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A me rican Es s e nc e

American Essence FO R E V E RYO N E W H O LOV E S T H I S C O U N T RY

The Fall Harvest

Why pie represents Americans’ love of self-expression

O C TO B E R 2 0 2 1 ISSUE 5 | VOLUME 1

“Greatest thing in life is experience.

Even mistakes have value.”

—H EN RY FORD

Death Valley National Park in California.

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“Give every day the chance to become the most beautiful day of your life.”

—MARK T WAIN

Sea stacks in the Marin Headlands, California.

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Contents

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110

40

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Features 10 | Silver Dollar City

In the Ozarks, American heritage is celebrated at a festival themed around the late 1800s.

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18 | Metal Benders

Artisans at Dana Creath weld and form iron into exquisite lighting fixtures, extending a craft that dates back 4,000 years.

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24 | Toward the Finish Line

John Almeda has nonverbal autism, but that hasn’t stopped him from fulfilling his passion for running long-distance marathons.

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26 | American Success

America’s beloved screenwriter shares his favorite lessons from the iconic characters he helped bring to life.

36 | The Season of Gratitude

A tragedy inspired the Isacs to channel grief into a project greater than themselves: teaching people how to appreciate family during Thanksgiving.

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72 | Back to Our Roots

At Athol Orchards, a graphic designer turned apple farmer rediscovers her love of nature and America’s agricultural heritage.

44 | From the Heartland

Aune Ylitalo was a beloved mother and the embodiment of “sisu” (the Finnish art of courage) in all its strength and beauty.

History

46 | Unboxing Grief

79 | The Real Johnny Appleseed

48 | Giving Broken Kids a Chance

82 | Leadership Woes

Since recovering from her own intense experience, Fran Solomon has spent 20 years working in bereavement care, helping others remove barriers and heal.

Johnny Appleseed, the character of legends, was actually a real-life person named John Chapman. He brought hard apple cider to the early-1800s frontier via his orchards.

Families like the Rutlands demonstrate the power of love by fostering children 40 | Three Sisters Tearoom Jennifer Stowe and her three daughters separated from their biological parents build community and foster friendships, due to domestic violence or substance abuse. one cup of tea at a time.

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86 | Teaching Morality

As American as apple pie: it turns out that pie-baking is as much about celebrating the fall bounty as it is about our love for self-expression.

32 | Cultural Exchange

34 | Words of Wisdom

50 | Spotlight on Apple Orchards

64 | The Fall Harvest—in a Pie

30 | Why I Love America

For some, 1968 was the year that “shattered America.” For Vilna, it was the year she discovered what this new world had to offer.

A Love of Learning

Apples are the most consumed fruit in the United States, and the apple orchards that grow the fruit are as diverse as our country itself.

When Jacqueline Thompson left wartorn Vietnam with her family, including 11 siblings, none of them could speak English. Through hard work, she achieved her American Dream.

Nathan O’Day recounts his deployment in the Middle East, and his appreciation upon returning to the land of the free.

Apple Pie

The new country celebrated the inauguration of George Washington, but he knew he would bear the weight of impossibly high expectations during his service as president.

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The classics contain life lessons and the guiding values that are crucial to pass on to every generation of students.

88 | The Things We Pass Down

Recounting a perfect school day in autumn: sharing family memories with youngsters is a great way to engage and keep the spirit of the past alive.

90 | Hands-On Science

Children can learn effectively by using all of their senses to connect with and understand nature and the world around them.

Arts & Letters 102 | A Time for the ‘Adagio’

At age 26, Samuel Barber wrote his “Adagio for Strings,” which has become an iconic composition in American culture that seldom leaves a dry eye when played.

106 | White Versus Jefferson

As the 19th century drew to a close, the world had changed, and the University of Virginia’s Rotunda needed rebuilding—enter Beaux Arts architect 92 | The Harvest Is Plentiful...

Teachers are always sowing the seeds of Stanford White. knowledge among students. The fruits of their labors have blossomed when 110 | Dream House Renovation the future adults come to appreciate Bertram Goodhue’s early 20th-century those efforts.

Spanish Colonial architectural marvel was once a sight to behold. Restoring it to its former glory was no small feat.

94 | Homeschool Community Homeschool families don’t need to go it alone when there are many resources in the community for social and academic The Great Outdoors support.

98 | Busy Hands

The art of quilting by hand transports us back in time, ties families, and creates a timeless gift.

118 | A Day Trip Back in Time

Forged by Apache Native Americans, an ancient trail in Arizona reveals snapshots of the Wild West, among other gems.

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OCTOBER 2021 | ISSUE 5 | VOLUME 1

American Essence

Editor’s Note

FO R E V E RYO N E W H O LOV E S T H I S C O U N T RY

PUB L I S H ER

Dana Cheng

Dear Readers, ED I TORI AL

F

all is a season of harvest and gratitude. It’s a time of coming together and sharing the best we have to offer. It’s a time of remembering and appreciating what is important.

On page 72, Nikki Conley remembers the idyllic small town life—with apple orchards nearby and the Sequoia National Forest as her backyard—that her family adopted when she was just a toddler. Now with daughters of her own, the memory beckoned her to trade her screen-focused life for her childhood dream of owning an apple orchard. Savannah Howe tells the Conleys’ story of building this dream from scratch and reaping the rewards.

On page 40, the Stowes share with us the art of hospitality, healing hearts and fostering friendships one cup of tea at a time.

Once a family-run traveling tearoom, the Three Sisters Tearoom has since taken root on their small family farm.

On page 64, “pie apostle” Ken Haedrich expounds the individualism of an apple pie and why it deserves its title as the quintessential American pie. We’ve also asked a number of pie experts to share their recipes.

On page 92, educator Charles Mickles reminds us that patience is a virtue when planting seeds, because it takes time before we see the fruits of our labors. Teachers know this better than most, and don’t often get opportunities to witness the extent of their impact on students.

Editor-In-Chief Managing Editor Arts Editors History & Literature Editor Education Editor Food & Wine Editor Outdoors Editor Travel Editor Entertainment Editor Editors-At-Large Staff Writer

Catherine Yang Annie Wu Sharon Kilarski Jennifer Schneider Robert Mackey Steve Gigliotti Crystal Shi José Rivera Cary Dunst Ben Zgodny Tynan Beatty Maria Han Skylar Parker

CREATI VE

Creative Director Designers Illustrators Photo Editor Photographers

Justin Morgan Jasmina Davis Dariya Akdeniz Linda Zhao Michelle Xu Fiarbei Yauheni Daniel Ulrich Jennifer Schneider

Catherine@AmericanEssence.net CONTRI BUTORS

Ronald Ahrens, Seth Sandronsky, Rhonda Sciortino, Nathan O’Day, Gwenyth McCorquodale, Rachael & Laura Doukas, Karen Brazas, Christine Colbert, Neil Cotiaux, Savannah Howe, W. Kesler Jackson, Gideon Rappaport, Judith McConnell, Poppy Richie, Charles Mickles, Gina Prosch, Pete McGrain, Mark Lardas, Bob Kirchman, Neal Lorenzi, Jill Dutton

OFFI CE & CONTACT

229 W 28th St, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10001 General Inquiries: AmericanEssence.net/help Submissions: Editor@AmericanEssence.net

www.AmericanEssence.net PUBLI SHED BY

BRIGHT Magazine Group

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Features

Kindness in Action | Features

Kindness in

Action

An Orphan Turned Accountant Gives Back to Undervalued Communities create change in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

“Some individuals are still stuck in the projects today,” he said. “I’ve got family and friends who deal with that environment on a daily basis. It hit me hard, and, as I grew older, I felt like I had to find a way to give back and help those individuals in need.” Henry’s fiancée, Ce’Aira Brown, 27, is a U.S. track athlete who has personally benefited from his accounting expertise.

Brown was raised without a mother as a teenager and credits running track in high school with saving her from the pitfalls of young adulthood.

“After my mother emancipated me at 14 years old, hen he was 8 years old, Andre Henry I moved in with my dad, my grandfather, and my became an orphan after losing his parolder brother,” she said. “It wasn’t Section 8 housents. He had been living with them in ing but we all had to sleep in the same room. It the projects in Chester, Pennsylvania, but after was crowded.” that, he moved in with his grandmother in the Together, Henry and Brown reach hundreds neighborhood of Upper Darby. It was a different socioeconomic class and had a silver lining, Henry of people through their financial literacy classes, online chats, and social networks on- and off-line. said. His peers and teachers influenced him to They independently published a book together become a better person, learn, and grow, and he’s this year, and the pair is now turning to what may used his success to give back. After attending Wilmington University, Henry became a corporate be their greatest work of all. “We’re getting married next April,” Brown said. accountant and decided he would find ways to

W Kindhearted TSA Officer Pays for Family’s Plane Tickets After Flight Mishap

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arlier this year, an unfortunate ticketing mistake sent a family of three to Portland, Oregon, instead of their intended destination of Portland, Maine. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officer Martin Rios was alarmed when he was called to guide the confused party. The family had ended up 3,000 miles from their destination and required an interpreter to help them. Rios was quick to lend a hand when he learned about the family’s unfortunate travel mishap.

The officer escorted the family to the ticket counter and assisted them with buying the correct tickets. This time, they would be guaranteed to land in Portland, Maine.

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However, Rios learned that the family had financial difficulties, and he did something that very few strangers would consider doing. He decided to purchase the family’s plane tickets himself. “Rios is a go-getter, and the fact that he chose to support these passengers in their time of need was no surprise to both his team and our leadership,” said Senior TSA Manager Jeremy Alanis. Portland International Airport (PDX) awarded Rios the airport’s Make the Connection Quarterly Award in recognition for his compassionate actions.

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Former NFL Linebacker Opens Gym for Wounded Veterans

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avid Vobora had no idea he would be attacked by a client’s service dog a day before the opening of his new gym. While Vobora was demonstrating somersaults, the dog became startled by his sudden movements and bit him in the face. He was left bleeding with a deep gash on his right cheek, but he remained calm and collected as he searched for a towel. As a former NFL linebacker, he claims to have suffered much worse injuries and was not about to let the unfortunate incident ruin his gym’s big opening.

Since 2014, Vobora has spent countless hours designing a business around training athletes, many of them wounded veterans. His Adaptive Training Foundation dedicates nineweek boot camps free-of-charge to

people with amputations, spinal injuries, and other disabilities. Ablebodied and elite athletes pay a fee to join alongside them.

The idea is for the athletes to inspire and encourage one another to push back against barriers and provide support for wounded veterans who wish to become stronger.

The gym provides not only a place for exercise and fitness but also a supportive environment where the focus is as much on inner strength as physical strength. “I feel like my call is to help close the gap between who people think they are and who they dare to believe they can become,” Vobora told The Dallas Morning News. • 9

Features | Local Culture

WRITTEN BY

Annie Wu

Local Culture | Features

PHOTOGRAPHED BY

Laken Copeland

SILVER DOLLAR CITY

Home of American Craftsmanship

Silver Dollar City invites guests to rediscover the former days, highlighting everything from blowing glass through a pipe extending deep into a 2,000-degree furnace, to hewing logs and handcrafting furniture in an 1800s-style workshop powered completely by a series of pulleys, belts, and gears.

A Missouri festival takes visitors back to the 1800s, showcasing heritage trades and crafts

Antique clocks harken back to the late 1800s—the time period that the Silver Dollar City festival is set in.

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Features | Local Culture

Local Culture | Features

The festival also has a pottery workshop. At left, Christopher Kinney works on a piece. Below, Jeff Walker, a nationally-recognized talent, is at the wheel.

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ith momentum building, the first curve sends passengers spinning front-toback, disorienting any sense of direction and offering no mercy, before plunging straight down into the abyss. A diving loop, followed by a zero-gravity roll, both at hurling speed, challenges dimension awareness, as the backdrop of trees and sky blends into one big blur. Then, after twisting, turning, inverting, and dropping, it’s over. The roller coaster, designed to simulate an experience of traveling forward and backward through time and space, finally halts.

The $26 million record-breaking roller coaster, appropriately named Time Traveler, is an adventure, spanning time in more ways than one. A modern-day engineering marvel aimed at the current generation of thrill-seekers, the time-machine coaster ironically sits in the middle of a late 1800s-styled theme park.

Tim Aldridge and Shawn Watt are second-generation glassblowers who love explaining the process of glassblowing to Silver Dollar City attendees who visit their workshop.

The History It’s known as Silver Dollar City, a name stemming from the practice of making change with actual silver dollar coins back when the park opened in 1960. In truth, however, Silver Dollar City’s conception began well before opening day.

As far back as the 1800s, explorers were intrigued by a huge cave located at what is now the park’s entrance. By the 1940s, it was known as Marvel Cave, and adventurous tourists waited in line to be lowered by bucket into the depths below—a slow process requiring many to wait their turn. The young couple who founded the park, Hugo and Mary Herschend, brought in craftsmen to exchange their goods and trades and entertain the crowds.

Today, the unassuming yet nationally known theme park no longer hands out silver dollars, and although the cave still remains, world-class adventure rides are what thrill seekers wait in line for. However, Silver Dollar City is also known as the Home of American Craftsmanship, a title officially given by U.S. Congress in 2010, and it’s the craftsmen who are front and center.

“Adhering to our roots while still looking at tomorrow’s generation—that’s what keeps us relevant.”

—LISA RAU, SILVER DO LL A R C IT Y’S PUBLIC IT Y DIREC TO R

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Features | Local Culture

Local Culture | Features

The demonstration of an art or craft reminds us of our heritage, and although the trade might be lost to time and manufacturing, the values inherent in that era remain timeless.

“Adhering to our roots while still looking at tomorrow’s generation—that’s what keeps us relevant,” stated Silver Dollar City’s Publicity Director Lisa Rau. That strategy is how Silver Dollar City manages to perfectly unite old with new, past with present, and more importantly, parents with kids, and grandparents with grandkids. They are in the business of connecting generations.

Preserved like the Ozark Mountains, the park celebrates an era and creates a culture reminiscent of days gone by: when families completely depended on each other, and communities depended on families.

The Heritage Heritage crafts, trades, and arts—characteristic of America’s history, and passed down from one generation to the next—are slowly disappearing behind a world of mass production and technology. Silver Dollar City invites guests to rediscover the former days, highlighting everything from blowing glass through a pipe extending deep into a 2,000-degree furnace, to hewing logs and hand-crafting furniture in an 1800s-style workshop powered completely by a series of pulleys, belts, and gears.

Entering through the gates is like stepping into a movie set dating back a century or more. The 110acre park nestled within the woods weaves guests through old-time storefronts with cleverly created signs, sights, and sideshows. Woven into the rustic landscape are themed roller coasters, thrilling water rides, eateries, and one-of-a-kind shops—all brilliantly blended together like chapters in a good book.

Right away, you’ll notice that Silver Dollar City is not flat. From the top entrance where one might catch a bluegrass band or fiddler, the path immediately heads down, winding past a log-hewer, a blacksmith shop, a candy shop, and a working water mill used to grind wheat for fresh homemade bread and cinnamon rolls. In fact, most of the park’s food is made from scratch, prepared by hand, and might even be traced back to a grandmother’s kitchen.

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Features | Local Culture

Local Culture | Features

Step inside Hazel’s Blown Glass Shop and walk through to the backside, where every day, second-generation glassblowers like Shawn Watt and Tim Aldridge invite you into their workshop. The large, spacious setting, with two glowing furnaces, offers visitors an up-close look at the glass-blowing trade in real time. While blowing a glob of glass into a magnificent vase or bowl, the duo work together like a tag team of true craftsmen, moving effortlessly through the process, all the while entertaining fascinated onlookers with an explanation of every step. Their beautiful works of art today were essential products of their era. Jars for canning, bottles for medicines, even windows for entire houses—each were once produced from glass-blowers and their trade.

Around the corner, visitors will meet Jeff Walker, a master craftsman in the skill of pottery.

With literally a lifetime of experience, Walker is nationally recognized for his talent. An impressive pottery shop highlights his work, but guests can come in throughout the day and catch him on the wheel himself, shaping up something new, and offering some fascinating facts about creating a colorful glaze or mixing the perfect recipe of natural compounds. Walker is passionate about passing down his trade, which is partially art today but yesterday was utilitarian.

Dennis Smith is a knifemaker. His skill in blacksmithing led him to begin forging knives out of old railroad spikes. The learning curve led him to handcraft steel-layered Damascus knives, many of which are collector’s items. He prides himself in his work, determined to do the best job he can with every knife created, whether novelty or specialty. In his small shop showcasing beautiful knives, every piece reflects meticulous hand-garnered detail: a statement of quality in both craftsmanship and character.

The Entertainment Watt, Aldridge, Walker, and Smith are just four of the more than 100 master craftsmen in the Silver Dollar City artisan family. With the annual October Fall Harvest Festival, however, the grounds are packed with even more award-winning craftsmen, legendary cowboys, and talented artists with nationally recognized work.

Commenting on the uniqueness of bringing all of these artisans into one setting, events manager Kelly Eutsler stated, “Many art fairs highlight the finished products, but our festival is long-known for showing how the crafts are actually created.”

The concept reaches beyond simple education 16

PREVIOUS PAGE The Time Traveler roller coaster provides thrills.

Water rides are an unexpected addition to the festival experience.

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The festival also serves up delicious fare like barbecue and succotash skillets.

ABOVE

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or entertainment. History comes to life in watching how something is made. The demonstration of an art or craft reminds us of our heritage, and although the trade might be lost to time and manufacturing, the values inherent in that era remain timeless.

Those timeless virtues of morality, integrity, and hard work are rooted deep into the framework of old-school America. Catching a glimpse of those days fascinates onlookers and reawakens an appreciation for what they represent.

As knife maker Dennis Smith explained, “I think it is a form of nostalgia—maybe not for an exact time or era, but just for a time when things were simpler, things were handmade, when nobody had ever heard of planned obsolescence, and when many of your possessions would be passed down to your survivors.”

Passing things down from previous generations is Silver Dollar City’s story, but not without the excitement of some modern-day thrills. Loops, drops, twists, and turns can be experienced onboard one of the park’s breathless roller coasters like Wildfire, Outlaw Run, or Time Traveler, and whitewater rides like American Plunge or Mystic River Falls are not to be missed.

Although it might be unusual for an 1800s-style park to carry some high-flying roller coasters and fast-moving water rides, long-time employee and food-and-beverage director Sam Hedrick stated, “When you come to Silver Dollar City, you need to put all other preconceived ideas about amusement parks behind you.”

As you make plans for your next destination, consider hopping on the equivalent of a time machine, winding and rolling through the Ozark Mountains to arrive at Silver Dollar City and the 1800s. It’s a place where experiences and live demonstrations are real, not virtual; where culture and character are fostered and developed; and where individuals, friends, and families can make a memory worth repeating—so much worth repeating, they probably will.

Kelly lives in the Ozarks, enjoying nature’s playground of lakes, rivers, trees, and trails.

Camper, hiker, kayaker, and cycler, she loves spending time in God’s outdoor creation, and when inside, can be found teaching couples to dance. • 17

Features | Made in USA

Made in USA | Features

WRITTEN BY

Ronald Ahrens

Metal BENDERS Style points and good graces add up at Dana Creath, the makers of wrought-iron lighting and home accessories in Orange County, California, since 1980

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Features | Made in USA

PREVIOUS PAGE & RIGHT

Artisans create fine works by hand, using a variety of welders and metal-forming tools.

BELOW Working with wrought iron is a 4,000-year-old craft.

FAR RIGHT Dana Creath’s lighting fixtures elevate the style of any room.

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ose Lemus was facing a new challenge on a recent workday. The custom order from one of Dana Creath’s two dozen showroom partners nationwide called for a standard table lamp from the product catalog to be reconstituted as a floor lamp. In his 21 years as a maker of Creath’s wroughtiron lighting fixtures and home accessories, Lemus has fabricated anything and everything. He indicated the present job would be no problem.

“He’s an artist,” said company president Greg Perkins, who was showing a visitor some samples. At Lemus’ disposal were a variety of welders and basic and advanced metal-forming tools. While wrought-iron is a 4,000-year-old craft, and hammers, tongs, and anvils have not relinquished their primary importance, the latest machines do add speed and flexibility.

Using a plasma cutter, a kind of torch that slices patterns in sheet steel as if it were cookie dough, Lemus produced the blank for an ornamental piece to be affixed to a lamp. The blank had a general resemblance to a leaf, but it was flat and featureless. Lemus then heated it up. (A six-burner forge stood at the ready just outside the fabrication area.) Then, he worked with tools and imbued it with convexity such that the leaf became symmetrically cupped underneath, like an arched hand. Going another step, he created surface texture, a network of creases that brought 20

the form to life. After painting and an antiquing finish, the ornament would possess a vibrancy that’s unlikely ever to be duplicated in a mechanized manufacturing process.

Lighting in its many flavors— chandeliers, table and floor lamps, flush-mount ceiling lights, sconces, exterior lanterns—is a Dana Creath specialty, but the company’s catalog also includes tables, mirrors, and pot racks. The 15-person staff operates in a 12,000-square-foot workshop within a nondescript light-industrial district of Santa Ana, the seat of Orange County.

Thanks to a nine-foot-tall storage rack full of tools, they can turn out any catalog item, reproducing the exact curve required of a piece of steel. The craftsmen do more than bend metal; Perkins, who has been running the company since 2013, takes on the glass work himself, fusing, rippling, or slumping the panes in either of two kilns. Meanwhile, over in the shade department, two workers fashion the lampshades by hand. There’s even a candle-making studio.

The final pieces are sold wholesale to showrooms and designers at prices ranging from several hundred dollars to well into five figures. On a recent visit, a seven-foot-diameter, 20-light chandelier—custom designed for a residence in nearby Irvine—neared completion, as well as nearing the top of the price range.

Lighting in its many flavors—chandeliers, table and floor lamps, flush-mount ceiling lights, sconces, exterior lanterns—is a Dana Creath specialty, but the company’s catalog also includes tables, mirrors, and pot racks.

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Features | Made in USA

The story of Dana Creath goes back to 1967. After serving in the United States Navy, the company’s namesake returned to Orange County and went to work in a lamp shop. A year later, Creath opened Custom House Lighting, which is still going on at Newport Boulevard in Costa Mesa, six and a half miles from the workshop. After the retail location came the first production workshop, then located in Laguna Hills. Custom orders from hotels and restaurants flowed in during the 1980s, leading to growth.

The operation moved to Santa Ana in 2008 and was eventually turned over to Perkins, who is married to Creath’s daughter, Monica. Creath has since retired and devotes himself to fishing at his home in northern Idaho. Greg and Monica have been exploring a transfer of the business that would result in 51 percent of ownership being in her name.

“Most of our employees have been with us at least 20 years,” Perkins said, introducing production manager Miguel Sepulveda, who was fashioning a simple tool for the shade department to use in tucking shade edges out of sight. Sepulveda, 45, came from Arandas in the state of Jalisco in Mexico when he was a teenager, and for a time, he worked in construction putting in concrete driveways.

“I didn’t mind the heavy work,” he said. But construction activity faded after the dot-com-era bust. “I decided to look for factory work.” He started in Dana Creath’s paint department some 23 years ago and has since poured his soul into every job in the shop.

After the blacksmithing in the fabrication shop, there is painting and antiquing, wiring and finishing, and final assembly and testing with bulbs.

Everything gets packed in triple-wall cardboard for shipping.

The Dana Creath catalog nearly exhausts all possibilities in traditional designs, with an extensive offering of Renaissance-inspired chandeliers as well as fancy intricacies in all departments. Yet the listing of recent products 22

Made in USA | Features

shows the company updating some traditional designs—and the push extends into product names as well. The exploration of color and form is best seen in a table lamp with a stand that is a vine wrapping around a gracefully curved branch. The startling use of bright yellow paint distinguishes the creation.

“I thought this could work in today’s climate,” Perkins said. The design was resurrected from decades past but modernized with the splash of color.

Products were always identified by alphanumeric tags, but Perkins had another idea. “In order to give some of these fixtures more personality, we would start naming them to bring them to life.” Hence, the lamp is called “Artemis,” after the goddess who loved the woods and mountains and led other Greek gods on the hunt.

Plenty of other possibilities lie ahead.

For one thing, Perkins sometimes thinks about finding a glass blower from the Laguna Beach community of artists and collaborating on handmade creations in a new realm.

“We’re looking to grow,” he said.

Demand has remained consistent in the Southwest and on the two coasts. “Most of our business is probably around the perimeter of the country.” Still, there’s opportunity for expansion of an ancient craft with products for use and appreciation in this present age when Siri can control house lights.

Ronald Ahrens’s first magazine article was 40 years ago for Soap Opera Digest.

Nowadays he’s on a 15-year run with DBusiness (“Detroit’s Premier Business Journal”). Ronald lives near Palm Springs, California, where he struggles to understand desert gardening. • AMERI CAN ESSE NCE

Various Dana Creath pieces are pictured—all custom-designed for clients across the country.

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Features | Overcoming the Odds

Overcoming the Odds | Features

WRITTEN BY

Seth Sandronsky

Toward the Finish Line

John is a young man who, with his untiring mother, is overcoming the odds, and in the process brightening the lives of many others.

Other runners share their positive feedback with Almeda, according to Bieker. They support him with highfives and words of encouragement.

Non-runners, too, get a lift from Almeda and his running achievements.

“We get letters and cards all the time,” said Bieker, “from families with John Almeda defied odds to discover children who are on the autism spechis passion for running marathons trum and nonverbal, some of whom are newly diagnosed. They look at what John is doing as a beacon of hope. acramento resident John on his own, according to Bieker. The “We also communicate with people Almeda, 27, has nonverbal autism. guide ensures that John eats snacks who have been in accidents. A partially However, that developmental and drinks fluids, which he can and paralyzed woman found John online and condition does not stop him from rundoes forget to do. As of publication reached out to him to share that his life ning marathons. Remarkably, the endur- time, however, Almeda planned to run story gives her hope. She goes to John’s ance sport has become his passion in life. the 2021 Boston Marathon without a Instagram account daily for inspiration “It’s a gift that opened up to him guide. “He taught me that he can naviand motivation to keep pushing hard.” a world of possibility,” said Vanessa gate these races on his own, and while Bieker reads such stories to Almeda.

Bieker, his mother. “When John is runas a mother I worry, he proves time and “He lights up when he hears them,” she ning, he’s so happy and free.” again that I do not need to.” said. “John knows that he is helping Before becoming a distance runner, Almeda began his long-distance others.” Such feedback is a motivating Almeda suffered from insomnia. A running career competing in the factor in his aspiration to run races delayed puberty at the age of 17 caused Special Olympics in 2014, where he ran him sleepless nights, according to five-minute miles. That is, he ran a quar- longer than 26.2-mile marathons. In February 2020, he ran a 50-kilometer Bieker. Running around a local high ter-mile in one minute and 15 seconds school track ended the spell. four times in a row—not too shabby for a race and came in with the top 15 finishAlmeda is deep into long-distance beginner. John said he follows the advice ers, completing the 31-mile trail race in under five hours. In 2022, John plans running now. Competing for his second of the late Satchel Paige, a famous black to begin training to qualify for a race time in the Boston Marathon this year, baseball pitcher: “Don’t look back; they that is about three times as long: the John started preparing in February might be gaining on you.” by running 40 miles a week, training He ran in races of increasing lengths: Western States Endurance Run, a 100.2mile race in the Sierra Nevada mounsix days straight, and then resting on five kilometers, 10 kilometers, and tains. It begins in high-altitude Lake Sunday. He ran the 2019 race in downthen a half-marathon. In December Tahoe and ends in Auburn, California. town Boston, finishing in three hours 2017, Almeda ran his first marathon: and 52 minutes. the California International Marathon, A local runner who has entered and finished the race has offered to run the To prepare for the 2021 Boston which went from the suburb of Folsom course with Almeda during his training.

Marathon, Almeda worked with a to the state capitol in downtown First, John must qualify. Some 1,500 strength trainer and a nutritionist. He Sacramento. As fate would have it, athletes aspire to run that race every also ran hills at elevations to increase Almeda finished that race on a broken year; a lottery system selects 250 qualhis endurance capacity, and stadium ankle (which happened at mile six, ifying runners. If the past can indicate stairs (100 up and the same number according to his mother) in four hours down) at Sacramento State University and 20 minutes. “He refused to quit, […] the future, do not bet against John running and finishing the endurance run in to build his hip, leg, and lung strength. saying, ‘Boston, Boston, Boston.’”

2024—when he aims to compete in the In addition, Almeda did yoga to Bieker, like Almeda, thrives on overultramarathon. After all, John is a young increase his flexibility. coming challenges and helping others in man who, with his untiring mother, is His marathon training usually ends a similar straits. She helms the Fly Brave week before the race, getting “up to run- Foundation, a nonprofit that offers career overcoming the odds, and in the process brightening the lives of many others. ning 22 to 23 miles before pausing his development for adults on the autism training,” Bieker said. Almeda planned spectrum. She launched the group five not to train “for the pre-race week. That years ago with five members. Today, there Seth Sandronsky is a freelance is typical of marathon runners to avoid are 450 members. Bieker opened The journalist based in Sacramento, breaking their bodies down.”

Fly Brave Emporium, a brick-and-mortar California, married to a wonderful Almeda usually has a guide who shop, in April 2021; it features a coffee woman for the past 37 years. In a accompanies him while racing in marand consignment shop, plus an art classprevious lifetime, he was a Division II athons, although he ran the Big Bear room that gives space to artists on the college football player and competitive Marathon, a Boston qualifying race, autism spectrum to sell their work. powerlifter. •

RIGHT John Almeda ran the Boston Marathon and is preparing to qualify for the Western States Endurance Run, a 100.2-mile race in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

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American Success | Features

WRITTEN BY

Rhonda Sciortino

Dreams &

Determination

Together with her parents, eleven siblings, aunt and uncle, and three cousins, the family moved from war-torn Vietnam to the United States with none of them knowing English. Through hard work and determination, the American Dream came into focus

J

acqueline Thompson is living her dream life in Newport Beach, California, but it was a long, difficult journey to get there. As one of 12 children in Vietnam, her parents dreamed of getting their children to the land of peace and freedom—the United States. But in the 1970s, it wasn’t easy to get from their war-torn land to the United States.

Jacqueline’s parents owned a thriving business that they had built from the ground up by hard work and sheer determination. They scrimped and saved every penny to get to the United States, and through the help of a college professor in southern California, they found a Catholic church that sponsored them to enter the United States.

There was a small house behind the church that had been donated, and the priest let them move in. Jacqueline and her 11 brothers and sisters, her mother and father, her aunt and uncle, and their three children, 19 people in all, moved into the tiny house behind the church. And despite the fact that they had only the clothes they were wearing, they couldn’t have been more grateful to finally be in the United States.

There was just one little problem. None of them spoke English. Jacqueline’s parents and her older brothers and sisters, who were already in their 20s, had been well-respected, educated members of their community. Now they were depending on the kindness of others, the generosity of the church, and for a short time, the government, to keep them all fed and clothed.

Jacqueline and her siblings all quickly learned English, got jobs, and applied themselves in getting educated. Can you imagine being in your 20s and learning a new language and getting a job in a new country? They never complained.

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Jacqueline’s older siblings did just that. They kept focused and stayed the course so they could support themselves their parents, and the younger children.

Jacqueline’s mother learned the new language and new ways along with her children; however, her father did not. Sadly, Jacqueline’s father didn’t adapt well to the new place, new ways, and new way of living. He passed away just a few years after arriving in the United States. As the second to the last of the 12 children, Jacqueline was still a very young girl when her father died.

Acceptance didn’t always come easily. “My family experienced discrimination back in those days, but it never deterred us from our focus.

My family are devout Buddhists. We all get our compassion and acceptance of others from our parents,” she said. “Growing up, I never knew the difference between Asian, Anglo-Saxon, or African American, as no one in our family ever made racial distinctions. My first exposure to the idea that I was somehow different from others was in the 1st grade when a boy looked at me and used his index fingers to pull the corners of his eyes up so that they looked slanted. I wondered why he did that.

I truly didn’t know. I went home and looked in the mirror for hours and still did not understand why he made his eyes look like that. I thought my eyes looked fine!”

Jacqueline wanted to work like her older brothers and sisters, so she went to work after high school every day with the first company that would hire her. She finished high school when she was 16 and was accepted into the University of Southern California. To support herself and to pay for her education, she started a line of cosmetics specifically for Asian women. Her company 27

Features | American Success

American Success | Features

Q&A sky truly is the limit for anyone who Tell us about the life will work hard, stay focused, and do that you live now: good for others. This is something I I am happily married to my college sweetheart. We are best friends, and we believe deeply and feel strongly about. spend time together relaxing at home Is there a book that most of the time. I work so much that has inspired you?

I prefer to stay home every chance I “The Purpose Driven Life” by Pastor get! We have no children. I live a life that I only dreamt about. But the dream Rick Warren inspires me to be a better Christian, a better person. During the wasn’t just handed to me. My hard work paved the way to my dream. I still pandemic, I took it out and read it again.” pinch myself as I get to meet athletes, Tell of something you’ve created celebrities, business moguls, and other (or would like to create): high-profile individuals, and to even “I have always wanted to write a book/ become their friend. Having wealthy script of my journey in the luxury real and famous people who are supportive estate world. My first passion is the of me is nice, but the best part is that movie business, and I almost became a I’ve found them to be kind-hearted, different type of agent – a talent agent. normal people. I am proud that I am I have not finished my script or my now in a position to be able to help my book. Maybe I’ll write it one day if I mom with anything she needs, and I ever slow down long enough to write it.” must say that is the best feeling!

top deck with breathtaking panoramic views would be the perfect sanctuary for you to relax after you return from your travels! I took them up to the roof top deck where they agreed that the view was spectacular!

We spent quite a bit of time going through every room of that large home.

As we concluded the showing, I realized that in my excitement to show the beautiful home, I had not properly introduced myself. I said, “I am sorry I forgot to introduce myself, my name is Jacqueline Thompson.” The buyer said, “Hi, I’m Will.” And his brother introduced himself as well. I remembered thinking, that is so funny, Will looks like the actor, Will Ferrell, and he is also named Will. A little while later, as I was closing up there was a knock on the door – it was Will’s mother and her friend who also wanted to see the home. The mom’s friend said, “Well, did you recognize him?!” I said What does your family What are three things “WHO?” She said, “Will Ferrell – did enjoy doing together? that you do for others? you recognize him?

In addition to providing the best possi- “We love to cook and eat! Then we sit Later that day, when I got back to the ble customer service I can give, I do my around all day to reminisce about the office and told my colleagues the story, past. Simple, yet so meaningful. This best to do these three things daily: they asked me if Will was as tall as he is my favorite way to spend a day with 1. I give people compliments to build looked on the screen. I said, “No he is family!” their self-esteem or just so that they not that tall.” Everyone had perplexed have a better day. I work hard to be kind looks on their faces. I really believed What’s your best advice that you and patient with others. it when I said it too. In reality, Will is would like to share with others?

2. I share my private stories of being There are three pieces of advice I like to quite tall at 6’3”, and his brother is tall blessed by God with people I love and as well. share. They are, people I believe need to hear that God I’m 5’3”, but I never thought of 1. Respect your parents. is there for them. myself as petite. I realized that I didn’t 2. Respect your body – do not be too 3. I secretly pray for people who do feel small next to Will Farrell and his not know I am praying for them. I am a harsh on it, do not abuse it – whether through sports, substance abuse, or any brother. I felt as tall as them. In the strong believer in prayer. Like others, I other way. Take care of yourself. This is same way, even after all of our years am a living testament to the power of together, I am constantly surprised the only body you get. prayer! when I see my husband and my reflec3. Forgive those who have hurt you. tion in the mirror. I always ask, “Are you Forgiveness is powerful.

Do you have a favorite quote? really that much taller than me?”

Actually, I have two favorite quotes that Obviously, I don’t put limitations on have guided me throughout my life: “Be Is there a fun story you would myself, and I simply don’t see differences kind to everyone you meet because you be willing to share? between people. I appreciate and thank Many years ago, when I was just startnever know what battles people are God every day for His gift to me – and ing in real estate, I showed a home to fighting.” Kindness is free and it can that is the gift of life and my ability to a prospective client and his brother. make a huge impact on people. The work hard to make my dreams to come During the showing, I asked the buyer other is, “The sky’s the limit!” This true. I love that He made me confident, favorite quote of mine guided me when if he traveled a lot, and his brother strong determined, and simply incapable jumped in quickly and said, “Oh ya he I wrote my goals in 2005 as I began my of seeing differences between people! travels a lot.” I said perfect! The roof real estate career. Here in the U.S., the 28

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As a result of hard work and determination, Jacqueline Thompson is now living her dream life in Newport Beach, California, where she helps people own their piece of the American Dream by owning real estate.

thrived, and so did she. By the time she graduated with a business degree, she had decided that she wanted to go into real estate.

That the Southern California market was extremely competitive was not a deterrence in her mind. “We arrived in Southern California in the fall of 1979. I was a little child when we came to the U.S. The United States of America is the only country I know, and I am very patriotic. I have always felt that part of the American Dream was to own a home. For me, for as long as I can remember, my dream was always to live in Newport Beach, California. I thought that real estate would be the best vehicle for helping me to achieve my goal while helping others attain their piece of the American Dream too.”

As a result of hard work and determination, Jacqueline Thompson is now living her dream life in Newport Beach, where she helps people own their piece of the American Dream by owning real estate. She has sold over $1.3 billion in residential real estate since starting in the business in 2005.

When she arrived in Newport Beach with no real estate experience and no connections, Jacqueline knew that she could succeed despite what she lacked because of the exceptional work ethic that she had learned from her family. She worked every day (yes, seven days every week for many years) to make it in the highly competitive Orange County, California, real estate market. She worked open houses every weekend for almost ten years straight to build her clientele. Even with her remarkable success, she continues to work 12 to 15 hours per day to ensure that her clients have the service they have come to expect from her. She doesn’t complain—she loves her work. Helping people attain their own American Dream isn’t work, Jacqueline says. “It’s my joy to see people move to this beautiful area that I love so much.”

Rhonda Sciortino, author of 13 books, including “Succeed Because of What You’ve Been Through,” used the coping skills from her abusive childhood to create personal and professional success. She built two successful businesses, then turned her attention to helping others to find their purpose and real success. • ISSUE 5 | OC TOB ER 20 21

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Features | Why I Love America

WRITTEN BY

Nathan O’Day

Why I Love America | Features

SEND US YOUR STORIES

editor@americanessencemag.com

Winning the Best Lottery

A

s I board the airliner to leave Kuwait, I close my eyes.

While my body and soul are exhausted from the time in Syria, my mind is still accelerating at the speed of light. My visions flash to the sensations experienced in the last, seemingly endless, days.

The dark orange sun rose above the desert. Brown water with a foul smell ran from the faucets. An odor of sewer and decay had surrounded me in a land where the people clearly did not want me and yet cursed me as I left.

The sounds of artillery, the smell of hot munitions, and the sight of killing are still present, although logic tells me I am sitting in a cushioned airline seat preparing to taxi on a tarmac.

I recall the expectations of how I thought my deployment would transpire and then having those expectations knocked out of me swiftly and unforgivingly, as if I had been hit in the gut by a heavyweight boxer. Nothing there was as I had imagined. Not in the beginning. Not in the duration. Not in the end.

When I arrive in America, I deplane, and I watch as passengers pass drinking fountains that hold clean, cool water. I hear a child shaking ice in a cup. Oh—ice! And I enjoy facilities with sanitary sewer and clean water to wash my hands.

Once outside, I look up and stand in awe of a clear sky that is blue. I had often pictured it at the end of my shifts as my mind strolled through memories, awaiting sleep that often never came. Yet the blue above me is more vivid than I ever remembered. I stand for a moment and simply breathe, aware of the absence of the stench of filth and death.

The number of soldiers who leave

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“Do not allow to slip away from you freedoms the people who came before you won with such hard knocks.”

—D. H. L AW R E N CE

American soil and never return is not lost on me. I have just won the best lottery in the world: I have come home to America.

While the experiences in the Middle East are still with me, I no longer instinctively brake and redirect the car when I see something in the roadway, fearing a body or IED. I can hold my loved ones in my arms. My grocery store has shelves full of fresh meats, fruits, and vegetables that I can purchase 24 hours a day. My odds of going

between two places without experiencing sniper fire have improved exponentially. I can worship at the place of my choosing in a way that is meaningful to me.

I see children playing and remember the children in those far-away lands who would never know excess or understand the lack of appreciation our children have for so much around them.

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I see neighbors walking their dogs on sidewalks and then playing with them in the dog park. I instantly remember the stray dog at the outpost who had four puppies, one of which immediately approached me and lay on my combat boots. An instant companion. A lifesaver. I recall how two fellow soldiers and I worked with an international agency to rescue the dogs as hostilities ISSUE 5 | OC TOB ER 20 21

began to ignite. My faith in mankind was renewed when an Iraqi drove over three hours in an imminent war zone to rescue the dogs, only to have all of them pass away before making it to safety.

Why do I love America? Because I have seen some of the worst humanity has to offer, and it is clear how good Americans have it.

America is the best place on Earth.

We have been blessed with so much, although many people protest that this massive excess envied by the rest of the world is not enough. It has been and still is the land of opportunity—opportunities that have been provided by the blood, sweat, and tears of courageous people, many of whom are buried on foreign soil.

There is no other land like America.

I am reminded of a quote from D.H. Lawrence: “Do not allow to slip away from you freedoms the people who came before you won with such hard knocks.”

Let us continue to work together to build a great future instead of destroying the past and the present.

Nathan O’Day is a freedom-loving veteran who enjoys and appreciates everything this amazing country has to offer. • 31

Features | Cultural Exchange

WRITTEN BY

Gwenyth McCorquodale

Cultural Exchange | Features

ILLUSTRATED BY

Linda Zhao

Religious divides aren’t as big as they appear.

And let hospitality permeate your actions, for it’s the essence of following the great commandant of “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

bringing attention to their hometown.

The locals knew that Maycomb was a fictitious name for Monroeville.

I, however, was more interested in knowing why my former high school was chosen as the host school for a 1968 was a year of protests, bloody clashes, and even foreign exchange student. Monroe assassinations. It was the year one family welcomed County High School wasn’t noted for a Venezuelan exchange student into their home and its superb programs of study or for its world, revealing a universal truth: It’s what you have to state-of-the-art facilities. What was the appeal to the committee of the offer, rather than what you have, that matters international study program? Surely, other schools in the South or even in he Smithsonian Magazine come to study in the United States, in the Alabama could put their best foot forlabeled 1968 as “The Year that South, and especially in the Deep South. ward to host foreign students.

If I was puzzled about the choice Shattered America.” It seemed In Monroeville, the fear of potential of Monroe County High School, I that each evening, Walter Cronkite racial unrest ran down the streets like was totally baffled when Miss Norris, began the CBS Evening News with syrup spreading on a dinner plate. the faculty sponsor of the new reports of marches; protests; bloody Old men who met to play Dominoes International Exchange Program, asked clashes; and even assassinations hapon the town square gathered more to Mother and Daddy to help host Vilna pening across the world, in our nation, hear the news of what was happening on weekends during her year of study. and in cities not too far from home. in Clausell Quarters than to play their We didn’t even live in the city limits of It was in the late summer of that year favorite game. They also whispered Monroeville. Our little community was that Vilna, a foreign exchange student how Nelle Harper Lee’s book had six miles away from town. Our family from Venezuela, entered my former just stirred the pot for upheaval in vacations took us to the Great Smoky high school—Monroe County High, in the town. Although her book “To Kill Mountains and Florida beaches—not Monroeville, Alabama—a small school a Mockingbird” had been published international destinations. located in south Alabama. It was probfive years earlier, the blame for some Maybe Miss Norris knew that in our ably the worst time for a young high of this agitation, they surmised, could small, rural community of Mexia, our school girl from a foreign country to certainly be placed at her feet for

home was the “welcoming center” for newcomers to Mexia Baptist Church and that our house was the central hub of activity for our unincorporated, rural town. Mother hosted more showers, club meetings, and social events at our home than most country clubs.

So, it wasn’t surprising that Sherry, my sister who was a senior like Vilna, asserted her fine-tuned hospitality skills in welcoming her wholeheartedly into our home.

I knew that my sisters and I would learn much about Vilna’s culture as a result of her stay, and we did. However, it was my parents’ quiet and out-of-step actions from their normal routine that revealed lasting lessons for life.

In the 1960s, our family could have been considered as the model family for Southern Baptist home life. Daddy’s fingerprint was on all aspects of church service at Mexia Baptist Church—deacon, trustee, chairman of numerous church and associational committees, and teacher. Mother served in almost every role allowed to women in the denomination. If the church doors were open, my sisters and I were there. It was against this religious backdrop that Vilna, a devout Catholic, crossed the threshold into our Baptist world.

In our young, unworldly minds, the word “Roman” implied foreign and strange, and certainly all things Catholic were in direct opposition to Baptist doctrine. Leading up to the 1960 presidential election, Daddy and Mother were adamant that they would never vote for John F. Kennedy, because a Catholic president would “take orders from the Pope.”

Mother and Daddy were asked by the Bethlehem Baptist Association in Monroe County to serve as delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention in 1960 when then-presidential candidate Kennedy addressed the convention with these words: “But if this election is decided on the basis that 40 mil-

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What We

Had to Offer

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story of the massive toll of the Yellow Fever pandemic of 1873. Grandmother Jaye had often told us stories of how our great-grandmother had attended the glorious gala given to welcome Marquis de Lafayette to Alabama at the Masonic Lodge in Claiborne. As we toured the building, which had been lion Americans lost their chance of moved up the bluff to Purdue Hill to being president on the day they were escape the swampy waters that bred the baptized, then it is the whole nation carriers of death that caused the panthat will be the loser in the eyes of demic, we could almost see the ladies Catholics and non-Catholics around swirling and twirling to the music as the world, in the eyes of history, and they enjoyed welcoming the handsome in the eyes of our own people.” What and noble Frenchman to their new state was the impact of those words on my parents’ political views? Who did they of Alabama. The faded and almost forgotten images of Claiborne, the ghost cast their vote for in the election? town, came alive to us that day.

Vilna’s stay at our home lends me a When the local radio station in clue. Out of respect for Vilna and her religious heritage and culture, Mother Monroeville announced that Jose Feliciano was going to perform at and Daddy, the staunch Baptists, Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama, drove Vilna to and from Monroeville Sherry wishfully asked if Vilna and she every Sunday so that she could attend could attend the concert. Surprisingly, Sunday Mass, thus altering their own Mother and Daddy agreed, and even worship routine drastically.

Advances in technology over time have more shocking was that they would let erased some of the ordinary ways of living Sherry, a 16 -year-old, drive 150 miles to Auburn. As Sherry took control of the in ways we can now take for granted. In wheels of the car, it rolled along toward 1968, to call a friend who lived just 25 miles away meant a long-distance charge Auburn with two teenage girls singing loudly to the music of the Spanish-born was added to the monthly phone bill. I didn’t call home but once each week from performer. When Jose climbed the college because of the additional charges, steps onto the stage playing his acoustic guitar and singing “Light My Fire,” but Daddy and Mother never said no Sherry still recalls Vilna’s expressions of when Vilna requested to call her parents joy. “She was in heaven, pure heaven.” in Venezuela.

My parents’ actions of welcoming Vilna Vilna’s interest in Alabama history to our home revealed some universal resulted in the family and Vilna taking truths that connect us all. It’s what you short road trips to visit historical sites have to offer, rather than what you have, on Saturdays. Like a choreographed that matters. Religious divides aren’t as routine Ginger, Sherry, Debbie, and big as they appear. And let hospitality perI would pile into the backseat of our Buick, while Vilna sat up front between meate your actions, for it’s the essence of following the great commandant of “Love Mother and Daddy. Daddy would pull your neighbor as yourself.” the car off the road at every Blue Star Memorial marker in Monroe County, and each stop became a history lesGwenyth McCorquodale has been son not only for Vilna, but also for us. teaching since the age of 7, when History books and local lore tell of she taught her three younger sisters the ghost town of Claiborne, which is the letters of the alphabet. Gwenyth located only five miles from our home. retired from Judson College in Marion, The only evidence of this once-thriving Alabama, where she served as professor city of 5,000 people are the graveyards of education and head of the department that sit on bluffs above the Alabama of education. She has written books, River. When we stopped the car and articles for national and international walked among the crumbling tombjournals, and for her hometown stones, the inscriptions told a haunting newspaper, The Monroe Journal. • 33

Features | The Big Screen

The Big Screen | Features

WRITTEN BY

Rachael & Laura Doukas

When

“Don’t be afraid of death, be afraid of the unlived life. You don’t have to live forever, you just have to live.”

Imagination

—JA ME S VON AL L M E N HART

Perseveres

Screenwriter JV Hart is the artist behind some of our nation’s most beloved family films

J

ames Von Allmen Hart, lovingly referred to as “JV” by his family and protégés, is the creative force behind several of our nation’s most prominent family films, including “Hook,” “Tuck Everlasting,” “Dracula,” and “August Rush.” Well before he began his career as a Hollywood screenwriter, he grew up on drive-in movies and Saturday matinees in Fort Worth, Texas. His whimsical childhood adventures and deep connection to his family helped to shape him into the great creative that he is today.

In 1952, when JV was 5 years old, his father built a two-story Cape Cod house overlooking several acres of land, called “the field” by him and his brother. “It became our fantasy world, our Neverland,” said JV. “We built forts, tree houses, slayed dragons, buried and unburied treasure. It was literally a field of dreams for the imagination.” It would be the place where, at only eleven years young, he would film his first eight-millimeter movie.

Every Saturday at 10 a.m., JV’s mother would drop him and his brother off at the Gateway Theater, a classic Art Deco style cinema with a large marquee and tall neon sign. “For 34

25 cents we got a truckload of cartoons, two serial installments like Flash Gordon and Commando Cody, and then a double feature,” said JV. These Saturday mornings would serve as the foundation for his future creative endeavors in the film industry.

There is something so extraordinarily authentic about the characters that JV dreams up. “There is always part of me in everything I write,” he said. Though JV attributes this iconic authenticity to letting his characters, rather than his pen, take the lead, it is obvious that there is a tremendous connection between writer and character. Take, for example, Peter Banning of Hart’s quintessential swashbuckler adventure film, “Hook.” When asked which character in the picture he relates to most, it’s no surprise that it is Peter Banning, the grown-up version of Peter Pan. Banning’s childlike wonder is nearly a mirror image of JV’s own disposition.

“Certainly the grown-up Peter Banning who pursued success at the expense of his family came from my personal fears about losing [my] imagination as an adult and missing [my] children’s milestones.” This idea deeply resonated with Dustin Hoffman, Robin

Williams, and Bob Hoskins, who marvelously acted in “Hook,” and Steven Spielberg, the film’s director.

Always on the lookout for a good idea to turn into a story, JV credits his family with providing him with the most inspiration. After all, it was a game of “What If” in 1985 at the dinner table with his son, Jake, then 6 years old, that inspired JV to develop “Hook.”

“This is now part of our family mythology as Jake, now grown up and one of my writing partners, claims he does not recall this evening. It went something like this: Jake: Hey Dad, did Peter Pan ever grow up?

Dad: Now that’s a really dumb question. (Good Parenting.) Of course he didn’t grow up. He was the boy who couldn’t grow up.

Jake: (Defiant.) Yeah, but what if Peter Pan grew up?”

As soon as he asked the question, something clicked. Jake had unlocked the code of the Peter Pan story that so many talents in Hollywood had been trying to crack.

“We cobbled together the story based on Jake’s innocent and brilliant question. Captain Hook would kidnap AMERI CAN ESSE NCE

time. He explains, “I never would have written ‘Hook’ had I not been a father with Jake and Julia to inspire me.”

JV is constantly preparing new content and brainstorming new ideas in order to bring more joy to the world.

Of all the lines he has ever written, one of his favorites is, “Music is proof that God exists in the Universe.” This comes from his Oscar nominated film, “August Rush.” The picture traces the life of a boy (played by Freddie Highmore) who uses his musical talent as a clue to find his birth parents.

When reflecting on the important themes that are artistically woven into his works, JV believes Americans should pay most attention to “Tuck Everlasting.”

The story of Winnie Foster, a girl on the cusp of maturity who must ultimately grown-up Peter Pan’s kids and force the tried lifting JV’s spirits by gifting him with Peter Pan themed presents at holi- decide to live forever or let her life conadult Pan to return to Neverland with tinue as planned, instills in the audience all his adult hangups, and having forgot- days and birthdays.

Finally, the year 1989 brought a break. a sense of the importance of a life well ten how to fly (since all adults do), and A producer read the script and believed lived on one’s own terms. “Don’t be having to face his old nemesis Captain afraid of death, be afraid of the unlived it to be one of huge potential. The Hook in order to save his kids.” script was then taken directly to Robin life,” said JV. “You don’t have to live forThe next day, JV wrote a story treatever, you just have to live.”

Williams and Dustin Hoffman, who ment and called his agent, who then shopped the project around. Every pro- attached themselves immediately. And ducer and studio passed. The following the rest is history.

Rachael Doukas and Laura Doukas “Hook” went on to generate over years were misery for JV as “Hook” was, are sisters and filmmakers currently $300 million at the box office and is in his own words, “the best idea [he] working on their first feature film, “The globally known as one of the most had ever stolen from [his] kids.” His Ryan Express,” based on their awardexemplary American family films of all winning short, “Rocket Man.” • family remained ever supportive; they ISSUE 5 | OC TOB ER 20 21

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Features | Traditions

Traditions | Features

WRITTEN BY

Skylar Parker

“Living in gratitude helps one appreciate the good times and get through the bad.”

THE SEASON OF

Gratitude

— C H R ISTO PH E R ISACS

The Isacs love Thanksgiving— and how the holiday allows all of us to cherish family

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he Isacs have always treasured the Thanksgiving holiday season as an important time to reflect on all things they are grateful for. Their appreciation has only increased after the untimely passing of Peter Isacs, a loving husband and father, in August 2020, due to an aneurysm.

After Peter passed away, the family were bracing themselves for a difficult Thanksgiving. But Nadine and her two sons, PK and Christopher, decided to channel their grief into something positive.

“Historically, in our family, when one of us has a good idea, we all tend to remember it as our own. We have since joked about which one of us actually initiated the idea for this book, but we now know in our hearts it was Peter,” they wrote in their new book, “Gobble,” scheduled for release in October. “We’re very grateful for the inspiration that we had to write this book,” said Nadine in a recent interview.

“Gobble: The Quintessential Thanksgiving Playbook” serves as a guide on how to organize the perfect family Thanksgiving. It covers everything from festive games and activities to laying out a beautiful table for the occasion. The book also discusses the importance of setting family traditions for the holiday season, from taking a short stroll between dinner and dessert, to starting a “gratitude” tablecloth and getting everyone to write one thing they are thankful for every year.

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Embracing Family Traditions For example, the Isacs put up their Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving in their Litchfield Hills, Connecticut, home. They say they do this for several reasons: the first is to be able to enjoy the tree for as long as possible; the second is to enlist the help of guests to put up Christmas ornaments. “It’s a great way to kick off the Christmas season,” they stated in their book.

For both PK and Christopher, Thanksgiving has always been a favorite holiday, as it is a time to focus on family. “Traditions are a really effective way to share that love,” said PK. Christopher believes that traditions serve as a way to bond and for family members to express gratitude for each other. “Living in gratitude helps one appreciate the good times and get through the bad. Gratitude can be very similar to empathy in a lot of ways, especially when you’re with family and you’re sharing in the gratitude for the opportunity to be there together, grateful for everything you’ve done for each other, and grateful for everything that you’ve gotten out of the past year,” said Christopher.

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Features | Traditions

Treasuring the Final Moments Nadine remembers the days leading up to her husband’s passing as a particularly special time for the whole family. “We were in the middle of a pandemic, and had we not been, the boys would probably not have been home.” She is grateful for this time, as it allowed the family to be in each other’s company. “We had some incredible family time leading up to this death,” she recounted. The evening that Peter passed away was the most poignant day to her. “It was a gorgeous August day. If you could design a day for your last day, it would have been designed the way he lived it,” she said. He started the day by reading the newspaper and then riding on his tractor—something he loved to do.

“In the evening, we went to our meadow and had a beautiful summer dinner all together. And then, ironically, he came up and watched his favorite movie with the boys, which was ‘Star Wars,’” Nadine chuckled. After that, he told his family he loved them and got into bed. An hour later, he was gone.

The family shared many warm memories about Peter and his love for food, family, and tradition.

Chris said, “My first memory of helping out in the kitchen was doing the onions, carrots, and celery and chopping them up for my dad, who was making stuffing for Thanksgiving.”

Fostering a Love for Thanksgiving The boys’ father was influential in fostering a love for Thanksgiving. “He was the one who taught us about food, about wine. That all comes from him,” added PK. Every Thanksgiving, each member of the family would assume different roles to help prepare for the occasion. Chris would help with cooking, while his brother PK displayed a keen interest in wine and bartending. Nadine said, “As soon as he was of legal age, and maybe even a little bit before, PK started studying wines. My husband really knew wine, and he also instilled in them an interest in history and geography.” PK spent many hours in the family library, sifting through books

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Nadine, Chris, and PK Isac at their family home in Goshen, Connecticut.

The Isacs’ new book provides useful tips on Thanksgiving meal planning, from how to set the table, to music playlist suggestions.

ABOVE

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about wine regions, varietals, and vinification techniques, while his younger brother Chris studied cookbooks.

Nadine was renowned for creating beautiful table arrangements for the festive season. During holidays, it was common for friends and family to use Nadine’s decorations as inspiration for their own table settings at home. Peter’s mother and grandmother served as influential figures for Nadine, who considered them incredible entertainers and hosts. “I always admired them for the tables they set,” she said.

The Isacs’ appreciation for food and wine has been passed down through the generations. PK and Chris’ grandfather (Peter’s father) kept many books about wine and was awarded the title of Chevalier du Tastevin, a French award given to top wine enthusiasts. While attending Tulane University, both boys hosted elaborate dinner parties for friends, using their cooking and bartending experience from helping out at Thanksgiving.

Gratitude remains a big part of the family, even outside of Thanksgiving. Living through the pan-

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Gratitude remains a big part of the family, even outside of Thanksgiving. Living through the pandemic and losing a family member have provided the Isacs a new perspective and a heightened appreciation for each other. demic and losing a family member has provided the Isacs with a new perspective and a heightened appreciation for each other. “It’s been such an incredible experience,” said Nadine. It has allowed the family to spend more time together while prioritizing good health and maintaining personal connections. “We’ve always taken for granted being in the same room or, you know, giving a hug to someone or just getting together. And I think all of us right now are appreciating that like we’ve never done before,” said Nadine. • 39

Features | Strengthening Communities

Strengthening Communities | Features

WRITTEN BY

Skylar Parker

Building Beautiful Friendships

One Cup In 2011, Jennifer Stowe brought tea, treats, and joy to senior centers, nursing homes, libraries, and other community centers via her traveling tearoom. Today, she and her three daughters operate a lively tearoom on a 68-acre farm

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at a Time

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LEFT The tearoom does tea tastings and has numerous sweet treats on offer.

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ea has always been a part of the Stowe family. What initially started as a traveling tearoom in 2011, bringing tea and baked goods to families all over Middle Tennessee and parts of Alabama, has transformed into what is now a physical tearoom on a 68-acre farm in Campbellsville, Tennessee. Three Sisters Tearoom is run by Jennifer Stowe and her three daughters, Julia, Andrea, and Meredith.

The Stowes would drive in the family car and set up base at various sites, including local senior centers, nursing homes, and libraries, to bring tea and cookies to local communities. The family would organize discussions about the history of tea, teach patrons about the different kinds of tea, and offer tea tastings.

Three Sisters Tearoom After the family’s barn burned down in 2014, they had the idea of rebuilding and transforming the place into a physical tearoom. “We just thought maybe we didn’t need to travel so much bringISSUE 5 | OC TOB ER 20 21

ing tea to people—we could have them come to us,” said Jennifer, mother to the three girls. Despite sitting on a large farm, the tearoom itself is tiny, with maximum indoor seating accommodating up to 20 guests at any one time.

Weather permitting, there are an additional eight seats outdoors. “Six years on, that little tearoom has been home to all of our events and gave our traveling tearoom a home,” said Julia.

All three sisters have a role in the tearoom, from greeting guests, to baking the numerous sweet treats on offer, to washing dishes after a long day of entertaining guests. “Meredith was only six when the tearoom first opened.

She was our greeter and just hugged everybody! And a lot of our clients are seniors, some of them widowed, so it meant a lot to them, getting a hug from a little girl,” Jennifer told me.

Jennifer’s second daughter, Andrea, is responsible for the analytical and organizational aspects of the family business, like filling out the spreadsheets, scheduling, sending newsletters,

and other administrative duties. Julia oversees the baking. “She has mastered the scones. We have our signature lavender white chocolate scones, which she makes so well with lemon curd,” said Andrea. The youngest sister, Meredith, still greets all the clients, even at the age of 13. She also irons all the tablecloths.

Operating a family business has its advantages. Jennifer said if she didn’t have the chance to run the tearoom with her daughters, she probably wouldn’t run one at all. “For me, it’s really the best situation. I get to do something that I love, express creativity, extend hospitality, and work with my most favorite people in the world.”

The tearoom simply serves as an extension of the Stowe family home, and this translates into the domestic comfort and warmth it provides to its patrons.

The most important part of running a tearoom is building a community, Julia told me. “It’s very much a place to build friendships, and seeing people through the years who were strangers now 41

Features | Strengthening Communities

LEFT The three sisters: (L–R) Andrea, Julia, and Meredith.

Three Sisters Tearoom uses locally produced ingredients—including eggs, greens, tomatoes, corn, potatoes, rhubarb, peppers, and even fruit—in all the items on its menu.

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become very dear friends, both with us and each other, is a treasured aspect of having a tearoom.”

A Place of Deep Friendship and Community The tearoom served an important role to the local community after the pandemic lockdown restrictions were lifted. “Mom brought a lot of joy into their lives,” said Meredith. “It was just a time for them to come and enjoy peace, and spend time with people after being home for so long.”

Jennifer explained that a lot of women who visit her tearoom have suffered many heartbreaks and tragedies, whether that be losing their husbands, jobs, or other family members.

However, the tearoom offers them much-needed solace and friendship.

One of the most touching aspects is the uniting of patrons, regardless of age or experience. “When you see a senior and young adult who just find similar 42

passions and can converse about it, that, to me, is just amazing,” said Meredith.

The tearoom also offers events, one of their popular ones being their Afternoon Tea Flight, which involves learning about a different country each month. “We enjoy tea the way they would have it, and we eat their food,” said Jennifer. The owners provide a small presentation on the origin of the tea, along with cultural aspects like music, food, and even the use of incense. The tea flight starts from China, continuing all the way through Europe, and eventually landing in the United States. Each attendee receives a little passport and gets a stamp for every Tea Flight attended. Jennifer said it offers customers the opportunity to experience different cultures, something they may never have gotten the chance to encounter coming from a small town.

They have even featured yak butter tea, a popular beverage in the

Over the years, the Stowes have brought much joy to the lives of everyone they have encountered. They grew from a simple traveling tearoom to building a beautiful paradise for the local community to visit and relax in.

Himalayas of Central Asia, particularly in Tibet. This drink was traditionally drunk by the Tibetan people of the North to provide energy and to keep warm in the harsh winters.

Literary tea events are another community favorite, where, according to their website, ladies of all ages are invited to join book discussions over delicious cream teas. The event features a perfectly curated, themed menu that reflects the essence of the book.

Fresh Produce Straight From the Farm Three Sisters Tearoom uses locally produced ingredients in all the items on its menu, including eggs, greens, tomatoes, corn, potatoes, rhubarb, peppers, and even fruit. The family grows just about everything on its 68-acre farm.

The family also owns many animals, including chickens (for meat and eggs), ducks, and a small herd of Highland cattle (for milk and meat), as well as a few dogs and cats.

The tearoom is sometimes closed for a week or two during the height of summer, when the garden is bursting with fresh produce. This allows the family to finish canning and processing the food and to get ready to open again the following week.

Looking to the Future Over the years, the Stowes have brought much joy to the lives of everyone they

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have encountered. They grew from a simple traveling tearoom to building a beautiful paradise for the local community to visit and relax in. But their journey doesn’t end here. The family has plenty of exciting plans for the future, from organizing tea talks on the road to taking their love for tea into classrooms, libraries, and historic homes in the form of educational classes and lectures.

Jennifer has also written many titles and tea-themed books, like “Book of Days: An Artful Guide to Life-Long Learning,” “Afternoon Tea: Rhymes for Children,” “Infused: Tea Time in Fine Art,” and “Wee Bites and Nibbles: Manners and Menus for the Tiniest Tea Drinkers.” Her daughter, Julia, is a graphic designer and frequently aids in the artistic production of the books.

Other short-term plans involve planting more perennials to liven up the grounds, building a courtyard garden, and building an outdoor room where they can serve tea and host more people.

Outside of the tearoom, the girls share their admiration for tea with their friends in college and while traveling.

“It draws people and builds relationships, even outside of the tearoom business,” commented Andrea.

“Our tearoom is certainly very dear to my heart,” said Julia. “And whatever different paths it may take in the future, it will still be part of our lives in some way.” • 43

Features | From the Heartland

WRITTEN BY

Karen Brazas

From the Heartland | Features

ILLUSTRATED BY

Michelle Xu

first child. Dad was gone for almost two years. During their 68 years of marriage, because of Dad’s career, they relocated many times. Each departure was very difficult for Mother, not only because she left behind so many friends, but because she understood the toll each move took on us kids. Once again, her

My

Mother’s ‘Sisu’ Aune Ylitalo was the embodiment of ‘the Finnish art of courage’ in all its strength and beauty

S

“

isu” could well be the favorite word of the Finnish people. The term is loosely defined as “the Finnish art of courage.” It refers to a mix of resilience and perseverance that leads to a life of greater purpose and happiness, and Aune Ylitalo, a second-generation Finn, reflected sisu in all its strength and beauty. This wonderful woman was my mother.

Mom blessed our world with her arrival on January 20, 1914, a frosty winter morning in the tiny Minnesota village of Floodwood. Aune was nicknamed “Cutie.” “I guess I was nice looking at the time,” she told me. But my mom was always beautiful, inside and out, her entire life.

Aune was welcomed by three siblings and her parents, William and Fina (Makitalo) Ylitalo, who emigrated to the United States around the turn of the century. William came first, finding a place to settle before calling for his young bride, who made the treacherous transatlantic journey by steamer ... bringing her sisu with her! They settled on a small farm and worked hard to raise their family. The simple farmhouse had no electricity or indoor plumbing. Kerosene and Aladdin lamps provided lighting, and two wood stoves warmed the house during the long harsh Minnesota winters. A compartment in the “icebox” held huge blocks of ice that my grandpa took from the river, blocks that were kept frozen in sawdust until they were placed inside.

The “outhouse” was dark and cold, but the saving grace was the good

44

old-fashioned Finnish sauna! After enjoying the intense heat and steam that arose from the hot rocks in the corner, mom and her siblings would run out into the snow, rolling around to “cool off.” The basement also housed a washing machine run by a small gas engine and a “storehouse” for canned goods from the vegetable garden and the jams and jellies made from fruit, fresh-picked during the summer months.

Mom was her mother’s helper, and they did everything together. “The house had to be clean at all times,” mom remembered. They used milk to shine the kitchen floor, and on Saturdays, they freshened all the sheets on the clothesline. Grandma taught mom to cook and how to can vegetables and fruits. They often drove 50 miles just to pick blueberries. Mom loved baking cakes and pies and was sometimes called upon to bake for a family whenever their sons came home from college.

But mom’s favorite task was working with her dad and brothers on the farm.

She drove horses and the tractor. She helped in the hayfields and in the barn and admitted, “I often wished I was a boy!” Even after suffering a broken leg while playing broom hockey on the frozen river near their home, she didn’t slow down “because there was always work to do.”

But life wasn’t all work and no play. A Sunday afternoon would find Aune and her friends making their own ice cream or going to town for a “real cone” for 5 cents ... more expensive than the candy

that cost only a penny. In the summer, picnics and swimming in the river were favorite pastimes. “My brothers taught me to swim by throwing me off a boat!” mom said. “I had to either swim or wish I had.”

Holidays at the Ylitalo home were simple. The women spent hours cooking and baking while the men chopped down a tree that would be decorated with simple handmade ornaments.

Mom sewed and knitted scarves and mittens as gifts for her family. A sleigh ride was the highlight of the season.

Aune enjoyed school, and since the farm was 4 miles from town, transport was a horse-drawn “school bus” carrying 14 children. “Occasionally all 14 of us had to jump off the carriage so the bus could get ‘unstuck’ from a deep mud hole,” mom said with a smile. During those years, her Finnish sisu played a big part. Her dreams of attending college and becoming a home economics teacher were foiled when her mother suffered several strokes that required Mom to stay home and manage the household. But she never regretted her decision. “I stayed where I was needed. I would never have had the heart to leave.”

But leaving familiar surroundings would become a theme in her life. Only months after she and her new husband set up their first home, Dad was drafted into the Army, and they left their families behind to move to Florida for his training. Months later when Dad was deployed to India, Mom moved back to the farm, 8 months pregnant with their AMERI CAN ESSE NCE

Throughout her life, her amazing warmth and comfort extended to everyone who knew her, and she had a way of making us children feel courageous, strong, and important.

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courage and resilience showed through her heartache. Years later, she confessed to me that during each move, she shed her tears in private so none of us would see.

Because above all else, my mother was completely devoted to her family.

There was nothing she wouldn’t do for us ... preparing home-cooked meals, shopping for school clothes and supplies, helping with homework, warmly welcoming our friends, never missing a school concert or ballgame, cheering us on and encouraging us every step of

the way, especially when we were sad, worried, or distressed. “Don’t worry, honey,” she’d say to me. “You’re going to be just fine.” Her balm for an aching heart.

Years passed. Dad retired and they resettled in Arizona. Life became more and more simple as they aged and moved from house to condo and finally to assisted living. Downsizing with each move, mom’s belongings became simple ... a few matching outfits, simple holiday decorations, a collection of her favorite romance novels, her treasured family photo albums and framed pictures, a box of age-old greeting cards received through the years, and her trademark White Shoulders perfume.

Throughout her life, her amazing warmth and comfort extended to everyone who knew her, and she had a way of making us children feel courageous, strong, and important. She always assured us that “everything will be all right. Everything will work out.” And whether we were playing cards, watching TV, chatting on the porch swing, curled up reading our books, baking cinnamon bread together, or enjoying our morning coffee, even doing nothing in her company was everything.

Mom passed away quietly at the age of 98. She died in the early morning hours of our 9/11 wedding anniversary.

Each year we celebrate our marriage and her life. To say I miss her isn’t enough. To say her death left a hole in my heart isn’t accurate either. Because she left it filled with her kindness, her gentleness, her love, and yes ... her sisu!

Because on the days when I wonder how I can go on without her, I feel her loving arms around me and I hear her soothing voice ... “Oh honey, don’t worry. You’re going to be just fine.”

Karen Brazas is a retired high school English teacher and creative writing instructor who taught in California, China, and Lithuania. She worked and studied in 35 countries with the Semester at Sea program. Karen is a wife, mother, and grandmother, and now lives in Nevada City, California, and Channel Islands, California. • 45

Features | Paying it Forward

F

ran Solomon’s 20 years of working in bereavement care began with an intense personal experience. “My father died in 1998,” she said. “His death was the first of a significant person in my life. I did what I think many people do. I grieved through the funeral, and then I had to get ready to return to work on Monday. “So I put my grief into a box, tied a pretty bow on it, and stuck it on a shelf. I thought I was going to get over it, move on, and with time, forget.

“Fast forward to 2002, my daughter was born. Somehow this beautiful life that had entered mine was accompanied by profound sadness. A friend sat with me and listened to all the reasons for my sorrow. Then there it was. The last thing I said encompassed all my grief,” Solomon said. “I was grieving that my father wasn’t here to see the one thing he had wanted more than anything —to have a granddaughter.

Until that moment, I had no idea that the loss of my dad had had such a profound impact on me. It had resurfaced now many years later, as I welcomed my daughter.”

It ended up impacting Solomon’s own relationships going forward.

“Because of my friend’s willingness to sit and listen, I was given an invaluable gift. I was able to understand the association between my sadness around the birth of my daughter and my father’s absence. Had that not happened, my relationship with my daughter could have become a resentful one, resulting from my having displaced my emotions. Through that experience, I came to understand the importance of bereavement care for support, understanding, and appreciation for what grief really is.”

UNBOXING GRIEF

After healing from grief firsthand, Fran Soloman has been helping people remove barriers, boundaries, and taboos when it comes to dealing with grief 46

Paying it Forward | Features

WRITTEN BY

Christine Colbert

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Solomon founded HealGrief.org, a nonprofit website that provides the tools, resources, and information to guide one’s journey after a death, through grief and into a healthy post-bereavement equilibrium.

Solomon founded HealGrief.org, a nonprofit website that provides the tools, resources, and information to guide one’s journey after a death, through grief and into a healthy post-bereavement equilibrium. It also provides a place to celebrate the lives of loved ones, including pets.

The site provides these tools through offerings like a podcast archive, featuring interviews with a wide array of people who have survived the grief process themselves. The podcast, Let’s Talk Death, can be accessed as a printed transcript, as audio only, or viewed.

Central to its mission is removing the cultural taboo that has surrounded death. A virtual support network connects people who are grieving with others who have lost loved ones too. These connections help to dilute the feelings of isolation often associated with grief.

Philanthropy has been a long-term commitment for Solomon. She has been a member of the Cedars Sinai Medical Center Board of Governors for some 20 years. Simultaneously, for a decade, she served as a member of the Board of Directors, as well as the Chair for Our House Grief Support Center, a community-based agency located in Los Angeles.

Now a certified grief-recovery specialist, Solomon lives in LA with her husband, Rick, and their three children, Matthew, Alex, and Lianna. Solomon’s husband serves on the HealGrief.org Board of Directors. He has long supported her work, she said, because he’s realized how much it has enriched her life and the life of their family.

During her work with Our House, Solomon’s focus began to expand beyond community boundaries. She realized that grief is universal. She perceived the need for a place where people across the world could come to celebrate the lives of those they love.

She realized that this place also would need to provide resources to help those who are struggling with grief to recover.

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Actively Moving Forward is another HealGrief program. Best known as AMF, it began with college students supporting other college students through their grief journey. It evolved into a program supporting all young adults, allowing them to communicate with each other in a way they communicate best—digitally. It’s an app that is a hybrid of a social network, database of resources, and a notification center for daily inspirational quotes. It also offers a community board for posting.

The app since has extended to people of all ages, hosting separate and distinct communities for young adults and for those who are over 30. App members can participate in regularly-scheduled virtual support groups and in book clubs.

“It’s such a gift to hold a safe and sacred space for people to share their most intimate feelings about something so deep within them. And it’s a gift to witness deep friendships emerging from this thing called grief,” Solomon said. “None of this costs our members anything. They can sign up for as many kinds of virtual support as they like.”

“Our members have learned that although grief has a start date, it doesn’t have an end date. Grief is an uninvited companion that we somehow learn to take with us through the rest of our lives,” she observed. Solomon says her work in bereavement care “teaches me to live life to the fullest, to never wait for tomorrow.

To tell my family and those I love how much I love them and how important they are to me. It’s a daily reminder of how precious life is and how important it is to be present for those we love.” The site averages about 10,000 new visitors each week, according to Solomon.

Poignantly, she reports that the most-visited page by far is “Death of a Child.”

Services are offered at no cost to the site’s users. Solomon reports that HealGrief.org, as a 501c3, accepts donations and has received grants. One was from Funeral Service Foundations, who recognized the importance of the app.

Traditional bereavement care was disrupted during the time that Covid shutdowns were most intense, according to Solomon. People who work in bereavement care were unsure of the best ways to serve their clients during that time, so many referred them to HealGrief.org.

“Being virtual, we were in a prime position as the continuum for serving those in need,” Solomon said.

“In-person care for many will always be necessary, however we have found that people tend to be more comfortable and share more from the comfort of their own homes,” she explained. “We have been able to serve in new ways. People with disabilities or who don’t have transportation, for example, now can access the support they need too.”

“Support is crucial,” Solomon reflects.

“Lack of support can lead to poor coping skills, which can lead to addictive behaviors, suicidal ideology, etc. Grief can change the trajectory of a person’s life. We find that when people try to put their grief into a box or shut down their feelings, this tends to trigger displaced emotions and manifest in ways that they themselves often don’t understand.

I was a clear example of this.”

The organization provides training to university faculty, staff, and social work students. It works to help faculty become more grief-sensitive and to understand the needs of grieving young adults through its Grief Sensitive Campus Initiative.

“Many institutions offer bereavement leave to faculty,” she observed, “but not to students. Students have had to negotiate their workload with each professor, interfering with their need to be with families. And upon returning, grieving students can’t be expected to function equally with their peers.”

Christine Colbert holds a master’s in journalism. She has written for and edited a variety of media. Her preferred “beat” is good news. • 47

Features | Family

Family | Features

WRITTEN BY

Neil Cotiaux

Christina is one of many foster parents who believe that doubling down on sacrifice is a necessary virtue if the fabric of family life in America is to be strengthened.

displaying the energy and positivity that friends and associates describe as her hallmark traits.

For others, however, the upheaval of the ongoing health crisis took its toll. A January 2021 survey of about 300 foster parents, conducted by Fostering Families Today, found that emotional and psychological problems created a collective dent in these parents’ well-being. Loss of income, deteriorating physical health, fear of family exposure and illness, and on-again-off-again schooling also posed challenges.

Yet, like Christina, these foster parents kept up the pace, maintaining a spirit of sacrifice while aided by strong governmental and community

GIVING BROKEN KIDS

A Chance

Members of foster families adapt, grow, and love one another, even in the most difficult circumstances

I

magine allowing someone you hardly know into your home. Now imagine that stranger eating your food, sleeping in your bed, tugging on you for help, and distracting you from chores, day after day.

That’s exactly what happened when Christina Rutland of Hendersonville, North Carolina, invited a brother and sister from a dysfunctional family to be raised alongside her own kids amid a global pandemic.

As a biological mother of three—Elliot, 9; Emmalynn, 7; and Abigail, 5—Christina is one of many foster parents who believe that doubling down on sacrifice is a necessary virtue if the fabric of family life in America is to be strengthened.

In July 2020, Christina and her husband, Stephen, welcomed a 3-year-old girl and her 4-year-old brother into a safe haven filled with order, love, and laughter. “The Littles,” as Christina calls them, are among an estimated 419,000 youth in foster care nationally, separated from their biological families largely due to domestic violence or substance abuse—a population of vulnerable young people that is almost the size of Spokane and Baton Rouge combined.

But last year, during the pandemic, 20 states witnessed a total drop of 5 percent or more in licensed foster homes, according to figures gathered from child welfare agencies, widening the cracks in the system’s safety net.

“We always need more foster parents,” said Kym Rhodes, a social work liaison for Henderson County, North Carolina, who works with the Rutlands and other households. While most foster kids are age 5 and under at the time they are separated, “we need foster parents who are willing to 48

take older kids. We need foster parents who are willing to take sibling groups, […] newborns that come straight from the hospital.”

Rhodes approached Christina at the church where the two worship and asked her if she would consider taking in siblings who’d been exposed to narcotics within their birth family and whose father was homeless.

Called to “serve for the fatherless,” Christina didn’t flinch. “We’re going to go where the need is,” she remembered thinking. By that time, she and Stephen were well along in the foster licensing process, which included 30 hours of training, a criminal record check, physical exams, and a fire safety inspection.

RIGHT Last year, Christina Rutland welcomed a 3-yearold girl and a 4-yearold boy into her home as a foster parent.

The Value of Stability Sitting at the kitchen table of her home as her birth children folded laundry in a bedroom, Christina said that she shared a “very stable, normal upbringing” with one older sister and a mom and dad who are still together. She met her future husband in high school and they ended up working together at a summer camp during college.

They’ve been married for 12 years.

When her sister and brother-in-law began foster parenting, “I was able to see what they were doing,” Christina said. Through several church friends in nearby Greenville, South Carolina, she was also able to learn about the role foster parents play.

Given her upbringing, the exposure to her sister’s fostering, and an unbreakable faith, “it never dawned on us to say, ‘Oh, we should probably pump the brakes,’” as the pandemic upended daily living, Christina said. Instead, she pushed forward,

support in the form of daycare vouchers, Medicaid eligibility, and donations of meals and clothing.

Children First In the end, fostering is not about the difficulties caregivers face, but about the potential for children in these temporarily blended families—foster and biological alike—to learn, grow, and love one another.

Christina recalled how her kids were a bit wary at first when “the Littles” arrived, wondering which beds they would sleep in that night.

“We’re going to have to be really patient,” was what Emmalynn told her mother. “And I said, ‘Yeah, we’re going to have to be really patient,’” Christina remembered. “But by the end of the next day, they’re all outside playing together.”

Christina believes her own kids now have more empathy toward others who don’t live in safe households. They also understand better why she and Stephen have always set down rules and boundaries. “They’re seeing how difficult it is for these little ones to adapt and, especially initially, to understand why are rules given in the first place.”

The two foster kids have been with the Rutlands for more than a year. While the foster kids and Christina visit the birth mother regularly, “the Littles” may be able to reunite permanently if the conditions that led to their removal improve, lessening the trauma of forced separation.

“One time, I found my oldest boy in tears, and I thought it was because something had been hard for him that day,” Christina related. “And he said, ‘I just know that they really want to go home, and I want them to be happy, but I also don’t want them to leave.’”

Foster care is by no means a guaranteed road to success. Foster children are more likely than non-fostered children to commit suicide. Many do not graduate from high school on time. Others become pregnant or homeless.

But in every foster family created, love and hope abound.

“We ask them to take them in, treat them like they’re your children, love them, be willing to let them go when it’s time to let them go,” said Lorie Horne, Henderson County’s social work program administrator.

“I mean, it’s a difficult job. It really is.”

Neil Cotiaux is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, and business journals, mostly in the Southeast and Midwest. His work has largely focused on community and economic development, immigration, and health care. He works out of Spartanburg, South Carolina. •

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Apple Pie | The Apple Orchards

WRITTEN BY

Annie Wu

THE BEAUTY OF AMERICA’S

APPLE ORCHARDS We share the stories behind some of the country’s beloved family-run orchards

An apple orchard in Medina, Ohio.

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Twin Star Orchards | Apple Pie

RIGHT Twin Star Orchards’ apples primarily go into making hard cider.

Twin Star Orchards Twin Star Orchards in New Paltz, New York, is owned by brother-and-sister duo Peter and Susan Yi. During a visit to Spain’s Basque Country, Peter—previously a wine company owner—fell in love with hard cider, finding the flavors and food pairings more exciting than wine.

“We were looking for an existing orchard that we could grow additional cider varietals on. The rocky soil at Twin Star reminded me of vineyards in Priorat, Spain—which has black slate,” Peter said. Black slate is prized for its drainage properties and is ideal for growing cider-making apples.

The duo kept the orchard’s original trees when they purchased the property in 2015, but they planted another 8,000 trees of 24 heirloom and cider varieties, including Ellis Bitter, Somerset Redstreak, Dabinett, Kingston Black, Ashmead’s Kernel, and Newtown Pippin. The orchard also has some apple varieties just for eating, and people can pick them from trees in the fall.

The Yis are especially proud of growing Roxbury Russet, one of the oldest varieties of apples in America. “The flavor is so exotic and [the] texture is very unusual.” Twin Star does dry farming, cultivating their crops without irrigation, “which means smaller apples and a smaller production—but this accentuates the flavor,” Peter said. The duo has a cidery in Brooklyn that produces about 10,000 cases of cider per year from their orchard-grown apples. • 52

COUNTERCLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT

Peter runs the orchard and cidery with his sister, Susan; the orchard’s black slate soil is ideal for growing apples for cidermaking; people picnicking on the orchard grounds; apple cider donuts are a perfect snack in the fall.

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT

Cidermaker Peter Yi cooks up a feast at the orchard; the Gala apple is among the 24 varieties that the orchard grows; the cidery is located in Brooklyn, New York City.

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Apple Pie | Calico Ranch

Calico Ranch | Apple Pie

The cidery is helmed by David Young, who has a degree in pomology.

Calico Ranch Calico Ranch is a family-run apple and pear orchard located near the historic town of Julian, California. The orchard is part of what was originally a homestead, including a portion of the historic Saunders Ranch. The initial pear orchard was expanded with apple plantings back in the 1960s. The Young family has owned and operated the 30-acre orchard since the 1980s and has since added more apple trees, resulting in over 120 varieties all together.

In the Julian area, Calico Ranch

is one of the last remaining apple orchards where the public can enjoy the fun of picking their own fruit. A few years ago, the Youngs also built an on-site cidery, where they use ranchgrown apples and native yeast to create one-of-a-kind blends. They grow 14 varieties for making cider: a mixture of French cider apples, Spanish cider apples, and some crab apples. The cidery is helmed by David Young, who has a degree in pomology and 19 years of winemaking experience. •

The Calico Ranch grows a mixture of French cider apples, Spanish cider apples, and crab apples for cider-making.

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Apple Pie | Ferrari Apple Orchard

“The microclimate in Pescadero is perfect for growing apples, with the cool sea mist from the ocean.”

— C H RI ST I N A F E RRARI

Ferrari Apple Orchard Along a stretch of California’s State Route 1 that passes through Half Moon Bay, one can find farm stalls set up on the road, and the bounty of produce includes apples grown by the Ferrari family. About 15 years ago, the family purchased a 150-acre working ranch with over 100 years of history, in Pescadero, California. The Ferraris wanted to start a business project that brought the family together. “The orchard provides an opportunity to grow the apple varieties we like as a family, in addition to being a special place where everyone can spend time with each other,” said Christina Ferrari.

Together with her siblings, Christina occasionally helps her parents run the 5-acre orchard, although she primarily manages American Bistro, a Silicon Valley restaurant for which she is also the chef. She believes that the warm days and cool evenings make for the ideal conditions to grow apples. “The microclimate in Pescadero is perfect for growing apples, with the cool sea mist from the ocean,” she said.

The orchard grows nine different varieties, but the family is partial to the Granny Smith. “In addition to the crispness and juiciness, the tart and acidic flavor—plus its firmness—make it perfect for cooking and baking,” Christina said. She also has her own small orchard, where she grows more than a dozen heirloom varieties. As a chef, Christina’s favorite apple dish is the tarte tatin—it’s also an American Bistro specialty. “The caramelization of the apples and delicate puff pastry is a treat,” she said. • 56

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT The

Ferrari orchard’s farm stall along the scenic State Route 1 highway; the Jonastar variety; children enjoying apples at the orchard; Granny Smiths; Gala apples.

Christina Ferrari picking apples at her family’s orchard.

ABOVE

The Ferraris wanted to start a business project that brought the family together.

RIGHT Ferrari is also the chef-owner of a restaurant in Silicon Valley that incorporates apples from the family orchard into its menu.

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Apple Pie | Seed Savers Exchange

Seed Savers Exchange | Apple Pie

The Seed Savers Exchange grows heirloom varieties in an effort to preserve the historic plants, and distributes scion wood to gardeners around the country who are interested in growing them.

LEFT The Black Ben Davis, a variety developed in the 1880s.

Seed Savers Exchange The nonprofit Seed Savers Exchange was cofounded in 1975 by Diane Ott Whealy, who sought to preserve the heirloom plant seeds that her great-grandparents brought from Bavaria when they immigrated to Iowa during the 1880s. Together with her husband, Diane created a network of gardeners who were passionate about protecting rare plants. Today, about 13,000 members, mostly consisting of home gardeners, exchange seeds with one another in hopes of making the heirloom plants more widely available and “less rare,” said orchard manager Lindsay Lee. The organization has tens of thousands of plants in its collection, among which over 900 apple varieties are grown at the Historic Orchard. “Each variety is relatively rare, established commercially before 1950, with some varieties dating back to the 1700s,” said Jennifer Ripp, assistant orchard manager. She described the orchard as a “living museum.”

The 10-acre orchard does not produce apples for public consumption.

Instead, they distribute scion wood— young plant shoots that are used for grafting—to gardeners around the country who are interested in growing apples. Ripp said that each variety has its own character. “Some varieties have complicated histories that add to their intrigue, while others are ‘so ugly they’re cute,’ like the Knobbed Russet.”

A variety that stands out for her is the Quaker Beauty, “technically a crab apple, with fuzzy waxless skin like a peach and a delicate flavor of banana and hazelnut.” Another has been dubbed the Leopold Tree, after a local family homestead in Burlington, Iowa, where the variety was found. •

RIGHT The ‘Summer Red,’ the Snow Apple in a vibrant green and red shade, and the Quaker Beauty are among the rare varieties grown at the Seed Savers Exchange.

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Apple Pie | Temperate Orchard Conservancy

Walker Apples | Apple Pie

The orchard grows 27 apple varieties. Lee Walker Sr., pictured with his wife, Shirley, is 90 this year and still works at the orchard as much as he can.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT

The rare Saorit apple; a basket full of heirloom varieties; a variety called Young America; a sunset view of the orchard.

Temperate Orchard Conservancy Three longtime friends started the Temperate Orchard Conservancy in Molalla, Oregon, to pursue their passion for finding and preserving heirloom apple varieties that have mostly been forgotten. In 2011, they began grafting trees from mutual friend Nick Botner’s private collection. Today, the 40-acre farm grows about 4,000 different varieties of apples.

“The complexity of apples offers much diversity—taste, smell, sweet or tart or acidic, texture, juiciness,” said cofounder Joanie Cooper. The conservancy often receives queries about unidentified ancient apple trees on 60

aging homesteads. The nonprofit Lost Apple Project—devoted to exploring Oregon, Washington, and Idaho for heirloom varieties—also sends its apples to the conservancy for identification. “There are very few people in this country who do apple ID, but it is our commitment,” Cooper said.

She also noted that Oregon’s Willamette Valley, where the orchard is located, is ideal for growing fruit. The region has “enough heat in the summer, [and] cold enough winters that offer apple trees enough ‘chill hours’ to go into dormancy and come out and grow happily in the spring and summer,” she said. • AMERI CAN ESSE NCE

Walker Apples Lee Walker Sr., the 90-year-old patriarch of the family that runs Walker Apples, still works at the orchard as much as he can. The 40-some-acre farm in Graton, California, has been in the family since 1910 and weathered its fair share of challenges, from labor shortages to stiff competition from China’s juicing industry, but Walker said that the family has managed to keep it going through dedication. Today, the orchard grows 27 apple varieties and is primarily run by Walker’s children, its third-generation operators.

Walker said that he is especially proud of growing the Gravenstein, a “great all-around apple.” It has a unique sweet and tart flavor that works well for pie and apple sauce, he said. The orchard was named the Sonoma County Farm Bureau’s 2017 Farm Family of the Year, in honor of the farmers’ passion for growing apples. The orchard’s products are sold directly to customers at the farm and in local markets. • ISSUE 5 | OC TOB ER 20 21

The orchard was named the Sonoma County Farm Bureau’s 2017 Farm Family of the Year.

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Apple Pie

Apple Pie

An apple orchard along the road in Clintondale, New York.

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Apple Pie | Ask an Expert

WRITTEN BY

Annie Wu

Rebecca Bloom, owner of Piedaho, grew up baking pies for her grandfather, who loved pumpkin pie.

The Fall Harvest—in a Pie Why we celebrate the fall bounty by baking apple pie and embracing other fruits of the season

A

s American as apple pie. It’s an expression commonly used to describe something that completely encapsulates the American character.

But surprisingly, the kinds of apples we commonly see in our markets and grocery stores are not actually indigenous to the United States. The crab apple is the only species in the genus Malus that is native to North America;

One of Piedaho’s intricately designed pies.

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it was English settlers who brought cultivated apple seeds with them.

According to the University of Illinois, the first apple trees were planted by pilgrims in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Americans soon started grafting different cultivars, and today, there are roughly 2,500 varieties grown in the country.

Meanwhile, the earliest forms of pie were oblong—meant to transport food

easily and preserve food for longer periods in the age before refrigeration. The crust was often inedible.

The first truly American apple pie recipe appeared in “American Cookery,”

by Amelia Simmons, published in 1796.

The cookbook is considered to be the first to use ingredients and cooking techniques distinct from the English tradition. True to American taste, the recipe called for cinnamon and mace— the outer covering of nutmeg—as spices.

Expressing Ourselves Why did the apple pie become America’s signature dessert and a symbol of Americana? Ken Haedrich, author of several pie cookbooks, including the most recent “Pie Academy,” believes the versatility of the pie is a reflection of America’s love for self-expression.

“We’re all cowboys, you know. We like to do our own thing. And an apple pie is great for that. You can use virtually any type of apple that you want, any type of sweetening, any type of thickener, you can put a top crust or no crust, you can put a crumb topping,” explained Haedrich, who describes himself as a “pie apostle” and runs an online forum devoted to helping bakers with pie-related quandaries. “I think this is one of the things that has made apple pie the quintessential American pie—the fact that we can shape it into anything we want it to be.”

Pie is not only an expression of individual personality but also of America’s different regional attributes. In parts of New England where there is a lot of dairy production, a tradition emerged to place a slice of cheddar cheese on top of apple pie. “You start to get this confluence of regional ingredients with apples, AMERI CAN ESSE NCE

And in Indiana, the Hoosier sugar and you’re going to find that in every part of the country. They will have their cream pie—made simply of cream, sugar, flour, and spices—emerged during lean own sort of variations of apple pies times when eggs and fresh ingredients based on what else grows there or the area is known for,” Haedrich explained. were not available, explained Capri Cafaro, cookbook author and host of Some in New England also use “Eat Your Heartland Out,” a podcast maple syrup as a sweetener, while in on Midwestern food traditions. “We’re parts of the country with large Amish dealing with ingredients that […] could communities, such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, and other parts of the Midwest, apple custard pies are common due to their dairy farming.

But there are other fruits of the harvest represented through pie. In the South, pecan pie is the ultimate fall dessert as the nuts are harvested during that season. In the Pacific Northwest, Rebecca Bloom, founder of the Piedaho Bakery based in Hailey, Idaho, throws in cranberries with local Jonathan and Jonagold apples and thyme for a fall treat. The pie company also uses flash-frozen berries from Washington in pies that are served throughout the fall and winter. Bloom loves the wild huckleberries that grow in Idaho, but she has yet to find a way to source them adequately to make pie—though she hopes “one day maybe we will find a treasure trove of them!”

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be utilized […] with the resources available to people,” she said.

Also in the Midwest, other types of pie became popular due to the waves of immigrants who settled in the region and introduced their culinary traditions, explained Cafaro. In the Upper Peninsula region of Michigan, handheld pies called pasties reign supreme. They are typically Pie is a reflection of the American penchant for selfexpression.

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Apple Pie | Ask an Expert Each region of America likes to put its own spin on how to incorporate the fall bounty into a delicious pie.

Baking Tips PRO TIP

For single-crust nut pies, sweet potato pies, and pumpkin pies, ‘Pie Apostle’ Ken Haedrich recommends partially baking (or parbaking) the crust ahead of time. That way, when you place the wet filling, you won’t saturate the bottom crust or risk making it soggy.

RECOMMENDED APPLE VARIETIES

Haedrich suggests using firm, fresh-textured apples suitable for baking—that means avoiding varieties like Red Delicious. His favorites for apple pies are Northern Spy and Winesap, both for texture and flavor complexity.

“For an apple to be a really good pie apple, it should have a nice balance of tart and sweetness to it—and they should be nice and juicy,” he said.

BAKING THE PERFECT CRUST

savory and trace back to immigrants from Cornwall, England, who came for mining jobs during the mid-1800s.

But the custardy, delicious pumpkin pie did not emerge as a classic fall dish until Thanksgiving became a regional holiday in New England during the 1800s, Cafaro explained. Many abolitionists in New England featured pumpkin pie in their writings, and it became a symbol of the movement.

After President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, pumpkin pie became a symbol of the fall bounty.

There is also the wholly American tradition of making recipes developed 66

by major food corporations to promote their products. One year, Cafaro won the third-place ribbon at the Ashtabula County Fair in Ohio for her peaches and cream pie—which incorporated gelatin.

The recipe came from one published

by Jell-O. During the mid-20th century, with the rise of industrial food, brands popularized many classic desserts, such as the icebox cake, made with Nabisco chocolate wafers, Cafaro explained.

“They oftentimes become heirloom recipes in their own weird way.”

a treasured fall family tradition.

“Mom and Dad used to pile all of us in the station wagon. We had an old Woody, and we’d go up into the hills around Plainfield,” he recalled. “They’d buy bushels, baskets full of apples, and they’d come back and they would make their apple pies together.” Mom was in charge of the apple filling, while Dad was the crust maker. He believes these kinds of precious memories are “one of the things that strengthens our ties, our love of apple pie, and our love of pie, period.”

Julianna Butler, a baker in Vermont, similarly feels that pie gives off a Fall Memories “homey feel”—a comfort food that For Haedrich, who grew up in New Jersey with six siblings, pie-making was “reminds you of your grandmother.” In AMERI CAN ESSE NCE

fall 2019, Butler won second place in an apple pie baking contest held by a local farmers market. The winning recipe incorporated her experience working at a pie bakery in her hometown in Virginia. Pie is Butler’s favorite dessert; in fact, for her upcoming fall wedding, instead of serving a wedding cake, she plans to give out mini pumpkin, pecan, and apple pies from the Virginia bakery.

Bloom, of Piedaho, said she recalls baking pies—especially her grandfather’s favorite, pumpkin pie—as a young child, and gifting them to him on birthdays.

Her grandfather has passed away, but she still makes the same recipe—with a few of her own tweaks—to this day.

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Haedrich said many of the people who email him with pie-related queries mention how much they enjoy the tactile experience of making pie. “You get your hands into it, you get to smell all the lovely ingredients.” For those who are new to pie-making, he recommends that they just practice—and not worry too much about how it looks. “I always tell people, don’t be afraid of strutting your ugly pies. Everybody makes a lot of ugly pies when they first start out,” he said.

He notes the most important thing is to enjoy the process. “Just immerse yourself in it totally. Just enjoy every aspect of it.” •

Haedrich’s biggest tip is to “proceed fearlessly.”

Work with cold ingredients—cold butter and cold flour—to ensure a flakier crust.

Be careful not to sabotage the crust with too little or too much water—practice achieving a happy medium.

Avoid handling dough roughly like when making bread. “You want to use a light touch when you handle your pie pastry.”

Haedrich’s favorite type of apple pie is apple-pear pie. “I think pears have an even more seductive flavor than apples do,” he said. The fruit is aromatic and has a soft, buttery texture that adds an extra dimension to the pie.

Midwest culinary expert Capri Cafaro believes in baking a cookie crust, which “cuts out the science” and makes for a more interesting flavor profile, such as Oreo or vanilla wafer.

Rebecca Bloom of Piedaho says: “For the perfect pie crust, we use mostly butter, but a bit of shortening. The butter is for flavor, but the shortening helps keep your crust flaky, as it has a higher heat point than butter. This means those little pockets of fat stay solid longer. Hence more flakes!”

Baker Julianna Butler believes in using a food processor to mix up the pie dough, as opposed to hand-mixing, to make life easier.

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Apple Pie | Recipes

Recipes | Apple Pie

Cheddar-Crusted Apple Pie

Cheddar Cheese Pie Dough

N

E

ew Englanders have known the pleasures of combining apple pie and Cheddar cheese for a very long time — long enough to be quite opinionated about how the two should be eaten together. Some cooks include grated Cheddar in the filling itself. Others grate the cheese over the top of the pie, which is fine when the pie is warm but less so when it is cool and the cheese hardens. Old-timers lay a slab of Cheddar right on top of their pie slice and dig in. I wanted to integrate the cheese into the pie itself, so I baked grated cheese into the crust, which keeps the snappy Cheddar flavor front and center. This is one good pie.

very true New Englander knows that nothing goes better with apples than sharp Cheddar cheese. My favorite way of combining these two is by baking the cheese right in the crust. The baked-in Cheddar flavor is out of this world, and it’s one of the prettiest crusts you’ll find, all golden and covered with crispy cheese freckles. It makes a great crust for savory pies, too, like quiches and pot pies.

One 9- to 9 1/2-inch standard or deep-dish double-crust piecrust or two pie shells

• • • • •

Makes 8 servings Cheddar Cheese Pie Dough (page 70) Filling • 8 cups peeled, cored, and sliced Granny Smith or other apples • ½ cup sugar • 2 tablespoons lemon juice • ¾ cup chopped walnut halves, preferably toasted (page 453) • 2 ½–3 tablespoons all-­purpose flour • 1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon milk, for glaze

1. Prepare and refrigerate the pie dough. Roll the larger dough portion into a 12 ½- to 13-inch circle and line a 9- to 9 ½-inch deep-dish pie pan with it, letting the overhang drape over the edge.

Refrigerate the shell until needed.

2. Combine the apples, sugar, lemon juice, and walnuts in a large bowl. Mix well. Let stand for 5 to 10 minutes.

3. Adjust the oven racks so one is in the lower position and another is in the middle of the oven.

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

4. Sprinkle the flour over the apples, using the larger amount of flour if the apples seem very juicy.

Mix well.

5. Roll the other dough portion into an 11-inch circle. Turn the filling into the pie shell and smooth it over to level out the fruit. Lightly moisten the rim of the pie shell. Drape the top pastry over the filling, pressing along the edge to seal. Trim the overhang with scissors, leaving an even 1/2 to 3/4 inch all around, then sculpt the edge into an upstanding ridge. Flute or crimp the 68

• •

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour ⅓ cup fine yellow cornmeal 2 teaspoons cornstarch ¾ teaspoon salt 1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes 1 ¼ cups cold grated sharp Cheddar cheese (white or yellow)* ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons cold water

*Alternative: Sharp and flavorful cheeses like Gouda or Gruyére work best.

1. Combine the flour, cornmeal, cornstarch, and salt in a large bowl. Scatter the butter around on a large flour-dusted plate. Measure the water into a 1-cup glass measuring cup. Refrigerate everything for 10 to 15 minutes.

2. Transfer the dry ingredients to a food processor. Pulse several times to mix. Scatter the butter over the dry mixture. Pulse the machine seven or eight times, until the pieces of butter are roughly the size of small peas. Remove the lid and scatter the cheese over the mixture. Replace the lid. Pulse three or four times, just long enough to mix in the cheese thoroughly.

3. Pour the water through the feed tube in a 8to 10-second stream, pulsing the machine as you add it. Stop pulsing when the mixture begins to form large clumps.

4. Turn the dough out onto your work surface and divide it in two, making one part — for the bottom crust — slightly larger than the other.

Pack the dough into balls, place on separate sheets of plastic wrap, and flatten into 3/4-inchthick disks. Wrap the disks and refrigerate for about 1 hour before rolling.

edge, as desired. Poke several steam vents in the top of the pie with a large fork or paring knife.

Put a couple of the vents near the edge so you can check the juices. Brush the pie lightly with the egg wash glaze.

6. Put the pie on the prepared baking sheet and bake on the lower oven rack for 30 minutes.

Reduce the oven temperature to 375°F (190°C) and move the pie up to the middle rack, rotating the pie 180 degrees. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes longer, until the pie is a rich, golden brown and juices bubble thickly up through the vents.

7. Transfer the pie to a rack and cool for about 1 hour before serving. Longer is fine, but you’ll bring out the flavor of the cheese if you serve this pie warmer than most.

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To Make this Dough by Hand Combine the chilled dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the butter and cut it in thoroughly. Mix in the cheese by hand. Mound the ingredients in the center of the bowl. Drizzle half of the water down the sides of the bowl, rotating the bowl as you pour. Mix well with a fork. Sprinkle half of the remaining water over the mixture; mix again. Pour most of the remaining water over the mixture; mix vigorously until the dough gathers in large clumps.

If there are dry, floury areas remaining, stir in the last spoonfuls of water. Turn the dough out onto your work surface and proceed as in step 4.

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Apple Pie | Recipes

Recipes | Apple Pie

North Carolina Sweet Potato Pie

Old-Fashioned Shortening Pie Dough

M

T

y adoptive North Carolina ranks first in the nation in the production of sweet potatoes: more than 60,000 acres of them, about half of the total US production. In light of that, I came up with this recipe as a tribute to the farmers and their lovely sweet potatoes.

Sweet potatoes have a wonderfully dense flesh and deep color that are in their full glory in this tasty pie.

his is a pretty standard all-shortening piecrust, like the one my dad used when I was a youngster. A shortening piecrust won’t have the delicate flavor of a butter crust, and the texture is typically more crumbly, less flaky. Still, this yields a delicious, tender crust that many bakers believe makes the best pies.

One 9- to 9 1/2-inch standard or deep-dish pie shell

• •

Makes 8–10 servings Old-Fashioned Shortening Pie Dough (page 62) or another single-crust dough Filling • 3 medium-large sweet potatoes • 3 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk, at room temperature • ⅔ cup packed light brown sugar • ⅓ cup granulated sugar • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted • ½ cup heavy cream • ½ cup half-and-half • ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract • 1 tablespoon all-­purpose flour • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon • ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg • ¼ teaspoon ground cloves • ½ teaspoon salt • Whipped Cream (page 447) (optional)

1. Prepare and refrigerate the pie dough. Roll the dough into a 12 1/2- to 13-inch circle and line a 9- to 9 1/2-inch deep-dish pie pan with it, shaping the edge into an upstanding ridge. Flute or crimp the edge, chill the shell, and partially prebake it according to the instructions on page 000.

2. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Scrub the potatoes and place them on a baking sheet. Pierce them several times with a paring knife. Bake for 60 to 75 minutes, until they feel tender all the way through when pierced with a paring knife. Cut the potatoes open to help them cool faster.

3. When the potatoes have cooled, scoop the flesh into a food processor. Process to a smooth purée. Measure out 1 1/2 cups purée. (Save any extra purée for another use.)

4. Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Whisk the eggs and egg yolk in a large bowl until frothy. Add the potato purée, sugars, melted butter, heavy cream, half-and-half, and vanilla. Using a handheld 70

• • • electric mixer, beat on medium-low speed until evenly blended. Mix the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt in a small bowl. Sprinkle over the liquid and blend it in on low speed.

5. Put the pie shell on a baking sheet, near the oven, and carefully pour the filling into the shell.

Bake the pie, on the sheet, on the middle oven rack for 20 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350°F (180°C) and rotate the pie 180 degrees. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes longer, until the filling is set. When the pie is done, the filling will be wobbly and puff slightly around the edges.

6. Transfer the pie to a rack. Serve slightly warm, at room temperature, or chilled, garnished with whipped cream, if desired.

Boil or Bake?

Excerpted from In my sweet potato pie trials, I both boiled and “Pie Academy” by baked the potatoes and found that I preferred the Ken Haedrich, baked results. Baking takes longer, but it concenphotography by Emulsion Studio, trates the flavor without adding excess moisture used with permission to the pie. from Storey You get a creamier, fuller-bodied pie when the Publishing. moisture comes from the cream and eggs. If you like, you can accelerate the pie-making process by baking the sweet potatoes the day before, perhaps when you have something else in the oven.

Refrigerate them after they have cooled.

And by the way, since you’re baking sweet potatoes anyway, why not bake a couple of extras and use them to thicken soups or stews, or in muffins and quick breads. Or serve them as a simple side dish, mixed with butter and a drizzle of maple syrup.

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1 ½ cups all-purpose flour 1 tablespoon confectioners’ sugar (optional for a sweet pie; omit for a savory pie) ½ teaspoon salt ½ cup cold vegetable shortening ¼–⅓ cup cold water

1. Combine the flour, sugar (if using), and salt in a large bowl; refrigerate for 15 minutes.

2. Add the shortening to the dry ingredients and toss it with your hands to coat, then break it up into smaller pieces. Using a pastry blender, cut the shortening into the dry ingredients until the pieces of fat are roughly the size of small peas and everything looks like it has been touched by the fat. There should be no dry, floury areas.

3. Mound the ingredients in the center of the bowl. Drizzle about half of the water down the sides of the bowl, turning the bowl as you pour so the water doesn’t end up in one spot. Using a large fork, lightly mix the dough, tossing it from the perimeter toward the center of the bowl.

Drizzle most of the remaining water here and there over the dough and toss again.

4. Mix the dough vigorously now. The dough should start to gather in large clumps, but if it is dry in places, stir in the rest of the water.

5. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and pack it into a ball, then knead it several times to smooth it out. Put the dough on a sheet of plastic wrap and flatten it into a 3/4-inch-thick disk. Wrap the disk and refrigerate for about 1 hour before rolling.

Double-Crust Version The softness of the shortening makes this an easy recipe to double. Simply double all of the ingredients and proceed as above. Divide the dough in two when it comes out of the bowl, making one part slightly larger than the other if you’re using it for a top and bottom crust. • ISSUE 5 | OC TOB ER 20 21

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Apple Pie | Athol Orchards

WRITTEN BY

Savannah Howe

Athol Orchards | Apple Pie

PHOTOGRAPHED BY

Ben Norwood

Back to Our Roots

At Athol Orchards, a graphic designer turned apple farmer rediscovered her love of nature and America’s agricultural heritage

T

he fundamentals of life at Athol Orchards are simple: a tight-knit family, a love for all things apple, and a deep appreciation for mountain air and American soil.

Located in the northern reaches of Idaho, Athol Orchards is owned and operated by the Conley family: Erreck, Nikki, daughters Mackenzie (13) and Madelyn (10), and Nikki’s mother Carole.

While it is most known to the public for its historical apple varieties, delectable apple cider syrup, and Idaho-harvested maple syrup, the Conley family looks at the orchard as a token of the American Dream: strong family foundations, plenty of hard work (oftentimes backbreaking, as Nikki said), and the traditional, family-owned farm life.

In the beginning, many told Nikki and Erreck they’d bitten off more than they could chew. But since moving to Idaho from the West Coast in January of 2016, the family has been chipping away at their vision, little by little; just six years ago, Nikki was a professional graphic designer working in a Northern California metropolis, parked in front of a computer day in and day out, while memories of the quiet Californian mountain town where she spent her childhood bloomed in her mind.

“When I was 3 years old, my family wanted to seek a quieter life for me and my siblings, so we moved to the eastern foothills of central California in a little town called Springfield. It was the ideal

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small town,” said Nikki. “The Sequoia National Forest was pretty much our backyard, and we had a lot of these multi-generational, commercial apple orchards that were being grown in high-elevation mountains there.”

Crisp apples and fresh mountain air are braided into Nikki’s childhood, so much so that she often asked her father if they could become apple farmers. The glow of a computer screen became a headache as the mother of two pictured the quality of life she wanted for her daughters.

Building an Orchard From Scratch Nikki and Erreck didn’t have a lick of agricultural experience of their own—Nikki herself had cycled through graphic design, teaching, and the medical field, trying to find her lifelong career—but while the orchard dream was still far removed from reality, it remained within arms’ reach.

“We wanted to seek a quiet life for our kids. A slower life, away from the big population densities in California where we were. I don’t know if this happens to all parents, but our minds really started changing in the ways we thought about the world, after watching how things have changed and the world got so fast, unpredictable, scary.”

Northern Idaho checked all of Nikki’s boxes for climate, environment, safety. She, her high school sweetheart, and their kids headed east. And with the town of Athol nearly rhyming with the word AMERI CAN ESSE NCE

Nikki Conley chose a small town in Idaho to start her orchard, after years of toiling in front of a computer as a graphic designer.

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Apple Pie | Athol Orchards

Athol Orchards | Apple Pie

“Our farm has become this place where people can come, and they don’t take out their cell phones, and there’s this kindness and this camaraderie that takes place here.”

Nikki with her husband, Erreck, and two daughters, Mackenzie and Madelyn.

—N IK K I C O N LE Y

A Rewarding Dream So, what is it like living in the shadow of the Rockies, where your nearest neighbors are apple trees? It is an “amazing silence,” Nikki said, free of the traffic, construction, and general cacophony that steals the quiet away from urban places.

The morning of her American Essence interview, she rose early to find wild turkeys foraging the orchard for fallen apples while her Nigerian dwarf goats brayed to hail the morning; in the mountains, the nighttime often leaves a milky fog behind that casts the forest surrounding the orchard into haziness. Elk may emerge to try to sneak a few apples off the trees, and while the Conley family has not yet experienced any firsthand, moose, wolves, and cougars loom in this very much still wild and untamed land.

Metro California, choked and uncomfortable like a person pulling at a turtleneck, seemed a distant memory.

are multi-volume book series, historians, and apple, it just felt a universal sign to Nikki that it was time to make her childhood dream come true. national conventions dedicated to the apple, and the varieties grown at Athol are unlike those found Crucial to this was her husband’s willingness on grocery store shelves. Some varieties were to change his own career path, move states, and lost and found again when abandoned American walk alongside his wife in her new endeavor; homesteads, dating back to the 18th century, were while apples alone may not have been a convincrediscovered and explored—the ancient apple ing-enough argument, Nikki finding her true calling surely would. Erreck is a 23-year Air Force trees found on those homesteads were “gifts from our ancestors,” Nikki said. veteran who remained in government work until “I learned about all of these lost, old, historjoining Nikki in the full-time orchard venture.

Carole lives on the orchard and assists in the oper- ical varieties that really tied in with my love of American history. All the pieces started to fall into ation as well, helping with gardening, watering, place for me.” Nikki now delights in sharing her and tending the berry patches. knowledge through her orchard, which she said The apples and their byproducts are just a delialso functions as a living history farm. cious bonus. “I’m the dreamer and Erreck is very much the doer. Everything we’ve done, we’ve done together right alongside our girls,” Nikki said.

Back to Nature What to most people is just a household kitchen Preserving history and providing agricultural edustaple is to Nikki a fruit with a rich, intricate hiscation are important, Nikki explained. Agricultural tory, which has fascinated her for years. There exposure in public school is minimal, and, with 74

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the threshold to enter the commercial farming industry so high, she wants impressionable young children to learn the vital role that agriculture—not just commercial farming—can play for a person, a community, and America as a whole.

“We want to change the way kids see agriculture, whether it be becoming beekeepers, having their own orchard, or raising Nigerian goats for cheese and raw milk. Public education doesn’t have the time to touch on agriculture anymore, and that’s why we need to hold on to the family farms in our country,” she said.

Nikki does not aspire to run a commercial apple farm. She sees herself as a curator of apples, and her farm a preservation orchard, with its 1.5 acres and 120 trees, holding space in the present for apple varieties that held so much significance in the past. She has plans to plant more trees on an additional 16 acres next spring.

Athol Orchards is perhaps most known for its signature apple cider syrup. A lover of natural and holistic ingredients harvested straight from the earth, Nikki didn’t like the thought of her family using artificial syrups, so she set out to create a syrup product from her apples. She did not expect that she would soon be selling out of the product at farmers markets—where customers gushed that the syrup was happiness in a bottle or like Christmas for the tastebuds—and shipping to all 50 states and internationally.

Nikki took a similar approach with maple syrup, the supermarket varieties of which can be loaded with additives, after a visit to New England where maple farms thrive. “The whole idea and tradition of maple syrup stuck in my heart just as fast as the apples did,” she said.

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Apple Pie | Athol Orchards

The local community has welcomed the orchard and the Conley family with open arms, their message of a more purposeful, slower life included.

“The forest is quiet, and the atmosphere is cool.

The earth is damp, you can smell the soil under the grass. We are a forest-edge environment, which means we let the native grass and wildflowers grow in the springtime,” Nikki said.

The most rewarding of it all has been watching her family slow down—not only watching her dream of apples and syrups blossom, but her dream of true, unadulterated happiness find its way into her daughters’ hearts.

“It’s been a very fulfilling thing for my kids to watch us develop this business. They’ve now realized that they can be entrepreneurs themselves, and they don’t have to work for somebody else, or work for the system. They can build a life for themselves and have a life that they want. They’ll be able to provide for their own families and not have to work on somebody else’s clock and somebody else’s dime,” Nikki said.

The local community has welcomed the orchard and the Conley family with open arms, their message of a more purposeful, slower life included. Nikki recently experienced an accident that left her injured, and the community swooped in to help with farm operations. “People are tired and weary of this fast-paced world. They’re losing connection to humans,” Nikki said. “Our farm has become this place where people can come, and they don’t take out their cell phones, and there’s this kindness and this camaraderie that takes place here.”

Athol Orchards has provided so much more to Nikki than apple pie and maple syrup. She and her family love this land from mountain peak to soil, growing their roots deeper than those of

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their apple trees. And while Nikki’s father—who played such an important role in taking her to orchards and hearing her childhood dreams of becoming an apple farmer—passed on long before the orchard came to fruition, Nikki looks out over her work and knows he’d be proud, perhaps even smiling down.

Savannah Howe is a freelance magazine journalist currently calling the cornfields of the Upper Midwest home. When she is not telling America’s stories, she can be found on the hunt for the best sushi or coffee out there. •

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Apple Pie | Tidbits

The True Story | Apple Pie

It’s no myth, either, that John Chapman introduced apple trees to large swathes of frontier territory, from modern Pennsylvania and Ohio to Indiana, Illinois, and even Canadian Ontario.

Apple Fun Facts

THE REAL

Johnny Appleseed

WRITTEN BY

Annie Wu

The Birth

of the Apple

The apple tree likely originated in an area between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea.

Apple-growing belongs to the field of science called pomology, a branch of botany that focuses on fruit and its cultivation.

Apple

Science

Washington’s

Hobby

Onced called

Winter Bananas

During colonial times, apples were called winter bananas or melt-in-the-mouth.

Apples

The apple blossom is the state flower of Michigan.

750,000 years of consumption Humans have enjoyed apples in one form or another for approximately 750,000 years.

One of President George Washington’s hobbies was pruning apple trees.

#1

Apple Blossom

2,500

Varieties

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Apples are the most consumed fruit in the United States, followed closely by oranges.

2,500 varieties of apples are grown in the United States, 100 of them commercially.

States produce apples

Thirty-two states cultivate apples commercially. The top five appleproducing states are Washington, New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and California.

SOURCES: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS EXTENSION AND USAPPLE ASSOCIATION

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The True Story | History

WRITTEN BY

W. Kesler Jackson

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Johnny Appleseed was a living person, and he brought hard apple cider to the early-1800s frontier

W

alt Disney’s 1948 animated short, “The Legend of Johnny Appleseed,” famously depicts its main character as a Pennsylvania farmer yearning to join the pioneers heading west to the frontier. All those settlers would need something to eat— and so Disney’s Johnny is determined to plant apple trees across the land in order to feed them.

The real Johnny Appleseed—a “small, wiry man, full of restless activity” named John Chapman, born in Massachusetts in 1774—was indeed a trained orchardist, and he really did show up in Ohio Territory with “a horse-load of apple seeds” to plant. It’s no myth, either, that John Chapman introduced apple trees to large swathes of frontier territory, from modern Pennsylvania and Ohio to Indiana, Illinois, and even Canadian Ontario.

Orchards for Cider But Chapman’s apples weren’t meant for eating at all (they would have been far too sour, anyway). No—the apples of the real Johnny Appleseed were meant for making hard cider. As a not-so-subtle Smithsonian Magazine headline framed it in 2014, “The Real Johnny Appleseed Brought Apples—and Booze—to the American Frontier.” Journalist Michael Pollan agreed, explaining in a 2015 interview, “Really, what Johnny Appleseed was doing and the reason he was welcome in every cabin in Ohio and Indiana ISSUE 5 | OC TOB ER 20 21

was he was bringing the gift of alcohol to the frontier. He was our American Dionysus.” Perhaps as early as the 1810s, however, Chapman was already being referred to as “Johnny Appleseed,” recognized as such “in every log-cabin from the Ohio River to the Northern lakes, and westward to the prairies of […] Indiana,” according to an 1871 Harper’s New Monthly Magazine piece.

Unfortunately, along with apple trees Chapman also planted countless acres of dogfennel, which he considered as possessing medicinal qualities; dogfennel is now seen as a pernicious weed.

And the real Appleseed’s motivations were also far more complicated than those of the happy planter portrayed in the Disney musical. Far from acting the altruistic scatterer of apple seeds tossed hither and thither wherever he happened to roam, Chapman was probably a shrewd entrepreneur. The nurseries Chapman planted weren’t open to all, but rather fenced off, each tree meant for selling to settlers for six and a quarter cents. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, some land speculation companies required prospective colonists to plant fifty apple trees on their land; since it took the better part of a decade for these trees to bear fruit, such planting would serve to prove the colonists’ commitment to develop the land over many years. The real Appleseed saw in this a business opportunity. He would thus plant a nursery, enter into a

business partnership with someone in the area to manage the sale of the trees to arriving settlers eager to quickly fulfill the companies’ requirements, and then move on to repeat the process elsewhere. Two or three years later, he might return to tend to the nursery.

Traversing the Frontier and in Touch With Indians This was a business model that demanded he labor “on the farthest verge of white settlements,” and it wasn’t an easy line of work. Chapman essentially lived life as a nomad—and a barefoot one at that. One newspaper described him as “barefooted and almost naked,” and for a time he apparently wore a coffee sack, having cut out holes for his head and appendages. (There was, too, his signature hat: a tin vessel, with a visor-like peak in the front, that doubled as a pot for cooking.) The work itself could be hazardous. Once, while working in a tree, he fell and got his neck stuck between forking branches. If one of his helpers that day, a mere lad of eight years, hadn’t discovered him and run for help, the real Johnny Appleseed might have died in 1819. And as far away as they might have seemed from America’s economic centers, Chapman’s enterprises weren’t immune from the vicissitudes of the larger economy. When recession racked the United States in 1837, the price of his trees plummeted to just two cents apiece.

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History | The True Story

The True Story | History

(in the words of one 19th-century newspaper, he “sauntered through town eating his dry rusk and cold meat”).

Frequently, he would stop to entertain RIGHT Cancelled groups of children—apparently he was stamp featuring a master storyteller—or preach “on the Jonathan Chapman, mysteries of his religious faith” to any known as “Johnny adult who might listen. To little girls he Appleseed.”

Chapman lived from gifted bits of ribbon and calico; “Many 1774 until 1845. a grandmother in Ohio and Indiana,” reported an article published a few decades after his death, “can remember the presents she received when a child from poor homeless Johnny Appleseed.”

Once, after being gifted shoes for his bare feet by a particularly assertive settler, he was discovered a few days later again walking barefoot in the cold; the settler confronted him “with some degree of anger,” only to find out that Chapman had almost immediately re-gifted the shoes to a poor family, some of them barefoot, traveling west.

Days after strolling through the streets of Fort Wayne, Indiana, the real Appleseed died suddenly. The year was 1845, and John Chapman was around 70 years old. He was hailed in one obituary for “his eccentricity,” his “strange garb,” his material self-denial (apparently his faith had worn away at the material entrepreneurship of his youth), his have saved hundreds of lives.

The frontier along which he worked, “cheerfulness,” and his “shrewdness and Disney’s cartoon Johnny makes skirting American Indian country, penetration.” Johnny Appleseed was could also be dangerous. But the natives, friends with a skunk and is beloved buried at Fort Wayne. by all animals. In truth, the land he whom Chapman always admired and Within a quarter-century, the life of traversed teemed with potentially menwhose wilderness trails he often traJohnny Appleseed was featured in the acing wild animals, including wolves, versed, left the real Appleseed alone, aforementioned Harper’s New Monthly rattlesnakes, wild hogs, and bears. One considering him something of a medMagazine piece, subtitled “A Pioneer account of Chapman, however, does icine man; how else could one explain the privation and exposure which he so claim he had partially tamed a pet wolf, Hero.” Even then, it was admitted which followed him around everywhere that, as the frontier disappeared, “the easily endured? Even during the War he went, and his religious fervor (he fol- pioneer character is rapidly becoming of 1812, when many natives along the mythical.” The story of the nomadic frontier allied with Britain to devastate lowed Swedenborgianism) did eventually cultivate in him an almost Jain-like nurseryman “whose whole [life] was white frontier communities, Chapman devoted to the work of planting apple respect for all living creatures. By the never ceased his wanderings, and he was never harmed. One frontier settler, time of his death, he had become a full- seeds in remote places” had begun to take on a life of its own—a myth which, fledged vegetarian. reporting his experience during this by the mid-20th-century, had become period, remembered with a “thrill” the musical Disney legend. peripatetic Chapman’s timely warning An Orator and a Gift-giver to his community: “The Spirit of the As an itinerant orchardist-nurseryman, Lord is upon me, and he hath anointed the real Appleseed, with his “long dark Dr. W. Kesler Jackson is a university me to blow the trumpet in the wilderhair, a scanty beard that was never professor of history. Known on ness, and sound an alarm in the forest; shaved, and keen black eyes,” was well- YouTube as “The Nomadic Professor,” for behold, the tribes of the heathen known up and down the frontier. This he offers online history courses are round about your doors, and a meant Chapman was often “passing featuring his signature on-location devouring flame followed after them.” through” the towns and settlements and videos, filmed the world over, at The real Appleseed’s warnings may American Indian villages of the region NomadicProfessor.com • LEFT Illustration of Johnny Appleseed delivering a speech, circa 1820.

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History | Founding Fathers

WRITTEN BY

W. Kesler Jackson

Women laying flowers at George Washington’s feet as he rides over a bridge at Trenton, New Jersey, on the way to his inauguration as first president of the United States on April 30, 1789.

RIGHT

Like a

Culprit to His Execution

What George Washington’s inaugural journey can teach us about impossible expectations placed on presidents and other leaders of today

M

“

y movements to the chair of Government will be accompanied with feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution.” These were the unenthusiastic words of George Washington, written to fellow Revolutionary War veteran Henry Knox on April 1, 1789, not long before his nearly inevitable election as president.

For eight years (between 1775 and 1783) and without pay, Washington had led the Continental Army against the British. The aristocratic Virginian might have gone on to leverage his impressive victory to become a “conquering general” and establish a personal dictatorship—an end conceivably within his grasp and even suggested by some in his circle.

Instead, George Washington very emphatically retired. Lest anyone should miss the point, Washington even delivered a public resignation address.

His days of service were over, and beloved Mount Vernon was calling.

But now, he was being summoned into service once more. Two weeks after Washington had compared his feelings to those of a culprit on his way to execution, a dispatch arrived at Mount Vernon notifying the retired general of his presidential election. Two days after that, 57-year-old George Washington left Mount Vernon, penning the following in his diary: About ten o’clock I bade adieu to Mount Vernon, to private life, and to

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domestic felicity; and with a mind oppressed with more anxious and painful sensations than I have words to express, set out for New York [...] with the best dispositions to render service to my country in obedience to its call, but with less hope of answering its expectations.

Perhaps no one in America was more familiar with the challenges of directing the new union than George Washington, who had played such a central role in its inception and evolution. As such, he was clearly under no illusion as to the challenges that awaited him. His acquiescence (for so it was) to the presidency was informed less by political ambition and more by solemn duty. There was no relishing of the prospect, no celebration on his part, no reveling in his political achievement. Being the sort of president people wanted—by unanimous vote of the Electoral College, no less!— seemed at the very least a daunting task, and probably an impossible one. He seems to have known this.

Bad Roads and White Robes New York was to serve as the first temporary capital of the new United States of America, but great distance and bad roads meant that it was quite a journey to get there from Virginia. And if Washington was really weighed down by “expectations” at the moment of his departure, he was certainly more so as the journey progressed. Everywhere he went, crowds cheered his arrival, cast-

ing roses and wreaths along his path, or erecting triumphal arches for him to pass through. At Trenton, 13 girls—representing the 13 states—in white robes hailed him as “mighty Chief” in song, while Washington was made to ride beneath a 13-columned arch.

Finally reaching Elizabethtown, New Jersey, across the Hudson from New York City itself, Washington was greeted by an ostentatious barge manned by 13 white-uniformed captains. Upon this gaudy vessel, the president-elect was ferried across the river to where Wall Street met the water.

New York Governor George Clinton awaited him there—atop a set of specially prepared steps with their sides draped in lavish cloth.

George Washington was sworn in on April 30, his oath of office administered on the balcony of Federal Hall, in front of a massive crowd gathered along Broad and Wall Streets and on balconies and housetops in every direction.

All was hushed during the swearing in, after which the officiator exclaimed, “Long live George Washington, President of the United States!”

Thunderous applause echoed throughout the city as a 13-gun salute rang out from the harbor. As the ovation continued, an American flag was hoisted above George Washington himself.

Expectations, indeed.

Once-Invulnerable Image Tarnished Of course, the hoped-for utopia to

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Founding Fathers | History

Washington’s References “I assure you that in retirement General Washington is even greater than he was during the Revolution.

His simplicity is truly sublime, and he is as completely involved with all the details of his lands and house.”

Marquis de Lafayette to Adrienne de Lafayette, August 20, 1784 “America owes a great deal to General Washington…By his own good sense and fortitude he turned the fate of the day. Other officers have great merit in performing their parts well; but he directed the whole with the skill of a Master workman.”

Alexander Hamilton to Elias Boudinot, July 5, 1778

LEFT Engraving depicting George Washington en-route to Federal Hall for the first Presidential Inauguration, April 30, 1789.

RIGHT The inauguration of George Washington as the first president of the United States in 1789. Also present are (from left) Alexander Hamilton, Robert R. Livingston, Roger Sherman, Mr. Otis, Vice President John Adams, Baron Von Steuben, and General Henry Knox. Original Artwork: Printed by Currier & Ives.

“Our first and greatest revolutionary character, whose pre-eminent services had entitled him to the first place in his country’s love, and destined for him the fairest page in the volume of faithful history.”

Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

be ushered in by America’s greatest of betraying the American Revolution by Founding Father never materialized. not eagerly supporting the French one.

Even Washington himself had hoped Even some of Washington’s friends that the new federation would, at abandoned him; Thomas Paine wrote the very least, avoid political factions. disparagingly to his old friend: Instead, the real world offered its usual Monopolies of every kind marked your share of complication and contention— administration almost in the moment of including a highly combative two-party its commencement. The lands obtained system. By the time Washington left by the revolution were lavished upon office, his once-invulnerable image had partisans; the interest of the disbanded been greatly tarnished. American news- soldier was sold to the speculator; injuspapers attacked his perceived disloyalty tice was acted under the pretence of to republicanism and his personal integ- faith; and the chief of the army became rity. They attacked the lavish recepthe patron of the fraud. tions (or “levees”) he hosted with his A whole series of letters (called the wife, his “aristocratic” airs, his alleged “Belisarius” letters, after their author’s “monarchical” pretensions, his cold and pen name), addressed personally to aloof manner. Critics accused him of Washington and published in opposibeing unintelligent and susceptible to tion newspapers, lambasted the presbad advice from his cabinet (or “wicked ident on a wide range of counts: for counsellors”), of treacherously betraying cultivating “a distinction between the France by proclaiming neutrality—and people and their Executive servants”; 84

failing to stand up to (post-war) Britain; overseeing a costly (and, at times, bumbling) war with the American Indians; maintaining a standing army in peacetime; and supporting internal taxation (then “denouncing” the people most affected by it), among other allegations.

Do Political Saviors Exist?

Even Washington’s patriotism during his Revolutionary War generalship, not to mention his competence as a general, was publicly called into question.

Benjamin Franklin’s grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache, wrote that Washington was a “Virginia planter, by no means the most eminent, a militia-officer ignorant of war both in theory and useful practice, and a politician certainly not of the first magnitude. [...] He is but a man, and certainly not a great man.”

It may be that the seemingly constant AMERI CAN ESSE NCE

One of the original American lessons, at least as they pertain to the state, is that political saviors don’t exist; not even the vaunted George Washington could be one!

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dreams of an entire people. One of the aspersions cast in his direction were original American lessons, at least as a primary reason George Washington they pertain to the state, is that political decided to retire after just two terms. saviors don’t exist; not even the vaunted Indeed, an earlier draft of his Farewell Address actually included these words: George Washington could be one! He’d As some of the Gazettes of the United felt the weight of such expectations States have teemed with all the Invective right from the beginning. That weight probably helped drive him out of the that disappointment, ignorance of spotlight in the end. facts, and malicious falsehoods could When election cycles come around, invent, to misrepresent my politics and perhaps our expectations should be affections; to wound my reputation and tempered by Washington’s experience. feelings; and to weaken, if not entirely And when politicians talk like saviors, destroy the confidence you had been remember George Washington, too. pleased to repose in me; it might be expected at the parting scene of my public life that I should take some notice of Dr. W. Kesler Jackson is a university such virulent abuse. But, as heretofore, I professor of history. Known on shall pass them over in utter silence.

YouTube as “The Nomadic Professor,” The impossible expectations placed he offers online history courses upon the first president demonstrate, featuring his signature on-location perhaps, the futility of investing in videos, filmed the world over, at one individual the utopian hopes and NomadicProfessor.com • 85

A Love of Learning | The Classics

ONE WAY OF

Teaching Morality The classics and their role in teaching moral, ethical, and spiritual tradition

A

sked to speak to the trustees of the school on how faculty members promote morality, I began oddly—with case histories, the kinds of moral problems our students deal with. Details have been changed, for reasons that will become obvious.

Case One: A student tells me his friend has publicly said things the community finds offensive. The administration finds the friend guilty and orders his punishment. The student asserts that his friend had a right to say what he thought, and that the administration is overreacting and being vindictive. He asks why his friend should not resist the unfair punishment by running away in protest. The whole class is arguing about it. I agree that the administration has behaved outrageously. What should I say to the students?

The Classics | A Love of Learning

WRITTEN BY

Gideon Rappaport

Case Two: A student whose widowed mother has remarried enters the room in anguish. He finds that his stepfather, a prominent local official, has gained his position by fraud. The student is ashamed of his stepfather. He doesn’t want to hurt his mother, but he knows people are being hurt by the stepfather’s dishonesty. The student feels that, according to the values taught him in school, it is wrong not to do something about it. He is confused, angry, desperate, sounding almost suicidal. What have I to teach him that will help?

Case Three: A senior boy and a junior girl have been smooching in the prayer garden. One day, the boy appears in my room, distraught. In a fit of desire and self-delusion, the two of them have lost their innocence. The signs all point to trouble. He blames the girl—she

had assured him it would be okay, she wanted to give him everything—in short, she intentionally tempted him. She is saying he should have known better, controlled himself, resisted. They feel their lives are ruined. They’re afraid to confess and submit to parental authority. They’ve begun to hate one another.

What do I tell them?

There are other cases I could describe: the girl whose boyfriend’s father has found out that her family is comparatively poor and is pressuring his son to break up with her; the girl who deals with her tyrannical mother and the mother’s abusive boyfriend only by fantasizing that her older brother, off at school, will return and kill them both; the girl whose neighborhood gang leader has threatened that if she doesn’t sleep with him he will kill her brother.

Every day I deal with problems like these, which, as you see, are not easy.

Often, they are genuinely frightening.

They cannot be solved with simple platitudes or casual advice. They need to be lived with, struggled over, suffered through. They are never permanently solved but reappear in new forms in different people. Always they are confrontations between the self and the world, confrontations that demand understanding, imagination, and courage, and that severely test the deepest convictions that our school professes.

For the students’ sake, you may be hoping I’ve invented these cases out of whole cloth. But I have not invented them.

To prove it, I’m going to name names.

I’m also going to name those who have helped me to respond to these dilemmas and thereby to learn and teach morality.

Case One: The student whose friend is about to be punished is named Crito, and his friend is named Socrates. He accepts his friend’s unjust punishment with the help of Socrates himself, who, speaking in the voice of the Laws of Athens, says, “Do not think more of [...] anything else than you think of what is right” (“Crito” 54c).

Case Two: The student whose stepfather is a villain is named Hamlet, and through his tragedy, Shakespeare conducts us to the recognition that

“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, substances upon whom we can work our preferred transformations. Nor can love / Rough-hew them how we will,” and of the good and the true be produced that “the readiness is all” (“Hamlet” by formula. Teaching ethics and moralV.ii.10–11, 222). ity and spiritual values is a risky, slow, Case Three: The young couple in uncertain, often painful, though often trouble are named Adam and Eve, and rewarding, business. Above all, it is a in “Paradise Lost,” John Milton shows daily business. And it is part of what my that, having faith, hope, and love, the colleagues and I do for a living. penitent Adam and Eve will have a How? Not only through chapel talks, happier paradise within them than that religion courses, and private converwhich they have lost.

The girl maligned by the greedy father sations, but also through our everyday teaching of philosophy, history, literaof her boyfriend is named Catherine ture, language, and the arts. Contrary to Morland, and in “Northanger Abbey,” popular opinion, these subjects are not Jane Austen shows us how her happiaddenda to life, excess baggage you leave ness is preserved by her own honesty aside when you want to teach values. In and by the virtue of her beloved Henry the works of the human imagination, just Tilney. The girl who wants her brother to kill her mother and her mother’s lover as in daily life, the spirit lives, and in them it can be taught. Plato, Shakespeare, and is named Electra. She gets her wish, but Jane Austen are not merely subject matter. in “The Eumenides,” Aeschylus shows They are voices of the moral, ethical, and us that peace comes to families and to cities only when wisdom, through “holy spiritual tradition that it is our duty to pass on to the next generation. In teachpersuasion,” substitutes justice for vengeance and law for violence. And the girl ing them, we are teaching how to live. whose brother’s life seems to depend on her unchastity is named Isabel. She ends Gideon Rappaport has a doctorate happily, but not before Shakespeare, in in English and American Literature “Measure for Measure,” causes her to with specialization in Shakespeare. perform one of the most dramatic acts of He has taught literature, writing, mercy in all our literature. and Shakespeare at all levels and Ladies and Gentlemen, I said to the works as a theatrical dramaturge. He trustees, school is life. It is not a lab podcasts at AppreciatingShakespeare. experiment, nor are children predictable BuzzSprout.com •

Teaching ethics and morality and spiritual values is a risky, slow, uncertain, often painful, though often rewarding, business. Above all, it is a daily business.

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A Love of Learning | Traditions

TheThings

We Pass Down

A trip back in time to an old schoolhouse’s picturesque autumn day

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n a sunny, cool, crisp autumn day I climb onto to my Grandpa’s lap. Sometimes he reads to me, but this time he tells me that long ago on a day just like today he meets his friends and as they walk along the path crunching the fallen autumn leaves – we both love that sound – he relates his feeling that even then this season with its richest of strong and brilliant colors restores every ounce of strength that may have been spent somehow throughout the year. While I am only nine or so this makes sense to me, too.

“Just ahead is a hayride cart,” atop which sit his friends Caleb and Jeremy playing chess. The cart isn’t moving, yet,

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Traditions | A Love of Learning

WRITTEN BY

Judith McConnell

but is hooked to a patient rather high horse. His teacher, Miss Manners, has the prettiest long hair though that day she is wearing it up and back into a low French chignon; her white cotton blouse with ruffles at the neck and cuffs is tucked into her slim, long gray wool skirt that swirls just slightly above her soft leather boots. She is feeding carrots to the horse. I can picture this.

He and his friends are interested watching later as she climbs the few steps to find upon her desk which has been moved against the wall, as have theirs, so they’ve space for square dancing - Ah, no – to find her gift. They’ve searched to find the most perfect yellow and two ruby red maple leaves which

they shellack. Then, in the attic filled with a myriad of treasures, they find a just right size sage green enamel vase.

She seems pleased.

In the center of the floor of their large one room schoolhouse, surrounded by rag rugs upon which to kneel is a large aluminum container filled with water and apples from a nearby tree. Perfect for bobbing. Bobbing? So, three of the boys and one of the girls, their friend Emma who is wearing a red plaid dress with a white Peter Pan collar, has short blonde hair, is wearing a small red hair bow all engage. With hands held behinds their backs they put their faces into the water to attempt to bite into and retrieve the apples. Do you

The youngest, my granddaughter, is sitting on my lap one autumn day. Often, we watch movies on TV together, but this day I begin to tell her about the similar day in her great grandfathers life he shared with me. even believe it? Emma is the only one to reach an apple, with her teeth, and doesn’t even drown her bow.

How many apples were in the tub?

How many remain? “Let’s take the tub to the horse. He might be thirsty. And he likes apples,” suggests Mike whose hair and shirt are drenched. He tried.

The twins, Lara and Lotty are reading. They are always reading. The sit together upon an iron filigree bench their uncle brought back from Louisiana. It doesn’t look especially comfortable, but they don’t seem to mind. Lara, a Louisa May Alcott fan is well into Under the Lilacs – wrong time of year.

Lotty wants to grow up to be Jane Austen. Not a bad aspiration. And she does understand that to write one must first read and read and read. So, she does. Then looks up.

The fiddler begins playing, calling everyone to dance. Ugh. Okay, it might be interesting. The music is inviting.

Not the kind they are accustomed to listening to, so something different.

Mostly everyone joins in as he calls the steps each counted as a separate number. Going left, turning right. It’s rather fun. Did someone in authority threaten in a fashion that if they didn’t try this there would be no hayride? H’mmm.

“Square dancing and hayrides do seem to go together,” Grandpa says. “And, that it’s always good to try something new.”

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biscuits or bread. The twins usually have croissants, and they aren’t even French! Mostly peanut butter and jelly, cheese with lettuce, or ham. For dessert, cookies, or a brownie, or cherry slices (my Grandpa’s mom makes his plain because he doesn’t like the frosting part). A table nearby holds paper cups and a pitcher of fresh lemonade.

Beyond is his favorite – piles of raked leaves just this side of the split rail fence. They haven’t been counted but they do almost appear measured. He gets to choose one to jump into. The largest, of course. So exciting. He very nearly dives into the stack of leaves and appreciates Mr. Thomas, his math and shop teacher, for permitting this because he’ll have to re-rake them once I disrupt the stack, Grandpa explains.

“This is more fun than anything.” Must be where I get it from.

Playing for a few minutes, maybe only two, he reappears with varying sizes of brilliant leaves stuck to his corduroy pants and cranberry colored flannel shirt, even his hair. It would take an hour to take off all the bits of crunchy leaf bits so let’s just leave them. Even during our ride.

The others have climbed onto the hay wagon, then Grandpa does too.

The rope which ties the hay bundles together make perfect handles and we hold onto them to be safe, he tells me.

Perfect. Mr. Thomas drives the horse with the rein all around the area for a while. It’s kind of bumpy, but that’s fine. We visit, sing some songs and the girls giggle. Our teacher, riding with us, keeps control.

At nearly dusk as we are dropped off at our houses or farms, we each pat the horse, say ‘good night’ to one another, and ‘thank you’ to our teachers. Mr. Thomas then returns the wagon to its parking area and horse to the barn. He caringly lowers the flag.

Many, many years later – enough for me to grow up, get married, have children and now grandchildren, that’s how many.

The youngest, my granddaughter, is sitting on my lap one autumn day. Often, we watch movies on TV together, but this day I begin to tell her about the similar day in her great grandfathers life he shared with me. She listens intently, surprisingly and more surprisingly soon her brothers are seated on the floor on either side of the comfy arm chair listening too. “Grandma,” asks the middle one, “Is this history?”

M’mmm. I’m thinking. “Jackie Jack, it is and it’s special because it’s family history. Quickly, adds Ellebella, “So, did I inherit loving to jump into piles of leaves from him?” She is six. Where did she learn the word inherit and understand its meaning? “Probably,” I say.

“Really, your grandfather did all those things in one day?” asks Calum, age eight. “Yep.” “Sweet,” he is smiling.

Sweet to me is that the children aren’t even realizing that they’ve totally forgotten the electronics to which they are always attached. Excellent.

Judith McConnell is a Northwestern graduate, award winning writer and editor, author, writing consultant and coach, former school board member and Chicago History Museum (formerly Chicago Historical Association) docent. •

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A Love of Learning | The World Around Us

WRITTEN BY

Poppy Richie

In fact, for those of us who are looking for ways to help our children understand and connect with God as our Creator, conversations about the natural world provide wonderful opportunities for spiritual education.

A HANDS-ON APPROACH TO

Science

The benefits of students both learning and physically connecting to the environment around them

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ne morning, in my second grade classroom, my students observed the miracle of metamorphosis. We had been studying firsthand the life cycle of the silkworm moth from the egg stage to adulthood.

I had purchased silkworm eggs from a science supplier. Once the eggs had hatched and the worms were a half inch in size, they started living in boxshaped paper habitats the students built. I gave four worms to each pair of students and every morning, girls and boys grabbed mulberry leaves to place in the habitats. I scheduled feeding and observation time every day so students could marvel at the worms’ voracious appetites and even listen to them chewing the leaves! I taught them how to gently hold the worms once they were about a half an inch long. One of the highlights of this project happened on a typical Monday morning when a student suddenly burst into gleeful laughter as she observed a silkworm eating away its cocoon shell and emerging as a moth! Needless to say, all the students gathered around to watch, and they went home that day with a 90

big story to tell their families.

Science education has been and is an increasingly important subject for students. In 1993 I participated in a pilot project for preschool science education in which teachers gathered on several weekends to practice how to teach preschool age children using hands-on learning activities, including creating habitats and animals out of paper and acting out their behaviors.

I’ve used the guides published by The Lawrence Hall of Science in my classroom and at summer camps where I volunteered as the science teacher. If you’re interested, as a teacher or homeschooling parent, they are available at a reasonable price and can be ordered at their website (LawrenceHallOfScience.org). I attributed. I attributed my students’ overwhelming enthusiasm for science class to the hands-on learning activities in these guides. There are so many stories to tell, and one of my favorites is when I used the guide Buzzing a Hive that teaches about the life of bees.

One of the favorite activities was when students acted out nectar gathering

by using a little straw as a proboscis to sip honey from a cup. Afterwards they walked around the flower garden, dipping their straws close to daffodils and roses.

Many schools and homes these days have gardens. One of the guides, Terrarium Habitats, has content about earthworms, crickets, and sow bugs.

I referred to it every spring when my class created a garden of vegetables that we grew and ate when they were mature. The garden project always began with digging to oxygenate the soil. What kid doesn’t like to dig in the dirt? The most exciting part of this phase was finding earthworms.

Students carefully collected a few of them for observation in the classroom.

They learned how worms are essential because they aerate the soil and provide nutrients that help plants grow.

When we finished our observations, using the chapter on earthworms to guide our engaging activities, students gently returned most of the worms to the garden, and we prepared a plan for planting. The rest of the worms became inhabitants of an in-class AMERI CAN ESSE NCE

worm farm. They were fed banana peels and other appropriate organic waste from students’ lunches.

I believe that adults need to be aggressively active in leading the next generation into an appreciation for the earth and the living things of which it is comprised. The science curriculum I created for my second grade students included monthly field trips to local parks. Crab Cove in Alameda, California was one such destination. It seemed like nature always cooperated and put on a show when we went down to the rocky beach there. My students inevitably got a surprise when they lifted fist sized rocks and found tiny crabs scuttling around in the sand. Needless to say, it made my day, every time!

National, regional and city parks such as Crab Cove provide parents and teachers with docent guided tours and instruction, especially helpful if your expertise isn’t in science. Every Kid Outdoors is a federal program created to bring children in touch with nature.

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to get a free pass to America’s parks, lands and waters for an entire year! If you’re a fourth grade teacher, you can download passes and activities for your entire class. Families can purchase affordable regional park passes and discover the local outdoor plants, animals, land formations, and waterways.

The creation is longing to interact with us and vice versa; I see it every time in the curiosity, smiles, and astonishment on the faces of children who are lucky enough to get outside!

In fact, for those of us who are looking for ways to help our children understand and connect with God as our Creator, conversations about the natural world provide wonderful opportunities for spiritual education.

I emphasize and encourage this in my role as a teacher, parent and grandparent, whenever possible. I have written curricula for companies that use a secular approach to science education, but I’ve also had many opportunities to bring God into the exploration about the amazing earth that is our home.

How does one start a discussion about the spiritual aspect of science?

A parent or teacher can ask leading questions for children to ponder, such as why do you think God created bees or worms? Questions of cause and effect, such as what makes rain, and why do you come down to earth when you jump up, can stimulate a child’s imagination. We can encourage them to think of God as the ultimate cause, and this universe as the display of a Divine personality who can be known through examining the Creation. These kinds of discussions that link science to religion can help strengthen a child’s belief in a Creator, and hopefully, as children learn to love and respect the natural world, this can increase our ability as a human race to honor the miracle of this gift we often take for granted.

Poppy Richie is a freelance writer and former teacher and administrator at the Principled Academy in the San Francisco Bay Area. She coauthored a K–12 character education curriculum, “Discovering the Real Me,” and contributed to online elementary-level science education curricula for various companies. • 91

A Love of Learning | Good Teachers

WRITTEN BY

Charles Mickles

In this, we forget that growth takes time, and that seeds do not take root overnight, but over the lifetime of growth for the plant. In much the same way, seeds we plant as teachers and parents in our young children will take their lifetime to grow and bear fruit.

The Harvest Is Plentiful…

How teachers plant the seeds of knowledge in each and every one of us

T

en years old. Another new city.

Another new school. This made at least the 10th time my family had moved. My dad was in retail management, and we always seemed to be on the move. From Virginia, to North Carolina, to California, back to Virginia, down to Louisiana, and now up to Nashville, Tennessee, our latest move had just been completed as the new school year was beginning.

That first day, while scary and overwhelming, changed and impacted my life in so many ways. I met my best friend (whom I now work for), I became part of a school family (whom I served with for over 25 years as a teacher and principal), and I met my 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Williams. She is a teacher I will never forget, and in her class, seeds were planted that would follow and impact me for the rest of my life.

In that class, we had a reading center and a pet mouse, and we even took our first crack at writing, as we each wrote and published our own storybook (which I still have to this day).

The most special part of the day would come each afternoon as she read to us.

Sometimes the stories were funny, other times they were sad, but each was special, including one I will never forget.

She made that first year in a new place feel like home, a home that I was part of for over 30 years. I doubt she ever knew the impact she had on me and so many others, but the little seeds she planted

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every day were what helped make me the man, teacher, father, and writer I have become.

From talking with many others, this experience is not uncommon: “My high school history teacher, Coach Pittman, was the teacher who inspired me to become a history teacher.

He […] also instilled in me a passion for learning. He showed me that learning is leading. The best leaders and the best teachers are lifelong learners. When you are in high school, your classmates make fun of you because you are reading a book about Winston Churchill when the ‘normal’ thing to do is post on Facebook; Coach Pittman […] showed me that you can love sports and still be a nerd.” —Amy “My 4th grade teacher had a daughter who was deaf. She not only taught us sign language but oftentimes communicated with us via sign language.

She helped us have an understanding and appreciation for the deaf community.” —Chasity “Being dyslexic, I hated reading, and we were always told what to read.

My high school English teacher (Mrs. Butzer) had us read a ton but allowed us to pick with guidance what we wanted to read. It was because of her that I read ‘Jane Eyre’ voluntarily and continue to read and stress it to my children even to this day.” —Summer “I could talk for hours about my 6th grade teacher. I grew up in a very cold and stoic family that never shared love or affection. I was a chubby little girl and bullied a lot. I remember one day

Good Teachers | A Love of Learning

ILLUSTRATED BY

Linda Zhao

as I was helping my 6th grade teacher with something like stapling things to the bulletin board, this teacher looked at me and said, ‘Carol, you’re really turning into a very pretty young lady.’

I think I had put a new barrette in my hair that day or something. It was the first time it ever occurred to me that possibly someone, someday, could view me as pretty. It literally changed the way I viewed myself. I could add things he taught me about race relations, given the fact that he was a black man in our recently desegregated school. I could tell you ways he shaped my idea of what a Godly Man is and should be. I could talk for hours. He died earlier this year, and I cried for days. Mr. Ingram always ended every letter, every card, every phone conversation by saying, ‘Be encouraged.’ I speak that to myself, hearing his voice in my head, quite often.” —Carol “Mr. Kent, Algebra class, senior year.

At the end of the year, I had many missing assignments. I would have failed the class even though I always made good grades. He gave a few days to turn in all those missing assignments to get my grade back up. He could have ‘taught me a lesson in responsibility,’ I suppose, but instead, he taught me kindness and empathy, and I felt like he really cared about me and my future. I love Mr. Kent, and I still run into him every once in a while at my mom’s church.” —Kristi Robert Lewis Stevenson once said, “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.” This quote, in so many ways,

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exemplifies the life of a teacher and parent, especially teachers and parents of young children.

We spend day after day planting seeds of truth, knowledge, character, and skills for life, and sometimes we never see or know if those seeds have taken hold. We say it so many times, over and over again, that we wonder if they will ever “get it,” if those seeds will ever grow into a beautiful harvest of an adult life changed because of our impact and the seeds that we sowed.

In this, we forget that growth takes time, and that seeds do not take root overnight, but over the lifetime of growth for the plant. In much the same way, seeds we plant as teachers and parents in our young children will take their lifetime to grow and bear fruit.

Many of us have been impacted in so many ways by the seeds planted in our lives—by teachers, parents, and adults— that even now are growing.

It is easy to get frustrated or weary when, day after day, we plant seed after seed, and it does not seem like those seeds are taking root. Whether we see it or not, though, growth is occurring, seeds are taking root, and lives are being impacted by what we are planting.

We just need to be sure that no matter

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the growth we do or do not see, we see it or not, know that the seeds you never grow weary. We must daily and plant today are not wasted. They are intentionally keep planting these seeds. the seeds of that young person’s future.

Mrs. Williams was one of those “Let us not grow weary of doing good, teachers for me. That book I menfor in due season we will reap, if we tioned that I will never forget—it was do not give up” (Galatians 6:9). This the story of Joni Eareckson Tada, reminder says it all—parents, teachwho was crippled as a young lady and ers, and others—you may not see the battled life-long pain. The story Mrs. harvest from the seeds you plant, but Williams read showed us how Tada it will come: if you do not give up, and dealt with devastating news and a life- you are faithful, and keep planting long struggle. At 15, when I was diagthose seeds, each and every day. nosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis, that story reminded me to keep going, as it Charles Mickles is an educational did when, two years ago, I discovered consultant with over 25 years in I had Young Onset Parkinson’s Disease. education. As a speaker and author, he Just last week, things came full circle has published three books and written as I sat with a representative from the numerous articles featured on The Joni Eareckson Tada Foundation (Joni Mighty, Yahoo Lifestyles, and MSN. You and Friends), seeking advice on how I can follow his story and read more at could help others through my struggle. MinesParkinsons.com • Mrs. Williams helped prepare me for this journey by simply planting the seeds through reading a very special story to her class.

Just like a huge oak tree, growth like that takes a lifetime; whether we

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A Love of Learning | Homeschooling

Homeschooling | A Love of Learning

WRITTEN BY

Gina Prosch

Once homeschool families get together as a group, it’s inevitable that the parents and their friends will have unique skill sets of their own that they are willing to share. There’s strength in numbers— hence the homeschool co-op.

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omeschooling is on the rise in the United States. Whether it’s in response to pandemic restrictions schools forced upon students or in response to the changing academic climate within public and private schools alike, new Census Bureau data indicates that more than 11 percent of school-age children are now being homeschooled.

FINDING YOUR

Homeschool Community

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A Love of Learning | Homeschooling

For some, it might seem counterintuitive, but after a few years, homeschool parents often realize that finding a community—a tribe to call their own— isn’t just part of the homeschool journey; it’s a core principle for the entire process.

While homeschooling means parents are the ones who direct their children’s education, it doesn’t mean parents will teach every single subject, and it definitely doesn’t mean they want to go it totally alone.

To the contrary, homeschool families look to their surrounding community to foster a robust, lively learning and social environment where their kids can flourish.

repair class. A fabulous cook may offer a class teaching kids how to make their own healthy snacks. By the time high school rolls around, classes may take on a more scholarly tone with a chemistry lab or classes in personal finance, the American Revolution, or Shakespeare.

Homeschool groups also provide a framework for all the social events people think of when it comes to school. Brix says: “For our high schoolers, we have school dances, plus prom in the spring. We sponsor a school play and a high school Strength in Numbers yearbook, and host graduation for our seniors.

Amy Brix, president of the Jefferson City Home There’s simply no way any single family could pull Educators in Jefferson City, Missouri, says: “Our homeschool group provides amazing activities for off these types of events by themselves, but by our families. There are playdates for the youngest coming together, we are able to create something really special for our kids.” children, a Kid’s Club for 6- to 12-year-olds, and a Homeschool groups also offer meaningful supteen club for the high school set. We’ve done sciport for parents. There are Moms Morning Out ence fairs, geography fairs, and field trips. There are art classes, a chess club, swimming parties, ice activities, educational classes about record keeping or creating transcripts, email loops, and social skating, Easter-egg hunts—just so many things.” media groups. Many homeschool groups also host Once homeschool families get together as a used-book and curriculum sales where members group, it’s inevitable that the parents and their friends will have unique skill sets of their own that can sell supplies and curriculum they no longer they are willing to share. There’s strength in num- use, and at the same time, they can do some bargain hunting for materials they need for the future. bers—hence the homeschool co-op.

For younger students, attending co-op means an opportunity to learn together one or two after- Where to Look noons a week and develop friendships. It means But where do homeschoolers connect? How do participating with peer groups in sports and unor- they find one another? ganized play. Through co-op, kids who have never Today the easiest place to find information about attended a traditional brick-and-mortar school local homeschool groups is online. A quick search on may learn traditional schoolyard games like duck- DuckDuckGo.com, Facebook, or MeWe.com for your duck-goose or red rover. town’s name plus “homeschool group” will turn up As children get older, the co-op class offerings an amazing number of results, particularly for people may become more academic. The parent who in larger metropolitan areas. However, even smaller works as a mechanic may offer a small-engine towns and cities often have homeschool groups.

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PREVIOUS PAGE

Homeschool families can lean on each other for support and encouragement.

LEFT Meeting other homeschool families presents a great opportunity for the socialization of children.

A quick search online can often connect families with other homeschoolers looking to find a community.

ABOVE

Homeschool families love libraries, and libraries love homeschoolers right back. During normal school hours, libraries will often provide free-of-charge programming for homeschoolers, so ask your local librarian about homeschool opportunities in the area.

Club-based groups like 4-H, Boy Scouts of America, and Girl Scouts are available all over the United States, and the homeschool community is actively involved in these organizations.

In fact, in some areas, you may find Scouting troops or 4-H groups exclusively comprised of homeschoolers.

Also, whether it’s the YMCA or the local department for parks and recreation, organizations offer mid-morning or early-afternoon classes exclusively for the homeschooling community. It’s a great opportunity for kids to learn swimming, gymnastics, karate, ice skating, or archery, and usually there’s a much smaller student-to-teacher ratio than during regular nighttime or weekend classes.

If you can’t find a homeschool group that meets your family’s needs, then be the change and start your own group. River City Choirs in Jefferson City, Missouri, exists because one mom, Paula Schulte, enjoyed music when she was in school.

She says: “Band, orchestra, and choir were transformative experiences for me. They taught me about music, but more about what it means to be human. All of my close friends participated in the same groups I was in, and I wanted that experience for my own children.”

Now, more than 10 years down the road and her own children long-graduated, Schulte continues to bring homeschooled kids together to sing,

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much to the delight of the local community that comes out to hear their performances.

Annette Alberts, owner of LabSpace Robotics, decided to open her own business because “our goal is to be the resource we always wished existed when we were homeschooling. We teach classes in Python programming, video game design, robotics, art, and more. We also help with Scout and American Heritage badges.”

The Truth About Socialization One of the biggest concerns (and omnipresent criticisms) of homeschooling is the question of socialization. Opponents just can’t understand how young people can become properly socialized—as if there is a one-size-fits-all definition— without being forced to sit in age-segregated rooms for eight hours every day. Homeschool families know healthy socialization comes from interaction with a wide range of people, and more often than not, homeschoolers have diverse friendships spanning a range of religious beliefs, races, and age groups.

For some, it might seem counter-intuitive, but after a few years, homeschool parents often realize that finding a community—one they can call their own—isn’t just part of the homeschool journey; it’s a core principle for the entire process.

Gina Prosch is a writer, home educator, life coach, and parent located in mid-Missouri. She is the author of “This Day’s Joy” and “Finding This Day’s Joy,” both of which are available at Amazon. Find her online at GinaProsch.com or TheHomeschoolWay.com. She also co-hosts The OnlySchoolers Podcast (OnlySchoolers.com). • 97

A Love of Learning | Traditions

Traditions | A Love of Learning

WRITTEN BY

Gina Prosch

Quilting by hand is like slipping back in time, a way of connecting with the people who developed and practiced this enduring, traditional craft generations ago.

A PhD in Quilting Quilters always seem to have more projects than there is time to make them. They joke about having multiple PhDs in quilting (Projects half Done) and UFOs (UnFinished Objects) hiding in their closets. Sometimes those PhDs and UFOs are tangible connections to the past.

When quilters see unfinished quilt tops and blocks at estate sales and antique shops, they often rescue them in order to complete some long ago quilter’s dream. Finishing what someone else started is simply another part of the quilting tradition.

Jeanmarie Nielsen, a quilter from Oklahoma, finished a quilt started at her grandmother’s bridal shower in the 1920s. All the guests signed muslin squares of fabric, and her grandmother traced the names with outline stitch embroidery and set the squares with sashing…and put it in a trunk. When the quilt top finally saw the light of day, Jeanmarie hand quilted it, bound it with prairie points and gifted it to her grandmother.

My favorite quilt is a five-generation quilt I inherited from my maternal grandmother. Looking at the underside of the quilt top, the hands of time were visible, and I saw my family’s history stitched together in nine-patch blocks. My grandmother pieced the top together using a modern machine stitch. The nine-patch blocks pieced by machine were my great grandmother’s.

But the majority of the nine-patches were hand pieced by my great-great grandmother. My mom sewed the backing fabric together before I hand quilted it. It literally took five women and almost 150 years to finish this quilt.

Busy Hands

A tradition learned and passed down for centuries

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uring the past two years, I’ve hand-stitched three thousand little bits of fabric together into what has become a king-sized whole which I’m now hand-quilting.

My mom thinks I’m crazy.

Friends have volunteered to buy me a sewing machine.

For me, the fun of the process is the hand work. The soft feel of the material, the rocking of the needle, and the low whooshing sound as thread pulls through layers of fabric.

In a world where complex systems are valued and hectic zeal is prized, hand quilting’s simple methodology has a powerful pull. The progress I make each time I hand quilt reinforces steady, even-paced productivity. Creating beautiful patterns fulfills my need to be creative. The rhythm of nice, regular stitching quiets my mind.

Quilting by hand is like slipping back in time, a way of connecting with the people who developed and practiced this enduring, traditional craft generations ago.

A Traditional Craft Though quilting might date back as far as the ancient Egyptians, one of the world’s oldest surviving quilts, the 98

Tristan Quilt, was made in Sicily during the 13th Century. This roughly corresponds to the first time the word “quilt” appeared in Middle English.

By the late 1500s, the English word “quilt” (noun) referred to three distinct layers – two pieces of fabric with a softer batting in between, and the word “quilt” (verb) referred to the activity of stitching those three layers together using a needle and thread. Late 1700s lexicons first saw the phrase “quilting bee,” to mean a gathering where women worked together to jump start or complete a large project.

Historical quilts are such an integral part of a culture’s history, there are museums dedicated to their preservation, including the International Quilt Museum (www.internationalquiltmuseum.org) in Lincoln, Nebraska and a large section of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London (www.vam.ac.uk/ articles/an-introduction-to-quilting-and-patchwork).

A Stitch in Time Gathering together in groups is a hallmark of the quilting tradition. Quilt tops bring together fabrics with different colors and designs to create beautiful over-

all patterns, and the activity of quilting itself brings people together, too.

Author, quilter, and applique artist Barbara Burnham (www.barbaramburnham.com) recalls getting her start sewing by hand when she was six years old, embroidering penny squares with her grandmother. After seeing a friend’s “Grandmother’s Flower Garden” quilt, she was inspired to take her first quilting class. She has since developed her skills to the extent that she teaches quilting and applique classes while also designing patterns.

Burnham’s popular book, “Baltimore Garden Quilt,” delves into the history, development, and application of the popular and intricate 1840s pattern—a bucket list project for many hand quilters.

My own quilting story begins in much the same way as Burnham’s. As a child I played with toys on the floor while my grandmothers and their friends gathered for their weekly quilting bee.

Gradually, I moved up in the world (literally from the floor to a chair!), and my grandmothers taught me how to hold a needle, do cross stitch embroidery, and quilt. Every time I quilt, I feel a connection with them.

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Unplug…Literally!

Today, while quilters may have an arsenal of fancy, computerized tools at their disposal, for the majority of its history, quilting required no electricity nor complicated tools.

Barbara Burnham says, “The ability to create beautiful, soft, and comforting things that are useful is very rewarding.

You don’t need a machine, and you can sew anywhere with very simple tools.”

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A Love of Learning | Traditions

Traditions | A Love of Learning

PREVIOUS PAGE A quilter works on her latest project.

LEFT Quilting is a skill, taught and passed down, that connects generations.

RIGHT Quilts are finished works of art that become treasured family heirlooms.

easily portable and require nothing more than needles, thread, and scissors.

(Quick tip: A pizza roller works great to press seams!)

Even the fabric used in quilting is simple 100% cotton. Because material was (and still is) expensive, traditional quilts were often made of scraps salvaged from other clothing.

Scraps of fabric too small to make anything else are still large enough to be quilt pieces.

Jeanmarie Nielsen recalls making her first quilt when she and her husband were cash-strapped newlyweds.

A close friend was expecting a baby, and she wanted to give them a special gift. “I had a box of fabric scraps and cast-off clothing. Made from a dress, a

Gathering together in groups is a hallmark of the quilting tradition. Quilt tops bring together fabrics with different colors and designs to create beautiful overall patterns, and the activity of quilting itself brings people together, too.

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top, a man’s shirt, the quilt was simple squares, set in a symmetrical pattern, determined by how many squares I was able to cut. I hand quilted it in my lap.”

Love in the Stitches Today’s hand quilters choose to become part of a long line of quilters stretching back through the ages.

And in fact, part of the draw is simplicity and connection with the past.

Ann Kolpin has spent many Minnesota winters doing hand work. She says, “Hand applique has given me the ability to choose a specific technique for a given project. I’ve done the same with hand quilting. My desire was to create quilts in the same manner as our ancestors did years ago. Doing things by hand makes

projects quite portable, and there’s no need for a sewing machine or electricity.

I’m in no rush to complete a quilt. For me…it’s the joy of the process.”

The next time you see a quilt made by hand, whether it’s something new gifted to you or something vintage found in an antique shop, take a moment to appreciate the long tradition of hand.

Gina Prosch is a writer, home educator, life coach, and parent located in midMissouri. She is the author of “This Day’s Joy” and “Finding This Day’s Joy,” both of which are available at Amazon.

Find her online at GinaProsch.com or TheHomeschoolWay.com. She also co-hosts The OnlySchoolers Podcast (OnlySchoolers.com). • 101

Arts & Letters | Classical Music

Classical Music | Arts & Letters

WRITTEN BY

Pete McGrain

Barber went on to win two Pulitzers, with many of his compositions being adopted as part of the canon of orchestral performance. He earned a permanent place in the concert repertory, with all of the renowned orchestras around the world performing his works.

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A Time for the ‘Adagio’

why. Is it perhaps simply a matter of s a teenager, I had little time waiting until we have matured and for classical music. Opera just developed a more sophisticated sense about made my hair stand on end. Choirs would send me running for of taste?

However, a dear friend of mine, an the door. Orchestral music, in general, older composer, assured me it was had been written for fuddy-duddies otherwise. “One has to have suffered or nerds, I thought. It might not be too the slings and arrows of life, got some much of a generalization to say that most teenagers are drawn more toward bangs and bruises, suffered unrequited love, lost a loved one or suffered a few hot dogs, fizzy drinks, and loud music than fine wine, nicely aged cheddar, and failures, to appreciate the beauty of the finer arts,” he assured me. “Fine arts a prelude, but I have often wondered 102

are a salve for the wounds, chicken soup for the soul. Teenagers have little use for salves. They are, after all, immortal, are they not?”

I couldn’t disagree. Indeed, in moments of doubt, I have clung to the arts, keeping my attention on the higher expressions of life and humanity, if only to maintain hope.

This last year has been difficult for us all, no doubt. Few have escaped unscathed, and yet somehow we AMERI CAN ESSE NCE

seem to have made it through the slings and arrows. There seems to be light at the end of the tunnel, but I wonder how people have managed.

During my most difficult days, I had quite a few good friends I could turn to. Most of them died a hundred years ago or more, but their music is still very much with us. One of them left us just forty years ago, and yet his contribution stands with the greats of all time. His name is Samuel Osmond Barber II. Barber was born in Pennsylvania in 1910. Music critic Donal Henahan said of him, “Probably no other American composer has ever enjoyed such early, such persistent and such long-lasting acclaim,” and yet, while I can almost guarantee you will at least have heard one of his compositions somewhere, few know his name.

You may have heard this particular piece in several movies, from David Lynch’s “The Elephant Man” to Oliver Stone’s Oscar-winning “Platoon.” There is even an electronic dance music cover by the famed DJ Tiësto, which, though it veers drastically from the original, is actually pretty great!

The composition I am referring to comes from the second movement of Barber’s String Quartet, Opus 11, the iconic “Adagio for Strings.” It is a composition of such lilting and yet uneasy and suspenseful beauty that most composers would wait an entire lifetime for such a piece to come from their pen, and yet Barber was just 26 years old when he wrote it.

Author Alexander J. Morin said of the piece, “It was so full of passion and pathos that it seldom left a dry eye.”

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holy grail from yearning cellos to violas and violins. With the end of each passage, the orchestra seems almost to pause for breath, or even to sigh, before continuing the melody’s upward progress, as if searching desperately for daylight through the clouds. Rising and falling in an arch-shaped progression, the ascent leads to a searing, breathtaking crescendo that could pierce the stoniest of hearts.

At a time when many composers had begun experimenting with curious scales and discordant musical arrangements—“modernism,” they called it—Barber shunned the trends, focusing on a lyrical use of classic tonal harmony that gave his work a singular and remarkable charm and beauty, catapulting it into the spotlight.

In 1938, Barber sent a copy of the orchestration for the “Adagio” to famed conductor Arturo Toscanini. Toscanini was one of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the 20th century, renowned for his ear for orchestral detail and his notoriously fierce perfectionism. When Toscanini returned the pages without comment, Barber was understandably quite upset.

But Toscanini sent word that he had returned the pages simply because he had already memorized the entire opus!

It seems the maestro was impressed.

In November of 1938, Toscanini conducted the piece for radio broadcast from Studio 8H at Rockefeller Center in New York. Apparently, Toscanini hadn’t had to look at the music until the day before the performance! The rest, as they say, is history.

Barber went on to win two Pulitzers, with many of his compositions being adopted as part of the canon of orchestral performance. He earned a perma-

nent place in the concert repertory, with all of the renowned orchestras around the world performing his works.

The “Adagio for Strings” was later adapted for choir and titled “Agnus Dei,” meaning Lamb of God, referring to Christ in the liturgical text. It is beyond sublime and equals, if not surpasses, the heartrending orchestral version. While Barber’s mother was an accomplished pianist, his maternal aunt, Louise Homer, was a leading contralto at the Metropolitan Opera. She is known to have influenced his interest in voice, and some of Barber’s most beloved pieces are written for choir. While it seems natural that the “Adagio” would be adapted, the result is almost too beautiful to bear.

It is often difficult to reconcile the worst expressions of the human race when one witnesses the finest. After all, one need only read the news to fall into despair. However, the great writers, poets, painters and composers not only reflect how incredible we actually are as a species, but they continue to both salve our wounds and point the way to our higher ideals. Perhaps it is right that we pay attention to world events, but that is all the more reason to pay attention to the miraculous beauty that surrounds us, too. And so, dear reader, in this time of healing, after having suffered the slings and arrows of this past year, I heartily recommend you take solace in Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings.”

Pete McGrain is a professional writer/ director/composer best known for the film “Ethos,” which stars Woody Harrelson. Currently living in Los Angeles, Pete hails from Dublin, Ireland, where he studied at Trinity College. • 103

Arts & Letters | Book Recommender

WRITTEN BY

Mark Lardas

WRITTEN BY

Mark Lardas

Book Recommender | Arts & Letters

‘War and Resistance in the Philippines, 1942–1944’

‘See You On Down the Road, A Retirement Journal’

How the guerrilla resistance sprang up after the Japanese invaded the Philippines during World War II

The book reads like an extended newspaper column by the author: folksy and down-toearth, focusing on everyday things

U.S. and Philippine governments. The Philippines were a reluctant colony of the United States but on a path to independence when Japan invaded.

The nascent Philippine Army was still forming and unprepared. U.S. forces were underequipped, despite major commitments of aircraft.

Surprisingly, no preparations for guerrilla warfare were made before Allied conventional military forces collapsed. Morningstar shows how Washington exacerbated the collapse of conventional resistance. The resistance springing up after U.S. forces surrendered was spontaneous, a reaction to thuggish Japanese behavior and cruelty.

In other cases, Morningstar shows that it was the result of soldiers, American and Filipino, refusing to surrender while still capable of fighting, or exploiting Japan’s inability to occupy all of the Philippines.

Morningstar traces how these disconnected movements began communicating with each other, fought each other, and eventually began merging into a coherent movement. Simply establishing communications with General Douglas MacArthur (then the supreme commander, “War and Resistance Southwest Pacific Area) in Australia took months, in the Philippines, 1942–1944” by and over a year passed before any supplies began James Kelly flowing to the Philippine resistance.

Morningstar (Naval Morningstar shows how the resistance denied Institute Press, 2021).

Japan many of the resources the Philippines could have supplied. Its most important contribution was giving MacArthur the leverage needed to he United States suffered its biggest defeat force Allied landings in the Philippines rather of World War II in the Philippines. More than Formosa.

American soldiers were captured there The story was difficult to capture. The openthan in any other campaign in U.S. military history.

The number of Filipino soldiers who surrendered ing of the guerrilla war was chaotic and disorganized. Some guerrilla bands may have been dwarfed the U.S. totals. Despite that, after the surrender of U.S. forces, the war in the Philippines snuffed out before having their actions recorded.

Documentation was secondary to survival. continued in a guerilla struggle.

Regardless, Morningstar does a good job. He “War and Resistance in the Philippines, 1942– manages to place the chaos into a larger picture, 1944,” by James Kelly Morningstar, documents accurately capturing the outline of the struggle that struggle. It is the first generally accessible and its consequences. “War and Resistance in the attempt to compile the guerilla struggle in the Philippines, 1942–1944” offers fascinating reading Philippines into a single, coherent story. about a difficult and dirty battle.

Morningstar starts by describing the Japanese invasion of the Philippines and the conventional struggle that followed. He shows the difficulties Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, faced by Allied forces in the Philippines, both U.S. historian, and model-maker, lives in League City, and Filipino. He captures the tensions between the Texas. His website is MarkLardas.com •

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“See You On Down the Road, A Retirement Journal” by Leon Hale (Winedale Publishing, 2021).

W

riters never really retire. They may leave their day jobs and collect their pensions, but most of them labor on, even during retirement. The drive to create remains, even when you no longer need to. For writers, continuing is simple. You only require a functional mind and the ability to operate a keyboard.

“See You On Down the Road, A Retirement Journal,” by Leon Hale, illustrates this. At age 93, Hale walked away from his column at the Houston Chronicle. After loafing for a month or so, he began writing a journal of his retirement experience. This book is the result. The book starts in June 2014. In the introduction, Hale claims to be writing it so that he can pretend he is working again. It could be more accurate to say he was using that claim as an excuse for “working” again. The book concludes on May 30, 2020,

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Hale’s 99th birthday. Hale died 10 months after closing this journal.

This book contains nothing earth-shattering.

Hale describes ordinary things: his day-to-day routine and life in rural Winedale, Texas. He discusses occasional health crises and the indignities of growing old. He reminisces about his career as a newspaperman, which started in 1947.

He recaptures his experiences in World War II as a gunner aboard B-24s.

Much of it is taken up with musings about his family. His love for and life with his wife Babette Fraser Hale come across clearly. He discusses his failed first marriage and its causes. He writes about his children and grandchildren, their visits to him, and other adventures. He mourns the loss of his sole surviving sibling: a sister still alive, but already entering dementia, when he started the book. He spends time remembering friends, past and present, and their impact on his life. His journal captures the memories of a life well lived.

Hale’s vitriolic dislike of Donald Trump is the book’s sole jarring note. Skip those notes, or treat them as eccentricities of age. They appear late in the book and are relatively few.

In many ways, the book reads like an extended Hale column: folksy, down-to-earth, with Leon Hale a focus on everyday occurrences and Hale’s reaction to them. These qualities made Hale’s columns popular. Fans of Hale’s writing will enjoy this book. For those who have never read Hale before, “See You On Down the Road” shows why he was so popular. It is the last word, literally, on Leon Hale.

Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and modelmaker, lives in League City, Texas. His website is MarkLardas.com • 105

Arts & Letters | Architecture

Is your child spending too much time on the computer?

WRITTEN BY

Bob Kirchman

Stanford White Versus Thomas Jefferson

Lindsay Ann Fink’s books can help.

A

s the 19th century drew to a close, the world had changed. The young republic now spanned the continent, and Mr. Jefferson’s University of Virginia no longer stood near the edge of the frontier. In fact, the frontier was pretty much gone. The school had grown just as the country had grown. A large annex had been added to the Rotunda around 1854. It provided more classroom space, laboratories, and an auditorium. Built on the north side of the Rotunda, it was four stories high. Electricity came to the campus in 1888, and it was likely faulty wiring that caused a terrible fire in 1895. The annex was burned to the ground, and only a brick shell remained of the gutted Rotunda.

Of course, the whole Charlottesville, Virginia, and University community agreed that the

An educator for 20+ years, she uses her experience to write fun, interactive books with stories that come to life in children’s minds.

fine Rotunda would have to be rebuilt. Initially, the architectural firm McDonald Brothers of Louisville, Kentucky, was retained to draw up the restoration plans. They proposed the north portico in place of the connection to the annex and also proposed eliminating the Rotunda’s upper floor. The Board of Visitors weighed in. They wanted an architect “not of local repute only but of broad and national consideration.” And so Stanford White, of the great Beaux Arts firm McKim, Mead, and White, was retained in 1896.

White had one thing in common with Thomas Jefferson, as he had just designed his own Pantheon, a library for New York University’s University Heights Campus in the Bronx. NYU wanted to build an undergraduate campus “on the edge.” Henry Mitchell MacCracken, the school’s Chancellor, felt that the Washington Square campus was in an area that was too commercialized, so he hired Stanford White to place his Pantheon-library on a bluff overlooking the Harlem River. The Gould Memorial Library is a concept very similar to Jefferson’s Rotunda—but with White’s distinctive Beaux Arts flourish.

White arrived in Charlottesville feeling uniquely qualified to oversee the reconstruction of Jefferson’s Pantheon. Like the McDonalds, he too felt that the third floor of the Rotunda should be eliminated. White would argue to the Board of 106

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Stanford White would leave an impressive architectural legacy in Charlottesville. His last project there would be the initial planning for the president’s house, Carr’s Hill.

Visitors that Jefferson had included the third floor “out of necessity, but that his desire would have been for a large open space had it been possible at the time.” The room in which Jefferson had entertained Lafayette with a lavish feast and celebration of liberty would be no more. Though it would still be a library, the Rotunda would now be one large open space above the two oval rooms on the first floor. The Board of Visitors required the restoration to be fireproof, so Rafael Guastavino was commissioned to create a new dome from clay tiles. The “restored” Rotunda was dedicated in 1889, but the actual work, including the carving of capitals for the columns, would not be completed until 1904.

Stanford White had also been charged by the Board of Visitors to design a series of new buildings for the campus. They wanted to add three new buildings to the south end of the Lawn; those buildings would be Rouss, Cocke, and Cabell Hall.

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The Rouss Physical Laboratory is one of a series of buildings designed

by McKim, Meade, and White for the University of Virginia.

ABOVE

LEFT Lowe Memorial Library at Columbia University, designed

by Stanford White.

www.LindsayAnnFink.com Available on amazon.com

“This book shares a great message about the importance of hard work and perseverance. It’s relatable and engaging with bright, fun artwork that kids will love. I highly recommend this read!”

–Amazon reviewer

More books are available

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Arts & Letters | Architecture

Architecture | Arts & Letters

an installed copy of Raphael’s “School of Athens” painted by George W. Breck, a muralist from New York, in 1902. This was the university’s second commissioning of a copy of this famous painting

by Raphael. The first, painted in 1853 by French artist Paul Balze, was destroyed by the Rotunda annex fire. In modern times Cabell Hall’s lobby also received a more contemporary mural painted as a companion to “The School of Athens.” The painting followed the life of a student in the early

MIDDLE LEFT In a modern mural by Lincoln Perry, a Roman soldier is seen with the Rotunda—Virginia’s “Pantheon.”

LEFT Gould Memorial Library at New York University’s University Heights Campus in the Bronx, designed by Stanford White.

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years of the 21st century. Its painter, Lincoln Perry, called it “Student’s Progress.” The most interesting feature of the newer painting was a recreation of the open vista of the original Lawn, now obliterated by Cabell Hall! Ironically, it also showed a Roman soldier in a view of the Rotunda.

Stanford White would leave an impressive architectural legacy in Charlottesville. His last project there would be the initial planning for the president’s house, Carr’s Hill. He would not get to finish his design for the house. In 1906, White would be gunned down by a jealous husband, Harry K. Thaw, in one of the Gilded Age’s more notorious murders.

If Stanford White had successfully “improved” on Jefferson’s temple of learning in life, he was no match in death for Bessie Alderman, the wife of the University of Virginia president. Carr’s Hill would be built, but Mrs. Alderman, who had sparred with White from the beginning, would direct the building of the president’s house in the New Orleans style that she preferred.

White would leave behind one more Pantheon, Columbia University’s iconic Lowe Memorial Library, completed in 1897. But as to Jefferson’s Pantheon, the story was far from over. In the 1930s, Jefferson historians and experts on American neoISSUE 5 | OC TOB ER 20 21

classicism, Fiske Kimball and Stanislaw Makielski, made a number of improvements and changes to the wings, porticos, and passages of the Rotunda.

In the 1950s, there was a growing sentiment to restore the Rotunda itself to Jefferson’s original design. Architecture professor Frederick D. Nichols approached the Building and Grounds Committee with a proposal to “correct the alterations” made by Stanford White. In 1957, the Board of Visitors approved the restoration but stipulated that the funds for it be raised privately.

It was not until the 1970s that the work actually began. The interior was restored to Jefferson’s original plan. In 2015, the dome and oculus were restored to look more like the original but were done with modern materials, eliminating leaks.

McKim, Mead, and White’s work had expanded the campus, but the Lawn was forever closed off from the rolling hills of Albemarle County. Today, the University and the city of Charlottesville have swallowed up the original “Academical Village.” It would be impossible to restore the openness of the original Palladian plan. Cabell Hall is a significant piece of history now as well. Still, it is inspiring to sit on the Lawn in springtime and engage in a bit of daydreaming—traveling in one’s mind to a time when the temple of academic pursuits could stand on a green overlooking the fields, forests, and villages of the young republic.

Bob Kirchman is an architectural illustrator who lives in Augusta County, Virginia, with his wife Pam. He teaches studio art (with a good deal of art history thrown in) to students in the Augusta Christian Educators Homeschool Co-op.

Kirchman is an avid hiker and loves exploring the hidden wonders of the Blue Ridge Mountains. • 109

Arts & Letters | Architecture

Architecture | Arts & Letters

WRITTEN BY

Neal Lorenzi

FAR LEFT The original entryway of Mi Sueño, when it was built in the early 20th century.

BELOW The stately courtyard, like the house, is done in the Spanish Baroque and Colonial styles.

DREAM HOUSE

Renovation

An early 20th-century Spanish Colonial gem is restored to its former glory after years of neglect

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he team at Evens Architects faced a real challenge when they were tasked with restoring the house known as “Mi Sueño,” or Spanish for “My Dream.” It was a reinterpretation of Spanish Baroque and Spanish Colonial architecture, conceived by famed architect Bertram Goodhue while he was lead designer for the 1915 Panama–California Exposition. That event was to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal.

When Evens Architects first encountered the property in 1998 in the Pasadena Arroyo, they found that decades of deferred maintenance and insensitive remodeling had left the once-proud house in poor shape. The task confronting the design team—to restore the remaining fragments of Mi Sueño to their former glory while accommodating the lifestyle of the new homeowners—was daunting.

The completed renovation in 2004 turned out to be a true rebirth. The existing magnificent living room, with its lushly detailed coffered ceiling of

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Evens said the most challenging part of the renovation was rectifying the structural deficiencies of the house.

FROM LEFT Detail of a mosaic tile in the master suite bathroom; the entryway; the loggia leading to the courtyard.

BELOW A brochure from the 1940s describing Mi Sueño’s design.

Famed architect Bertram Goodhue conceived of the idea for the house while he was designing the 1915 Panama-California Exposition to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal.

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Moorish design, was restored to its original condition. Exuberant landscaping now envelops the home, providing a variety of inviting outdoor spaces.

Meanwhile, the completely reimagined master suite, with elaborate hand-cut Moroccan tile mosaics and a canopy bath, evokes a dream-like scenery.

Mi Sueño was constructed in 1915.

Originally designed as a residence for a banker from New Jersey named Herbert Coppell, the estate comprised several acres. As the estate changed hands over the years, most of it was sold off. In the 1940s, the house itself was divided into two parts, with one fragment becoming a separate house on the property immediately to the south— which still exists. The northern fragment, which included the living room, became Mi Sueño.

The original parts of the house that were still of great quality and worthy of restoration included the living room and the entry hall, which featured original cast-plaster detailing designed by Goodhue, according to Erik Evens, partner at Evens Architects, a Los Angelesbased firm that’s part of KAA Design Group. The rest of the spaces had been poorly remodeled over the years and had to be reinvented.

Evens said the most challenging part of the renovation was rectifying the structural deficiencies of the house.

The walls were constructed of hollow clay tile, which was a common building material in 1915 but is no longer used today, and for good reason. “Although strong in compression, the clay bricks are quite brittle and not able to resist the earthquake loads we have in southern California. They simply would not be approvable under current building codes. So for the entire northeast 113

Arts & Letters | Architecture

Architecture | Arts & Letters

RIGHT & FAR RIGHT

A blueprint for the original property; a cozy alcove.

wing of the house, we had to demolish the exterior layer of clay tile bricks and build a concrete shell around the house,” he said in an email interview.

The original house included many details and motifs derived from the Moors, who left a lasting impact on art and culture in the Iberian Peninsula 114

after centuries of conquest. Most notably, the Moorish influence is evident in the star detailing in the magnificent coffered ceiling of the living room.

“We used this as an inspiration to develop the new spaces of the house,” Evens said. “Our clients requested a large and luxurious master bathroom, so we reworked one of the existing secondary bedrooms into a Moorish fantasy bath, complete with hooded canopy tub and exotic Moorish cut tile mosaics on the walls. The Alhambra in Spain was certainly an inspiration,” referring to the majestic palace complex in Granada.

The completed renovation in 2004 turned out to be a true rebirth. The existing magnificent living room, with its lushly detailed coffered ceiling of Moorish design, was restored to its original condition.

ABOVE & LEFT The lushly detailed coffered ceiling in the living room; inset is a closeup view of the ceiling.

Other rooms in the house embody a gracious elegance.

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Architecture | Arts & Letters

Mi Sueño was constructed in 1915.

Originally designed as a residence for a banker from New Jersey named Herbert Coppell, the estate comprised several acres.

ABOVE

The guest bedroom.

FAR LEFT, LEFT, & BELOW The master suite bathroom. Evens Architects was inspired by the Alhambra in Spain.

The mosaics were created by Mosaic House in New York City. Their installation required collaboration between Evens Architects, Mosaic House, and the interior designer, Chris Barrett.

Constructed onsite using traditional methods, the mosaics were laid upside-down on a leveled bed of moist sand. Each piece was hand-cut. Once all the pieces were in place, a thin bed of mortar was poured over the back of the tiles. Once that was cured, the panels were tilted up and installed on the walls.

“It was an amazing process!” Evens said, as bathrooms were constructed very differently back in 1915.

The team also created a modern family kitchen, and gutted the northeast wing of the house “to create a new, cozy family room, which opens to the main courtyard through broad French doors,” Evens said.

This restoration was a good fit for Evens Architects, as the firm is committed to the idea that architecture inspired by classic traditions—whether the sources are Spanish, Italian, French, or Moroccan—is well suited to the climate, landscape, and culture of contemporary California.

Neal Lorenzi is a content guru and freelance writer who has contributed to a variety of publications. In his spare time, he likes to read, listen to music, and power walk. •

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The Great Outdoors | Apache Trail

Apache Trail | The Great Outdoors

WRITTEN BY

Jill Dutton

The twisting, ever-rising roads aren’t for the nervous driver, but the views as you wind through the mountains are stunning.

A DAY TRIP

Back in Time A historic trail in Arizona brings Wild West adventure, scenic views, and more

Abandoned ore cars at the Goldfield Ghost Town, along the Apache Trail in Arizona.

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The Great Outdoors | Apache Trail

Apache Trail | The Great Outdoors

The landscape at Goldfield Ghost Town.

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT The Elvis Presley

Chapel at Superstition Mountain; an abandoned livery stable in Goldfield Ghost Town; Canyon Lake was formed after a local river was dammed in the 1920s; the Tonto National Monument in the Sonoran Desert.

A

rizona has two hidden features many travelers may not know about: the surprising abundance of waterways and the Apache Trail. Experience both on a day trip steeped in history, which includes a winding remote drive through the mountains, stops at historical trading posts and Western-themed tourist attractions, and ends at the Tonto National Forest at Canyon Lake.

For more than a thousand years, the Apache Native Americans followed the stops along this portion of the Apache a trail to make their way through the Trail pays homage to the area’s Wild West enigmatic Superstition Mountains. This roots. Along the way, one can visit an old path later became a stagecoach trail.

Western movies film set, a mining town, Now called the Apache Trail, after the and an Old West stagecoach stop, finally people who first traveled it, the route ending at secluded Canyon Lake, nestled waits to be discovered on a scenic in the Sonoran Desert landscape.

40-mile drive through the Superstition Mountains and into the foothills of the Superstition Mountain Museum Tonto National Forest (the fifth-largest The trail starts at Apache Junction, forest in the United States).

Arizona, and runs along State Route The twisting, ever-rising roads aren’t 88. The first stop on the route is the for the nervous driver, but the views as Superstition Mountain Museum. Visit you wind through the mountains are the museum and gift shop to learn about stunning. And other than the few stops the history of the mountain range and listed below, there’s no civilization—just surrounding areas, and see how life was miles of rugged mountain terrain. The like in the 1800s. Outdoors, walk the Apache Trail is a 120-mile loop best property to view stagecoaches, a replica known for a mostly unpaved 40-mile of a small town with a boardwalk, and scenic byway, the paved western section the famous Elvis Presley Chapel where of which makes for an ideal trip. Each of part of the movie “Charro!” was filmed.

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Then, step inside the Apacheland Barn for more film props and a wall of movie-star photos. On the grounds, enjoy a hike on the nature trails.

Goldfield Ghost Town Only one mile farther, you’ll find the Goldfield Ghost Town. Goldfield, a small mining town, came to life just after the first gold strike in 1892. Now, visitors enjoy Old West activities such as gunfights, plenty of shopping, dining, and live entertainment. Plus, the adventurous can take an underground mine tour or ride the zip line. The only narrow-gauge railroad in operation in Arizona is also located there. At the saloon, step onto the back patio and you’ll often see horses tied to the post as their riders sit and sip a prickly pear margarita or a cold brew.

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Tortilla Flat Enjoy the scenic drive as you climb toward Canyon Lake. Just past the lake, stop at Tortilla Flat, population six. You can visit a tiny strip of a town that was a stagecoach stop in 1904. Take a break for lunch at the Tortilla Flat Saloon.

The décor is as interesting as the small town, with saddles as bar stools and dollar bills signed by visitors plastering the walls and nearly every surface.

Enjoy a sarsaparilla, a soft drink traditionally enjoyed by cowboys that is made from a vine plant, alongside a bowl of the Saloon’s famous chili.

Canyon Lake Take the trail back a couple of miles ISSUE 5 | OC TOB ER 20 21

to Canyon Lake for a scenic nature cruise aboard the Dolly Steamboat.

The lake formed after the local Salt River was dammed in the 1920s. It’s set in nature without houses lining the 28 miles of shoreline, so you can enjoy wildlife sightings such as bighorn sheep and numerous bird species, and take in the massive rock formations while the captain tells tales of the lake’s history.

In addition to the steamboat, you can access the water by renting a boat or bringing your own. You can swim at the beach, scuba dive, or take a hike. There aren’t any hotels along the Apache Trail, but if you bring an RV or tent, you can spend a few days or so at the Canyon

Lake Marina and Campground.

Whether you decide to stay or make the return drive back to Apache Junction as a day trip, the drive along the Apache Trail showcases the natural wonders of the Superstition Mountains, the Tonto National Forest, and the rustic Sonoran Desert landscape, offering a closer glimpse of the Arizona terrain and the history of the region.

Jill Dutton is a travel writer who seeks out locally celebrated foods, outdoor activities, and liquor trends. She’s passionate about telling the stories of those she meets on her travels, offering a glimpse at the culture of place. Follow Jill’s travels at USAbyRail.blog • 121

Section Overline Poems

Poems

Nothing Gold Can Stay Written by Robert Frost (1874–1963)

Nature’s first green is gold,

Under the Harvest Moon Written by Carl Sandburg (1878–1967)

Under the harvest moon,

Her hardest hue to hold.

When the soft silver

Her early leaf’s a flower;

Drips shimmering

But only so an hour.

Over the garden nights,

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

Death, the gray mocker,

So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Comes and whispers to you As a beautiful friend Who remembers.

Under the summer roses When the flagrant crimson Lurks in the dusk Of the wild red leaves, Love, with little hands, Comes and touches you With a thousand memories, And asks you Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

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“The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.”

— FREDER IC K DOU G L ASS

Sunrise at the New Croton Dam in New York.

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