, entertains high level guests (Congress persons, Generals) and is a heck of a writer.  He lives in Longmont, Colorado.
I also had the honor of working with Lisa on the New Horizons mission (Ball’s instrument was called “Ralph”). Ball is a very close community.


Biographical, History, Strong Women

Lee’s Gift

Forward to this 2015 release.

This essay was originally published on my earlier website (which is still up, but not maintained) to commemorate a 50-yr and a 83-yr anniversary, in January, 2012. Given the recent announcement that a sequel may come out this coming summer … [New York Times — Author to publish second novel] well, I thought it appropriate to re-publish the essay on this site. You, dear reader, will note that it will be in need of some factual updating. That is, if reports of a sequel turn out to be true.

____________________________________________

A shy bookish gal from a small town in Alabama, Nelle Lee, is trying to “make it” in the big city of New York in the 1950s.  Her dream was to make it as a writer.  Now, seven years later, she struggles with an odd collection of unpublished short biographical sketches while working various menial jobs, including employment as a reservationist for Eastern Airlines.

Introverted and reserved, she has managed to make a few friends, including a Broadway composer, Michael Brown, and his wife, Joy.  Magic was about to happen.  But they didn’t know it.

 

______________________________________

 

Nelle was born to attorney Amasa Lee and Frances (nee: Finch) Lee, their fourth and last child, in Monroeville, Alabama, in 1926.  Always an outsider and a tomboy, she took to the books and fell in love with literature at a young age.  She was convinced that she could become a writer, although she tried her hand at law school and a year at Oxford in England before deciding for sure what she would try to do.  Everywhere she went, she was ever the loner and individualist, focusing on her studies and showing no interest in being anything like a southern belle.

One can only imagine how difficult it was for such a girl in New York.  Despite steady encouragement from her friends, the Browns — and from another emerging writer who had achieved some renown and happened to be from her home town and same school, “Bulldog” Persons — young Miss Lee had not yet completed any work of significance.  She shared her character sketches with her friends, and they were impressed.  But her regular day jobs got in the way of making significant progress on a complete story.

The Brown’s major gift to Miss Lee came at Christmas, 1956.  Michael Brown, who had written the tune Lizzie Borden for a play a few years before, had earned a sizable fee for getting some scores accepted.  His wife suggested that they use part of the money to allow Miss Lee to take a year off from work and focus on her writing.  And so he did.  And so she did.

Lee got a literary agent and got to work, completing a manuscript oddly titled “Atticus”, a somewhat autobiographical story centered around characters and events of a small southern town, not unlike her own hometown of Monroeville.  One of the major characters in the story, a boy named Dill, was based on her old hometown friend “Bulldog” Persons.

Through multiple rejections Lee grew more and more frustrated and unsure of herself.  She soldiered on, with the support of her friends the Browns and Bulldog, and the encouragement of her agent.  She continued to work on the script and waited through multiple publisher reviews … and rejections.

Finally, the book was published in 1960, by Lippencott & Company.  For a shy girl from a small town in the south, the reaction of the country was overwhelming.  She was stunned into numbness.  As one of the most moving and appreciated books in American history, it immediately resonated with readers across the country and around the world.  Millions and millions were sold.  In short order she won the Pulitzer Prize for literature, and the book was made into a movie which won three Academy Awards … and still ranks as the 25th best American movie of all time.

The novel itself has since been named the Best American Novel of the 20thcentury by Library Journal.

Miss Nelle Lee is known to us as Harper Lee, as she has gone by her middle name since mid-adulthood.  Her only novel was renamed by the publisher: “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

In a fortuitous historical coincidence, the book and the movie burst onto the national and world scene at the same time as the civil rights movement, led by Martin Luther King, Jr and others; it coincided with the brave voting registration drives and the Freedom Riders.

“Bulldog” Persons’ real first name was unusual: Truman.  For his last name he took the nom de plume Capote.  When the book was published, but before anyone knew how popular it would become, Lee traveled to Kansas with him to do research for a story that would turn into one his most famous works: In Cold Blood.  For all practical purposes, it was the closest she came to writing again.  Only a couple of essays.

Lee’s last public interview was March, 1964.  Only one story, yet she left us with so much.  The story still moves us today.

The role of Atticus, played by Gregory Peck, gave him the singular role for which he will be remembered forever.  The American Film Institute named the role of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird  the top film hero of the last 100 years.  Lee and Peck remained close the rest of his life, until he died in 2003.  Several of his grand children have Lee in their names.

The movie’s character young Scout Finch (the autobiographical Lee, with the same last name as Lee’s mother) was played by 10-year old Mary Badham.  At the time, she was the youngest ever to be nominated for Best Supporting Actor or Actress.  Like Lee, she remained largely out of public view since then.  During the movie she formed a lifelong friendship with the warm father-figure of Gregory Peck.  They stayed in regular communication until his death; she always called him “Atticus.”

The movie gave us the first screen appearance of Robert Duval.  Near the end of the movie, an odd looking young man appears, and Scout says: “Hey Boo.”  Duval’s smile is touching.  He played mentally challenged and kindly Arthur “Boo” Radley.

How do you write a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird?  Unimaginable that such an oeuvre could be a first effort!  How do you write another story, another novel?  Harper Lee tried a few times, but the bar was too high.  All those efforts are filed under “U” for unfinished.  Harper Lee was a shooting star, a comet who lit up our sky, and gave us a tremendous story for the ages.  And then she was gone.  She has lived a relatively reclusive life since then, privately splitting her time between New York with her sister, and her old hometown, Monroeville, Alabama.

Thank you to the Browns, whose gift of friendship, encouragement and financial support made Harper Lee’s manuscript completion and publication possible.  And Thank you Harper Lee.  Thank you for overcoming your shyness and insecurity long enough to hang in there to give us the gift of To Kill a Mockingbird, which allowed us to see ourselves so much better.

 

“I remember when my daddy gave me that gun. He told me that I should never point it at anything in the house; and that he’d rather I’d shoot at tin cans in the backyard. But he said that sooner or later he supposed the temptation to go after birds would be too much, and that I could shoot all the blue jays I wanted — if I could hit ’em; but to remember it was a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
— Atticus Finch (in Haper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird”)

 

Joe Girard © 2012

 

[1] Lizzie Borden, by Michael Brown: http://www.guntheranderson.com/v/data/lizziebo.htm

[2] This essay was to jointly commemorate the 50th anniversary of the release of the movie and the 83rd anniversary of Dr King’s birth.

January 2012.

February 2015 note: I hope this is not a hoax.  How surprising that this “new” book was actually written first!  No wonder it took Ms. Lee so long to come out with “To Kill a Mockingbird.”