OH! Suzanna...What's in a name?

Now, I was not named after any one in particular but it is fun to do genealogy and find there were so many interesting characters with my name back through the years in our family.

Here is a copy of a genealogy done long ago on a part of my father's family that lived way way back over 100 years ago.....

Possibly THAT Susannah was just as mouthy as I and the Indians thought that instead of kill her and bring a host of bad medicine on themselves they would just release her to go back to her people and cause them more harm with her PRESENCE  than with her ABSENCE.....

sigh....OH! Suzanna.

Visit your local library, history museum, Family History Center or Genealogy Center and start your journey into family stories you never knew existed.

Another good resource is to visit Facebook and look for any genealogy pages on areas that your ancestors lived in. My family has connected with quite a few distant cousins we had not heard from in possibly 30 years this way.

Here is one that is from the Jackson County, Kentucky group page and where I got the graphic above:
http://www.facebook.com/groups/289962277699433/

The next one I will try to find is on Stamping Ground,Scott County, Kentucky.
<a href="http://www.genealogyinc.com/kentucky/scott-county/">Scott County, Kentucky Genealogy, Facts, Records & Links</a>

You never know what you will find.

-Suzanna

OH! Suzanna

Ken Curtis has been the bane of my existence for over 40 years now.

Not really, but as a teenager I thought he would be.

Who is Ken Curtis you ask?

Doesn't look familiar?

How about now? No? HHHHHMMMMM....

Not there either huh?

Hmmm, he was an accomplished swing band singer, a lead vocalist to many country and western bands; he was a respected entertainer.

So what did I have against Ken Curtis?

He was a really really really good actor. That's what.

He made people of my heritage seem to be a joke. Well, HE did not really- the producers of a very popular t.v. show did. His skill at pulling off his craft?  Well, THAT'S what clinched the stereotype of the country folk come to town persona for the last 50+ years.

Gunsmoke. Festus Haggen. 

Yep, even I have made the joke that someone was just too .....um, UNCULTURED and called them Festus.

uh, huh...

The first time I connected Ken Curtis to some other characters in movies and t.v. series from the past I just about fell off my chair.

Ok, so what has me all "riled up like a polecat in a possum trap" - as Festus would say?

Last night I was watching an old episode of Gunsmoke on the Western Channel (yes I do that from time to time.) I sat through the entire episode and not once did I NOT understand a thing Festus said. AND then I thought about all the other current shows on t.v. that are portraying country people's lives right now. REDNECK is the term that comes to mind. HILLBILLY.

Swam People
Moonshiners
Ax Men
Redneck Intervention
My Big Redneck Wedding

I could go on and on.

I have noticed that there are subtitles provided with these shows at times.....

I am embarrassed to say I can understand even the most deep running Cajun accent they can dig up. Well, I am not embarrassed any more. I have come to understand that it is because I have had the opportunity to experience these cultures. All over the U.S., not just here in Indiana. Not just in the south. ALL OVER.

It is not just the speech that is the point here. It is the idea that a certain type of person will have backward ways and antiquated thoughts and ideas without even knowing them. The practice of labeling a person or group of people. Yes to a certain degree it is good that we do this. It is what gives us a sense of self and belonging to something bigger than us. It gives a very primal sense of clan, of family. That is needed. But to look upon another group and ASSUME you know the ins and outs of who they are, how they feel, and what they do is just nonsense.

Stereotypes hurt because there is a portion of truth in them that we do not want to look at. It is hard for folks to look at themselves and see what others see. But what if what other folks see is not true? What if what they are seeing is made up?

Here I will use Festus' own words against him:

{ Festus one day was contemplating learning to read, but had one question. So he asked his good friend Doc Adams:

"Supposin' I was to go to work and learn how to... to read writin'. Well, how'd I know the feller that... who wrote the writin' was writin' the writin' right? See it could be that he wrote the writin' all wrong. Here I'd be just a readin' wrong writin', don't ya see? You probably been doing it your whole life, just a readin' wrong writin' And not even knowin' it." }
http://octaviasmith12.blogspot.com/2009/08/thoughts-to-ponder-from-festus-haggen.html

What if we are reading the pictures wrong too, Festus? What if the writing, the pictures, the words coming from people's mouths are wrong? What if we are believing so many things wrong we don't even know what our country really is like any more?
How does this apply to the Whitewater Valley area?

There are many people who have preconceived notions about what this area looks like, what the people act like, what there is to do here, how life is lived here, what education is like here. There is a whole bunch of wrong writin' going on.

THAT'S what made me mad at Ken Curtis for so long. He was so good at what he did and it seemed so harmless.

Yes, I know he is not the cause of prejudiced ideas and behaviors.

To infer that would be just silly.

I used Ken Curtis and his work as an example. We get sucked into believing things that are not true. Or are only partially true.

EVEN about ourselves.

So what are we to do about it?

I suggest the best thing to do is get off the computer chair.
Turn the computer off, go out the front door and just start finding people to talk to.
Interact with other people. People different than you or people that work and live and play differently than you do.
Mix and mingle.
Try new things, but most importantly -
Look a person in the eye when they talk to you - or when you talk to them.
Shut up and listen. Listen to someone else for a change. A real live voice, not the letters on a screen of some one's e-thoughts!
Think about how you would feel if you were them.
Go out there and experience the world and people.

When someone becomes flesh and bone in your line of vision there is something very special that starts to happen - to YOU.

You become more human. 

More emotional and more messy. Because that is what it means to be human, That is the human condition.

You begin to see that there are similarities and differences in every person of every relationship that comes your way in life.

You want to know how your town can be made better? YOU make YOU better. Go out there and make you better in the town or community you want improved. That is it. It will not happen over night, it won't be easy. It won't even save the world, but if it can make things a little bit more real, then it will make things a little better.

Believe me it will.

-Suzanna 

This is just a quick post for something so neat.

A friend of mine just clued me into a wonderful web site. For those of you who like to read this will be like candy!

http://www.whatshouldireadnext.com/



 (Wait, if you did not like to read...you would not be reading this would you? Sometimes honestly, Suzanna!)

sheesh....

OH, Suzanna! Librarians I have Loved Part V

I am so profoundly thankful that the internet did not exist the way it does today back when I was entering High School.

I had so many important questions that I did not even know how to form in my mouth. The internet would have answered questions I had not even asked yet. It would have formed me into someone totally different. I would not have liked who I would have become. I know this in my heart.

I decided to keep my opinions and ideas to myself and wait for a more productive time to share and test them out on folks.

In the mean time I continued to read and learn. As I said earlier I decided also it was time for me to grow in ways that I had previously not. I buckled down once again to see what other avenues of thought were open to me at a pretty great high school. Over the years there one idea developed for sure: I figured out the things I did NOT want to do with my life.

Again, I have forgotten the librarians' names at the high school. I do appreciate their efforts in keeping the most up to date things they could at the time. They had an enormous task before them and did it very well. Again though, some of my favorite librarians were actually literature teachers. Ms. Beard and  Ms. Boehmer.

These two ladies worked within the confines of a small school corporation to inspire young minds to think beyond what they were told, to think beyond themselves, and more importantly just HOW TO THINK FOR THEMSELVES. They used books and assorted reading materials to introduce new and old concepts and philosophies to us.  Archetypes and Utopian Societies. Those are the two most important things I got from their classes. Oh, no, it was not. To question, to do my own research, to comprehend and act with RESPECT while doing all these things are the most important things I learned from them. I learned that it was ok for me to be fed up with being a teenager, but act in a way that reflected a more mature attitude then. I learned that it was ok to be fed up with the way things always seemed to be run, but act in a way that was respectful and responsible. Those ideas do not always look the same in every situation. I learned that debate was not being disrespectful, nor was it bad form. As a matter of fact I learned more about a respectful, well prepared, and productive debate in these two ladies' classes and than I have ever seen exemplified elsewhere before or since. Everything was up for discussion. I do not remember anything being turned down for discussion - but then again that was 1983 - 1987 not 2013. Many things in life have changed since then. But then again they really have not, have they?

We still need people who are in positions of leadership and power and influence to do those things with respect, with a thought toward what is really better for those they are leading, in power over, and in influence of. We need people who really CARE about their profession. A librarian is so much more than just an paper pusher or mouse clicker sitting behind a counter giving you dirty looks when you turn in books late. As a matter of fact most librarians LOVE me after they get to know me. My over due fines are sure to have produced the Massanet Wing at the St Louis Public Library...

http://www.facebook.com/STLpubLibrary
http://www.slpl.org/

 added a whole new children's department for several small libraries scattered here and there, and probably provided funds for several community programs developed all over Indiana. I am a virtual Carnegie of over due fines.  NO I am not advocating stacking up over due fines wherever you go! I am just making fun of myself and my habit of loving books too much to want to turn them back in on time. I seemed to have, at one time, viewed due dates as a loose idea, not as a rule I think.....

Speaking of due dates: this is what started this whole line of Librarians I Have Loved.

An old check out card placed in the middle of a book and forgotten there for a few years. 

See, I even loved to look at the info these cards held. At one time the card belonged to the book attached to it. Later to conserve cards, just whatever card was in the return box was used for the next book checked out. But, in the beginning when a card was designated to a particular book and kept in its sleeve, you could tell when the last time the book was checked out. RENEWAL was usually stamped, or just the name rewritten in again. 

http://www.neatorama.com/2012/08/15/For-Sale-Check-Out-Card-Signed-by-Elvis-Presley/

As you can see in some instances you could see WHO had borrowed the book and when.

This led me to remember way way way back in the days of Junior high School I had borrowed two books on Irish Folk Literature form the Fayette County Public  Library. I remember looking at the check out card and only one other person had checked those books out in the 11 years they had been in the circulation stacks. I thought How Sad.

No one else knew about the adventures of Cu Chulainn and his hounds. Or Brighid. Or Fionn mac Cumhaill and The Fianna of Ireland. Or Connor Mac Nessa.

http://www.luminarium.org/mythology/ireland/

I did what I was not supposed to do. I checked them out and never brought them back. I paid the lost book fees and kept the books. That was possibly about 1982. In about 2001 I came back to Indiana and told my story to the librarian and paid out a gift to the library. I had to relieve my thieving mind. She laughed at me and said "You know you probably relieved the collection of some dead weight - AND you said you paid the lost book fee at the time. That covered the cost to put NEW books in circulation. You did us a favor, no one had checked those books out since the first person, no one CARED."

That made me even more sad. Because I had, in the interim, lost the books for real.

- Suzanna

OH, Suzanna! Librarians I Have Loved Part IV

The summer between my 7th and 8th grades was a blur. I became an aunt that had to learn how to care for an infant nephew and niece to help out. I was temporarily side tracked with these new little loves.

Indiana summers can be killingly humid. I decided I would start reading all night long and sleep through the hottest part of the day - except when my mother decided I needed to be part of the land of the living.

http://www.rustedmoonoutfitters.com/summer

One of my favorite things to do was lay out to get a tan, and read. Yep, that's right we used to do that sort of thing before tanning beds.  Really, I liked the reading better than the laying in the hot sun. I got bored, my mind wondered and raced, I thought of a million different things to do or write. Reading made me settle down enough to get some sun. I am still the same way. I would rather be doing the thing than pretending to do the thing. I would rather be in a canoe than at a rowing machine, rather bike than in a spinning class, go hiking in the sun dappled woods along hilly trails instead of on the stair master watching the t.v. mounted on the wall with no sound but subtitles provided. I like the REAL, not the facsimile.

Reading created a reality in my mind that made it SEEM real. I could - can - get so in depth in a book that I am right there with the author. I am the character. I can taste and smell, hear and feel the surroundings, the setting of the book. But, I could shut the cover and instantly be brought back to the reflective tanning blanket and sweat laying on my fed up skin.

Then I decided to bring out my note book and pen to take notes on things I wanted to study more in depth later. When I started coming back in with blue pen ink smeared into my sweat and baby oil covered, grass stained body I decided I just was not made to have the tropical tan to look like a healthy young woman. I wanted to take my book and note pad and pencils into the woods and hike and think and write. I wanted to drag my borrowed books from the library into the cool woods and lean against a tree and read and read and read. I wanted to be surrounded by the woods and earth, the fields and cliffs, and thickets and hollows and hills - all the things that Frost and Thoreau and e.e. cummings, and Yeats and James Joyce and Kavanagh and George William Russell wrote about and around.

Something like this went on in my young mind in the woods on Garrison Creek:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxhivPXeRN0&list=PL47989F9292194E8D

I read fiction and poems, classics and obscure scribblings.

I devoted my whole love to writers who had a different accent, but ones so very close to what I knew. Irish and Scottish, German and Russian, Norse and Icelandic and Dutch. Appalachian and U.S. Southern.

http://digitallibrary.imcpl.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/riley/id/4

Looking back this was a feat. My local little library supplied all these things. There was no internet to GOOGLE anything on. I liked it better then.

But, I knew that was my season for selfishness. I learned from my sister and sister-in-law becoming first time working mothers. I learned from my new nephew and niece. I knew somewhere in my future I would become a wife and mother, possibly a business woman, surely a woman with a career away from home 8 hours a day. How would I, how COULD I indulge my addiction to fiction once this other person came into being? No, this was my selfish time and I did not have an ounce of guilt retreating to my hiding places on the farm to explore from someone else's perspective till the day came when I could break away and venture into the world in God knows what adventure or direction.

BUT, I would not even had that spark of where to read had it not been for Mr. Hopkins. I was mired in the technical, the prescribed, the assigned. He took young minds and dared us to read what ever the heck we wanted to - just report back on it to him, and to a lesser degree the class. He wanted to really get to know who we were from our inner workings of our minds. He did not really grade so hard on punctuation and grammar until the second semester. He just wanted to reach us in a way we had not been reached before. Push us into that first step of self responsibility for who we would become in a few short years.

I was tired of stories that explored the earth. I wanted to explore the mind. I wanted to explore other's minds. I wanted to know what others thought about this world. I wanted ones who had lived to tell me. I wanted those who had had troubles and careers and failures and successes and life and death pass their way. I was ready for more meaty bites of literature.

So on came the pensmiths that shaped me in one way or another:
Irene Hunt
George Orwell
Ray Bradbury
Ayn Rand
James Agee
Upton Sinclair
Eugene O'Neill
John Steinbeck
J.R.R. Tolkein (No one can EVER convince me that any of the recent movie adaptations of his books are any where NEAR the enthrallment of a 14 year old girl reading these for the first time!)

My list can go on and on and on.....here, just look at this link and it will just give you the tiniest taste.

By the end of the summer my mind was reeling. I did not know what to make of this world that was out there. I knew it was changing too. I knew if I was to survive I needed to learn quite a few things about life before I could be considered grown. I suddenly wanted to be a little girl again playing kick ball with the rest of the kids at Orange School out by the well house at lunch recess. I wanted to sit on my favorite rock by the cow pasture fence and read to the cows once again. The cows had been sold. We were not farmers any more. My outer world was changing as fast as my inner one was.

I was ready to get back to the safe routine that school provided in the fall, or I thought I was.

Suddenly, when I was told something I knew to be false - I was outraged. Not just perplexed, outraged. How could someone who professed to be doing something for the good of every one else tell such untruths? The t.v., the News, the Papers, the Magazines, the Administration, the Government, the Politicians, the TEACHERS?!

 Was I a budding conspiracy theorist? Or was I learning to see through the b.s.? Perhaps it was a tiny bit of the first and a large bit of the second.

I learned soon enough, though that the only ones that wanted to debate the issue with a 14 year old were at my home. (I trusted that somewhere there was someone, but I knew it was not to be where I was then.) I did not have much in common with my friends of my youth or the new ones I had tried to make in the past 2 years. I learned that I was in more suitable company with folks older than I. I learned to listen to what they said, process it through what I knew and what I thought and then carefully ask questions about why and how.
I suddenly despised all teenagers, including myself. I wanted to grow older and not be a teen. I wanted to have wisdom, knowledge, and skills. I wanted to be of worth not just taking up space and having social dramas.

http://www.zap2it.com/news/pictures/zap-hollywood-celebrates-teen-read-week-20121016-6,0,4874819.photo

I distanced myself. I wanted to hole up somewhere for a few years learn and do and master and come out like a butterfly - no not a butterfly, like a moth- sturdy and full of work to be done. Little did I remember that moths are seen as destructive to humans. Their work is not what WE want done. We want the fabric of our society to weave nicely and mesh just so. The moth likes to nibble and nibble and nibble away and expose the weakness of the weft and warp.

I will continue "Librarians I Have Loved" in Part VI V.

-Suzanna

OH, Suzanna! Librarians I Have Loved Part III

I need to go back to my childhood to continue with the librarians I have loved.

My mother being the first librarian I loved, as I said, caused me to follow in her foot steps to a degree.

Those first librarians' faces I encountered at the Fayette County Public Library have long since blurred into my memories of that early elementary school time.

 When I entered Kindergarten I was bussed across the county to Eastview Elementary School. It was a town school and I was a back-in-the-sticks country girl. The whole lot of us that were to go to Orange Elementary School were bussed to Eastview for Kindergarten. Orange did not have a Kindergarten. We were one of the few schools that had only one room per grade. Most had multiples of each grade in the school. Consolidation was the norm by then you see. Any way, I do not recall getting to visit the library at Eastview. It was half day kindergarten and I just don't think there was time. Also, students were not expected to be able to read in Kindergarten back then. I think it was 1974. Preschool and daycare were not the norm for Fayette County children even at that late date.

http://fayette.k12.in.us/orange/

Orange Elementary School was closed, along with Alquina Elementary School, at the end of the 2010-2011 school year in the Fayette County School System. For now the website is still up. I do not believe anything has been added since the school closing. There is a Facebook page for Orange elementary School alumni at http://www.facebook.com/groups/78062015408/ . If you are interested in joining  you can ask the administrators of the page. 

The librarian I remember from my childhood is Donna Coyle. She was also our school secretary. The school library, for the smaller children, was housed in bookshelves that lined her office walls. In my childhood memories Donna always had the prettiest smile and nicest disposition. Even when the "bad kids" acted up. I wanted to be like her. She got to dress up and WORK IN AN OFFICE! (That is another post entirely again. My love for playing OFFICE instead of HOUSE.) After I grew up I realized I could not STAND being cooped up in an office all day long, so my fascination with that occupation quickly wore off. Donna had the longest, darkest brownish black hair I think I had ever seen in real life. It was shiny and laid perfectly over her shoulders. Donna also was the school nurse most of the times, since we did not have one full time. To me she was the angel of the school. Maybe some of those "bad kids" did not think that so much, hard to tell.

Then, right before I was to enter the 6th grade, 1980, we moved to a different area of the county and that meant I changed elementary schools. Fayette Central. It was a mix of town kids and farming kids. MUCH different than little old Orange school, it gave me a healthy dose of what Junior High School was going to be like the next year. Even though the library at this new school was much bigger, I missed Donna and the homey little collection at Orange. I missed all my friends I had known since Kindergarten too. I am ashamed that I do not remember the librarian's name there at Fayette Central. She and my sixth grade teacher saw that this home sick little girl liked to write. They asked me to write something to enter into the Young Author's contest that year. In class we were encouraged to work and rework our pieces. We had a small contest in the school. I won one of the entries our school would provide. We were to present our entries at Maplewood Elementary school. I honestly do not remember if I went any further in the competition or not. All I do remember is in reading my story to the other kids in the group - other kids I had never met before - I held their attention. They asked questions afterward. Some laughed that I chose to write a book about a cat, a cat named Shoelace. Some thought it was funny, some thought it was cute. I saw for the first time that people who did not even know me could like what I had to say. It was one of those moments when you think you can see snapshots of the future glimmer in your imagination. Mrs. Butler was my teacher, but as I said I have forgotten who the librarian was. I am sorry because I would like to thank her.

When Junior High came along I was so busy with reading for Literature class I did not have time to really enjoy the school library. I was one that needed HOURS in the library. It was like savoring a fine wine for me. I had to peruse the whole collection of stacks, I had to run my finger along the drawers of the card catalog, I had to check out what classics they had, what fiction was presented, what magazines were tilted against the funny little display case for them. THEN, then I would decide what direction to start in. It could take me an additional 30 minutes to even choose a book from that area. No silly class run to the library would ever suffice for me. I would just halfheartedly pick a few out  and not even worry if they had been read or not before the next library day came around.

http://fayette.k12.in.us/~cnewton/mrs_newton/webpages.html

In the above photo is the Connersville Junior High School's Library, excuse me it has been changed since 32 years ago to Connersville Middle School Media Center. Anyway, I KNOW those chairs are the same ones that were brand new in the 1981- 1983 school years that I went there! I hated that pattern then and I hate it even more now. If I ever get rich I will donate new chairs for these kids......sheesh! Just joking, I love all of my former digs at all the libraries I have used! As you can see from the linked website above Mrs. Newton is an excellent resource for the children that pass through her doors.)

Mr. Hopkins, my 7th grade Literature teacher, became my librarian. His assignments were gruelling at times. But I loved almost every one. EXCEPT anything to do with seafaring..... (I must have been reincarnated from a sea crossing pilgrim that went down with the ship or something. Every seafaring book held a sort of asthmatic reaction for me. Claustrophobia at even the THOUGHT of being stuck on a relatively small bit of wood for WEEKS at a time?! NO, no way. I get that same feeling every time I see an advert for a cruise ship! I LOVE the water, creeks, streams, ponds, lakes, rivers, reservoirs, and even the ocean. It's the thought of being on a boat for that long. It held a feeling of captivity that made me just want to jump from the desk seat and run for my life. Maybe that is why I had a great sympathy for slaves. The hopeless captivity I could ALMOST relate to.) Mr. Hopkins introduced me to the great classics of literature! It was wonderful. It was like fairy tales for grown ups! What a great idea! I was so glad someone thought to do it. Writing the classics that is. He encouraged us to adopt a  pseudonym that we would use in all our writing that year. I can not remember what I chose. His was Hopkeon, or spelled something like that anyway! I thought that was neat. He knew we might be able to write more openly if we were these other people instead of our geeky little 7th grade selves. The only time I ever used a pseudonym in my adult life was years and years later on the internet.... hhmmm.

Mr. Hopkins introduced to me the idea of a summer reading list. You know, the one teachers used to issue you at the beginning of each school year hoping you will read these in your spare moments until you entered the NEXT grade. The next grade assignments, we were told, would ASSUME we had already read that list and would NOT make allowances for us to catch up. I was an avid reader so I usually had the list read by the end of Christmas break. (I wish I could go back to my former teachers and remind them of the old adage about what ASSUMING gets us....yes I AM cheeky.) I was not any more dedicated, I have found, than my fellow students. My father knew there were many boys on the other farms across from ours and found many many ways to keep me safely hidden behind our creek and swinging bridge. "Mind your Mother!" and "Do your homework!" were the only threats my father ever yelled at me that I remember. But it was fierce enough that I did just that. Well, the second one at least.

Mr. Hopkin's selections began to foster a spirit of questioning authority in me. Respectfully, but still questioning. At first it frightened me to question. I was 13, what the heck did I know to question?! That was the point, wasn't it? To question led to learning. Self guided learning. I loved it. Soon I was bored with everything else at school but literature and writing. I wanted to feed this questioning beast inside me. For that season Mr. Hopkins was able to keep up with its appetite.

http://petshopboxstudio.com/about-us/

Then the summer between 7th and 8th grades came. The monster grew a bit too fast.

Tomorrow I will continue with "Librarians I Have Loved" in Part IV.

-Suzanna

OH, Suzanna! Librarians I Have Loved Part II

Librarians I have loved. Hhhhmmmm....
There have been many. There have been various personalities.

As I previously said my mother was the first librarian in my life. She was in charge of our in-home collections of reading materials. I suppose she had no choice, really. Between her love of reading and her mother doting on us five children (Grandma Landers' ONLY grandchildren!) she was forced into it. If she wanted to protect her precious reading materials from five high energy children she had to come up with a way to not  constantly want to strangle us for all the destruction that ensued. (After all, the first of the brood had unceremoniously stacked up and sat on, there by crunching under a diaper wrapped heiny, Mom's entire 45rpm record collection from the 1950's! Yes that meant ORIGINAL rock and roll greats that Mom had listened to as a teen.Yes, that child has forever more been looked upon as TROUBLE. And it was not ME! Yea!)

Grandma Landers was a retired teacher/principal/saleslady/farmer/lawyer's wife, etc by the time I had come along so all five of us were her pet project in a big way. We were blessed with old pull down maps, Audubon Society charts, globes, dictionaries, thesauruses, encyclopedias of every hobby and like that we could come up with, an upright piano, various field trips (kind of like the Von Trapp Family Singers - well, except not talented, pretty, or beloved by a whole nation.....) AND the dreaded cemetery visits! THAT is another whole post on its own, so I won't get into that here now. Just suffice to say that it included family history and travel and boredom and lots and lots of lessons in doing what your loved one wants - just because you love them.

All my life I have been told that what you do in front of your children they will do also. It certainly is true about Mom's reading! We five children like to read or learn new things all the time. We like to acquire skills and DO things. With this in mind I made a point while I was pregnant with my son that I walked to the library every few days and chose books to read aloud. Then I realized that even though the baby was not born yet I still did not want it hearing certain things. AND I DID want it to hear other things! It may have been a bit foolish, maybe not, but it set a pattern of intentionality toward my children's upbringing. It also renewed my love of fairy tales, folklore and rhymes. I was living in Denver at the time and I had access to three different libraries. The Main Branch, the Park Hill Branch and the Mayfair Branch. The Mayfair Branch does not exist any more. At the time it was in a strip mall at the south end of Mayfair Park on Holly Street. We lived in two different apartment buildings during this time on either side of Colfax Avenue on Ivy Street. Park Hill and Mayfair were quite long walks for a very pregnant young wife, but as Denver is a very pedestrian city this is what I did. It made for good exercise and fresh air. My mother would have been scared to death if she had known that I even walked there in snow storms that winter. THAT was how much I loved my books, the libraries and the librarians. I was new to Denver and I learned a lot from these buildings, people, books, and experiences.

Dr. Seuss wrote " OH, The Places You'll Go!"  This was one of my favorite books to read to my then yet-to-born-son. I like to think that he had this notion that Theodor Geisel wanted to foster planted inside him even before he set foot in this world. I like to think that I, yes me, I was HIS first librarian. I do know that my son lives this little story every day in a big way, so maybe I did influence him.

When my son was older I could go to the Main Branch of the Denver Library more often. It was farther away from our apartment and he did not like to sit still as I whiled an entire day away in the seemingly endless stacks. One day, while serving jury duty downtown, I had several hours before my husband was due to pick me up. This was before cell phones so it was customary to just wait for your ride instead of calling to change plans at the last minute. (I HATE CELL PHONES.) I accidentally strolled past the library without realizing it - until in the February cold I decided I would freeze to death if I did not find a public building in which to while away the hours. Then, it hit me- the library was just back there! I walked as fast as I could to get inside.

Now, in major cities it is common to see homeless people inside the libraries in very inclement weather. Some librarians in Denver were heartless and drove them off, some just let them be as long as no trouble was involved. I did not want to risk being mistaken for a homeless person (I was bundled up pretty heavily against the Mile High winds), so I asked how late they were open as I had to meet my husband down the street and wanted a warm place to read until then. The librarian assured me that I was fine. Then I asked her a question I will never regret. "What is your most favorite collection here?" She looked very surprised and said "Follow me quickly!" She took me to the Genealogy section. OH MY GOODNESS! There was a three tiered mezzanine that would have held three Fayette County Public Libraries in it that was the Genealogy Department!

That started my first real endeavors into historical research. I was hooked. It was 1991. I was reading complete strangers' life histories and they were amazing, and totally normal. Each one made me think what life had been at that time. Also I wanted to do research about other details in the stories. I was frustrated because I was running out of time to kill. I was determined to come back. I did, any time I had the spare minutes to break away. The Main Branch stayed open until 10 p.m. then so it gave me more time. Not much, but enough to foster my burgeoning history addiction.

Tomorrow I will continue "Librarians I Have Loved" in Part III.

For now, I will leave you with links to the libraries I have visited quite often in the last few years:

Fayette County Public Library and here

Rushville Public Library and here

Cambridge City Public Library new building project album  and here

Franklin County Public Library and here

Henry County Public Library  and here

Shelby County Public Library  and here
One of my favorite librarians just passed away this week after I started this article. Julie Hankins was a great lady. She often times could be heard laughing over the sound of the rowdy children that would pile in after school at the Shelbyville Library. She called me her little bag lady because when I was  going to school online I would bring my laptop and bag, my camera equipment and bag, my school books and bag, my library books and bag....etc. She could always spare the time to chat with a patron and tried to make everyone feel welcome to use all the facilities and programs. I will miss her as a librarian and a friend. 

Marion Public Library  and here

OH, Suzanna! Librarians I Have Loved Part I

I should say the very first librarian in my life was my mother. She loved (and still does) to have stacks and stacks of books on hand in any room in the house. There was a special book case in the living room that I was not allowed to touch until I learned to read. I am supposing this was to inspire me to higher learning instead of a long life of picture books. When I learned to read there was just one shelf of books that I was allowed to peruse. I was told the other books and shelves were for the teenagers and the adults in the house, the topics were too mature for me. We were allowed to have books in our rooms and pretty much where ever we wanted, but this particular bookshelf was closely watched by my mother, or at least she led me to believe that. I was not about to slip up on this one thing and lose the privilege of THE BOOK SHELF. I wanted to read those OTHER books! So I tried to obey as best I could. I passed.

(Below is the happy little mess I refer to as Becky's Library. My 6 year old daughter's design I assure you. Half of the books are in the head board bookshelf, on the living room coffee table and end tables- you name it- even a few in the bathroom!) 

My maternal grandmother sold Compton's Encyclopedias in her off months of being a teacher/principal. At our humble farm we had an impressive (impressive to a young child like me anyway) tan leather bound set of Compton's at our disposal. Grandma thought it best for her five grandchildren to have access to research material for our school reports. Then the world started changing way too fast for the encyclopedias to stay up to date economically. AND we started making weekly trips to the Fayette County Public Library. It was opened up to county use in 1974, before that it was the Connersville Public Library.

Here I was introduced to something bigger than myself. Something respected and what I thought would be permanent. The building was built to inspire and draw one into the heavy wooden stacks of leather and paper. There was limestone, brick, marble, tile, leaded glass, deep hard wood floors and heavy wrought iron  and brass hardware. There was a smell of wood polish, and stamping pad inks, of window cleaner and shifted dust, of cool air and various perfumes of visiting patrons. I acquired my love of architecture from this building. It was not just a beautiful building - it housed a soul. It had a purpose and a very important function. It was needed and loved. It was a quiet world of repose and reflection, of contemplation and learning, of planning and striving, of building up and preparing, of bemusement and entertaining. I absorbed at a very tender age the whole concept of the Arts and Crafts Movement in architecture with out even realizing there was such a thing. 

I was taught that reading held the possibilities of the world in a little bound bit of printed papers. Reading was a ticket to any where, anything you wanted your life to be. Reading materials and your imagination married and created your own offspring of thoughts, desires, attitudes, and aspirations. It effected your heart. It effected your life. In that old Andrew Carnegie building it was a real possibility.

My grandma often talked of when the progressive movement started to influence ideas across culture. One of the ideas was that public buildings should have high ceilings so as to inspire awe and reaching heavenward, to facilitate the room in which to strive toward higher thinking. That made sense to me since the library was a perfect example of this concept.

 In 1981 my beloved library was replaced with a newer one that even to this day we locals still refer to it as The New Library. I guess I was not the only one that loved the old building.

In the 32 years that have passed I have found my favorite places with in The New Library. The place that I love to pretend is my mobile office for research is the Indiana Room. Comfortable leather chairs and high quiet stacks also make room for (now) ancient micro film readers, computer terminals and printers.

This past Sunday morning (January 6, 2013) while prepping veggies and such for the upcoming week I was listening, as usual, to NPR (National Public Radio) on my 20 + year old boom box on the kitchen counter. This week I caught a segment borrowed from IPR (INTERNATIONAL Public Radio) called Selected Shorts. I was pleasantly surprised to hear Ray Bradbury's "Exchange" being read. I remember reading this short story in high school, perhaps junior high school. I don't remember, but I DO remember being impressed that I was the soldier and wanted to be in my future life the librarian. Not a librarian necessarily, but LOVED like this librarian was. I knew this story would stay with me. It had changed me in a way I was not yet aware, but knew it had changed me nonetheless.

Thirty odd years later I think I put my finger on that change.

Mr. Bradbury had captured the magic a librarian holds (held?) in her/his hands. The knowledge a librarian holds, the power that knowledge gives one. Or it was that way. See, librarians did not have to be computer programmers, accountants, or marketing specialists. The librarian was the master of the collections. The librarian knew the regular patrons and knew their tastes, knew their dispositions. The librarian could kick you out of the library if you did not follow the rules. (Or quietly tell a high school Suzanna to toss the can of Mountain Dew in the trash immediately or she would call Suzanna's parents.) The librarian was your friend and loved to see you grow if you would let them. The librarian LOVED the collection and wanted to foster that love in anyone that walked through the big heavy Andrew Carnegie gifted doors. The librarian was there year after year because she/he WANTED to be. This was their love, their career of passion. The librarian watched children grow to adults, watched adults become the aged, watched families grow and move on. The librarian knew so very much of the town.

One of my behaviors of habit that I acquired early on in my travels is that of upon entering a new town I visit the library and ask of the librarians all the information I want of the town. I have never been disappointed in the answers I have received. If the librarian did not know, a further source within the city was offered. Maps and city organization, business districts, hospitals, pharmacies, parks, entertainment. Sure, now these days you can just Google your inquiry and get results. BUT, will you get a FAVORED answer? Will Google tell you that the waitresses at the diner down the block will refill your drink for free if you just say thank you and please? Will Google tell you that the best put in for your kayak is on the south side of town, (where the river's waters quiet down much more) not the more heavily advertised north side near the canoe company? Will Google tell you that the road of the cemetery (that you researched in the Indiana Room) where your great great grandpa is buried is in ill repair and is almost a gravel road again and it might not be in your best interest to travel it in this down pour of rain today?

Tomorrow I will continue "Librarians I Have Loved" in part two.

-Suzanna

OH, Suzanna! Baby Names to Consider in the New Year

As with any new year the life style sections of magazines (online and in print) are flooded with trends from the last year and projecting forecasts onto the new year's definition of trendy. I have been bombarded with baby names every where I turn.

Anyone who has been an expecting parent knows how frustrating it can be to choose a name for the baby. When I was about 13 I was so tired of hearing the discussion about my niece's possible names that I announced that I would from that point on call "The Baby" Hedwig Harrison, unless a name was decided on BEFORE the birth. Hedwig was a popular Old German name and paired with Harrison it had a nice ring to it. I was hoping this would shock the expecting parents into action. Apparently it did because we have a Jennifer in the family, no Hedwig.

I had a brother-in-law that was so very tired of the discussion that he told his wife that until she picked a name for "The Baby" he would be calling it "Lemonjello." Lemon Jello was his favorite treat. So you see it can produce some extreme results.

There is a rumor that my parents were kicking around the name "Paladin" for one of my brothers. This was supposedly after the western television serial of the time - "Have Gun Will Travel." I am certain this was a joke between my parents, surely not a real consideration. Given that it is old French for one who is a military leader this would have been a fitting name for him as he had a long military career.

My name has always puzzled me. The only claim to fame I knew of it having was of the old southern song, you know it - "OH, Suzanna, don't you cry for me!" and so forth. Then when I was older a Jewish client told me that my name was from the Bible. I could not find it any where. For years I searched and decided he was pulling my leg. Then a seminary student assured me that yes it has been up for discussion a couple of stories concerning the Suzanna/ Shoshana character and they were both in the book of Daniel and not something most Protestants wanted in their Bible. I will leave that up to you to research on your own. Then in the last few years I have heard that there was a widow woman in the New Testament that helped to bank roll Jesus and the Disciples' ministry. That made me feel better, even if I could not substantiate the truth from fiction on the Suzanna subject. Silly how the meaning or the connotation of a name can make you feel about yourself. But, thankfully I have had the attitude most of my life that I am not like any other and so I don't base my life on other namesakes lives.

Just being made aware of a case where a 15 year old Icelandic girl is fighting for the legal right to keep her own given name of Blaer (meaning "light breeze" in Icelandic.) It seems that a few countries have a Personal Names Register limiting the names one can attach to their offspring. READ STORY HERE.

So, anyway I had the fortune to stop by the Rushville Public Library recently and stumble across a book: "Indiana Territorial Pioneer Records 1801 - 1815" Compiled by Charles M. Franklin. Mr. Franklin's preface to the book made me laugh out loud AT THE LIBRARY! Shame on me! His reason for compiling this information was to fill the gap of records from around the 1732 Vincennes fur traders to the first Federal Census in 1820. He says: "In this volume will be found 64 lists of early Indiana residents that were voting, fighting and complaining." Not much has changed in 200 years!

In the Miscellaneous  section on page 79 was a simple list:

Miamis In 1814

Pecon-ah

Lapassine or Ashenonquoh

Osage

Na toweesa

Mesheke Cata - or Big Man

Sana mahhonga - Stone Eater (Pulling Stone)

Neshe peh tah - Double Tooth

Me toosania- Indian

Chequia - Poor Racoon

Wapepecheka

Chingo maga Eboo - Owl

Ke we se Kong - Cicada Traveling

Wapascebanah -White Racoon

Che ke me Tine - Turtle's Brother

Pocond oqua - Crooked

Showilingashua- Open Hand

Okawea - Porcupine

Shaw-a-noe

Mawansa- Young Wolf

M____wawa - Wounded

Sangwe comya- Buffalo

Pequia- George

Krelswa- Sun

Wansepea- Sunrise

Augatoka- Pile of Wood

These were the names of the Miami Indians living in the east and south of what we call Indiana, at that time, that would consent to give their names for a count. I wonder how many of those are real names. "Yeah, my name is Pequia." "What does that mean?" "George." "Ok."

1814. In Indiana. Holy cow! It was surely information that was gathered in 1813 before it was recorded in local government records in 1814. That was 200 years ago. Our nation is not so new any more is it?

Why can't we have some good old fashioned made up Indian names for new baby names? That would be pretty cool. I propose that parents get a bit more creative and historically correct (even if the veracity of this account can not be substantiated)! If they were made up names then that meant that our Hoosier forebears had a sense of sass that I kinda like!

Speaking of sass, I think we should use our rights to name our children whatever crazy thing we want. I do however suggest that you impart to your dear child some moniker that has some meaning for you, the child, or the family. It is like a tattoo: you will have it for the rest of your life so it better be a good one. (I used to beg my kindergarten teacher to let me use "Sue" instead of Suzanna, she rightly did not relent. She told me one day I would like it and I should get used to it as a young girl, since I would have it for the rest of my life.)

A book I would like to have one day....

http://www.cowanauctions.com/auctions/item.aspx?ItemId=17071

P.S. The use of "forebears" I do not like. It makes it sound as if my family were raised by bears. Well, maybe that is where my sister gets the saying "DO NOT POKE THE BEAR!" when she wants me to leave her alone.....

-Suzanna