Under the Christmas Tree

Merry Christmas Everyone! For your Christmas pleasure, here's a picture from one of my critique partners of the trees in her house. The ceramic tree on the right was crafted by my mother's cousin who just happens to be the topic of my next book. Isn't this a picture to remember on Christmas morning!

I hope each of you woke to a day of beauty and promise. I did, and this blessed morning I am a little more excited than usual.  Under several Christmas trees in homes scattered throughout the area are copies of Lessons Learned. I know because I wrote the Merry Christmas greeting to the recipient.

I'm awed at the thought, a little apprehensive, but nonetheless, awed. Humbled, too, definitely humbled. I want to be there and experience the moment with each person. Are the books wrapped in silver paper with a red bow trim? Are they in Santa gift bags stuffed with green striped tissue paper? Or, are they plain, handed straight from one friend to another, no wrapping or formalities necessary?

Most of all, will the person be thrilled or disappointed? That's where my apprehension lies, to not know if it will it be tossed to the corner, forgotten in the stack of unread books from Christmas past or be eagerly opened, devoured and savored as much as the Christmas feast will be in a few hours.

That's one lesson I've learned this year. Once a book has launched, it's gone. Sometimes I get feedback, mostly not. I have to trust and believe that what I have presented is worthy of a spot under someone's Christmas tree.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

Recitation and Declaration

Although children at Pilot Mountain School memorized everything from basic reading words to presidents to state captials, the majority of stories I caught about memorization was connected to the yearly competition known as Recitation and Declaration.

The upper grade children would select a piece of literature to memorize and present to a panel of judges. They studied. They memorized. They practiced. When competition day arrived, they had one chance to do it right. One chance.

The schools I personally attended growing up never adopted this recitation tradition. Oh, I had to memorize, especially the Psalms in eighth grade, and the Gettysburg address in maybe fifth grade. But as far as competition, no.

Perhaps I should have gone through this process because I had a chance to post a "read by author" segment of my book at Southern Writers Magazine online.

This month they opened their online "Take Five" to promote writers who are from the southern United States or who write about these southern states. I qualify on both counts, not born in the south, but raised here, the school certainly southern. The format is a five minute audio presented through a casual, "spend a few minutes listening to an author read her own work."

It sounded so simple. I knew my work, knew what segment I wanted to read. I practiced a bit, learned the system from my computer, and then started to record. The first time I finished maybe ten sentences before I pronounced a word incorrectly. The second, even less. The third, fourth, fifth...you get the picture. Four and a half hours later I made it through the entire five minutes, not perfectly, but acceptably.

Here's your invitation: Go to the Take Five page, find Lessons Learned and hear my voice as I read parts of several pages. While you are there, listen to the other authors as well. We want to do more than entertain. We want to share our books with you and in reality, share a bit of ourselves with you.

Just like those children performing in the Recitation and Declaration so many years ago.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen



The History Museum of Burke County

On this, the seventy-first anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day, I will be surrounded by history and by history lovers. What better place to be than in a museum, the History Museum of Burke County!

Okay, so the picture is a little out of season, but that is the museum and I'll be there from one until seven this afternoon, along with several other local authors at a signing event. I appreciate the chance to be a part of this yearly event. I'm the newcomer to the crowd, yet they've accepted me with open arms.

Not only open arms, but with open books and open private collections, I might add. The folks at this museum were invaluable during the research phase of catching stories about Pilot Mountain School.

This is me on the ladder in the vault of the museum, downstairs in the dungeon where the precious records are preserved. Behind me are stacks and stacks of bound News Herald newspaper editions dating back to the eighteen hundreds. Although these are all on microfische in the county library's North Carolina room, I needed several original photographs, especially the one of the construction, the oldest picture available of the school. I found it here, in the museum.

In their education room I found a water color drawing of one of the old schools in the community that predated Pilot Mountain School, an 1885 water color drawing to be more precise. Could I use it for this project? I dared to ask. Yes, they graciously answered.

In yet another vault I discovered stacks and stacks of original ink drawings by the Burke County school superintendent from 1925 through 1963, Robert Patton, Jr. Again, permission asked and granted. What a time traveling experience that was, viewing local, state and national politics through the eyes of a very astute artist and his political cartoons. I selected two that fit into the narration of my text, but I could have picked a hundred and two.

Most of all, the docents and other volunteers at this museum helped me with fact checking my manuscript. They read over what I had written and pointed out places that needed rewording or re-researched.

Join me today and see what the museum is all about.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

Saturday's Reading

The plan last Saturday was for me to read from my book, and I did, to a small but enthusiastic crowd at a coffee house called Java Journey. Since most of those in attendance weren't acquainted with Lessons Learned, I chose the selections with a lot of thought, looking for the uniqueness that makes this schoolhouse stand out from the rest, for reasons why people would want to open it and read further.

I found examples aplenty, starting with the year the school opened in 1942 and the war effort the teachers led on the home front. The children collected scrap metal to bring to school for the teachers to log the weight and reward them with a sweatshirt when they reached a particular level. The children brought nickels to buy stamps for their redemption booklets that the teachers held in a side desk drawer. As each child's booklet filled, they converted it to a War Bond. The teachers remained late after school and came to school on Saturdays to register families for their rationing books, using precious gasoline and rubber tire coupons to operate their personal vehicles to be at school to perform war time duties.

Establishing a cafeteria during war time rationing was next to impossible, as the readings I selected also showed. I read to the crowd about the barter system the school established and the home grown produce the workers served.

I could have read selections from the baby boomer years, from the desegregation years, from the final years when the school was converted to a junior high, or even from the more recent years when it has become a coffeeshop and reception hall. But instead I chose to read personal stories people told me about being a student at the school, stories like going to the gold mine holes and digging clay to take for art class, stories of being nervous for the yearly recitation and declaration contests, memories of feed sack clothes and wearing holes in pant legs from playing marbles on their knees.

All too quick my time was up. But I had so much more to read!

Next time.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

A Read, A Signing and A Plan

Since Lessons Learned has hit the shelves (and the internet @ amazon) I've entered a whole new side of the writing business - marketing. I've had a very successful launch. I've participated in author events, spoken to groups about my journey to publishing and developed a website.

December 1, this coming Saturday, I will be entering yet another venture. A Read. A ten o'clock in the morning Read. A Coffeehouse, ten o'clock in the morning Read.

The place is Java Journey and its existence is a story in itself, so check it out, and then plan to come Saturday morning. 2149 N. Center St., Hickory, NC 28601

I've read to groups from my book before, but I knew the specifics of the group and they knew a little about my book. This is different. I'll be with other authors who will also be reading from their works. They know about my book because we're in a marketing group together and have shared with each other for months.     It's the visitors I'm wondering about, the ones who have never heard of me or Pilot Mountain School. Should I select favorite vignettes, stories within the story, or should I go for the history that is so fascinating and rich?   For sure, I will read the preface, part of which is to the right of this blog post in the "About" section. I will read the first page of chapter one where I compare an empty school to a mausoleum, and the final page of chapter thirteen where I declare it to no longer be a mausoleum, instead remodeled and reborn. It's the inbetween part I'm not sure about. What to empahsize - the school during World War II - the school during integration - the way the community moved from poverty to prosperity - in my time limit, what snippet can I pass along that will make them realize why I wrote this book and why they should read it.   I'll figure something out, appear at Java Journey eager to read and sell and sign. Next week, I'll let you know how things turned out.   Catch of the day,   Gretchen  

Edith Satterwhite

This past weekend I was the guest speaker at the fall meeting of the Alpha Nu chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma. The members are current or retired educators, so I felt a kinship to them with my teaching background. More than that, I know one of their former members, Edith Satterwhite, teacher and principal at Pilot Mountain School.

"Know" perhaps is not the word I should use in this context. I was never fortunate enough to meet her since she died in 1999, long before I began this project. Yet I know her well. I know her through her former students who looked to her for guidance, through her co-workers who remember her as hard working, through her family who praises her for being their rock, and most of all, through her writings.

In a written version of a speech she presented at her church, she showed her personality. "A little more than fifty years ago I came to this community shortly after Pearl Harbor in 1941. I was twenty-nine and a half years old. My hair had already turned grey...that's one reason for my being called Old Mrs. Sattershite for the last fifty years. You know the other reasons..."

She dropped out of high school in order to care for younger children in her family when her mother became too ill. She returned the following year and graduated top of her class.

To raise money for tuition at Appalachian Teacher's College, she worked as a nurse at the nearby mental hospital. She appeared before the North Carolina state legislature to open their eyes to the horrific conditions she witnessed there.

As a beginner teacher she lived away from home, only returning during the fall break when her school closed for the fall harvest season. She eventually married and found a position as teacher and principal at Pilot Mountain School the year it opened. Not only did she teach the ABC's, she participated in the home front war effort. She weighed scrap metal the children brought to school and awarded prizes for those who earned them. She collected nickels from students buying war stamps and converted their filled booklets to war bonds. She stayed late and came on Saturdays to register families for their ration booklets.

She always taught a combination class at the school, two grades together with two sets of lessons going on at the same time. She was music teacher, physical education teacher, art teacher, librarian and nurse.

More than that, she inspired children. She encouraged them to always reach higher goals. Many former students of hers became teachers because of her influence. Her legacy lives on in the students they in turn taught in their classrooms.

Yes, just like me, many in the county "know" Edith Satterwhite through the actions and words of the children who once sat in her classroom.

What better way to live on than through an unbroken chain of teachers.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

The Map and a Tale of Three Counties

One email I received about halfway through the publishing process was from my editor suggesting that a map showing the Pilot Mountain area would be a great addition to the text, giving the reader a sense of place.

So I set about doing a map.

I sorted through geological maps in the North Carolina room of the Burke County Library. I reviewed maps I had run across in my research, most importantly a map by former school superintendent R. L. Patton showing the locations of county schools in 1925. I eliminated, added back and then re-eliminated school names and landmarks from my potential map, deciding to stick to only those that I mention in the actual text itself.

I sketched a basic map, went to my trusty computer whiz-kid and showed him what I wanted, where to locate the Catawba River and the two main creeks that go through the community, those so important in the gold rush days, Silver Creek (I have yet to figure out why it's not Gold Creek) and Brindle Creek. We determined where on the map to place the South Mountain State Park and the mountain peaks that played a part in the text as well.

All that finished, I felt it was time for the truth or consequences test. Take it to the old-timers at their breakfast hangout and let them critique it. Good idea because critique it they did. More like they argued it, discussed it, made suggestions. Slide the creeks around because Silver Creek is closer to the county line. No, slide it back over here. No, over here. Move the peaks because they aren't that far to the north.

Walker Top is easy to find, one tells me. Drive to the dumpsters on the road, look directly above the one on the end, and that's Walker Top.

Okay.

After much deliberation and back and forth comments, the men came to a consensus and I came up with a map.

Then yesterday, over a month after the completed book was launched, a friend of mine pointed out that I had left off a bordering county. My mind raced through the outline, wondering where I could have gone wrong. He told me, and my fingers raced to the computer to verify. All those people I had consulted couldn't have missed it, I said to myself as I waited for a county map of North Carolina to appear on the screen.

I can see where I was misled. Drats. He was right, but only by a hair.

Seems that there is one place where three counties meet, Burke, Cleveland, and Lincoln, about at the spot where I have a the jagged lines above the words Cleveland County. This man is a preacher now at a church that used to be called Three County Rock Church. He told me about a rock that was the marker for the three counties, how it was in a museum in Cleveland County until recently when it was returned to its spot. He told me about how, when he first preached at the church, he stood at the pulpit in one county and his congregation sat facing him from the pews in another. Issues with building permits a few years ago caused them to petition the state to re-draw the county lines. The state approved and finagled the line around the church so that now the entire church facility is in Burke County. But for a bit, only a short distance, Lincoln County touches Burke.

So the map is incorrect, by a hair.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen