There are two micro stories in Scrap: Salvaging a Family about the May 13, 1980 tornado in Kalamazoo, Michigan (pp 90-92 in paperback). It’s sort of a transition period in the book where I am now an adult, albeit young, whereas what had come before in the book was focused on coming-of-age. It’s also foreshadowed by an earlier scene of being a kid in the basement during a tornado warning. Scrap is comprised of three parts, and the tornado is the end of part I.
I mention how my father bought up storefronts that nobody else seemed to want and tried to fix them up just enough to rent them as he had little money to invest in remodelling. I describe a wooden “canvas” hanging on the wall of my father’s store:
What I think is that he makes something usable that wasn’t. He doesn’t have the money to make them beautiful. But every once in a while, he recognizes something that is. Inside the luggage store, he’s hung a board that a painter used to clean his brushes. He calls it his Jackson Pollack (sic).
Weirdly, even though I remember looking up the correct spelling of the artist’s name, I still misspelled it in the book. For some reason, I want it to be spelled Pollack instead of Pollock. Maybe it’s because for all its interesting details it’s still a fake. (If you read Scrap you might realize why the theme of “fake” resonates with me).
Dad’s “Jackson Pollock” on the wall
Here are a couple of photos of the tornado that day.
Gilmore Brothers department store–the entire back wall of the 5 story building was blown off
The Women Before Us is the fourth family history novel by Amy Bess Cohen. Like the three previous books, this one is very loosely based upon Cohen’s ancestors. As a genealogist and family history blogger, Cohen has completed the mountains of research necessary to delve into the lives of these people. But Cohen doesn’t leave it at the usual pedigrees and timelines. Her research leads her to explorations of personality and motivation. She does this in her books and on her blog.
This time, Cohen focuses on the lives of the women of three generations of Jewish women and how their lives are determined by who they marry. This can lead to happiness or it can lead to misery. The book is shaped by the experience of 18-year-old Edna Schwartz who travels from her home in Santa Fe to Philadelphia to visit her aunt in 1922. Against her mother’s hopes, Edna meets her future husband so far from home.
Within Edna’s story we learn the stories of her mother Harriet, Harriet’s German mother Hava, both who left their mothers behind to move with their husbands. We also learn the story of Edna’s (future) mother-in-law Mae who experienced the same displacement. As readers, we witness what these women learn from leaving behind their support systems.
Throughout the book, as suspense builds, there is subtle but consistent foreshadowing that perhaps Edna’s marriage will not be as successful as those of the women who came before her. There is a Jewish tradition to bestow the name of a deceased ancestor on a new baby. Edna and her husband break that tradition, and it seems another clue that things will go wrong. Is it the new age? The mores of a brash young country versus their religion training? That Edna and James are too reckless? That James is spoiled? Ultimately, the true damage to Edna’s marriage is something out of anyone’s control.
The brains of this book is the way it demonstrates how dependent women were on their marriages. These women were not Orthodox Jews, but like all women of their time, they had little chance of a life outside of marriage. And who they married dictated whether their lives would be hard or less so, happy, or even unsafe. The heart of this book is Edna’s mother-in-law Mae. I finished the book, hoping that in the fictional future of the story, one of Edna’s children will name their child after Mae, a strong, kind, maternal, industrious, intelligent woman who does what she must do for her family.
I finished the last page at night and fell asleep soon after. All night I dreamed about the book, the characters inhabiting every dream I had. Edna, Mae, James, Harriet, and the others. It’s hard to believe that these are not Cohen’s actual relatives, but these fictional people were touched with the magic of Cohen’s sympathetic understanding of her own grandmothers and great-grandmothers.
My book review of Gwen Wilson‘s new novel Louisa. You might know Gwen as The Reluctant Retiree blogger. Her new novel is a great read!
After reading Australian writer Gwen Wilson’s memoir I Belong to No One, I was eager to read her new historical novel, Louisa, based upon the life of her great-grandmother. I certainly can see how Gwen inherited traits of a desire for independence, strength, and a fierce spirit from her ancestor.
Louisa was born in England in 1855 to a successful Anatomical Bootmaker and his wife. When her father passed away, Louisa was 17 years old. She was inspired by her mother’s insistence on running the family business herself, even though it was frowned upon for a gentlewoman to do so. Louisa herself had dreams of independence and turned down two marriage proposals before shocking her family by emigrating. The new land of Australia beckoned her.
All Louisa’s idealistic plans for herself to become a teacher with no need to marry come crashing down around her as circumstances and cultural norms constantly dictate her woman’s place in society. Her life is very difficult, and at times it seems that Louisa will never be happy because as a woman she has no legal rights.
This theme is brought home at the first job she takes. She signs on as a so-called governess in a remote outpost where she witnesses how powerless a married woman could be, living under the thumb of her husband. The tragedy that occurs foreshadows later events in Louisa’s life.
The book addresses marriage, love, romance, domestic abuse, hypocrisy, single mothers, “illegitimate” children, and the role of women—all under the umbrella of Victorian Australia and England. I found the book to be well-written and very engaging. I didn’t want to put the book down and eagerly looked forward to “what comes next.” I find myself still going back to the book, thinking about feisty Louisa and the other women in her life. You will not want to miss this book.
I understand we are going to get a sequel to Louisa, Florence & Lucy, based upon the lives of Louisa’s daughters and focusing on what it was like to be of illegitimate birth. Gwen Wilson is also promising a companion nonfiction work where we will learn where Wilson’s research of her family history intersects with the novels. I can’t wait to read them!
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After I read Gwen’s memoir years ago I knew we had stories that intersected. What I didn’t realize was that “illegitimate” births were a pattern in her family. My memoir Scrap: Salvaging a Family and Louisa might be different genres, different settings, and different stories, but they both center on the generational trauma of “illegitimate” birth.
CLICK THE BOOK COVER IMAGE ABOVE TO PURCHASE LOUISA!
I am excited to share my review of Joy Neal Kidney’s new book, The Immigrant and the Outlaw: A Collection of Stories from America’s Heartland.
BOOK DESCRIPTION
For years, Joy Neal Kidney carried a story she felt called to tell—a World War II family history marked by love, courage, and devastating loss. In the process of writing that story, she discovered something more: a gift for telling true American stories.
Beginning her freelance career in her forties, Joy went on to publish dozens of narratives in newspapers, magazines, and through the popular podcast Our American Stories. What started as a single story became a calling—to preserve the voices, memories, and moments that might otherwise be lost to time.
The Immigrant and the Outlaw gathers some of her most compelling work—stories rooted in Iowa soil yet echoing far beyond it. These are tales of grit and heritage, of war and family, of sacrifice and resilience. Stories of ordinary people whose lives reveal the quiet heroism woven through everyday American life.
Both deeply personal and richly historical, this collection offers a window into the heartland—and into the life of a writer who learned, story by story, how to tell what matters most.
These are stories worth remembering.
Available from Amazon.com in paperback, hardback, and ebook. If you’d like an autographed paperback copy of any of these book, Beaverdale Books (515-279-5400) will ship them.
I just finished reading Joy Neal Kidney’s new book The Immigrant and the Outlaw: A Collection of Stories from America’s Heartland and can’t wait to tell you about it. What a delightful compilation of nonfiction stories Joy has written over time for newspaper and radio readers and audiences.
These stories evoke all the nostalgia of growing up in the heart of America in the 20th century, researching and appreciating one’s roots and investing in new generations of family and newcomers alike, such as the Bosnian immigrants Joy befriended with all her love and much of that limited resource, her time. Her story about the Bosnian child who insisted on creating the family’s first Thanksgiving dinner in fifth grade brought tears to my eyes.
Joy’s style is personal, direct, and often very lyrical. The reader really gets a feel for the amazing woman telling her stories. She is so observant and in tune with the natural world but always remembers her obligations to the humans around her.
I have so many favorite stories that it’s hard to narrow down what to highlight. “Thunderstorms and Quiet, Spring Rains” is a beautiful meditation on rain, which Joy loves. Even if you prefer sunny days, you will fall in love with rain by reading Joy’s piece. By reading her story about lilacs, I could smell them near me although I live far from any lilac bushes. This made me so nostalgic for the lilacs at my old house in Michigan and, even farther back, for the ancient shrubs behind my great-grandfather’s farmhouse
Joy wrote about discovering her great-grandmother’s unfinished wonky quilt. She dismantled it and reassembled the quilt in homage to her ancestor. This is a metaphor for Joy’s stories. She takes all the bits and pieces of family stories, witnessed events, and research and shapes them into attractive literature that warms the reader. After you read The Immigrant and the Outlaw: A Collection of Stories from America’s Heartland, you will want to gift copies to friends and family. Just wait and see.
Lavender Orchids has published a review on Instagram. Here is the start of it:
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A copy of the newspaper we received at our home about President Kennedy’s assassination
President Kennedy’s assassination was the biggest news of my childhood and happened when I was in third grade. It’s the one event that touched the lives of every child. In my case, we got let out of school early, but didn’t know why. I remember waiting outside for the school bus, wondering what in the world was going on.
On the bus, we got the scoop from the oldest boys on the bus, the older twin brothers of my friend Vivian. They had a transistor radio and were listening to the news. I could see from their excited faces that they loved being the ones to share the awful news with our tender little minds and hearts. After all, they were in SIXTH grade.
At one point in Scrap: Salvaging a Family, I tell the story of what happened when I got home that day, as well as what happened to me on the day of President Kennedy’s funeral.
Elizabeth Gauffreau’s newest novel, The Weight of Snow and Regret is now available on audio book. I think this is a fabulous move. Some people have vision issues and want to listen to novels. Some people have long commutes and like to “read” along the way. In fact, years ago, that’s how I first read Joy LuckClub–on my commute. The audio version at that time was read by the author Amy Tan.
I posted a review of Liz’s novel in October. Here it is if you missed it: REVIEW
Liz Gauffreau is a master of historical fiction. And rather than creating a series (so far), she has written completely different books with different historical settings. I loved Telling Sonny, and now I love The Weight of Snow and Regret.
Here is my review of the latter. At the end I’ll share with you how you can purchase the book!
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Elizabeth Gauffreau’s new novel, The Weight of Snow and Regret, is a tribute to the residents of the Sheldon Poor Farm in Sheldon Springs, Vermont, as well as testament to the harsh lives of society’s disadvantaged. The novel takes place in 1967-68, the last year of the tenure of the poorhouse. But the plight of the poor and culture-rocking events of that year resonate with familiarity with contemporary readers.
The first part of the story weaves in the life of Louisianian Claire and how she falls from her place in middle-class society to living in the poorhouse far from home. In this way, the reader is drawn into the novel through the perspective of this mysterious woman, then the reader is delivered into the capable hands of Hazel, a sympathetic foster child grown into a compassionate woman who now runs the home itself while her husband manages the associated farm. Through Hazel’s kindness and perspective, we meet the other residents of the poorhouse.
The place hasn’t always been run as Hazel manages it. Before her hard work, dedication, and home management skills, the neglect was extreme. Every surface was filthy, with trash strewn about. The residents’ clothing was in desperate need of laundering. In fact, Hazel believes that the men’s underwear had never been cleaned. Hazel cleans the home immaculately, creates wholesome meals with a tiny budget, and gives the residents the care and understanding that they need.
These residents range from the forgotten elderly to the mentally ill to those with intellectual disabilities. Although they respond differently to events, and their interactions with each other can be fraught, Gauffreau’s exploration of their behavior and treatment rings true. One twist is that Hazel herself lived in this poorhouse at one time. A couple of the residents from her childhood time at the shelter are still living there when Hazel takes over. This feels like a gut punch to her to think of them still living in the conditions she and her family had undergone.
Gauffreau meticulously researched the history of the home, poor farm life in the sixties and before, the blues music that spoke to Claire’s troubled and depressed soul, the national and world headlines of the time, and local history. Her painstaking implementation of her research with her compassionate feel for the characters, and her excellent storytelling senses makes this an engrossing read. I read far into the night, without being able to put down the book.
I am guessing that Meadowlark Songs: A Motherline Legacy feels like one of the children of the author Joy Neal Kidney. Writers often feel that way about their creations. If so, I am hoping I can call myself one of the book’s many grandparents. My chapbook Kin Types, a collection of poems and flash prose, reinvented the lives of my female ancestors. Kidney mentions my book as one of her favorite resources, which tickles me more than I can tell you—because the genre seems fresh and new and so dear to my heart. And now I see it reimagined by Kidney who has created a gorgeous, well-researched, and organized delve into the lives of the women of her family who came before her.
Meadowlark Songs is primarily a poetry collection illustrated with family photographs and supplemented with informative prose. Each “mother” before Kidney has her own section, as part of the “motherline.” The cover design by Nelly Murariu beautifully captures the feel of the book.
The ancestors in the book began their lives on the east coast of the United States, but gradually moved farther inland, as far as Nebraska but the family put down deep roots in Iowa. The women’s lives come to life in Kidney’s poetry. These women are strong, resolute, and inspired by their Christian faith.
Family stories and legends are also captured in the poetry. For instance, in “Startled by Santee Sioux,” we read how Laura Goff, Kidney’s great grandmother, was a Nebraska pioneer when a couple of Santee Sioux men walked into her home. She negotiated a trade for dress goods by bartering her chickens to the men. The book is full of fascinating anecdotes such as this.
Probably my favorite part of the book is the last section, about the author herself, “The Memory Keeper,”—and her passion for creating a lasting storyline of her family through this book, as well as her previous books. We read about what formative experiences she had, and how her faith has been her guidance through it all.
I’ve cried and laughed reading Kidney’s other books, but I felt even closer to this book as she connected with the women who made her who she is today. Such a powerful experience for any woman.
Click on the book image above to purchase through Amazon.
Joy Neal Kidney is the oldest granddaughter of Leora Wilson and author of four “Leora books.” She lives in central Iowa with her husband, Guy (an Air Force Veteran of the Vietnam War and retired Air Traffic Controller). Their son and his wife live out-of-state with a daughter named Kate.
A graduate of the University of Northern Iowa, Joy has lived with fibromyalgia for two dozen years, giving her plenty of home-bound days to write blog posts and books.
Joy Neale Kidney has documented an American saga of hard work, dedication, patriotism, and above all, sacrifice with her four Leora Books. I have reviewed Leora’s Dexter Stories, Leora’s Letters, and Leora’s Early Years previously.These first three volumes tell the Wilson family history and the tragedy of losing three sons to WWII through the mother, Leora’s, perspective. The fourth book in the series, What Leora Never Knew: A Granddaughter’s Quest for Answers, describes Kidney’s own search for more answers about her uncles’ military careers.
The book contains heartbreaking information, such as Leora receiving news of Dale being MIA on her birthday. Dale’s sister Doris was pregnant and had only told Dale in a letter. But the letter was returned to her, “marked ‘Missing in Action.’” Kidney puts together information and shares it in an easy-to-read style. For instance, the Wilsons received three notes from radio operators that Dale had been taken POW by the Japanese, but this was never confirmed. The information included personal identity info that was not on their ID tags. Where would the Japanese have gotten this information if they didn’t have Dale?
I love that Kidney included images of documentation and letters. The visuals help to connect the reader to these difficult days that her family went through. A poignant section is when Kidney realizes that Dale had a diary and how it was separated from his other belongings. I could tell you more, but why don’t you just read the book? You might want to read the other three before you get to this one or if you want to get right to this one, consider at least reading Leora’s Letters, the first book, the one where I learned that all three men had died during the war, a book that reduced me to tears in a doctor’s waiting room.
Instead of commenting here, feel free to head on over to Joy’s blog and comment over there if you want to say hi! https://joynealkidney.com/
I’ve pursued family history research for probably fifteen years and have been reading Eilene Lyon’s fascinating blog Myricopia about her own research for a long time as well. Therefore, I had an inkling of what her new book was going to be about. But I had no idea how thoroughly researched and well-structured Fortune’s Frenzy would be. Nor did I realize how engaging a story she would create about the California gold rush.
Eilene’s perspective, like mine, is that the history of ordinary Americans is important and fascinating. When she discovered that some of her ancestors had been involved in the gold rush—and that their story was something brand new to our traditional historical vision of that event—it was a fabulous starting point for her project.
PLOT SUMMARY PROVIDED BY EILENE LYON
In this true story, Henry Z. Jenkins and a group of Indiana farmers use shady financing to make their way to California during the gold rush, causing devastating impacts to their families and their futures. Fortune’s Frenzy relates previously untold aspects of the gold rush: how the wealthy took advantage of gold fever by offering usurious loans, and how the cold calculus of transporting people to California became a deadly game for profit.
Eilene Lyon immersed herself in American history from an early age, when her parents took her to iconic sites such as Williamsburg, Philadelphia, and Gettysburg. She has been putting history into context through studying the lives of her ancestors for over twenty years. Her work has appeared in various history journals and can be found on her blog at Myricopia.com. She speaks on genealogy and family history writing at regional and national conferences. Eilene lives in Durango, Colorado, with her husband and husky-lab Sterling (named for a great-grandfather, naturally).
INTERVIEW OF EILENE LYON
Eilene has agreed to respond to interview questions about her beautiful book.
Your book tells the story of previously unknown ramifications of the gold rush as it affected countless Americans, but your story begins and ends with the story of Henry and Abby Jenkins. How are you related to them? Can you please describe these two characters to give prospective readers an idea of who these people were?
They are my 3rd great-grandparents (maternal). At this time there are no known images of Henry and Abby, so I can’t provide a physical description. Both of them have a family background in the Quaker tradition, having been born and reared in Philadelphia. Henry, though, was never a member of the Society of Friends, but his mother was for most her life. Both were well educated—Abby sometimes stepped up to teach her children and others. Henry and Abby had a strong religious faith, but they spent much of their marriage struggling to make ends meet, which added strain to their marriage. I get a sense they were very loving to each other and to their children.
Your book cover provides a startling look at one of the new ways of looking at the gold rush that you provide: a 19th century ship on a choppy sea! All this time I thought that men traveled from the eastern U.S. to California by land—on their horses or with buggies or covered wagons. But your book presents a completely new vision. Can you explain a little about why some people would have traveled on water—and do you have any statistics on how many traveled by water versus overland?
The sea route to California was a principal one from the very beginning, even though it had its own dangers. It actually cost less and involved fewer logistics than overland travel. People living on the east coast rounded up any vessel that would float (and some that didn’t) and went around the horn of South America.
Even in 1849, some went across Mexico from Vera Cruz, or across the isthmus at Panama or Nicaragua. Unfortunately, in the early years of the rush, there were few ships available on the Pacific coast of these countries. The isthmus route became favored by 1851, both going to and coming back from California. If you factor in the people who went there from other countries, the majority of people heading to the gold rush arrived by sea, landing in San Francisco. There aren’t any accurate statistics, though.
A detail about the cover image I’d like to note is the early steamship in the background. This painting was done in 1838, but these old ships were very much still in use during the gold rush years.
I was very taken by your writing style. You give beautiful descriptive details of time and place that can only have come from very intensive research. You also tie in what happens in the book with larger financial and political events that really made me feel that I was “there.” What types of sources did you use and how did you find them? And how did you find primary sources, such as letters?
Thank you! I spent eight years researching and writing this book. It began with a collection of Jenkins family letters that I’ve had in transcript form for decades, passed on to me by my grandmother. The problem with letters is that the people writing and reading them know the context, but from a 170-year remove, all of that is missing and has to be reconstructed. I was fortunate that I also found a Liestenfeltz family descendant who had a memoir written by another character in the book, and a Lowry descendant with another letter. I combed archives, partly using ArchiveGrid and the Online Archive of California. Some records I could obtain via email, but much of it was collected by visiting places such as the Huntington Library and Bancroft Library in California. I also visited the places in Indiana and Ohio where my characters lived.
There is a character in the book called Allen Makepeace. How would you describe him and how he made a living? Did he perform any vital role in life in those days or was he merely a parasite?
That’s an interesting characterization for Makepeace—parasite! He got into the merchandise business as a teen, bringing wagon-loads of goods from Ohio to Native Americans and early settlers in the undeveloped areas of eastern Indiana. He and his extended family were responsible for creating the town of Chesterfield and developing the Madison County seat of Anderson. Once he became wealthy, he served as community banker, because there were no banks at the time. He was not a benevolent lender, though.
I don’t think this is really a question, but I must comment that Fortune’s Frenzy made me imagine that the United States of this time period was really the beginning of the way things are run today by financial movers and shakers and by the legal system. People certainly seemed to take advantage of litigation. If you would like to comment on that, it would be wonderful, but not necessary.
It’s actually fair to say that the gold rush helped usher in modern financial practices. Companies like Adams Express and Wells Fargo got their start there and the need to be able to send money to families in eastern states drove the development of money transfer certificates and such. I actually find all the financial aspects of this story quite fascinating. It may seem tedious to others. For a time there were fears that all this gold coming from California would disrupt global finances and markets, causing runaway inflation. Those fears generally weren’t realized.
Eilene, nothing about your book was tedious! What motivated Indiana farmers to leave home and go to California? I imagine the draw of becoming rich overnight was huge, but why leave where they were?
You know the acronym FOMO (fear of missing out). Very real back then, too! Indiana in the mid-19th century was nothing like it is today. It was covered in dense, swampy forests. Clearing and draining it to create farms was incredibly difficult, back-breaking work. The pioneer farmers were actually better equipped physically to endure the rigors of mining than the doctors, lawyers, and shopkeepers—once they figured out what to look for and how to extract the gold.
What is the most important idea(s) or feeling(s) you would like your readers to come away with after finishing Fortune’s Frenzy?
In one sense, I wanted this work to stand as a valuable piece of historical research. But I did not want it to read like an academic book. I wanted to create a story that anyone could enjoy reading. Hopefully I have managed to meet both of those goals.
I’ve read a lot of gold rush literature—fiction and nonfiction—in the course of researching the book. I think it’s fair to say that even scholars of the era will find new information that will be surprising.
It isn’t important that this is a story about my ancestors and their network, per se. I hope everyone will get a sense that their family history is important. Their ancestors lived through historic events and even created them. History is not just about famous people, politicians, wars, etc. I think the everyday life events in Indiana, as depicted in this book, are fascinating, too.
