Advice from Atticus

 As an attorney, I have often talked with young people considering a career as a lawyer, some of whom had already been accepted and were asking for my advice.  I always tell them the same thing.  Read To Kill a Mockingbird.  

The wisdom in that book by Harper Lee is the best advice I can offer.  It is the story of a Southern attorney asked to represent a young black man wrongly accused.  His young daughter is taunted at school for the fact that her father has agreed to represent a Black man.  Those who taunted her used a vulgar word, which she repeated to her father' 

Before explaining why he had agreed to represent the young man, he corrected her use of the vulgar word.  

She tries to justify using the vulgar word by saying " 'its what everybody at school says."  Her father replies, "From now on it will be everybody less one--"

He gives his daughter a little description of the young black man, gently personalizing who he is, but admitting that "There's been some high talk around town to the effect that I shouldn't do much about defending this man."

She responds, "If you shouldn't be defendn' him, then why are you doin' it?

"For a number of reasons," said Atticus.  "The main one is, if I didn't I couldn't hold up my head in town, I couldn't represent this county in the legislature, I couldn't even tell you or Jem not to do something again."  

"You mean that if you didn't defend that man, Jem and me wouldn't have to mind you any more?"

"That's about right."

"Why?'

"Because I could never ask you to mind me again.  Scout, simply by the nature of the work every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally.  This one's mine, I guess.  You might hear some ugly talk about it at school, but do one thing for me if you will:  you just hold your head high and keep those fists down.  No matter what anybody says to you, don't you let 'em get your goat.  Try fighting with your head for a change...it's a good one, even if it does resist learning."

I don't know how many young women and men have taken my advice and have read "To Kill a Mockingbird" but I hope that some did.  If you have not read it, I would encourage you to find a copy and read it.  

Harper Lee was well known for declining to correspond with her fans.  I never expected a reply, but I decided to write to her.  To my complete surprise, she replied.  She was elderly at that time, and she apologized for her shaky writing, but she filled two pages in reply to what I had shared in my letter.  Her letter is one of my greatest treasures. 

A personal note:

Some of you who follow this blog know that I graduated from Baylor University School of Law and practiced in Texas for several years until my husband's career took us to Georgia and North Carolina, where I took the bar and was licensed in both of those states.  However, my career path changed to publishing 3 books, written for general readers but researched in depth.  I started sharing this blog while writing "Prairie Bachelor, The Story of a Kansas Homesteader & the Populist Movement".  My goal has always been to inform readers in a way that is interesting, and I try to do the same with this blog.  I think Harper Lee did the same thing in "To Kill a Mockingbird".  She did not try to lecture her readers, but she told a story that gave her readers food for thought.

I believe we live in troubled times today.  I try to do what Harper Lee did.  I try to give you food for thought, and a perspective you may not have considered.  A great deal of research goes into each blog I write.  I don't intend to tell you what to think, but I hope I may give you something to think about.      

Most Readers Have Favorite Authors, #4

 

It isn't easy to select a favorite author or a favorite book, but I do have a favorite.  I have written about Harper Lee before.  "To Kill a Mockingbird" is often spoken of as a book for young readers.  Yes, teachers often include it for their junior high students, but more accurately it is a book for all readers, in my opinion.  

The New York Times chose to celebrate its 125th Year of the Times Book Review's existence by asking readers to nominate their favorite book.  "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee was chosen as the Best Book of the Past 125 Years.  I am thrilled.  I have recommended that book to so many people, and I particularly urge anyone considering law school to read it before they begin and read it after they are licensed to practice.  If they still think it is a youth book, they probably should read it a third time.

In an essay, NYT editor Molly Young began with these words, "When you revisit in adulthood a book that you last read in childhood, you will likely experience two broad categories of observation:  'Oh yeah, I remember this part,' and 'Whoa, I never noticed that part.'"  Her wonderful essay continued with sharing the things she missed and why it was worth revisiting.  She describes what impressed her most:  "...which is how keenly Lee recreates the comforts, miseries and banalities of people gathered intimately in one little space."

In the announcement of the selection, the New York Times explained the process for the selection.  More than 1,300 books were nominated.  Of that number, 65% were nominated by only one person.  Of those nominating a book, only 31% of them saw their book included in the list of 25 finalists.

Another interesting discovery is that certain authors were particularly popular.  Three authors had seven of their books nominated.  Those authors are John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner.  Another group of three had five of their books nominated.  Those three authors are James Baldwin, Margaret Atwood, and Virginia Wolf.  They also mentioned Joan Didion, who recently passed away, who had four of her books nominated.  Of course, I would like to have seen Willa Cather among those authors named for having several books nominated.

If some of you are still making your New Year's Resolution reading list, you might consider these authors and the idea of reading several of a single author's books.

Or, you might consider the top five books nominated in the NYT Anniversary vote,  listed from 1-5 are:  Harper Lee, "To Kill a Mockingbird," J.R.R. Tolkien, "Fellowship of the Ring," George Orwell, "1984," Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "One Hundred Years of Solitude," and Toni Morrison, "Beloved."

Some of my favorites included among the other finalists are:  "All the Light We Cannot See," by Anthony Doerr, "Lonesome Dove," by Larry McMurtry, "The Grapes of Rath," by Steinbeck, "Charlotte's Web," by E.B. White, and "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by Rowllng.  There are a few more that I liked at the time I read them but can no longer remember why, and one I tried my best to read and finally gave up.

The link to the NYT article, including the essay by Molly Young referenced in this blog, is https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/28/books/best-book-winners.html 

 

The Books in Our Lives

Jefferson:  "I cannot live without books."

When I did the series on favorite children's books and ask readers of the blog to share the favorites from their childhoods, I was inundated with so many replies that it took several blogs to share all of your favorites.  Last week, I invited readers to share their favorite adult book titles, and only a few of you replied.  Since I know that so many of you were eager readers as children, and because educators believe forming the habit of reading in childhood will develop active adult readers, I expected to be inundated with adult book titles.  I'm disappointed, but I did receive some great replies!  

One of my foreign followers  loves reading history, so he began by admitting that he doesn't read much fiction.  However, he does like John le Carre (1931-    ) spy novels and named The Night Manager as his favorite.  He also enjoys Westerns, naming Ernest Haycox  (1899-1950) and, especially, Jack Schaefer (1907-1991) as favorites.  He warned against trying to take the easy way out by seeing movies based their books--pale imitations, in his opinion!

Edward Bellamy

I have another friend who enjoys mysteries and travel books, neither of which appeal to me.  She has shared some wonderful suggestions outside those genres that I have loved.   Our friendship really took root when we discovered we both had read The House by Otowi Bridge by Peggy Pond Church (1903-1987).

Two people responded to my call for favorite adult books by telling me we share a favorite.  LS chose To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1926-2016), which I think every aspiring lawyer should read.

SGR agrees with me about East of Eden being our favorite among John Steinbeck's novels.  She is a voracious reader and declined naming a specific favorite among all the books she loves.  However, she did share a favorite from  among books recently read, and her recommendation came with three reviews and an interview of the author as attachments.  Yes, she has tempted me to read A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (1964-    ).

Life is too short to read all of the books I'd like to read, so I enjoy recommendations from friends who are readers.  Recently, JD recommended The Sympathizer, which I mentioned in last week's blog.  I would never have read it without his recommendation, and I'm so glad that I did.  In turn, I recommended All the Light We Cannot See, and he tells me he enjoyed it.

I do believe what we read shapes who we are, and for that reason I find no pleasure reading books that are no more than a way to pass the time.  Researching my manuscript about Isaac Werner, I felt that I came to know him from the books he chose to read.  He also led me to books being read during the populist movement, so that I came to understand what inspired and shaped working class people of that time.  Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1850-1898) was so popular that Bellamy Clubs, whose members sought to implement some of his futuristic ideas, were formed around the world.  Mark Twain (1835-1910) is still popular today.  Other books that he owned are no longer read, but I appreciated the immersion into that era that reading those books gave me.

Thanks to those of you who shared "the books in your lives!"

What and How We Read

Steinbeck Home and Restaurant

Recently a friend we met on the John Steinbeck Retreat forwarded news that Steinbeck's childhood home, which had been operated as a lunch-time restaurant by volunteers (with a professional chef and helper in the kitchen) was closing because of inadequate funds to sustain its operation.   The day our group ate there, all of the tables were filled; however, that included 24 of us.  My husband and I ate there when we visited Steinbeck Country several years ago.  It is a wonderful part of the Steinbeck experience, and it would be a shame for it to close.

Mural across from Steinbeck Center

I suppose I am not a typical reader.  I have mentioned my Millennium Reading List, which I compiled at the turn of the century, consulting the lists of great books several publications printed at that time, supplemented with titles from other sources.  My intention to select 100 Great Books quickly expanded beyond the 1900s and grew to more that twice the intended number, and it continues to grow faster than I can keep up, encompassing both fiction and nonfiction.  My attitude is that life is too short to read everything, so why waste time reading junk!

Not all my favorite authors are dead.  I have a shelf of David McCullough histories, and I am a fan of Barbara Kingsolver.  I do read Best Sellers, but usually months after they were on the Best Seller lists, and only if reviewers (professional and friends) that I respect have recommended them.  It sometimes seems that each book I read leads me to more--by the same author, on the same subject, or to learn more about the history of the period described in the book.

Steinbeck Center

Those of you who regularly follow this blog know that I love Willa Cather, and now you know that John Steinbeck is one of my favorites.  I am a great believer in the importance of a literate citizenry necessary to support a great country.  I have shared a favorite quote from Einstein:  "If you want intelligent children, read them fairy tales.  If you want more intelligent children, read them more fairy tales."  Several of my past blogs have dealt with encouraging the habit of reading in our children.  Most adults who are regular readers of books learned that habit as children.

I fear that reading is a habit on the decline.  Even in her home state of Nebraska, the great Willa Cather is no longer on the required reading list of public high schools.  Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" is still read in many schools, but it is often relegated to younger readers who may not fully appreciate it.  Too few readers get past Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath," a great book but not the only one worth reading.  Despite the huge popularity of "Downton Abbey" on PBS, few readers explore the great English novels written in the 1800s, of which my favorite, "Pride and Prejudice," is only one.

Enjoying access to archived material

But I will continue to be a cheerleader for reading, and sharing time with others who love to read is a special treat for me.  The photographs in this week's blog were taken when our retreat group visited Salinas, California, Steinbeck's childhood home.  We toured the Steinbeck Center and enjoyed a special opportunity to view items from the museum archives not usually seen by visitors.  We had lunch in Steinbeck's childhood home, and we ended our day with a visit to the graves of Steinbeck and other family members.

My favorite Steinbeck book is "East of Eden," a challenging book that I first read about fifteen years ago.  I will close by sharing a conversation from that novel between Samuel Hamilton, who visited his younger friend Adam, to help select a name for the twin boys whose mother had deserted them soon after they were born. In his grief at having been abandoned by his wife, Adam neglected his sons, imposing fears about their mother's evil having been inherited by the boys.  Samuel tells him:  "I don't very much believe in blood.  I think when a man finds good or bad in his children he is seeing only what he planted in them after they cleared the womb."  Adam:  "You can't make a race horse of a pig."  Samuel:  "No, but you can make a very fast pig."    

Graves of Samuel & other family members

Just as Samuel believed in bringing out the best that was possible in Adam's sons, I admit that I believe that reading quality literature and learning from reading history can bring out the best in all of us.  I would love it if you took the time to share the titles of your favorite books with me.  The long-time readers of this blog will remember what a popular series of blogs resulted from your sharing of favorite childhood books, so sharing titles of favorite books you have read as adults should be fun too. 

It was Isaac Werner's love for books, and his amazing personal library, that drew me to him, after all!

(Remember, you can click on images to enlarge.)

Inspiration & Motivation

Isaac Beckley Werner's Journal

Searching for an old journal, kept by a man I had never heard of that allegedly contained references to my ancestors, resulted in my manuscript about Isaac Werner, his community, and the Populist Movement in Kansas.  As a by-product, it resulted in my weekly sharing of Kansas history through this blog.  We never know what may inspire us and motivate us to do something we might never otherwise have imagined!

For Ken Spurgeon, it was a collection of Civil War letters.  As a graduate student in history, he learned that if a Kansas settler were a non-combatant or claimed no allegiance in the free state vs pro-slavery bloody years when Kansans and Missourians fought, a sheet over their chimney would signal their lack of alliance to either side.  Among the letters that Spurgeon read was one written by a woman who explained that to leave a chimney bare, or "lone," was a declaration of who you were and what you stood for.

Memioral on side of Dr. Higley's cabin

In 2003, when Ken Spurgeon and Jonathon Goering formed their company to make their first documentary, "Touched by Fire:  Bleeding Kansas, 1854-1861," Ken remembered that letter and it became the inspiration for naming their company Lone Chimney Films. Since then have come "Bloody Dawn:  The Lawrence Massacre," "The Road to Valhalla," and most recently "Home on the Range, The Story of America's Iconic Song."

Lone Chimney Films represents, for them, their commitment to historical accuracy. They place great importance in using academic scholars to advise them and serve on their board.  Their purpose is to share history in an accurate way with study guides and teacher aids to accompany their films.  Beyond the classroom, they reach out to communities, providing lecturers to civic organizations and for historic events.

Such random events, like my search for an old journal and Ken's encounter with the words of a stranger in an old letter, can inspire and motivate.  My memories of going to the Stafford County Courthouse with my father when I was a little girl may very well be at the root of my decision to study and practice law.  As parents, teachers, and adults in general, every day we have the opportunity to strike a spark of interest and enthusiasm, or sadly, to miss that opportunity or even discourage a dream.  Poets, writers, athletes, actors, dancers, musicians, and other famous people inspire and motivate us, but so do every day people, and that should be reason enough to make each of us smile.

A very special personal letter to me

Lone Chimney Films was founded in 2003, but in 2006 it became a 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit organization.  Their films have been shown on Public Television stations beyond Kansas, and schools and public libraries have benefited from the use of their films.  Neither Isaac B. Werner nor the woman writing her letter in Kansas could have imagined the lives their actions have touched.

Dr. Higley did not sit down to pen "My Western Home" with the intention of writing the Kansas State Song.  Harper Lee's father did not leave for the courthouse to try cases with a plan to set an example for his daughter's influential novel "To Kill a Mockingbird."  Every day millions of people influence the lives of others, and that should inspire all of us to be the examples we hope to be.  Someone just might be watching...

Isaac's Efforts to Extend a Helping Hand

Political Cartoon from the County Capital

 

 



 

 

 



The hardships of the late 1800s in agricultural regions are difficult for today's Americans to imagine.  Farmers were grinding up the grain they had put aside for the next planting season's seed, mixing it with water to feed their starving children.  Isaac Werner wrote to the presidents of the surrounding Farmers' Alliances, urging that funds be collected from members to provide assistance to their most desperate neighbors, but nearly everyone was struggling just to care for their own families and to survive long enough to raise the next year's crops.  There were few places to turn for help, although counties did have limited funds for the most desperate.  (Click on cartoon to enlarge.)

 

Groups of these desperate men organized marches, headed for Washington, D.C. to ask for help, but many of these marches failed because the participants were too weak to walk the distance and too lacking in funds to provide food for the walkers.  A wealthy man named Jacob Coxey subsidized a march, which he called the Army of the Commonweal in Christ but which newspapers generally referred to as Coxey's Army.  Because of his financial ability to provide food and organization, Coxey and a portion of his men reached the nation's capital to ask for jobs.  They were desperately poor, not lazy beggars asking for a handout.  However, they were barred from entering the capital and Coxey and another man were arrested for walking on the grass, their pleas for work essentially ignored.

 

Shovel handle

Today, most Americans take for granted the social safety nets funded by the government.  We cannot imagine a time when a young married couple would have committed suicide as she was in labor with their first child, slashing their own throats because they were starving and felt they had no place to turn.  Yet, this story was reported in the County Capital to which Isaac subscribed.  Many of our current social programs now offering the assistance this young couple did not have are rooted in the political goals of the People's Party of the 1890s.

 

During another economic period of unemployment and widespread hardship in America, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued an order which led to the creation of the Works Progress Administration, later called the Works Projects Administration.  He entrusted its specific shaping to his close adviser, Harry Hopkins, and it is considered the most ambitious undertaking of the New Deal.

 

Old WPA shovel

Recently my husband and I were cleaning out our garage, and I took the responsibility of going through my father's old tools, cleaning them and oiling the dry wooden handles and rusty metal blades.  As I applied oil to one especially dry shovel handle, I noticed something carved into the wood.  My father often marked his tools, so as not to get them mixed up when he was working with  neighbors.  I assumed that the initials were his, until I realized that the letters were actually WPA.  When I finished with the handle and began working on the metal part of the shovel, I discovered WPA engraved into the corner of the blade. 

 

Between 1935 and 1943 the WPA provided employment for millions, paying wages consistent with the region in which the jobs were offered.  Hours were limited, and workers did not get rich--but they survived.  In addition, things like roads, government buildings, conservation projects, and public health projects benefitted citizens.  In the arts, musicians, actors, artists, and writers found work through the WPA.

 

Bottom right corner of blade see WPA

It was the approach of W.W. II and the need for employees in the war effort that diminished the need for the WPA, and Congress ended the Administration in 1943.  While it helped many Americans, it was subjected to some of the same criticisms heard today regarding our present forms of government assistance.  False and exaggerated reports were circulated about the excessive waste, and one congressman called the WPA a "seedbed for communists."  Complaints were made about politics having more to do with the distribution of projects and funding allotments than the needs of citizens in those regions.  And, just as today, needy workers were often viewed as being in their situation because they were lazy.  Even Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird reflects that sort of criticism when a local loafer is described as "the only person fired from the WPA for laziness."

 

Close-up of engraved WPA

I do not know how the WPA shovel came to be among my father's tools.  In 1935 my father would have been twenty years old, and I do know that tree belts to control wind erosion of the loose sandy loam soil were planted in our area, including one just north of my family's hereditary home.  Could that have been a WPA project?  Whether my father or anyone else in his family worked for the WPA or whether the shovel I discovered ended up in his possession in some other way, I do not know.

 

What I do know is that farmers of Isaac's time who couldn't feed their families wanted work, not handouts, and the political goals of the People's Party included government work programs in their political platforms.  Many progressive programs that have been implemented over the years have their inceptions in these People's Party ideas.  Recently, jobs to improve America's aging infrastructure were suggested to help climb out of the recession at the close of the Bush administration and to improve the current economy.  What I also know is that most living Americans cannot imagine the degree of desperation that past generations suffered, without any place to turn for help.

 

Holding that old WPA shovel in my hands reminded me of all of that!

Writer of the Prairie

Red Cloud, Nebraska

"Black Hawk, the new world to which we had come to live, was a clean, well-planned little prairie town, with white fences and good green yards, about the dwellings, wide dusty streets, and shapely little trees growing along the wooden sidewalks.  In the centre of the town there were two rows of new brick 'store' buildings, a brick school-house, the court-house, and four white churches.  Our own house looked down over the town, and from our upstairs windows we could see the winding line of the river bluffs, two miles south of us."  Taken from "My Antonia" 

 

For Willa Cather fans like me, a visit to Red Cloud, Nebraska, is like a literary Disneyland.  Cather's fictional town of Black Hawk is a stand-in for Red Cloud, for Cather's novels often involve the use of her hometown and the people she knew there.

 

Red Cloud Opera House

Many of you may remember reading My Antonia in high school.  If you haven't read it, perhaps you should.  If you have, you might consider reading it again.  Just as I often tell Kansas children that they should read L. Frank Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz, I believe those of us who love the prairie should read Willa Cather, and My Antonia is a good place to start.

 

If you live close enough, you may want to include a visit to Red Cloud as part of your Cather experience.  There you can see on the west side of the main street, which is Webster Street, the "new brick store buildings" described by Cather in the paragraph that opened this blog.  In the middle of the row is the Red Cloud Opera House, circa 1885, where Cather attended performances.  The Cather Foundation offices, gallery, bookstore, and auditorium now occupy this wonderful space, with exciting plans underway to expand the facilities.

 

Silas Garber's bank
 

 

During your visit you could go inside the Harling (Miner) House, circa 1878, to see the tiny room where the "hired girl" after whom Cather fashioned the character of Antonia slept.  You could drive out into the country to visit the Pavelka Farm where the "real Antonia" lived with her husband and where they raised the family of children described by the fictional Jim Burden when he visited Antonia as an adult.

 

 

You could also see the Farmers' and Merchants' Bank built by Silas Garber, which houses a museum with other memorabilia connected to Antonia.  Garber was the founder of Red Cloud and the 4th governor of Nebraska.  What is significant to Cather fans like me, however, is that Silas and his wife were the prototypes for Captain and Mrs. Forrester in another Cather novel, The Lost Lady.  When I visit Red Cloud, fiction always trumps reality!

 

Red Cloud Train Depot

 

My favorite of Cather's novels is O Pioneers! about a woman who takes over the family farm after her father's death.  Cather writes often about the immigrants who claimed homesteads on the Nebraska high prairie, and many of them arrived by train.  Alexandra Bergson is the Swedish heroine of O Pioneers! with whose love for the family farm I identify.  "She had never known before how much the country meant to her.  The chirping of the insects down in the long grass had been like the sweetest music.  She had felt as if her heart were hiding down there, somewhere, with the quail and the plover and all the little wild things that crooned or buzzed in the sun." Many Swedish immigrants, as well as those from other countries, arrived by train, and when she was a child, Cather enjoyed being at the depot.  During your visit to Red Cloud, you could see the original 2-story building that existed in Cather's day.

Willa Cather's childhood home

 

When young Jim Burden describes the view from the upstairs window in the above quote, Willa Cather was surely thinking of the view from her rented childhood home.  Visitors can now tour her old home, furnished as it would have been when Cather lived there.  The Cather Foundation has recently acquired the home Cather's parents bought in 1903, where Cather spent summers when she came to stay with her family.  It is now possible to stay in the home her parents bought when you visit Red Cloud.

 

There are many other Cather sights to see in Red Cloud and the surrounding countryside.  We visited the grave of her cousin, upon whom her Pulitzer-winning novel, One of Ours, is based.  Cather was the first woman to receive that award.

 

If tackling one of her novels seems a little intimidating, I highly recommend her short stories.  Among my favorites are "The Sculptor's Funeral," "Old Mrs. Harris," "A Wagner Matinee," and "Coming, Aphrodite!"  Cather's writing shares in common with another favorite of mine, Harper Lee, the richness of writing about people and places they knew.  What both women write will stay with you, because when you finish their books you feel like you have come to know their characters and have been present in the places described in their books.  Theirs are book to slow down and savor.

 

Consider going to the library to check out a Cather book, or going online where many of her novels and short stories can be downloaded.  If you find a favorite, or already have one, please leave a comment recommending your favorites to other visitors to this blog.  I hope that at least some of you will join Cather's many fans, including international readers, and soon you will be among those who love to debate which book or short story is her best!

 

For more information, visit www.willacather.org.