Sketchbook - Mary, Riding

8x10 inches

graphite, colored pencil in sketchbook

My voice is slowly returning, a little stronger every day.  In general I feel a bit better each day, though I'm appalled at how how this bronchitis has held on.  

I've been doodling and noodling in my sketchbooks, and tried a little more formal one from a snapshot of my late sister Mary, from the 1970's.  I didn't take this picture - I think Mother sent it to me. I was away at school, and my youngest sister was turning into a lovely young woman. 

Life took a hard turn for her not long after this.  Our father became sick with cancer, and the world revolved around him for about five years.  Then she got very sick too, spending weeks at UW hospital in Madison.  She never really recovered her health.  Mother used to say she had twenty good years, and twenty not so good years.  

But the photo is drawing is based on shows a healthy and apparently happy girl, looking forward with hope.  I may want to try some different versions of this, maybe a larger painting that is less a specific portrait, and more a general image of a happy girl.  

Working on it made me happy.

The Evergleam, Wisconsin Classic

Patty, with Chatty Cathy and the Evergleam aluminum Christmas tree, 1960.

To be honest, I never thought I would wax nostalgic about a four foot aluminum Christmas tree, something my ten-year-old purist self thought of as an abomination.  I loved real trees, tall ones that grazed the ceiling, smelled all piney and cold, and eventually got all prickly and brown and dropped all their needles into the carpet. I loved it when my parents added bubble lights, and we got to toss on silver icicles, when I gather were made from lead.

I took this photo in 1960, the year I turned ten.  Even then I was pestering people to pose for pictures I took with by Brownie camera, and my younger sister Patty stood with her new Chatty Cathy doll.  The snapshot was originally in color, but it faded so badly that I scanned it, converted it to black and white, and bumped up the saturation on my photo editing program.  Suddenly I could really see the card table with the Christmas tablecloth on it, the thin curtains in our living room, the matching flannel pjs my sister and I had, the ornaments on the tree.  It's funny to me that right now, as I type, I have a four foot artificial tree on a little round table, and some of the same ornaments are hanging on it.  Yup, the very same ones.  I had that little glass lamp chimney for a long time too - Mom made it by gluing on red, white, and black felt, to make it look like Santa.  Sort of.  Eventually it broke - maybe accidentally -  or maybe not.

Anyway, Mom wanted an artificial tree, so she drove in to Elkhorn, went to Gambles and brought home the box.  I suppose having a ready tree, one that only cost $10 and could be used year ofter year sounded like a wise use of scarce cash and time.  Dad didn't love going out after milking a barn full of cows to lug home a pine tree and then mess around with erecting it inside.  I also imagine that Mom just didn't have the energy to deal with an infant, a toddler, a seven and a ten-year-old, and also decorate a drafty and small farm house. The first year the Evergleam went up she placed it in my little brother and sister's playpen, to keep it safe from their curious fingers.  I hated the silver tree, but she put it up for several years before the shiny "needles" got looking dusty and some of the branches that fit into holes drilled in the truck were damaged or lost.  We had a few live trees up through the time I was in college, but once she and Dad moved into the ranch house at the end of the driveway up near the road, after Grandpa moved to the county home, and finally died, they went to green artificial trees for good.

These old aluminum trees have had something of a revival lately, and the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison has a big show of the trees.  The Evergleam trees were made in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, so they have a local connection.  Plus the 1950s and 1960s have receded far enough into the faltering memories of the Baby Boomers and their surviving parents, and are just history to everyone else, so that the decades have acquired something of a Mad Men cachet.  Sort of like looking at those eyars through a rotating color wheel, or 3-D glasses.  I almost wish I had one to put up today, but they've gotten too darned expensive.

Smokin'!

It's really really hot this week in southern Wisconsin.  Today it hit 100 degrees in Janesville, and it was not dry heat.  There's a burning ban in effect in most of the state, and lots of Independence Day fireworks displays have been delayed or canceled.  Not here though - I guess shooting pyrotechnics out over the Rock River is safe enough.

I'm not sure if the ban extends to outdoor grilling; I don't think folks would stand for that.  The heat got me thinking about this 1956 snapshot of Grandpa Tess, dressed up in his Fathers Day apron and cap, cooking burgers on a very low-tech grill. Genius at Work is what the get-up says.  I remember that they set up picnic tables in the garage, and we all settled in for burgers, chips, potato salad, and Cokes.

In the background our old green car is there, heating up in the sun. Nobody had air conditioning, and cars certainly did not have any way to cool down except by rolling down all the windows - by hand.  It made for some steamy vacations.

Immigrant Picnic
By Gregory Djanikian

It's the Fourth of July, the flags
are painting the town,
the plastic forks and knives
are laid out like a parade.

And I'm grilling, I've got my apron,
I've got potato salad, macaroni, relish,
I've got a hat shaped  
like the state of Pennsylvania.

I ask my father what's his pleasure
and he says, "Hot dog, medium rare,"
and then, "Hamburger, sure,  
what's the big difference,"  
as if he's really asking.

I put on hamburgers and hot dogs,  
slice up the sour pickles and Bermudas,
uncap the condiments. The paper napkins  
are fluttering away like lost messages.

"You're running around," my mother says,  
"like a chicken with its head loose."

"Ma," I say, "you mean cut off,
loose and cut off   being as far apart  
as, say, son and daughter."

She gives me a quizzical look as though  
I've been caught in some impropriety.
"I love you and your sister just the same," she says,
"Sure," my grandmother pipes in,
"you're both our children, so why worry?"

That's not the point I begin telling them,
and I'm comparing words to fish now,  
like the ones in the sea at Port Said,  
or like birds among the date palms by the Nile,
unrepentantly elusive, wild.  

"Sonia," my father says to my mother,
"what the hell is he talking about?"
"He's on a ball," my mother says.
                                                     
"That's roll!" I say, throwing up my hands,
"as in hot dog, hamburger, dinner roll...."

"And what about roll out the barrels?" my mother asks,
and my father claps his hands, "Why sure," he says,
"let's have some fun," and launches  
into a polka, twirling my mother  
around and around like the happiest top,  

and my uncle is shaking his head, saying
"You could grow nuts listening to us,"  

and I'm thinking of pistachios in the Sinai
burgeoning without end,  
pecans in the South, the jumbled
flavor of them suddenly in my mouth,
wordless, confusing,
crowding out everything else.

Brand New Pair of Roller Skates

Naw, this photo doesn't have a thing to do with roller skates.  This is me at the reception for a show called The Art of Cooking - Featuring the School of Eclectic Art, at Promega Corporation in Fitchburg.  The show runs through 7 September, and is worth a look.  I took my watercolor of two lemons on a Mexican Talavera bowl, and I have to say that it looks fine in the lobby of this gorgeous biotech building.  The reception was fun, exceptionally well attended, with lots of delicious food and drink and live music.  I felt just a bit fraudulent in that I avoid cooking at all costs, but since I enjoy painting food items I guess it is all good.

I haven't been doing much new painting lately, focusing my efforts instead on weekly figure drawing sessions at UW Whitewater.  The exception was this miniature, a 5x5 inch acrylic painting based on an old photograph of my mother posing in her clip on roller skates.  The faces in these wee paintings are about the size of the end of a pencil eraser, so they are not very detailed.  For me the interest in in her dress and Mary Jane shoes, and of course the clip on roller skates.  She told me once that she fell while skating and broke her wrist.  Her grandfather, Dr. Smith, was an orthopedic surgeon, so she received good care.  Several people have said to me that they remembered clip on roller skates,  and Mary Jane shoes, too.  One friend commented that the painting was evocative for her because the scene is so empty.  Back then most families had only one car, and the dad drove it to work.  So no cars on the street, and none blocking the sidewalk. 

Mom had lots of sidewalks on which to skate when she was a girl, but when I was that age we lived on the farm, with nothing but a long gravel driveway and lots of grass.  I suppose I could have skated up and down in the barn, but I never did.  Instead I would tighten the skates onto my shoes and skate back and forth on the cement back porch - not a very big space.  Needless to say, I never was very good at skating.  When I think back to those times mostly what I remember is the time when my  younger sister was holding the skates by their leather straps, twirling around.  She let go and one of the metal skates hit me above my left eye.  I have a lovely scar there to this day.

Birthdays, Deathdays, and an Acrylic Pear

December 8th.  On this day in 1930 my mother was born. And thirty years ago today I had to pull over as I was driving to school because I had burst into tears on hearing that John Lennon had been shot.  In many ways today was a day that had me staring out the window to the snowy yard, reflecting on mortality, missing my mom, and missing John a little too.

So, I decided to go to the library to look for a little more jazz and electronic music for my painting play list on the iPod, and then actually sitting down to paint.  I've been playing around with acrylics, really playing, just doing little exercises from Robert Burridge's website, except that it didn't take long for me to start branching out from his examples.  I started playing down gel medium and pressing in plastic screening for texture, and also pasting down collaged elements, though they ended up disappearing under paint.  I was using only a triad of red, yellow and blue, plus some white, and trying to be sure to get a strong sense of light and shadow, and good contrast.  Finally I got out the oil pastels and adding that over the top of the acrylic.  I'm not sure how effective it is, but it sure is the cure for a mild case of the blues.

I did about a half dozen of these, and none looks just the same.  They're all 5x7 inches, which gave me a sense of being productive, if nothing else.  I love pears, and tend to think of them as food, rather than stand-ins for feminine shapes, cellos, or some such nonsense.  When I was in high school for several years one of Mom's school friends who taught in Oregon took to sending her a box of Harry and David pears every year. Mother didn't eat fruit, but I coveted those pears.  She'd give me the box and I'd hide the fruit in my closet, and eat pears, one a day, until they were gone.  Heaven.

Grandma and Mom

8x8 inches, watercolor

I haven't painted in ages, most of the summer, in fact.  I decided the best way to get going again was to take an online challenge.  So I painted this little picture of my great grandmother and my mother as a child for Maury Kettle's blog "Watercolor Passion" - see the sidebar for a link. 

I'm guessing the photo was taken about 1931.  If course it was in black and white, and the scene was filled with a complicated background of trees and beach and water in the foreground.  I just didn't worry much about any of that, and went to the body language and expressions.  Mom looks much more unhappy in the photo; she never did like putting on a bathing suit.

Marking Time - Sailing to Byzantium

This past week I had the pleasure of having my two nieces here at the house, and the younger one brought her toddler and infant along.  Since Mother died seven years ago, I haven't seen the older one at all, and the younger one only at Christmas.  But then Big Sister moved to my city, only blocks away, and now that long absence seems to be over.  We all went out to lunch (Mac's Pizza Shack), five females ranging from almost sixty to almost six months.  It was a delight, even when the toddler helped herself to ice from my plastic tumbler.  We caught up on each others lives, laughed, ate too much.  I tend to think of these young women the girls as they were in this 1993 photo, and think of myself as I was too, though these days I have bifocals and silver hair.  It is strange in many ways not having children to help gauge the passing of time.  They are both grown up, dealing with children, relationships, jobs.  The boys are in college. How did this happen?

I recently re-read Sailing to Byzantium, and the poem means more and more to me each year.  Yeats
seems to say that it is a terrible thing to lose the vigor and energy of youth, but that a person might find a measure of immortality through art. I suppose for Yeats that is true.

Sailing to Byzantium
by William Butler Yeats

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

John Alexander Pierce

Family history concerns grab me every now and then and take up all my available brain space and time.  When I found the old ledger of my great great grandfather, John Alexander Pierce, with records of his flour mills in Troy and Genoa, I spent a couple days reading, thinking, and then taking the old book to a bindery in Madison to have a new spine attached.  

The accounts are written in a couple hands, begin in 1880 and continue to 1910, though those are clearly written by his son, George Edmund, my great grandfather.  There are egg and butter accounts that have nothing to go with the mills.  There were loose papers inside too - tax receipts, and hand written treasurer's reports from the Sugar Creek School District #4.  All are destined for the historical documents collection at UW Whitewater.

The internet, besides being a black hole of time, is also a gold mine of otherwise hard-to-find information.  I found an e-text of the 1882 History of Walworth County, and this biographical sketch of J.A. Pierce:

J.A. Pierce. farmer and mill owner, resides on section 9; has land on sections 2,3,9,10, 16 and 21, Sugar Creek, and other tracts in LaGrange, Troy, an Bloomfield, of this county, aggregating 1,000 acres.  He has two flouring mills, one in Genoa, with four run of stone; capacity, fifty barrels per day.  The subject of this sketch was born in Williamsburg, near the River St. Lawrence, in Canada West, Dec. 11, 1816; is the son of John and Maria A. (McFarling) Pierce.  He came to Wisconsin in 1845, and settled on Sec. 9, Sugar Creek, Walworth Co., where he  still resides.  He commenced in a small way , with limited means, and has since accumulated a large property.  In 1857, he bought the mill at Genoa Junction, and in 1869, bought the mill in Troy, situated one and one-half miles from East Troy, and three miles from Troy Center.  He was married in 1847 to Miss Mary Chambers, daughter of William Chambers of Geneva, Wis.  They had five children -- J. Albert, Eliza, George E., William Austin and Guy R.  The oldest, J.A., married Anna High, and lives in Eden Dakota.  Eliza died in childhood.  Mrs. Pierce died in January 1870.  Mr. Pierce was married in Geneva, April, 1871, to Hannah Morehouse, his present wife, daughter of Henry and Mary Morehouse.  Mrs. Pierce was born in England.  Though not an office-seeker, Mr. Pierce served his time as town clerk several terms, two terms as assessor, and has been Clerk of his School District, No. 5, six years, was president of the Elkhorn Bank, Elkhorn, Wis., from 1857-1861.  Mr. Pierce, in 1853, imported from Canada the first wheat that was sown in Walworth County, viz., Scotch, Fyfe, Canada Club, and China Pearl.  He also, in the same year, introduced and successfully used the first automatic self-raking reaper ever used in Wisconsin.  He also introduced the first grain sowing drill in Walworth County, and from its continued use he attributes much of his profitable success in raising wheat.  Mr. Pierce feels keenly his disappointment of the Air Line Railroad failing to come to time by not furnishing him the long promised railroad, which has been for many years graded through his farm in Sugar Creek, on which was to have been a railroad station and depot, which inevitably would have resulted much pro bon publico, although he does not despair of yet attaining in the near future the consummation of that desirable project. 

The railroad was never built. 

I was interested that great great Grandpa Pierce was an agricultural innovator, experimenting with the newest technology of the time, since my dad and brother both sold farm equipment.  I was also interested that JA Pierce grew wheat, since many of the German and Scandinavian settlers in the area were mainly interested in dairy - as were my grandfather and father.  At one time, Wisconsin was the sixth largest producer of wheat in the United States - but the crop depleted the land, and it fell from favor.   My maternal great great grandfather in Washington state also raised wheat.

Even Facebook is a source of family history information.  A former classmate grew up in the house that JA Pierce built in the 1840s.  The building is torn down now, but a quick request to my friend resulted in a photo of the old homestead for my files.  

How cool is that?

Early Farm Transportation - a Few More Photos

I already had this photo of my grandfather, Earl Pierce.  I love the pose, with him tired on the wooden kitchen porch.  It was probably taken the the early 1930s. The other photos are new to me, found in the box of Mother's things I excavated from the basement this week.

Our farm had both a dairy and a horse barn, and I know they used horses for farm work up into the 1920s.

I had never seen this photo until now, and I am not sure what year it is.  I think this is a Ford truck from about 1919.  I know little about old cars and trucks, but I think this style was used for deliveries.  They had dairy cows, and Millard had a cheese factory.  Uncle Gene told me that Grandma Pierce sold eggs, so I suppose the vehicle could have been used for any of these.

If anyone knows for sure I'd love to know more about this car.  I'm guessing a 1919 Ford Model T touring car.  It must have been dusty and bumpy on that long gravel driveway.  

Thinking Those Tractors Are...

Earl Pierce on 1929 (?) Farmall tractor

Included in the stash of photos I found this week were several of horses, farm equipment, and old cars and trucks.  I've had an interesting time reading about early tractors, and based on that I think this one was a 1929 Farmall Regular, battleship gray with red wheels.  The earliest tractors were mammoth, and needed crews of men to run them, but after World War I they scaled down in size and price, and became affordable for smaller operations. This first photo is of my grandfather and his tractor.

Ralph Pierce on his 1940's gray Ford tractor

My dad had several tractors when I was growing up, but I remember the little gray Ford best, perhaps because it was small enough to ride on comfortably.  Our farm was set far back from the county road, and had a gravel driveway that drifted shut after snowstorms on a regular basis.  He usually could plow it out with this tractor. I remember being allowed to drive it summers to rake alfalfa.  I loved driving round and round the field, thinking thoughts, watching for meadow larks and red-wing blackbirds.

Ralph on his Farmall, probably 1956 or so

Dad had a larger tractor too, for planting, cultivating (pre Roundup) and harvesting.  I liked to ride with him, standing on the bar in back, which was no doubt dangerous, but was lots of dusty fun. 

Dean Pierce on the Farmall, about 1961

I like this picture of my brother Dean.  It's funny because now he sells John Deere equipment.  The picture appeals to me also because it shows the old milk house and the barn, both of which burned in 2008.

Do you have old family pictures featuring vintage farm equipment?  I'm interested in posting some here.  Maybe there is potential for some paintings!

The Poet at Seventeen

by Larry Levis

My youth? I hear it mostly in the long, volleying   

Echoes of billiards in the pool halls where   

I spent it all, extravagantly, believing

My delicate touch on a cue would last for years.

Outside the vineyards vanished under rain,

And the trees held still or seemed to hold their breath   

When the men I worked with, pruning orchards, sang   

Their lost songs: Amapola; La Paloma;

Jalisco, No Te Rajes—the corny tunes

Their sons would just as soon forget, at recess,

Where they lounged apart in small groups of their own.   

Still, even when they laughed, they laughed in Spanish.

I hated high school then, & on weekends drove

A tractor through the widowed fields. It was so boring   

I memorized poems above the engine’s monotone.   

Sometimes whole days slipped past without my noticing,

And birds of all kinds flew in front of me then.

I learned to tell them apart by their empty squabblings,   

The slightest change in plumage, or the inflection   

Of a call. And why not admit it? I was happy

Then. I believed in no one. I had the kind   

Of solitude the world usually allows   

Only to kings & criminals who are extinct,

Who disdain this world, & who rot, corrupt & shallow

As fields I disced: I turned up the same gray

Earth for years. Still, the land made a glum raisin   

Each autumn, & made that little hell of days—

The vines must have seemed like cages to the Mexicans

Who were paid seven cents a tray for the grapes

They picked. Inside the vines it was hot, & spiders   

Strummed their emptiness. Black Widow, Daddy Longlegs.   

The vine canes whipped our faces. None of us cared.

And the girls I tried to talk to after class

Sailed by, then each night lay enthroned in my bed,   

With nothing on but the jewels of their embarrassment.   

Eyes, lips, dreams. No one. The sky & the road.

A life like that? It seemed to go on forever—

Reading poems in school, then driving a stuttering tractor   

Warm afternoons, then billiards on blue October   

Nights. The thick stars. But mostly now I remember

The trees, wearing their mysterious yellow sullenness   

Like party dresses. And parties I didn’t attend.   

And then the first ice hung like spider lattices   

Or the embroideries of Great Aunt No One,

And then the first dark entering the trees—

And inside, the adults with their cocktails before dinner,   

The way they always seemed afraid of something,   

And sat so rigidly, although the land was theirs.

Found - Millard School Photos

Millard School in the 1930s

It has been a while since I've posted any family history, but yesterday I was digging around in the basement and I struck gold.  There was the tub I had stuffed with items we took from Mother's apartment after she passed away, not that full.  My thought was I could find a better home for what was in the tub and then use it to store the empty frames I've been tripping over up in the studio.  The frames are still all over upstairs, and I have been immersed in old pictures.

I grew up on a farm in Sugar Creek township in Walworth County, and like my father, paternal grandparents, and uncle, I attended Millard Elementary School.  Mother's notes say that my great aunt Dorothy Pierce taught at the school in 1910 and 1911.  Anyway, this photo was from grandpa Earl Pierce's album.  The school looked pretty much the same when I went there for grades 1-4 in the 1950s. 

These must have been the students in the Little Room, grades 1-4, about 1939 or 1940.  My dad, Ralph Pierce, is standing second from the left with his cap on.  The only other person I recognize is standing next to him, Barb Newman.  She was good friends with both my parents for years.  That's probably Hallie Moore to Dad's left, another lifelong friend. I suspect at least one of the girls is an Olivas, because they lived next to the school.  They had lots of children, a couple of whom were at Millard with me.  The third grade class of 1938-39 (taught by Elsie  Newman) included:  George Archamsault, Ralph Pierce, Hallie Moorie, Junior Rowe, Emily Sawn, Barbara Newman, Mary Helen Weaver, Marion Schumacher, and Jean McKinney.

Little Room (grades 1-4) photo in 1959.  Mrs. Dorothy Barker taught us all.  I'm in the back row, left corner, in the green sweater.  My best friend at school, Marianne Tripp stands next to me, and Juan Manchacas, the first boy who ever gave me a ring, wears a blue jacket.  The school population fluctuated seasonally as some of the Mexican children traveled with their families back and forth to Texas for agricultural work.

Dorothy Barker, me, and Ronald Stevens who taught the Big Room (grades 5-8) at a 2994 Millard Community Picnic.

I also found a pamphlet Mother saved from the 1994 picnic.  Someone (maybe Jim Pollard) had dug around in files at UW Whitewater documents room and found some old records about the Town of Sugar Creek School District #4.  Here is a sampling of old minutes and treasurer's reports from the school board.

September 24, 1866

 A.E. Green, Chmn.

T.P. Barker, clerk

Allen Loomer, Treas.

The meeting voted to have 4 months winter and 4 months summer school.

Voted to raise $160.00 for teacher wages.

Voted to have eight cords of stove wood -- let the job to the lowest bidder. ($23.10)

September 30, 1867

Voted to have four months winter school by a male teacher and four months summer school by a female teacher.

Voted to raise $170.00 for teacher wages.

Voted to raise $10.00 for the contingency fund.

Voted to raise $21.20 for wood.

November 21, 1868

To the Dist. Clerk of School Dist. NO. 4 of the Town of Sugar Creek,

Having attached all that part of Joint School Dist. #10 laying in the Town of Sugar Creek to School Dist. #4 of Said Town, We have ascertained and determined the proportion of the proceeds of the Sale of the School House and other property of such Joint School District due to School District #4 of Said Town to be $55.31.

Signed by:

Thomas David - Supervisor of the Town of Sugar Creek

Herman Taylor

Elisha (?)

Henry Stone

Sugar Creek - January 19, 1869

You are hearby notified that Marcus D. Barker has been this day suspended from the school on charge of Disorderly Conduct, imprudent language and for breaking into my desk and taking whips out and burning them. - C.M. Brighs - teacher

February 19, 1869

The following motion was offered and unanimously carried - Moved that a vote of censure be passed against Allen Loomer, clerk of Dist. #4 in Town of Sugar Creek for the manner in which he discharged or failed to discharge the duties of said office.

Resolved that it is the wish of this district that the use of the School House be let to the Debating Society for a debate.

Resolved that when this meeting adjourns to the 27th of February there will be a vote taken to raise a tax of ($600) six hundred dollars with which to commence to build a new school house.

September 27, 1869

Marcus Gray, Chmn.

Resolved that we have four months winter and four months summer school both terms taught by a female teacher.

Resolved that the District pay not over twenty dollars per month  and board for the ensuing year.

Voted that the District is willing that the Board Open House for religious services and for the Debating Society.

September 25, 1870

$15 dollar voted to purchase a new stove for the school house - the old stove sold at auction for $1.20.

December 27, 1870

Mr. J.B. Barker made a motion that the District build a new School House - carried by unanimous vote.

February 17, 1871

Motion was made by Hiram Taylor that the District pay Harmon Gray fifty dollars for an addition to the present site and sufficient to make the Whole and acre by the United States Survey - said land to be used for school purposes only.  

Carried.

March 4, 1871 -

Committee on proposals called on to report. J.B. Barker reported bid of $1500 for Brick house - $1225 for wooden building.  Voted for brick.  Note to include outhouse.

September 25, 1871

Motion made and carried that the old School House be sold to the highest bidder (sold to J.B. Kinney for $30.00).  The old Privy was then sold for $4.40 to H.L. Graves.

October 16, 1871

...that the School Board purchase lumber and build a fence from the School House to the Doctor's fence - said fence to be eight feet high and picketed.

...that we raise $16.00 for the purpose of getting seven inch Rusia (sic) stove pipe for the stove.

...we raise $6.00 for locks to the privies, hooks and wire for stove pipe and teacher's table.

March 2, 1872

Gave Mr. Davey a complimentary note for teaching our school this winter.

September 30, 1872

...we raise $153.50 to pay Dr. Gray hid demands against the District.

Voted that we have nine months school during the year, four months winter and five months summer school with a vacation. ($200 for teacher wages)

October 10, 1872

Discussion and votes relative to fencing school house lot - voted to raise $100 for purpose of building and painting the fence on two sides of the school lot.

Teacher for year - Lyman Earle.

August 31, 1874

Voted that we instruct the Board not to have any branch of mathematics higher than arithmetic taught in this school for the ensuing year - the smaller schollers (sic) to be taught by the teacher in person.  If any schollers have to be neglected, they must be taught by the larger ones.

This may be hard to see unless you click on it, but it is a loose sheet inserted in a ledger I found from g-g grandfather, John Alexander Pierce,  who homesteaded in the 1840s.  It's a handwritten treasury report for school district no. 4 in Sugar Creek.  The ledger itself is the account book for two flour mills and a creamery the family operated.  Looks like I'd better investigate donating papers to the state historical society.

Vintage Armchair Travel: Italy

Another consignment shop find today.  This stereopticon card from 1898 shows Saint Marks in Venice.  I love the scene of the lady in a hat surrounded by pigeons.  The scanner didn't get the caption, which says San Marco, Venice, Italy -- An Oriental poem in marble, mosaic and gold.  There is also printing on the back of the card which gives quite a detailed history of the place, a fact I somehow missed until today.  I bought the card because of our upcoming trip to Venice, and because I liked the vintage look at a place that has been a destination for visitors for centuries.

My grandfather had a stereopticon viewer when I was a child.  I remember playing with the cards, though I don't recall what views he collected; the set-up disappeared long ago.  Looking at the woman with the birds also reminds me of a slide show Grandpa Pierce's brother, Uncle Bard, showed us of one of his trips that included a stop in Venice.  All I remember was the pigeons, and an image of hundreds rising up from the square.  I suppose the canals and architecture weren't that interesting or familiar to me then, but the birds were.  I actually visited Venice for an afternoon in 1972, when a high school friend and I celebrated our university graduation by taking a six-week rail pass and youth hostel trip across Europe.  Honestly, it was so long ago, and I took so few pictures, that what I remember best is - you guessed it - the pigeons.  We'll be staying a couple days this time, so I hope I do a better job of paying attention and photographing.

Browsing through old viewer cards at the resale shop I see lots of themes: travel, history, culture, humor.  I suppose my little plastic View-Master was the technology upgrade of my 1950's childhood - though my cards were mostly about Disneyland and national parks.  I have yet to see the either the theme park or Yosemite (my favorite views).  Of course these old methods of armchair travel are quaint and outdated now, with the internet, glossy magazines and travel shows on television.  But I enjoy looking at these black and white scenes from the past, and anticipating seeing the actual building and pigeons very soon.

Vintage Valentine Greeting

 

It's cold and bright here in southern Wisconsin, a pretty Valentines Day.  I enjoy finding vintage cards like this one at my local consignment shop.  The back of this one has a signature in pencil: from George Stewart.  No love, but maybe this was from a school boy who didn't give his heart freely.  When my sister and I were little in the 1950s, my grandmother worked at the Rexall drugstore in Elkhorn.  She always made sure we got wonderful fancy Valentines (wish I still had them), and usually a big satin heart-shaped box of Russell Stover chocolates.  We made those candies last forever, and we played with the little pleated papers that each one sat nestled inside.  We kept the boxes for ages too, usually putting our costume jewelry or doll shoes inside once the candy had been eaten. 

These days I pretty much consider Valentines Day an artificial holiday, designed to boost the bottom line of card manufacturers, florists and restaurants.  Not that there is anything wrong with that.  But we just decided to have pizza and play Scrabble, and skip the commercial side of the thing.  Dick did bring home a bog of Hershey kisses with almonds inside, just what I need to maintain my lovely figure.

Happy Valentines Day to all of  you who celebrate it; I hope your day is as good as you hope it will be.

Button, Button...

6 x 6 inches, colored pencil and graphite

This is a small colored pencil piece I complete in 2008, after a workshop with artist Kristy Kutch.  It was fun at the time, and I was pleased enough to plan a companion piece.  After my mother's death I inherited her tin of saved buttons, and I thought using the repeated shapes would be interesting, and also a tribute to her and her sewing.

Silly me.

This is the companion piece, started in 2008, set aside until yesterday, finished today.  I'm not sure why I could not bring myself to finish this picture for so long.  I think it is like when I ate so much salt water taffy at the county fair a few years ago that even thinking about the candy makes me queasy.  All those little circles were driving me up the wall.  But I took myself in hand and sat down last night, vowed to finish it so I could clear off part of my workspace.

Done.

Wild Things

pen and ink, marker, in my sketch book

Last week on my birthday we went to Madison to see the amazing film version of Maurice Sendak's 1963 Caldecott winning children's book Where the Wild Things Are. I was mesmerized by the visuals, and charmed by the child who portrayed Max. Unlike Ralphie in A Christmas Story, who is forced by his mother to wear a pink bunny suit, and is the image of misery, Max wears his wolf suit proudly. He is a wolf, a wild child, king of the wild things. I was intrigued by the way Dave Eggers and the other writers built on the basic story, giving it an even more universal appeal. Who hasn't been angry at the slights and limitations of his or her life? Who hasn't wanted to clobber her tormentors? Who hasn't wanted to start a rumpus?

All this led me to remembering my youngest sister, Mary. She was a sweet child, though she and my youngest brother, who was only a little over a year younger, got into plenty of trouble. "Let the wild rumpus start!" could have been their motto for several years. At any rate, in 1960 Santa brought her a flannel tiger suit. Perhaps Mother had been reading Winnie the Pooh, or maybe it had something to do with Kellogg's Tony the Tiger, or even the Esso gasoline ads that promised to "put a tiger in your tank." Mary loved her tiger suit, which at first was too large, so that the feet flopped. She wore it to sleep in. She wore it to play in. She wore it every day, everywhere, until finally she either outgrew it or it fell to rags. Mary earned her nickname, Tiger, a name she answered to her entire life.

I wonder if Sendak had a child in an animal suit?

Crossing Another Off the List

Ivory Billed Woodpecker

vintage trading card

OK, I didn't see an ivory billed woodpecker. If I had, I think all sorts of universities and birding groups would be here interviewing me, since the bird is so elusive and rare. What I did see on Christmas Day at my sister-in-law's house up in Door County was a pileated woodpecker, which looks rather similar to the bird on this old card.

I've been saying I wanted to see one for several years. I'd wistfully comment that I wanted to see a pileated woodpecker and people (my aunt, the sister-in-law, whoever) always would tell me they had seen the bird. Ho hum. Where have I been? But a personal sighting eluded me. Two summers ago I thought I saw one at the top of a tree in Oregon, but I was a passenger in a car, and the look was too quick to be certain. On Christmas Day I was upstairs on the telephone to my aunt when I heard the group downstairs calling to me to look out the window, and there it was, a monster woodpecker with a red brush cut hanging on the suet feeder. Woody Woodpecker himself. I got a good look, and was well pleased.

That was a really fine gift, seeing that woodpecker. I'm fifty-nine today, with lots of Christmases and birthdays under my belt, and it's getting harder and harder to see, hear, or taste anything very new. The Christmas Day sighting of this wonderful creature was about as good a gift as I could want.

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

On This Date

December 8th and we are in for a big winter storm. People are out buying snow shovels, snow blowers and snow tires. I think we'll settle in for some reading (Winter Study by Nevada Barr is getting really good) and writing of Christmas cards. I can do some painting.

Lots of things have happened on December 8th. John Lennon was shot on this day in 1980. It was the birthday of Sammy Davis Junior, also of Mary Queen of Scots, James Thurber and Diego Rivera. It was the day in 1941 that the the USA entered World War II.

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/

It was my mom's birthday too. She was born December 8, 1930, so she would have been 79 today. She wasn't a big fan of birthdays, but she did say that in 1941 the family forgot hers with the news of our entering the war. As a child she was not too happy about that. She's gone now, but I think of her every day. Maybe a little more today. Miss you Mom.

2009 Christmas Letter

I spent most of today updating my address book and working on Christmas cards and the annual letter. Then I thought, why not post it for everyone to see?

Christmas greetings!

I’m discovering that Christmas is, as much as anything, a time to keep track of friends and family, and an opportunity to look back over the year that is rapidly coming to a close.

Dick and I are both well and doing what we said we wanted to do when we retired. We both are reading up a storm, and we enjoy taking trips. This year in March we traveled with UW Whitewater to Peru. I don’t have a formal “bucket list,” but if I did, seeing Machu Picchu would be on it. In August we flew to Colorado and spent a couple days in Rocky Mountain National Park, then went on to join our Badger Buddies in Breckenridge for a few days of companionship and hiking. We took smaller trips too, to the UP of Michigan, up and down the Great River Road as far as Red Wing, and we spent of week of Thanksgiving in Key West, Florida.

I took a trip with DIck’s sister Sandy in May that I’ll never forget. We took Amtrak’s Empire Builder west to Washington State. In Spokane we met quite a few distant cousins related to my Grandma Tess. I was thrilled to find one of the houses she lived in as a little girl in Hillyard, and to see the old Adams family farm in Fairfield. I was particularly happy to meet these Smith and Adams in person, and to be able to help secure a stone for my great grandfather’ Adams’ unmarked grave. I also got to collect more stories, photos and family history information. After that we drove along the Columbia River gorge, and up into the Olympic National Park. We ended up in Seattle and took the train back from there.

Other highlights of the year included Dick riding another couple thousand miles on his bicycle (he’s much fitter than I am), my 40th Elkhorn High School class reunion, and my painting. This year I continued to work and take workshops in watercolor and acrylic, but also began experimenting in oils. I have some art in a local gallery, entered several shows with the Wisconsin Regional Artist Program. In June we had a reunion of UW Whitewater roommates and their spouses in McFarland. It has been a real joy to be able to keep up with these women and men and their lives for more than thirty years, I have also been writing my Late B(l)oomer blog, where I post some of my artwork, photos from trips, family stories and an occasional recipe. I’d love it if you would stop by and take a look. Here’s the web address: http://sherry-latebloomer.blogspot.com/.

There were other fun things, meetings and trips with my doll collecting group, lunches with teacher and fellow reading friends, trips north to visit my aunt Ellen, our annual Badger football outing in Madison.

I can’t close without showing you our ”furry child” Bucky. She is our little friend and lap-warmer, and she reminds us that life at a relaxed pace can be a very good thing..

Warm wishes to all of you for for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,

Sherry

Hunting, JFK, Etc

Ralph Pierce, about 1958

Deer hunting season started this weekend and that always makes me think of my dad. He and his buddies used to drive up to the Rhinelander area every year when I was a kid, and stayed for a week. He only brought home a couple deer that I remember; I think he enjoyed hunting ducks and geese more. We had a couple little horns made into coat hooks in the house, and a tanned skin he said he wanted to get made into something, gloves maybe. But he never did. After he died in 1983 one of his hunting buddies admitted that they spent more time just walking the woods, eating out and card playing than anything.

He was gone hunting the day that Kennedy was shot. I was in seventh grade, sent home early once the news was announced over the junior high school PA system. I remember going to my grandmother's house and watching coverage on the black and white television set, the adults very quiet. That night Mom and my sisters and little brother went out to eat, a rare event in those days. We went to the Traveler restaurant and all had hot beef sandwiches. Funny what stick in a person's memory.

Today my husband and I went for a walk at Oakhill cemetery. The weather here is very mild for November, and we thought we'd look at the old markers, and visit the grave of a close friend. She is buried on top of a hill that looks out over trees, and miles of fields. As we were coming back to our car, a white-tailed deer, a young doe, bounded across the markers ahead of us. I hope she stays safe.