SPRING! SPRING! SPRING!

Coming up in March 20th, 2014 there will be big changes for my blogs. 

Right now I have three public blogs going. When I first started this foray into blogging I only wrote one. It slowly evolved into three public ones and several private blogs. 

I love the Blogger format and its ease of use, so I decided to stay with it instead of hunting for alternatives. This will remain. 

On Thursday March 20th, 2014 I will merge the three public blogs (Whitewater Valley Adventures, Squirrely Acres, and Whitewater Valley Historic Research) into one comprehensive blog. 

Everything I post from that date forward will go onto the Whitewater Valley Adventures blog. All my previous posts will remain on the original Blogspot blogs instead of being lumped into an archive on the new consolidated blog. 

As I create each post I will head each one with a designation of : Whitewater Valley Adventures, Squirrely Acres, or Historic Research. Many of my current readers enjoy all three blogs, whereas many do not even know that I write THREE blogs for public viewing.

This new direction will provide ease of use for my readership as well as increase the viewing of ALL my postings across the board. 

I have found though, that my Facebook followers still like the three separate pages. I will keep that as it is for now. Just as a reminder here is how you can connect with those there: Whitewater Valley Adventures, Squirrely Acres, Whitewater Valley Historic Research.

As we all know social media can become overwhelming and that was NEVER my intentions with any of this. So with that in mind, my new direction in the organization of writing for you all I wanted to give you a more complete look at goings on in the Whitewater Valley and also a more enjoyable reading experience. (While making my life infinitely more sane! We all know I need that!)

Please, please please! Comment, discuss, and suggest all things you like, don't like, or would like to see here in the future.

-Suzanna

So - A Needle Pulling Thread!

So many times I write about things that have connections for me.

What better symbolism than the above photo?

A needle pulling thread through a quilt.

A needle pulling and connecting seemingly unrelated scraps from everyday life to create a more than functional - dare I say ESSENTIAL? - work of art.

Today I visited the Conner Quilters at the Whitewater Valley Arts Association building where they meet every Tuesday from 9 am til 1 pm, weather permitting.

Even today the weather was permitting and cabin fever is rising here in the Valley!

I met some of our community's most talented artists today.

Most of them would refute that they are artists, but I am convinced the most important arts are the ones we weave into our everyday lives.

And these ladies certainly have done that!

One of the ladies asked me if I had seen the Quilt Show at the 2013 Bicentennial last summer.

AND HOW!

You may remember my blog post from Tuesday, July 3, 2013.

In it I am taken back to my childhood at the same Quilt Show!

My Land Of Counterpane!

I felt like a kid in a candy shop during my visit with these local artists!

I felt like I was among legends of needle and thread, legends of women who have gone before me in life, art, EVERYTHING.

I felt blessed to be able to find these women who are so willing to share time, care, knowledge, and laughter.

I can not wait til next Tuesday!

As I watched the stitches coming together today in the tiny quilting space where these ladies hold court I remembered sitting on my bed (upon one of the many quilts Grannie Katie had made for her unlimited font of grand children!) as a young girl learning the most basic of hand stitches.

I would get bored with the radio or the television and entertain myself with inspiring songs from Hollywood musicals.

Today as I left the Whitewater Valley Arts Association building I was humming this, one of my favorites:

I can hear Mom now:

"Oh, Suzanna! Are you EVER going to get your head out of the clouds?'

I hope not Mom, I hope not!

-Suzanna

Thinking Back on Those Who Went Before Me

If you are a regular reader of this blog you will know that I am PRE-occupied with thoughts on occupations.

I have always figured that if you study the things a person devotes themselves to you will know them on a deeper level. 

I have been fascinated since childhood with the various reasons an individual would choose a certain occupation. 

Two of my passions that have filled my inner world since I was very young have been art and writing. 

A very serious 10-year old Suzanna decided that she would never be able to support herself with either of these things and so threw herself into various other practices to secure her future endeavors. 

Big mistake, sister, big mistake. 

Thirty-five years later you have come full circle. 

Thirty- five years later you wish you were as smart as you were at age 9.

Thirty-five years later your heart is younger than at age 10.

As I was researching the illustrious Tatman family of Connersville, Indiana the other day I stumbled across a photo in Harry Smith's Connersville, A Pictorial History. (As soon as I get permission I will post that photograph here.)

The photo was a 1937 lineup of the twenty-nine employees of the News Examiner commemorating its fiftieth anniversary as a daily paper. Twenty-one of those were male, and eight were female. For those of you not in the know - the Tatman family was long associated with, no WAS, the News Examiner.

1937.

Things were still pretty rough all over in 1937. 

FDR's New Deal Programs were, at last, budging the morale across the nation. 

Work was being provided, skills were being taught, much needed cash was earned, and a sense of pride at earning, instead of being handed supplies, food and cash.

Here again I draw on history to help me cope with the present. 

Here again I say "What did my grandparents do?"

What did the nation do?

The previous way of life was gone.

So a new way of life had to be created. 

It is time for that again folks. 

Instead of saying "It's too hard."

It's time to just find a way while the naysayers are naysaying.

It's time to just get up off the dirt we were kicked into and just do the work of getting on with it. 

Many times an ending is overlooked as the beautiful opportunity for a whole new world. 

Adventuring into whole new worlds is not for the faint of heart, but it is essential to survival. 

Only the adventurers will survive. 

Adventurers never need to leave town though. 

The most wonderful adventure of all is staying and making what is old and shredded all new again. 

I looked at that 1937 photograph of those twenty-nine people and wondered what each one's story would be if I could ask them. 

Obviously each one got up and went about the business of business. 

This modern American society wants to glamorize the risk takers and drama makers. 

Some of the most riveting stories that have been unfolded for me were those of the ordinary man or woman just getting up and living life past the tragedy that every second of life hands us. 

Some of the biggest superheroes I have ever met were just average people I worked along side of, or sat next to riding the bus day after day, or the clerk that was always at that shop where I could run in and get what I needed. 

The most Shakespearean of dramas play out on the streets of every day American life and we walk past them not noticing every second of everyday. 

I have decided to be my own superhero and go back to that 9-year old little girl's world of the possibilities of living a life immersed in art and writing. 

We all know what thoughts the other possibilities hold so why entertain them if they do not produce the desired results?

This last little bit I leave you with just to prove that even bad things can make us who we are and we can be ok with them when we finally sit back and realize we would not change a single thing:

- Suzanna

One Thing Remains the Same

The term "Indiana winter" conjures a certain image in my mind.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/iwx/program_areas/events/historical/blizzardof1978/images/benko2.jpg

It is not an entirely accurate image.

At least not in the recent decade or so.

We have been pretty blessed with mild winters and typically hot sweaty Hoosier summers. 

The thing that HAS changed is that we no longer have four clearly defined seasons any more it seems. 

Winter belabors us into begging for glimpses of mud, long ago giving up the hopes of seeing sweet young green tufts of grass popping up through melting snow and along slowly languishing icy patches. 

Then, just as we have unrolled our last line of hope and good will, clinging on to life in the gray white state of blah that stretches along the varying landscape - 60 degree days pop onto the scene and melt everything into flash floods and washouts. Quickly the 70 degree days tease early planters to death flipping onto Randy Ollis' weather forecast for three days in a row. Then a late late season snow and one last frost comes to kill the precious young buds that foretell of beautiful tender fruits that would have been the young life of that year's orchards and gardens tucked in here and there in Hoosier's lives for generations. 

Its enough to make any regular Joe or Judy just throw in the towel and move south.

Not us died in the wool Hoosiers though...

Not us ones who KNOW.

Those of us who KNOW what secrets Indiana holds. 

We KNOW what buried treasure there is out there for us by living in this seemingly boring, white bread and butter, corn and beans world.

We let the rest of the world pass us by, because we know even with our truncated change of seasons, even with our lack of huge municipal funds to exact great changes in our communities (for there really are NO huge municipalities around to source that kind of fairy tale pot of gold), even with our clinging to generations of traditions that had more relevance in the past, we really KNOW we have the good life right here.

We really know that sometimes our unexpected harsh weather pushes us back to things we really know are the best things in life. 

When mother nature spreads her hands to dump a big heaping of what ever she wants on us this season we know that the most important things are our loved ones. 

Modern conveniences do not mean much when we do not have a connection to others. The ones we love, the ones we have spent years (or just beginning to spend years) pulling and pushing through this so-called hum drum life tucked in between the corn fields, cow pastures, factories, small towns, rivers, hills and hollows that we call Indiana are what REALLY make this place so special. 

It takes a special kind of creative life to repeatedly bring something forth from the depths of your heart that starts out as a feeling, becomes an idea, and then materializes soon into a new direction in life. This is what is needed every single day to stay connected, vibrant, and eternally in love with this Indiana of 2014. 

So here I extract another post from the depths of my heart securely wrapped up against the frosts and blasting winds of this harsh Indiana winter of 2013 - 2014. I sit at my laptop, sweet hot tea, cozy homemade afghans, throw pillows and my loved ones at arms length waiting to be folded up and told how precious they are just by my silent cuddle and pleased look on my face. 

Take this long winter's pause to just become human again, take in the wonders your life has unfolded for you and understand that this too shall pass. 

-Suzanna

A Line From Flaubert

** This frigid winter has been an excuse for me to catch up on my reading list and finish a few book reviews for area libraries.** 

One of my trips to the Rushville Public Library produced a surprising gem the other day.

One of the young adult books I had chosen was set in historic France. Recent historic France. As in post WWII. 

It was a Robert Cormier short novel. 

Tunes For Bears To Dance To. 

http://images.bookreporter.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/book_main/covers/0440219035.jpg

Have I been living under a rock? Is this a new classic? If not, I think it should be.

This short novel was quite a surprise to me.

From the beginning one can guess at a few different paths the plot would take. Honestly though, until very near the end I did not guess the deeper meaning Cormier was trying to convey. I admire this twist. I admire this approach to an age old theme because it gripped me right at the heart - and the throat - and made me think.

Here are the real tragedies and atrocities that life hands out indiscriminately to us, young and old; and Cormier’s story makes these two main points:

1    1. Recognize real evil DOES walk the face of this Earth.

      2. How you interact with this real evil effects EVERYONE.

The inner struggles of this eleven year old boy, Henry Cassavant, highlight the true mess that life really is. They highlight the million decisions each person must make every day, whether they want to or not. Cormier points out in details along the way that doing nothing IS a decision; it allows something to proceed and it allows something to cease.

Doing nothing is an acceptance of the status quo. Henry is faced with nothing new, but he grows, making decisions that are NOT accepting of the status quo. Three major areas of his life play out, that at first, propel him along on a path he has no control of. Then slowly, acts of evil, which on the surface look to destroy this child, actually inspire Henry to make decisions- little bit by little bit- that change lives around him for the better. Henry himself and the others are not even aware of the larger importance of his decisions.

Henry’s interactions with his employer, Mr. Hairston and his friend, Mr. Levine set in motion waves of action that reveal the age old faces of evil, victimization, and heroism. Cormier shows us that the small, quiet, humble heroes in life are larger than evil, larger than any publicly celebrated hero, or mythological knight in shining armor.

What does this book have to do with Whitewater Valley history you ask? 

Well, nothing really...and everything. 

We history buffs like to say if you do not study history you are doomed to repeat it. History is about the past, the present, and the future actually. You study the past, apply its lessons to the present - to have an improved future. 

Many changes need to happen in the Whitewater Valley. 

What interactions can YOU initiate in your beautiful valley by the river?

Instead of wallowing in the aftermath of downturns, like Henry Cassavant decide to not be SAD. 

Decide to DO something.

DO SOMETHING.

"Now Is Now"

As I previously posted, our bedtime story veered off the Wizard of Oz path for a while to revisit Laura Ingalls Wilder and share my connection to that life from my childhood with my daughter.

Since I was a small girl I was inspired by the stories that Ms. Wilder set down to pen for us so many years after the fact. I am happy to learn that my now 7 year old daughter and I both love these stories. Here in East Central Indiana in 2014 life is so very different than what Ms. Wilder experienced.

But yet again, is it?

For many of us rural dwellers life has many of the same rhythms it always has, being guided along by the seasonal nature of rural life. Even those of us who live in small towns that dot the Indiana State roads and highways are still aware of the seasonal changes in activities around us. Who has not had to wait for 15 minutes as a mile long train unloads or loads its freight of grain into or out of a silo standing as the castle turrets guarding a life that is all but vanished? How many farming implements back up traffic on heavily travelled rural state roads at certain times of year?

Most of us are well acquainted with the story of the Ingalls and Wilder families due to the popularity of the television series that aired in the 1970’s. I have been surprised at what new things I have learned rereading these stories throughout my life.

Little House in the Big Woods starts out in the autumn of 1871 and a grown up Laura retells her life in that continual ebb and flow that goes along with living a life dictated by the seasons. She leaves us off by the completion of a whole year in the life of the little girl in the little house in the big woods.

My own parents raised my siblings and me on a sixty five acre farm in south western Fayette County, Indiana during the 1960's and 1970’s. As my parents were raised in large part by grandparents born roughly in the 1880's, I had the unique experience of living a life where I could recognize Laura’s in my own.

My childhood home along Garrison Creek in southwestern Fayette County, Indiana.

I recognized Laura watching her Ma, Grandma and Aunts execute the hundreds of tasks around their homestead by just watching Mom, Grannie Katie, Aunt Estie, Cousin Bertie and countless others taking care of our own homesteads in the 20th century.

I recognized Laura being in awe of the courage and strength of her Pa, Grandpa, and Uncles by watching Dad, Grandpa Mack, Uncle Jim, Cousin Frank and Cousin Bert in all their old ways and morals in providing for their families.

Our huge barns were built in the mid 1800’s, there was a smoke house, several smaller century old chicken coops, corn cribs and other general purpose buildings built by well skilled German immigrant hands. My Quaker great grandfather’s tools were in the workshop of the barn and being used in the fields and pastures all around our place.  As a matter of fact, my older brothers enjoy attending antique tractor shows and being able to impress the older farmers with inside knowledge on just how to use, operate, and repair those old restored implements on display.

I am pleased to be learning from Ms. Wilder even yet. This time around reading the Little House in the Big Woods to my young daughter at bed times I discovered my now favorite part of the book that I had neglected until now.

The last scene in the book is one like any other a hundred times before. Laura lay awake in the trundle bed at night while Ma is knitting by firelight and Pa is playing his fiddle and singing softly the words to Auld Lang Syne:

“ 'What are days of auld lang syne, Pa?'

'They are the days of a long time ago, Laura. Go to sleep now.'

…she looks at her parents and the fire and listens to the approaching winter wind in the night and thinks to herself, 

'This is now.…all these things could not be forgotten ... because now is now. It can never be a long time ago.' ”

OH, Suzanna! : Books and Patty Pan

After returning from the Rushville Public Library, and having a nice chat with Sue Otte this evening, my daughter and I settled in for the bedtime story ritual we have had since the day she was born.

http://www.educationquizzes.com/blog-for-parents/2013/06/the-power-of-words/

Now, most of the summer and fall months of 2013 were spent bent over one of the volumes of the Wizard of Oz series we found in the stacks of the children's section.

By Christmas we were a bit worn out with all the gallivanting that Dorothy and her friends had done so we decided to break off a bit and try Laura Ingalls Wilder.

My seven year old daughter is delighted to hear that these stories were created from true events in Ms. Wilder's life.

After all, my daughter aspires to be a prolific author herself. 

And she is well on her way already!

We started with Little House in The Big Woods tonight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_House_in_the_Big_Woods

My daughter interrupts continually to ask of me the meaning of foreign sounding terms:

"On Saturdays, when Ma made bread, they each had a little piece of dough to make into a little loaf. They might have a bit of cookie dough too, to make into cookies, and once Laura even made a pie in her patty-pan."

Daughter- WHAT is a PATTY-PAN?! 

Me- You know, patty cake, patty cake? 

Daughter- Noooo-ooo? That's patty CAKE, not patty PAN! 

Me- Well, its getting late and we can look that up first thing in the morning since there is ANOTHER snow day tomorrow! 

So what am I doing? 

Sitting up late at night Googling patty-pan...

Know what I found out? 

(I don't like not knowing an answer to my daughter's questions?! Yes, but that's not the point!)

Patty pans were for patty cakes...patty cakes were....CUPCAKES!

You are probably thinking - Oh, Suzanna! Do you live under a rock?!

Noooo-ooo! I just don't watch much television, obviously!

http://matchbin-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/public/sites/624/assets/3HWZ_Patty_Cakes___Lifestyle_01.jpg

So I keep following the worm holes that the search engines just set as traps for me to be side tracked in research....

until I am sitting up at 1:05 a.m. dunking Pecan Sandies into Irish tea and listening to Acadian Fiddle music wondering if that was what Laura's Pa's fiddle sounded like in that little cabin in the big woods.

Well, I feel much better prepared for THIS first-thing-in-the-morning-convo with the resident 7 year old inquisitor!

I can hear my mother right now:

Oh, Suzanna! Will you just go to bed?! For ONCE in your life?!

sigh....ok.

Good night my friends!

Very important update to this post -

Daughter-Inquisitor woke up the next morning and I eagerly awaited her to sit at breakfast so I could tell her about my discovery on the patty pan subject. 

Upon telling her everything, she just looked up from her plate and asked for ketchup to add to her scrambled eggs.

And added: "That's nice Mom."