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A Salute to the Women of Main Street
I have to apologize for not writing sooner, but I have been writing like crazy, preparing Where Two Rivers Meet for publication. My deadline has changed, thank you, Lord, and I should be ready to launch in August now. I especially wanted to send regards to all women in March Women’s History Month, but as I said, I had to make some choices, and that was to keep writing.
Of course, in addition to my first two protagonists, Jennie Phillips (Scruples & Drams) and Maude Porter (Pins & Needles), I would have saluted my new protagonist, Abigail Robinson Camp Porter, who became the first woman in our little village. She had the spunk, the style, and the nerve to take on duties as the housekeeper for the village hotel in a wild-west burgeoning town of all men in 1855. She eventually married fur trader, farmer, and future Minnesota legislator–Thomas C. Porter, who also was an earlier settler.
I can relate though to Abigail’s aloneness and vulnerability. I began a new career at what was Northern States Power at the Monticello Nuclear Plant in Monticello, MN, while it was still under construction way back in November 1969. I felt a bit overwhelmed when I found out at the time, the plant had like 3,000 men from NSP and other construction and electrical companies working on site and I was the only unmarried woman. I met a few men and dated a few, but still went to Rapid t City to find the one.
So much news to tell you—I signed a contract with Heritage Books, Inc, out of Maryland, my current publisher of Pins & Needles, Postcards from the Old Man, and Steppes to Neu Odessa. They will now be carrying, publishing, and promoting my first novel Scruples & Drams as well. For those of you who did not realize it, North Star Press, my first novel publisher pretty much cut down on their business after the owner died. Now all of my books except for Around Clearwater, which is published by Arcadia, will be living at Heritage Book, my long-time associates. This will make my life so much easier. I will always have a number of books on hand for selling at various events.
What a surprise! Browsing through some of the books at Target, I found my book, Around Clearwater, along with others like it. I know Barnes and Nobel carry it as well. Don’t forget, I have copies of my books and charge less. It was a treat to see.
I have not signed up for spring events. But my summer/fall/winter are on the docket. I will be sending the information on to you soon with dates and times. But I am excited to add at least one new event in July at the St. Cloud’s Munsinger-Clements Botanical Gardens. I am so excited to be accepted.
Happy spring,
Cindy
Girls from Main Street sending their warmest advice
If Jennie from Scruples & Drams were still alive, I know she’d have made the same decision to carry DOVE chocolates in her drugstore. Oh, she’d carry Cadbury, Fry’s, Nestle’s, and Hershey’s of course. There is nothing like good chocolate whether you love dark or milk, or with nuts or with caramel. Good chocolate should melt in your mouth. Last year, I made a life-changing that I hope I can continue on for the remainder of my baking life.
My husband and I had stopped at one of our neighborhood grocery stores so I could pick up a quick couple items to finish baking cookies. It was a crazy house with attitudes blaring. Customers caught me every other aisle to announce, “All out of flour, all out of sugar, or all out of salt.” In addition, wire bins stood empty, and shelves glared out of stock, shouting, “Bah Humbug!”
We were coming to the end of Covid, or so we had been promised, but it was the continuation of shortages everyone was facing. I had to think fast, my husband was waiting in the car. I had plenty of staples, but time had grown short, and I hadn’t bought little things like Hershey Kisses for my peanut blossoms, a recipe given by a dear friend, yes, you, Marian K. I don’t mind making changes but what else could possibly top a blossom???? The store had a couple of shelves of different types of sweet delicacies like Old Fashioned Christmas hard ribbons and crystally candy in yellows, reds, and greens, some with sweet fillings, but no Hershey Kisses. They had a scattering of chocolate stars, peanut butter cups, and many varieties of Dove. I grabbed two bags of the milk chocolate Dove and checked out, hoping I had no reason to return soon.
I mixed my peanut butter blossoms–double batch because I felt hopeful. After peeling each little squarish bundle of goodness, I topped each of the dozen freshly baked and still hot cookies with a promise. I finished the job of plopping and pushing down, just a bit, promises. After a cooler bite of the new concoction, still warm and melty-like but one that was kind of deformed and broken, I was sold. Jennie, Maude of Pins and Needles, and Maude’s mother Abigail in Where Two Rivers Meet, the girls of Main Street, would agree. They are the best cookies in the world. They wish you the Merriest of Merry Christmases and the happiest of happy New Years.
Take a few moments during this busy season to focus on Dove’s “promises”: 1. Compliment someone. You’ll feel better than they (he/she does) do. (Sorry, the English teacher in me can’t let it go. 2. Life happens between an inhale and an exhale! 3. When life isn’t going right, go left. And the girls’ favorite: 4. Dare to cross the line. If you remember the messages in the books, you’ll know the line they crossed to help someone or two.
And a word of wisdom from me. Put on a pot of tea, pot of coffee, or even make hot cocoa. Grab a whole cookie, one that isn’t broken or deformed, sit down, put your feet up and enjoy a few minutes of solitude and deliciousness. You deserve it.
“…..Lean your ear this way…..” from “Jolly Ole St. Nicholas”
Feel free to share my website or my Facebook post with others…..
Finding the path
Courage
Today, I came across the post (below) about COURAGE in my feed. I posted prior to responding. Now I am responding because I really took the time to think about it. The original post will reappear below my blog.
I never thought about six types of courage before. I always figured courage = courage. But now I see the six categories and realize I have been tested in all six. I won’t bother with every detail; I know you thank me for it. Some I passed with flying colors, some I passed by the skin of my neck, some I am still working on, and some will be marked by the test of time. In one instance, I feel, my whole BEING was tested in all the following categories at the same time.
Physical
Social
Moral
Emotional
Intellectual
Spiritual
One time, I felt my whole character had been challenged. I’d never in my life felt so alone. I wallowed in the pit of despair for quite a while. I still wonder if I passed the test completely. Judgment, rationality, emotion, trust, and even physical–because a disability that everyone who knew me knew about–came into play. All of this brought me to my proverbial knees. I called upon Him on throughout this ordeal for He reminded me to “call upon the rock from which I’ve been hewn.” I clung.
When I gathered myself together after the attack, I realized I had to face the enemy, but how? I had to dig deep for the courage I needed to go back to the scene of the crime the next morning as frightened as I had ever been. Unfortunately, at this stage, I trusted no one. I did my job and stuck to it. Little by little, I talked to whom I thought I could trust. I did not go to the top for I do not have a voice that can persuade kings. I used the power I had, my pen, and documented everything and found someone who could be the power behind me. I had to stand straight, be tall, and appear strong. A doll collector for years, I felt as though I was being propped up by one of my doll’s metal display stands.
I went through many emotions during this ordeal but realized my real fight was moral, my character was on trial as well for I had been tested on lies and another’s failings. Again I intellectualized and internalized everything and continued to speak to only those I knew I could trust. Let me tell you, I talked it out and out and out. Thank you to–sister, husband, sons, and true friends–for listening.
Even though I wanted some truth, I never truly found how the ordeal came to its fruition. I heard bits and pieces and knew I had to keep on in peace and quietness (except with those I trusted). Everything I had worked so hard to build had been tested and had come into play. I used John Proctor from Arthur Miller’s The Crucible as an example when talking to my children and students. For those who know the play, they know Proctor has done lots of things wrong. Yet during the groundbreaking events of the Salem Witch Trials, he will confess to being a witch if it means he can save his family from further hardship. Yet, when it comes to signing a confession and hanging it on the church door for all to see, he won’t do it. To Proctor, nothing is worse than a tarnished name. That is–if we are stripped of everything–our names will be all we are remembered by. I was standing in the same place. I did not want my name or my character to be tarnished either.
(“Cowardly Lion, bing.com”)
At times, I still feel like the Cowardly Lion in this scene from the “Wizard of Oz”:
Dorothy: My goodness, what a fuss you’re making! Well, naturally, when you go around picking on things weaker than you are. Why you’re nothing but a great big coward!
Cowardly Lion: [crying] You’re right, I am a coward! I haven’t any courage at all. I even scare myself. [sobbing]
Cowardly Lion: [singing]
I’m afraid there’s no denyin’
I’m just a dandy-lion
A fate I don’t deserve
I’m sure I could show my prowess
Be a lion, not a mouse
If I only had the nerve.
So, am I a mouse or a WOman? Coming out on the other side, I remember how hard it was to stand alone. I suppose I learned I had some courage, but I also realized I can count on my own discernment and insight to call on stronger forces when necessary.
How about you?
What has so unnerved you that you stopped to question your own purpose?
Writing 101: Bringing Light on Writer’s Block
If writing is going to happen, it might begin after my first cup of coffee. I achieve this by pouring dark House beans into the grinder and roaring this until I get a fine powder, dumping it into a paper-lined funnel, pouring in cold water, and flipping on the switch. While I wait for this to brew, I pour water into my Keurig for two cups–to share with my husband. I toss in a House K -cup and press “ON.” The two pots come together and finish together. I take my cup of Keurig and fill it up from the regular pot. Then I slide into my Lazy-Boy, switch on my cup heater, and set the cup of alertness down. I turn on the laptop, wait for warmup, and take my first sip. I know it will take more than this to get all of my lights to start blinking.
I’m usually running empty when I wake. Very few logical thoughts–only intuitive-actions can get me this far in the morning. Family knows not to talk too loudly or, if possible, not at all, “Let me have my first cup of coffee,” before I’m expected to make some decision or sign some legal document. If I were to exaggerate this, I’d be funny. I’m speaking the truth. It will take that first cup of caffeine to trigger the neurons in my gray matter before I get the eye-opening, thought-focusing jolt to begin my day and clog up that great big cavity of nothingness. On a good day, I might start typing, officially brainstorming about and writing on my next project, which is now my latest novel, the third in a series, Where Two Rivers Meet.
But sometimes, I need more than java. I need physical inspiration–whether I am trying to fill in a plot segment, follow the yearning of a poem, or conceptualize a blog, without which I am just a blinking cursor. I feel like the chocolate Easter eggs or bunnies, hollow inside. So on one of my good days, I joined my sister on a trip to the Mississippi River, to wander on the path my protagonist, Abigail, would have walked when she disembarked the steamboat Governor Ramsey below the bluffs at Clearwater.
The date was August something, 1855. She would become the first white woman to come to the village, and she would work as the townsite’s hotel housekeeper. Brave she must have been to come alone from Vermont, via, stagecoach, train, and steamboat to an area wild with male ambition. Her brother-in-law, Dr. Jared Wheelock, the first doctor in Wright County, Minnesota, would be there to keep her company and in the area to keep an eye on her. Her cousin’s husband would be building a bigger and better hotel eventually, but it would be a couple of months before Jared’s wife, Abigail’s sister, would join her in the town. Yet, all this I know and have written about already. While I love the free feeling of nature down here–birds singing and light breezes moving the trees and the river’s current, I need something worthy of writing.
As I turned around, a tree with two huge cavities lured me to come closer–to gaze into its hollowness, touch its rough bark, feel its smooth green leaves, and look UP. Thick branches, wide and round spread their leaves above and over our path, joining other branches and other greenness, forming canopies of sorts. However, the tree alongside this enchanted forest-like walkway beckoned me into imagining life before I arrived on the scene, before Abigail arrived, and before white male settlers staked their claim to this part of the Mississippi River. So beguiled about this tree, I searched the Internet for answers. “A tree hollow or tree hole is a semi-enclosed cavity which has naturally formed in the trunk or branch of a tree. They are found mainly in old trees, whether living or not. Hollows form in many species of trees, and are a prominent feature of natural forests and woodlands, and act as a resource or habitat for a number of vertebrate and invertebrate animals.[1]”
Read on in Wikipedia to learn that “it may take 220 years for hollows suitable for larger species to form.” So how long has this tree been standing? Would Abigail have seen it in its youthful stage? Had it already developed a small hole? The article provided more. I learned that this hole is never truly empty. Yes, all sorts of creatures may live or burrow inside.
All writers have the block one way or another. Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, and others. They give great advice on 13 Famous Writers on Overcoming Writer’s Block. For now, I believe in myself again. I am inspired and feel my synapses firing again.
Memorial Day, 2022
Friday, my sister and I made our rounds in the St. Cloud and Sauk Rapids areas to honor and remember our relatives and friends. Although I never knew the Atwoods nor Nancy Wilson Atwood Allen, they, or at least Nancy, are characters in my next novel, “Where Two Rivers Meet.” We believe Nancy needs recognition. She came to Minnesota around 1858, settling in St. Cloud, right across from the famous newspaper editor, Jane Swisshelm, her house, and the St. Cloud Visiter and St. Cloud Democrat office. They became fast friends, and Nancy’s oldest and Jane’s daughter married. Nancy was an “artistic” ambrotypist, which included taking tintypes. Her story is truly amazing, but she died young in St. Cloud and is buried in North Star. More to come when my novel is published, which will be third in the series of strong Clearwater, Minnesota, Main Street women.
Grandma Ina
Not sure I’ve told you about Grandma Ina, my mom’s mother. She was born in 1902 in Ionia, Iowa. She graduated from Nashua High School and received her state credentials to teach at country school at the same time. After a tornado took the farm in 1918, her parents moved to the St. Cloud area. She followed them. Once in St. Cloud, she attended St. Cloud Normal School to be recertified to teach, this time in Minnesota. Eventually, she met my grandfather, had seven children, and then grandchildren. From tiny on, like most grands, I loved this woman. I know she loved and enjoyed me and all her grandchildren; she had the art of making all of my cousins, and brother and sister, (18 of us) feel like we were her favorite. I sure did. As a youngster, I took for granted Grandma’s impact on my life. She and Grandpa were around a lot, coming to many church and school events and hosting many many family events. It wasn’t until I became older, I learned more about her.
I remember her sweet presence in my life and mostly out on Grandpa’s and Grandma’s farm out in Haven Township, east of St. Cloud. She and mother gathered to pick vegetables from the garden and what they could can for winter suppers. I’d wander around the back yard, being watched and warned not to go too far because she and Mother worried I’d fall into the river beyond their house. Once, for some reason, she and I were left to our own devices. I followed her to the old pumphouse, probably to gather water for her flowers. I remember stepping on a slanted board to get up to the building, and when I left ahead of her, I was stung by a hoard of bees. I felt a splash when Grandma dropped her pail and grabbed me. We both screamed and cried loudly until help came. Dad caught me up and carried me away, while Grandpa moved Grandma out of the way and with a rake and an old burlap bag moved the nest away from under the pump house ramp. Grandma ran to the house to get baking soda and Mother. Mom held me, as Grandma tended to me with dampened soda made into a paste to sooth the many stings.
Grandma Ina wasn’t a “cool” grandmother. Only when she was older and became sickly did she wear slacks. She didn’t take off to have coffee or a drink with other women friends, belong to a bowling team, or even go out dancing with Grandpa. She didn’t drive. She went everywhere Grandpa would take her on Saturday. Grandpa worked at the Great Northern Car Shops, so he left early weekday mornings and came home at supper time, which meant she stayed home all day by herself. She was definitely old school. She wore nylons and dresses almost always, and at home she wore an apron over it all. She knew how to schedule out her day. When I stayed with her, we ate, did dishes, ironed (I don’t remember washing clothes or taking them out to hang), during her late morning and early afternoon, she watched soap operas like “The Secret Storm.” Later, while I read one of the Little House books, she wrote letters or played Solitare. Before long, it was time to make supper. I set the table for Grandpa, Grandma, and myself. After doing dishes, I brushed my teeth and took up bed on the sofa to watch television with them until I fell asleep or they went to bed. Grandma made everything cozy. That is who she was.
As a self-absorbed teenager, I just assumed Grandma would be around for all my major moments, and she was. From my brother’s graduation and party after at our restaurant, she and Grandpa were there. I know she came to my confirmation in the Methodist Church of Clearwater. I am pretty sure she was in attendance at my 8th grade graduation as well, upstairs in our town’s old brown schoolhouse and told me she wept during my class’s processional to the tune of “Pomp and Circumstance.” She came down for Mother’s Day dinner in South Minneapolis where I lived in 1970 while I worked down there. She was often at our house for Sunday lunch when I came home for the weekend. And of course, she and Grandpa were in attendance for my wedding–always there with love, hugs, and kisses.
It wasn’t until years later, I learned more, bit by bit, about Grandma and gained more esteem for her. She was, like I said, home and heart. She had strong ties to her family, whether they lived in Washington, England, Iowa, or off the coast of Japan. The door was open her friends and family. When her son, Dick, went hunting duck or pheasant, she cooked up a feast. Thinking I was eating delicious beef, I found out it was duck. The gravy and potatoes pulled the meal together. Somehow, she eased me into eating wild food without me freaking out, and I could tell stories of how obstinate I could and can be around the dining table. She created many culinary pleasures in a kitchen that came out of early 20th century The Ladies Home Journal–homemade cabinet for dishes, sink, small refrigerator, gas stove, and low enamel table, and a unlevel linoleum-covered floor for putting a meal or desserts together. HGTV home designers would shun her farmhouse. Besides the old- fashioned kitchen, her house was tiny, but sufficient for her and Grandpa. When company came, we did the best we could to gather around the table for holiday meals. Not sure she wanted more or expected more like wives in the earlier part of the century, Grandma had the art of making due. We can be sure she had plans to do something with her life early on though. She was smart and knew how to better herself so she became a teacher, not in Iowa as she planned but in and around the Stearns and Benton Counties. Later on, she inspired her grandchildren with the help she gave with algebra and grammar. She played piano and organ. In fact, not only did she play on occasion at the Haven Township church down the road, but she played for the Little Brown Church in Nashua, Iowa, where the well-known song, “The Little Brown Church in the Vale” https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=the+little+brown+church+in+the+vale+song&&view=detail&mid=69F71C7C5C62B5C98B1F69F71C7C5C62B5C98B1F&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dthe%2520little%2520brown%2520church%2520in%2520the%2520vale%2520song%26qs%3Dn%26form%3DQBVR%26%3D%2525eManage%2520Your%2520Search%2520History%2525E%26sp%3D-1%26pq%3Dthe%2520little%2520brown%2520church%2520in%2520the%2520vale%2520song%26sc%3D5-40%26sk%3D%26cvid%3DAFE0B5DF36F54A929B68AEA063B39028 was written. She also has an a plaque is hanging on the Little Brown Church wall in honor of her as one of the organists.
So many memories…like most of you have of your grandparents, you received love and acceptance from them no matter the attention you gave to them them. My sister Becky and I wondered why we never took Grandma out shopping or out for coffee by herself. Probably because as the two retired, they became more of a pair, and we couldn’t take one without the other. As a teacher, now retired, I wish I’d asked Grandma what it was like to teach–the discipline, the subjects and how the students were prepared to learn. I remember her playing the piano and then sending it to our house for me to learn on. I never thought of asking her what it felt like to vote, for she was a woman of that time. There are so many things I’d ask her now if I had a chance, and I’ve heard that said by many of us. Although, I began to write about a strong, influential woman like those I write about in my Minnesota Main Street series during March Women’s History month, I decided to talk about another type: The mother, grandmother, wife, aunt, sister, and friend, like most of us have had in our lives, that have stayed by our sides, and left their hugs around our shoulders, their kisses on our cheeks, and their touch on our hearts and minds.
Welcome to two immediate book-selling events that are coming up:
Saturday, April 23, Spring has Sprung, Sartell Community Ctr, Sartell, MN..10-2
Saturday and Sunday, May 7-8, St Cloud River Event Center, 10-4
It’s all in the past
I wanted to wish everyone a unique Happy New Year for 2022 a month ago. I saved this blog and then forgot to send it. All this to say, this is my theme for the day: Forgetfulness.
Even typing 2022 seems as foreign as 2021, 2020, 2019. (How long it takes me to remember what the year is when I’m writing out a check! Geesh). While I want to forget some instances of 2021–Covid and drought– I had a pretty good year. Book-selling was profitable–but at times, sitting in sun and dealing with humidity wasn’t; always awesome to be with family and my precious grandchildren–but dealing with crazy, erratic drivers is scary on our way to the Twin Cities.
I may have forgotten to tell you when we went out east last fall and visited Stowe, Vermont, especially where my next protagonist, Abigail Perkins Robinson Camp Porter, was born and raised. The Stowe Historical Society invited us to come to their building first to talk. We saw many of the same buildings still standing that were built when the state was formed back in the late 1700s, preserved and rebuilt like they were, or better than they were after they were first erected. It brought history into believing.
On our tour around three of the eastern states, I was excited to finally visit Robert Frost’s first farm in Derry, New Hampshire. I have read so much of his work. If I could ever memorize, I’d probably drive you crazy reciting poetry or Bible verses. Fortunately for you, I can’t and won’t.
Here I am at one of the last apple trees still standing that Frost planted. So many apples fallen, squished, and decaying, I think of one of my favorite poems, “After Apple-Picking.”
We re-visited lots of wonderful sites in Concord and Lexington in Massachusetts. While the North Bridge isn’t much longer or wider than the Plum Creek Bridge by Warner Lake, it is known to be where the British and Colonials exchanged the first “shot heard round the world,” beginning our country’s fight for independence.
It was just as much fun to drive other countrysides and see places that had a start in the formation of our nation! I had forgotten so much of what I had already seen before. Our trip provided a historical refresher course when touring the home of Louisa Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s (two homes), Ralph Waldo Emerson’s houses, and Henry David Thoreau’s cabin near Walden’s Pond. Not much of the history has changed here either.
I am about 1/3 finished writing my 3rd Minnesota Main Street Women‘s novel–a prequel to Jennie’s and Maude’s books. Currently, I am working on Maude’s mother, Abigail Robinson Camp Porter, the founding woman of Clearwater. She hopped off the steamboat at the Ferry Landing on the Mississippi River in Clearwater to cook supper for the men in camp by the town hotel. They pulled a door off its hinges for her to use as a table to set up for her first meal of fried potatoes and side pork.
I’m a frequenter of antique stores, Etsy, eBay, and other historic sites and museums. I’ve browsed period pieces for my setting of the new novel, 1830-1881. I basically know what women used, wore, cooked with, washed clothes with, but I could use your help on agricultural or other male-dominated tools or items. For instance, I recalled, we have my husband’s grandpa’s cast iron shoe anvil. Did he bring it from Slovenia when he immigrated? No one knows, but it fits in with Abigail’s 2nd husband’s story. Tom Porter (another founder and leading citizen of Clearwater) left Pennsylvania around 1847. The 1850 Minnesota census states he was a cobbler. We also know he got his start in Minnesota Territory and Canada as a fur trader.
S. M. Marvin was another character in Clearwater and distantly related to my mother’s side. He was a carpenter and built the Clearwater Methodist Church–(still active, remodeled a few times, and standing on Main Street). My mother had a chair built by him (now donated to the church). A good friend has one of Abigail’s rocking chairs that was handed down to Maude. I mention this rocker in my new book as well as Pins & Needles (Maude’s story). Because it looked like the chair our family had which was built by S. M. Marvin we think both chairs might have been built by him as well. So if you own or know of anything old and of the era of 1850-1881, send me a story and picture so I can include it in my story. It doesn’t have to be Clearwater made or owned, just of the period.
So HAPPY NEW YEAR again! Hope to see you soon if not sooner at least at my next book launch of Where Two Rivers Meet. HINT: Abigail is having a memory lapse so she is relying on others to fill in with some descriptive elements.
P.S. I joined in on a group of book lovers from a local AAUW club on Wed, Jan, 5 who were reading Pins & Needles. Otherwise, I am open to any speaking engagement–book clubs or a being special speaker at an event, etc. Please send me an invitation at cstupnik@outlook.com, cstupnik@gmail.com, or my website email above. I’d be glad to come.
Cindy–