Road Trip: Meigs County, Ohio

We took a break yesterday and went on a little drive over the Ohio River and into Meigs county. We've been through Meigs before but there were a lot of areas we had not yet seen. It's funny how you can live so close to a place but never really know it.

Our first stop was at the Buffington Island Battlefield Park, which also has an Indian mound in its center.

The view from the top of the mound is serene and rural, with cornfields and trees the predominant features.
There are many mounds along the Ohio River, built by the early Native American cultures. This is, I suppose, one of the smaller ones. Many were destroyed by early settlers as they developed cropland.

The Battle of Buffington Island was the largest land battle to take place on Ohio soil, and even as such it was a fairly small affair. I remember attending a re-enactment of the battle in 1997 or 1998 that was held in this park but had not been back to visit since then.

Inside the old stone restrooms, the glass block windows and stonework create interesting patterns.

The road along the river is straight in many places, lined with corn and produce farms. There aren't many houses along here, just quiet, farms and corn. This area is called Long Bottom, with good reason--long, flat stretches of good land.

Further north we spotted another monument, up on a roadbank so we turned around to investigate, and found ourselves standing on a campsite occupied by George Washington in October of 1770, when he was surveying the Ohio Valley.

The view from the site was gorgeous and it was easy to see why Washington elected to camp there: a long view of the river and anyone approaching, and at your back a steep stone cliff that would keep any attackers at bay from that direction. 

This was hostile territory then, and history is filled with stories of attacks and atrocities by both the settlers and the natives.

My favorite house on this side of the river! Isn't it stunning? It looks out across a broad sweep of valley and water.

I can never get enough of looking at the "Beautiful River," although often I think of how many lives were lost trying to navigate its treacherous waters back in the days before the locks and dams tamed it.

We turned west and away from the river finally, and headed into interior Meigs. This bridge crosses the lovely Shade River and is the entrance to the small town of Chester. We did not stop here, or take any photos, although there were several places that looked interesting. We were looking for lunch at this point, and apparently Chester offers no places to eat except a convenience store. Maybe we just missed it.

More of Meigs county in my next post!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Ravenswood Booth Update

It's been a while since I did a good update on our booth at the Riverbend Antique Mall. We haven't sold a lot of furniture there recently, but the smaller items have been moving like hotcakes and as most sellers will tell you, it's the smalls that make the difference in profitable sales.

Here's a few of the new things in our booths at Ravenswood (WV):

 I finally brought in the two chairs we had reupholstered. I'm selling them for $90 for the pair; I think they're an exceptionally good buy. Not a big profit for us, but a great satisfaction in rescuing these from the auction trash pile.

Old postcards--beautiful framed or used in crafts, or just to look at, and only $1-$3 apiece.

I love chalkware fruits! These are in beautiful condition.

Got the blues? Here's some that will brighten your kitchen.

Or, if you're having trouble seeing the future, this huge magnifying glass with its silverplated handle might help. Only $39.

Mirros, lamps, small tables, toys, picket fence, shutters, old doors...we stock a little of everything because you never know what people might be looking for.

Two fun mugs! A huge "Texas Short Beer" and a West Virginia Coal Miner stein.

Old fans are so cool. This one is a smaller version, and runs like a champ.

Boating, anyone? Not old or even vintage, but kinda cute.

A touch of old Paree', even!

Kitchenware is really my heart, as this tabletop clearly shows.

A bot of everything, from crocks to kettles to books to a fairy lamp, all housed around a 7-Up crate.

A few new items on the shelves. I have to admit, I wanted to keep that bird statue. I have such a thing about birds!

This last one is blurry--sorry. It's hard to tell when I am taking photos with my phone. I forgot my camera yesterday. The clock is a Tasmanian Devil football clock, pretty cute!

That's a quick look at a few of the recent changes in our booth. I'll post more when I go back next week.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Mr. Montelius, Mystery Man

I was looking up and pricing some recent finds when I came across this watercolor. 

It's an original, but it was in a funky frame so I took it out to see the signature. And of course broke the glass. Ah well, all swept up. It's discolored, probably from years of being in that frame, but I like the beige-y overtone.

The signature was carefully printed at the bottom left corner in pencil. Harry Montelius.

So I went looking for other work by this artist with no luck. Apparently he wasn't a known artist, then, but perhaps just a man who had taken an art class, or who like to paint, and this was the lesson in perspective. I tried googling his name and came up with a random list of Ancestry and other genealogical sites. Which one was the right one?

I have no idea who this man might have been. Was he the one who graduated from Michigan University in 1917? Was he Harry Everett, born in Ohio and lived in Illinois? Or Harry Howard of Pennsylvania, married to Sarah? Were there any living children or grandchildren? I could find none. Was his family originally from Sweden, as other searches indicate? Was he the Dr. Montelius in a photo for sale on eBay, dressed for a Shakespearean play? 

I guess I will never know he he was. I won't know what he did for a living, who his family was, where he lived, nor anything else about him except that he painted this watercolor which ended up in a thrift shop in Ripley, West Virginia.

I like Harry's painting. I had planned to sell it, but I think I will re-frame it and hang it in my living room--a mystery painting by a mystery man named Harry Montelius.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Ghosts of Our Past: The Surprises of Family History

This is Antietam Creek. The photo is from a post I wrote in 2013 about a storytelling trip to several places, including the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. We stopped  briefly to visit a few sites on the Antietam Civil War battlefield which was not too far away in Maryland. At the time it was just an interesting historical location, although the description of this creek running red with blood during the battle chilled my own blood. It was horrible to imagine. I wanted to stay and wander here, to think about the men and the lives lost, but we had places we needed to be so we drove on.

Battle for Antietam bridge, from Wikipedia

Then this summer I learned from my sister Judy, who has been hard at work on our family genealogy and history, that one of our ancestors died at Antietam, and that his blood, along with that of hundreds of other soldiers, ran down this creek when he was killed at the terrible fight at the bridge. Until she found the records in her searches, I had no idea that we had a family connection to this place.

The bridge today is calm and peaceful, yet stories abound of ghosts and hauntings there. It's not hard to understand why. Here is one tale of events at the bridge, from the website Military Ghosts:

"Those who have spent time at the area known as Burnside Bridge on the battlefield, especially those park rangers and Civil War re-enactors who have been at the location after dark, say that there are strange things going on there as well. Historians and experts report that the fighting which took place here in 1862 left a number of fallen soldiers behind and many of them were hastily buried in unknown locations near the bridge. Could these restless souls be haunting the area? Visitors to the bridge at night have reported visions of blue balls of light moving about in the darkness and the sound of a phantom drum that beats out a cadence and then fades away."

The relation who lost his life is a distant one, the son of a great-great--great uncle, but he comes to life in letters that were preserved and posted on Ancestry.com. His allegiance is clear:

If you can read his writing, he congratulates his mother on getting married again :"Did not think that I was A goent to have another Dadey." It is heart-breaking to read this, and to know this young man never got to fulfill his own desire to be married.

Another surprise turned up by my sister in her research (thanking the stars for a sister who is like a terrier dog in digging up--and verifying--these records!) was that our great-great-grandfather Dominick Connelly was a prisoner at Andersonville prison in southern Georgia. (Dominick was a cousin of George Washington Connelly, the one who died at Antietam):

Dominick was one of the fortunate ones; he survived when almost 13,000 other prisoners there did not. Possibly the fact that Dominick had dysentery and was confined to hospital for much of that time actually saved his life.

Dominick was young when he enlisted, about 16; he got sick and was sent home, re-enlisted and was captured and sent to Andersonville, where he was one of a prisoner exchange just before the war ended. He was a musician--a drummer, according to the records--so why on earth he was worth capturing is beyond me.

One hundred and fifty years later my sister Theresa and I found his grave at Arlington National Cemetery. (You can read about our trip here.) 

Another story pulled together from photos, documents and memories has been developed by my cousin Julie in England. We knew our English grandfather was killed when he was hit by a car in 1930, but beyond that we knew little about him. Then another English cousin sent me a copy of a poem that he believed my grandfather, Ernest Thomas Hagger had written when he traveled to Canada as a young man.

Wait. My grandfather went to Canada? Why? When? What for? Questions piled up; I went back to my old photos and posted one of Ernest on our family Facebook page.

Ernest Thomas Hagger, date unknown

That started a flood of information as cousin Julie shared what she knew and asked her mother, my 96-year-old Aunt Grace, what she remembered of her father. Bits and pieces came together into a story of adventure, a young man seeking his fortune in the frontier of northwestern Canada--and also a tale of young love, as he gave up his dream to return to England because his betrothed (my Granny) was not allowed to join him in the Canadian wilderness. We learned much about Ernest (or Thomas as I have always thought of him), of his practical planning, his care for his family, his advancement from farm laborer to farm manager, his foresight in buying a life insurance policy at a young age. He came to life, fully three-dimensional, this man we never had the chance to meet.

I am glad that I got to visit his grave when I was in England in 2013; a circle, in a way, completed.

When I was younger I never thought much about our family history. I never thought that we might have had relatives in the Civil War; I never realized that my great-great-great-grandparents lived at 3254 O Street NW in Georgetown, Washington DC, and that they must have been in an uproar when Booth shot Lincoln at Ford's Theater on 10th Street NW, just a few short miles away. Just like the story of my granny in England and her first husband, these old family stories would have been lost had not people like my sister Judy and my cousin Julie got interested and began asking questions, searching records and looking for documents and related history.

If you've been wondering about your family, start looking now, especially if you have older relatives who might remember names and places, or have old letters and photos that will help you in your search. We almost left it too late, and so much would have been lost. 

Zucchini!

Around this time every year, someone we know will be moaning, "Too much zucchini!" They will try to give it to you, hide it in your car, put it on the curb with a sign that says "Free!" This year, I'm that person. Fortunately, I've managed to distribute mine, ot put it up, or feed it to the chickens.

Our plants have done well this summer. Abundant rain at the right time makes all the difference to our ridge gardens with their fast-draining sandy soil. Larry mulched this year too, another aid to growing good plants.

Then comes harvest. Now we planted only 4 zucchini plants but already we've eaten it in dishes of all kinds, and last week in desperation I ground up  bunch and put it in the freezer to be used later for zucchini bread and to sneak into dishes like spaghetti, meatloaf, and chili.

I was going to post a few zucchini recipes, but honestly, don't we all have plenty of them? And if we don't the internet is prolific with ways to use zucchini in everything from cakes to casseroles to veggie juices and probably ice cream if we looked hard enough! So here are some things you might not know about this most common, and yet strange (read on!) plant.

We are probably all guilty of maligning the poor zucchini, but I got to wondering about this prolific veggie. What is its history? Where did it originate? Apparently, it's native to our shores, although it had to travel to Italy to get its name, and its current shape and color.

Almost all, in not all, squash plants came from the Americas, according to my research However, when transported to Italy in the late 1800's a squash variety was developed into what we now call zucchini--a long, dark-green vegetable that grows on a  leafy vine. As for the name, according to Wikipedia, "Zucca is the Italian word for pumpkin/squash and zucchino/zucchina (zucca + ina = little) are diminutive forms, becoming zucchini/zucchine in the plural."

Apparently zucchini can also become toxic, as there is a toxin called cucurbitacin present in all members of the Cucurbitaceae family of plants, which includes squash, pumpkins and cucumbers. Large quantities of this can potentially be fatal, and there is at least one documented case of a man dying from eating a casserole made from a squash that had an unusually high amount of the toxin present. Strange!

Zucchini, called courgette in some countries, has another strange side: apparently it can prevent the "evil eye" from resting on your property--at least in Albania. In that country, people who retain the old superstitions might hang something (called a dordolec) over their door or on the side of their house to draw the envious eyes away, and keep them from coveting their property. Apparently in some case, a courgette is used as a dordolec. Read more about this custom here.

And it has one other not readily apparent use: a weapon against bears. A woman in Montana used one in 2010 to fight off a bear attack. No lie! It must have been one of those baseball-bat-size zukes.

Zucchini also its own holiday too--a Pennsylvania man proclaimed August 8th as National Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor's Porch Day. Now that's fame. 

You can find more strange zucchini stories here. I'm off to the kitchen to see what I can do with the basketful Larry just brought in. Wish me luck!

yright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Beans and Potatoes, Corn and Tomatoes

...and cabbage, peppers, onions, squash, broccoli, lettuce...

The gardens are booming! Today we thought we'd take it easy but a lot of corn is ready to harvest, and leaving it will just tempt the raccoons so plans changed. The cabbages (Late Flat Dutch) were well past ready and if not cut now they'll be gone to waste. So sauerkraut making is on today's agenda too, using the same method I've used in past years.

This time of year reminds me of a song my friend Jeff Seager sometimes sings, a song about canning by Greg Brown. "My grandma put it all in jars." You can hear Brown singing it by clicking the link below:

The title of this post also reminded me of the nursery song Row, Row, Row Your Boat. I was surprised when I searched for the lyrics online to find all kinds of lyrics for this simple little song--some versions are quite long! This one is closer to the way I remember it as any of the wild ones I found. 

Now this got me wondering, what other nursery songs are there about gardening and vegetables? 

Well, there's Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley Grow.

And One Potato Two Potato.

But who knew that the song that many of us sang with gusto on the playground had so many variations? I'm talking of course about Beans, Beans, The Magical Fruit! This one would absolutely get you in trouble with any parent or teacher! 

Beans, beans, the musical fruit
The more you eat, the more you toot
The more you toot, the better you feel
So let's have beans at every meal!

Intery Mintery Cutery Corn is new to me, but sounds like it could be a fingerplay game:

Intery, mintery, cutery corn,
Apple seed and apple thorn,
Wire, brier, limber lock,
Three geese in a flock;
Along came Tod,
With his long rod,
And scared them all to Migly-wod.
One flew east, one flew west,
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest.—

Make your way home, Jack.

Another version: 
Intery, mintery, cutery-corn,
Apple seed and apple thorn;
Wire, brier, limber-lock,
Five geese in a flock;
Sit and sing by a spring,
O-U-T, and in again.

Oddly, I found NO nursery rhyme about tomatoes! The great poet Pablo Neruda, however, offered this about the lowly fruit, and it's a fitting close to the rambling post:

Ode to Tomatoes 

The street
filled with tomatoes,
midday,
summer,
light is
halved
like
a
tomato,
its juice
runs
through the streets.
In December,
unabated,
the tomato
invades
the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes
its ease
on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue saltcellars.
It sheds
its own light,
benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must
murder it:
the knife
sinks
into living flesh,
red
viscera
a cool
sun,
profound,
inexhaustible,
populates the salads
of Chile,
happily, it is wed
to the clear onion,
and to celebrate the union
we
pour
oil,
essential
child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;
it is the wedding
of the day,
parsley
hoists
its flag,
potatoes
bubble vigorously,
the aroma
of the roast
knocks
at the door,
it's time!
come on!
and, on
the table, at the midpoint
of summer,
the tomato,
star of earth, recurrent
and fertile
star,
displays
its convolutions,
its canals,
its remarkable amplitude
and abundance,
no pit,
no husk,
no leaves or thorns,
the tomato offers
its gift
of fiery color
and cool completeness.

Now, back to the kitchen for me. Stay cool, my friends!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Why I'm Not in Kansas City

This week the National Storytelling Conference is taking place in Kansas City, and hundreds of storytellers from across the country--and possibly from around the world--are gathering to share stories, techniques, ideas and to just be together. It's a gathering of the tribe, and I am not there.

I haven't been to the conference in a long time. Ten years to be exact. In the past the conference moved around the country, highlighting the storytelling of a different region each year. Now that the headquarters of the member organization has moved to Kansas City as their permanent home, the conference has been staying in one place. It's a good idea, saving money and planning and probably a lot of headaches.

I have nothing against Kansas City. I am sure it's an awesome place with lots to see and do. And I miss the fellowship and fun of being with a gang of storytellers. Let me tell you, there are no dull moments in such a crowd! But I'm not there, and this is why.

As Dorothy said, "There's no place like home." For her, home was Kansas. For me, it's right here in West Virginia: on my porch, with my husband and pets, my flowers and gardens and birds. It's the place I can stay in touch with the flood recovery efforts in this beloved state, where I stay rooted with all that grounds my storytelling. One year I will again make the trek to join my storied friends, but for now, here is where I want and need to be.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.