Poems by Marie Fischer and Eunice J. Miles

I was recently going through my mother's scrapbook, and I found two poems that I thought I'd like to share. I don't know how much exposure these two poets had during their lifetimes, but I'd like to extend their reach a bit.

The first was published in the Salt Lake Tribune, I would guess in the late 1950's.  I know why my mother kept it, as it reminds me of my grandmother and tugs at my heart reading it now.



THE FINAL GIFT
by Eunice J. Miles

This lace-trimmed, printed apron,
With a pocket and a bow,
Was made for me by Mother
From a bit of calico.
She fashioned it so neatly,
Her smile, as always, cheery,
I could not know her heartbreak,
Nor guess herr feet were weary.
I took the gift so carelessly,
As if it were my due.
That it would prove a final one
From her, I never knew.
Now Mother's hands are quiet.
They can no longer sew
A dainty lace-trimmed apron
Of printed calico.

The second poem is one my mother typed out.  I love the character the old manual typewriters gave to the printing. They were like fingerprints, as no two typewriters printed the letters exactly the same. On this one, the lower case o doesn't print on the bottom of the arc. You can see it in the picture at the bottom.

Before I begin, I need to define the word samite as it's used in the second stanza.  According to Wikipedia, Samite was a luxurious and heavy silk fabric worn in the Middle Ages, of a twill- type weave, often including gold or silver thread. I didn't know the word before today.

PINES IN THE WIND
By Marie Fischer

The pines are reeling galleons
Tossed on windy nights,
Their singing masts strung with stars
For swinging signal lights.

The pines are phantom galleons
Adrift through samite mists,
Their wriath-like sails the floating clouds
By ghostly moonbeams kissed.

The pines are pirate galleon,
Their chant a weird rune;
Their treasure-holds with silver filled
Stolen from the moon.

The pines are cargoed galleon
Laden with sweet spices;
The God of the trees built them so
And launched with beauty thrice--

With music, fragrance, form,
Pine galleons ride the storm.

I can almost hear my mother reading each of these poems, even though she's been gone over twenty years.













~~~~~~~

And...be sure you don't miss out on the next recipe, review, scrap of wisdom or pithy thought. Become a follower on this blog by clicking on the Join this Site button on the sidebar. Check out my books behind the Liz's Books tab at the top, or read reviews of my latest book under the Reviews tab.

Charcoal Kilns on Panaca Summit and Mill in Condor Canyon

We just returned from a trip to Nevada. If you’ve read the Spider Latham mystery series, you’re acquainted with my husband’s home town, Panaca. The Lincoln County High School was turning 100 on September 27 and we went down for the celebration.

We took our 4-wheelers with us and planned on doing some riding before the birthday party. I had never seen the charcoal kilns up on the summit, and Derrill wanted to take me through Connor’s Canyon—which we found out wasn’t Connor’s Canyon at all. He’d been calling it that all his life, but the name is actually Condor Canyon.

Well, we did both, and what splendid rides they were.

The charcoal kilns were built in the mid-1870’s. They were situated where they were because of two reasons: a nearby outcrop of rhyolitic tuff and a source of wood, for there is a lot of scrub cedar and pine on the Panaca Summit.
















Skilled stone masons took rocks from the outcroppings, dressed them, and joined them with mud and lime mortar to form the beehive-shaped ovens. I was particularly interested in the keystone arch that formed the door.

















Swiss and Italian woodcutters who knew the charcoal making process brought these skills from Europe. They cut five-foot lengths of wood and stacked them in two vertical tiers (totaling 50 cords) in the ovens. Then they were lit, the door was closed, the vent at the top was plugged, and air flow was regulated through holes around the base of the kiln.

It took 30 days to complete the combustion of the stack. The resultant charcoal was allowed to cool, and on a calm day, the kiln was opened. If it wasn’t done correctly, the charcoal could catch fire and burn up, destroying all the work of chopping, loading and burning.

Each cord of wood would produce about 30 bushels of charcoal which was enough to smelt one ton of silver ore.

The kilns are in pretty good repair. Inside they smell strongly of smoke, even after all these years.
















The next day we went to Condor Canyon.


I had been swimming in the spring above Panaca lots of times, but I never knew that half a mile farther up the road was this wonderful canyon. In earlier days, a railroad ran through it. It’s gone now, but you can drive on the railroad bed as far as the first bridge that someone burned—farther if you’re on an off-road vehicle.














We found a wonderful, shady cave to have lunch in, for though it was late September, it was pretty hot.

















We also found the site of an old mill. I don’t know what kind of ore they were processing here, but they had a ramp built for the oar wagons to come up to dump their loads, and there were remnants of what looked like boiler flues lying around. There was another, tumbled-down charcoal kiln located nearby, too.

When we got back to town, I went on line at the only place I could find internet access and found a wonderful picture of the mill that used to be in Condor Canyon.

This is the mill as it was in 1870.

I’ll blog about the birthday celebration next and probably do some philosophizing, but I couldn’t wait to share this bit of history with you.

~~~~~~~~~~~

And...be sure you don't miss out on the next recipe, review, scrap of wisdom or pithy thought. Become a follower on this blog by clicking on the Join this Site button on the sidebar. Check out my books behind the Liz's Books tab at the top, or read reviews of my latest book under the Reviews tab.

StoryCorps' Service to America

Today I thought I'd blog about the Service that StoryCorps is doing to capture the oral histories of everyday Americans and preserve them for posterity.

I’ve been listening to StoryCorps stories since they began broadcasting in 2003, not because I was a StoryCorps junkie, but because it was on the particular station I was listening to on the way to work.

However, I am a family history nut. (I even have two blogs dedicated family history--one for family and one for a wider audience.) That’s why StoryCorps moves me every time I hear the weekly segment on NPR.

Dave Isay, founder of StoryCorps, began with a sound studio booth in New York City's Grand Central Station. Feeling that everybody’s story matters, he made it possible for children to bring in parents or grandparents and interview them about what life was like when they were young; for husbands and wives to tell stories of how they met or overcame obstacles; and for participants in momentous moments in history to relate their part in that particular grand scheme of things.

Since that beginning in 2003, StoryCorps has traveled around the U.S., and over 35,000 normal, everyday people have visited a StoryCorps booth or mobile sound studio to interview family and friends. The stories they tell are anything but ‘everyday’. Some of the stories are poignant, like the one of a man who worked as a sanitation worker in Memphis and who marched with Martin Luther King just before his assination. Some are gripping, like the one of an immigrant braving dangers to come to America. And, some are hilarious, like the story told by the 94-year-old lady about her mother giving her an inflatable bra to help with a self image problem when she was a flat-chested young lady, and how it almost caused an international incident while she was flying over the Andes in an unpressurized airplane.

After each interview, participants are given a free CD of the session, and the content is preserved at the Library of Congress. Segments are chosen to be aired on public radio and the web.

StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind. You can read about it by going to the StoryCorps web site. Find out how you can be involved, either by moving and shaking so that a mobile sound studio comes to your area, by traveling to a StoryCorps site, or by using an at-home interview kit.

On the StoryCorps web site you can also listen to segments that have been broadcast or sign up for podcasts. Or, you can order the book Listening is an Act of Love, which is a collection of stories from the project.

Check it out! You’ll be richer for it.

Return to Neighborhood

Thanks, Brother-of-mine

When I was 48, I had a revelation. It came about when I watched the interaction between my ten-year-old daughter and her eight-year-old brother. One day, as she tried to get this laid-back, happy-go-lucky boy to march to the beat she was insistently drumming, I realized this was a mirror of my childhood relationship with my brother. The one difference was that I was the younger sibling.

The next time my brother came to visit, I shared this with him. “I didn’t realize,” I confessed, “how I used to try to run your life.” His reply? “What do you mean, used to?”

Having a revelation and changing one’s ways are two different things. I haven’t quit trying to run his life, I am just aware that I’m doing it. All this makes it no surprise that, when I first hatched the idea for a family history blog, I gave the assignment to my brother. “Put up a blog,” I commanded.

After a minimum of dissent, he capitulated, and one day I got an email notice to contribute to Ronnie and Tootie Remember.

I still go by that ridiculous nickname to family and close friends, but I haven’t spelled it that way for over 25 years. When I was about forty, I decided that, as a future senior citizen, the name Tootie wouldn’t go with gray hair and brittle bones, so I changed the spelling to Tudy. Like Judy, but with a T. If I had set up the blog, I would have named it something different, but I hadn’t delegated with the caveat that I get to name the blog, so the name he gave it stands.

All that aside, after receiving the notice that the blog was up, I checked it often, and each time, I’d find a nugget of family history: an old family picture with a short narrative of what my brother remembered about it. Some of the things he got wrong, but with the comment function, I was able to make corrections or add another perspective. I got my scanner up and going so I could contribute, too.

The pictures we’ve posted on the blog are ones from mother’s picture trunk. She was always going to write who, what, when, and where on the back of each so they wouldn’t tumble into anonymity after she was gone. Even though she had a long notice of her impending death, she never got around to it. I was determined not to let that happen again; hence my order to my brother: make a blog so we can get this done. In saluting and doing so, he has done a profound service to the whole family.

Thanks, Ron. Your kids and mine may not visit very often, but because of you, it’s there for when their hearts start to turn to family history.

Return to Neighborhood