Category Archives: Photography

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Sun Spangled Afternoon

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My daughter treated me to a belated lunch today in honor of Mother’s Day.  We met at a bistro about halfway between Milwaukee and Madison, then walked around the nearby state park for a while, visited the Farmer’s Market on the square and stopped by the beach of Rock Lake.  The late afternoon sun sparkling on the water made me think of so many summer visits to my grandmother’s cottage on Lake Michigan.  Young kids were playing about in the sand, and my daughter and I rolled up our pants and waded in the cool water.  Ah, to be young, blonde and carefree again!

Summer’s almost here!

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How Old is Old?

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I am trying to wrap my brain around history.  As an interpreter at Old World Wisconsin, I talk about St. Peter’s Church, the first Catholic chapel & cathedral in Milwaukee, which was built in 1839.  The liquid glass in the windows is rippled with age.  Kids who come by can’t believe that the pump organ isn’t hooked up to speakers and that the stops don’t produce drum patterns or other synthetic sound loops when I pull the knobs.  My blog friend, Stuart, is posting amazing photos of Gloucester Cathedral (you must pay a visit…click here to see his shots) built in 1350 or so.  Stone masonry and stained glass and soaring vaults predating the little immigrant church by 500 years – shows you that history isn’t about straight-line ‘progress’, it’s a complicated story with twists and turns and explosions and annihilation thrown in.   Then compare this photo of Mesa Verde in Colorado, a cliff dwelling inhabited somewhere between 600 and 1300 AD, most likely closer to 1200 AD. 

What we do with the raw materials at hand, the technology available and our cultural values is totally up to us.  So much is possible.  So much has always been possible.  What are we doing today?  How will our imprint appear in 500 years?   It’s a lot to think about.

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Mid-day Napping

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The windows are open; a warm breeze floats through the screen and caresses my cheeks.  Sunshine brightens patches of my orange bedsheets and makes a heating pad for my aching back.  I feel old today.  Probably because I am allowing myself to.  Today I do not need to greet visitors with a smile and pleasant conversation.  I can curl inward and feel the aches I have acquired in living.  I have a living history, too.  It involves struggle and fortitude and being foreign… like those German immigrants I talk about at work…though it is very different in its particulars. 

The art of self-comforting.  Breathing.  Slowing down.  Searching for health in the interior of being.  Acknowledging tender spots.  Bathing them in warmth.  And perhaps in tears.  I feel the love of my children, my husband, and of summer, wafting around me like a vapor of dreams in dappled green light.  I hang on by my toes to a branch of substance, and rock myself to sleep.

Death Valley, CA, last April. Photographed on the trail to Darwin Falls.

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Mothers and Others

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I probably greeted about 200 mothers at work today.  I talked to each of my 4 children on the telephone, and left e-mail and voice mail messages for my own mother.  Mother’s Day was sunny and bright and happy, or at least seemed to be, here in the Midwest.   The local grocery store ran a sale, as did most businesses, and featured a picture of a mother and daughter in 1950s style matching dresses, matching pearls and matching smiles on their outdoor sign.  How American.  How stereotypical.  How misleading. 

Every mother-child relationship is unique.  We use the term “mother” for convenience, like we do any other word, and run the risk of that symbol replacing the concept of an actual individual living out a particular life in a particular way.  This is where we have to be vigilant and intentional in order to keep from assuming a role instead of forming a relationship.  My mother is not a cookie cut-out on an assembly line.  Neither am I.  Nor are my children.  I want us to know each other as real people, in the present tense.  We have histories together that span our lifetimes, but we are always evolving.  I don’t want to get stuck in old habits, old emotions, old psychological baggage.  I want to keep a vital, dynamic exchange going with these people whom I so dearly love.   That takes effort.  Distance complicates it.  It takes dedicated time, too.  I am humbled by the idea of loving my mother and loving my children.  I want to have more than the sentimental attachment or the Hallmark moment once a year.  I desire more and they deserve more.  I guess this is another way that “convenience” and ease can lull us into accepting a substitute.  Just send the card, the flowers, the e-mail.  Say the words, do the brunch, go through the motions.  Done.  Off the hook for another year.  Nope, not good enough; not to me.  I want to slow down, appreciate, be present, be real.  I want to know and be known.  I want intimacy.  It’s actually a scary venture, so I’ll only try that with a few people in my life.  I think my mother and my children qualify.  So, my darlings, I’ll keep trying to overcome the distances.  You are very important to me.

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Draggin’ My Wagon

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I had the first truly busy workday at Old World Wisconsin today, full of great surprises.  The first was that a former co-worker showed up as a guest, with a motorcycle club from Willow Creek Church in Barrington.  It was wonderful to see her and to have a group of 40 visitors from my old stomping grounds.  What a contrast for them to be at St. Peter’s Church, though!  Imagine, leather clad moderns stepping into a Catholic Chapel that was built in 1839.  The church where they worship has 2 “sanctuaries” that hold some 13,000 people…balconies and upper balconies equipped with jumbo screens so that they can see the preacher or the lyrics of the worship song that a band is cranking out at how many volts?  Here I am seated at the pump organ in my bustle playing for a congregation of 20.  Quite a juxtaposition of growth.  What is the value of history, of retaining some artifact or memory of a time before?  Before growth, before technology, before the cultural shifts and changes that dominate our lives today?  Steve suggests that an important value in our culture now is convenience.  Willow Creek Church has a food court.  You can get a pizza or a coffee or a host of other fast foods without even leaving the building.  That’s convenient if you’re going from Worship to a class or meeting hosted there that same day.  Was convenience an important value in the 19th century?  I can bake 24 loaves of bread at one time in the bake oven at the Schottler farm.  I suppose that’s convenience making headway.  Also, I learned today that Sears Roebuck sold a Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencil with a nickel clasped eraser at the end in 1905.  You have your pencil lead and eraser on one tool, and you can order a box from the catalog and have it delivered to the train depot.   Was that convenient?  I suppose it was more convenient than whittling them by hand.

I like the feeling of being out chopping wood or trimming grass with a sickle around the homestead, and looking up to see the clouds or listen to a woodpecker.  I think it’s convenient to be right there on the land so that any time I drop what I’m doing, I feel connected to the whole earth.  Driving for a half hour away from the city to get to the country is not convenient. 

Tomorrow, I’m back at St. Peter’s for another day of the Church Bazaar, the Temperance Rally and all the Women’s Work and Reform activities.  Tonight, I am really tired!  I’m draggin’ my wagon, and I’m off to bed now. 

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A Day is a Miracle

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Because today was our day off from working at Old World Wisconsin, Steve & I decided to take a walk at Vernon State Wildlife Refuge.  This marshy wetland is a favorite place to visit in all the seasons to see the changes in flora and fauna.  I think the last time I posted pictures, it was November.  Today, it was sunny, 78 degrees and very breezy.   The Canada geese had goslings following them everywhere.  The Sandhill cranes were nesting.  We saw a group of 3 flying in formation.  Why three?  No idea.  We saw lots of red-winged blackbirds pairing up, swallows, American gold finches, a snowy egret and two new ones to me that I had to look up: the yellow-headed blackbird and the rose-breasted grosbeak.

Sitting on the bank of the river looking at the puffy cumulus clouds streaming sunlight through their crisp edges brought me to tears.  It seems to me that the world is an absolute miracle, every day, every moment, but usually, the miracle that strikes us is that we finally slowed down long enough to see it.  I wonder about how to arrange my life to put more of this experience in.  Perhaps the trick is simply to arrange it so that I’m not shutting most of it out. 

Scumscape

Enjoy the miracle of life!

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Another Day Behind the Rhubarb Curtain

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One of my activities today was to string rhubarb up for drying.  Dried rhubarb will keep for a while, and then you can boil it down for rhubarb sauce and pie later.  So there are two strands of rhubarb hanging on the wall of the summer kitchen.  Maybe in a week or two we’ll have enough for one of those super 70s-like door curtains, you know, the kind they made out of love beads?  Do you suppose that’ll become a fashion trend?  Okay, maybe not.

I opened the door to the stairs where we store our flour and sugar in plastic containers and our newspaper and matches for lighting the fire.  Something smelled like death.  Sitting next to the pile of newspapers is a “tin cat” – a metal mousetrap.  I made a mental note to ask my supervisor to show me how to check it.  I built a fire in the woodstove and in the bake oven.  The smell was forgotten quickly as smoke billowed out the chimney.  After fetching water and setting up some rinsing basins, I stepped outside to sit down and enjoy the sunshine.  A black and white cat came ambling up the gravel path.  He sniffed at the doorway into the summer kitchen, mewed at me a few times, and moved on.  I wondered if he smelled a mouse.  When my lead came by after lunch, I mentioned my suspicion to her, and she showed me how to open the trap.  Sure enough, a dead mouse was inside.  She wrapped it in a plastic bag and disposed of it in the trash, so as not to spread any more poison into the food chain.  I apologized for asking her to perform such an unsavory task right after lunch, but she laughed it off with a comment about what she does to be paid the “really big bucks” at Old World Wisconsin. 

A school tour group came by in three installments.  I was surprised to see how many kids had brought phone cameras.  I was also surprised that some of the teen girls didn’t want to knead the bread dough.  What?  Too squishy?  Afraid to get your hands dirty?  Don’t want to put down the camera?  Whatever….

A homeschooling family of four arrived later, each with massive lenses and expensive camera equipment.  They were taking pictures for our annual photo contest…for the eighth year.  They had each won prizes in last years’ contest.  The teenaged boys enjoyed chatting about the merits of Nikon vs. those of Canon and making “Saskquatch” prints in the garden.  They snapped away as I opened the bake oven door and placed the 8 foot pile inside (the bread paddle).  I wished them good luck in the contest and mentioned other great photo opportunities I had taken, like the oxen and the zigzag fence. 

Cash prizes, folks!  Photo contest reception is September 7.  Come on by and take some pictures!  And say “Guten tag!” to me!

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Living Mystery

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I am reading a book called After the Fire: The Destruction of the Lancaster County Amish by Randy-Michael Testa.  Kirkus’ Review sums up the basics thus: “As a Harvard graduate student, former third-grade teacher at a Denver private school, and serious ethical thinker of Catholic persuasion and “morally tired” condition, Testa spent the summer of 1988 living with an Amish family in Lancaster County, where he conducted fieldwork for a Ph.D. thesis exploring a “community of faith”.”

Here is an excerpt that echoes all the discussions Steve & I have about living a life that embodies our values, a grounded life, a life of depth.

“…Dorothy Day once quoted from the Archbishop of Paris: ‘To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda or even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery; it means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.’

   “I stand barefooted thinking of Elam.  Earlier in the week, he and I trooped across the Franklin and Marshall College campus to the library to look for some maps of the county.  In lieu of classes, campus had been taken over for the summer.  Everywhere there were boys in soccer gear and coaches in black shorts and white and black striped shirts blowing whistles and clapping their hands and yelling, ‘Atta boy!  Good work!  Good WORK!’

   “Elam and I had just driven in from the farm.  I had been up since five working in the sweltering barn, where I am regularly stung in the eyes by sweat rolling off my head.  My white shirts are permanently stained yellow.  I have gained ten pounds and back muscles.  I sleep so soundly in the Stoltzfus house I sometimes awaken myself with my own snoring.  So for all that, hearing the word ‘work’ in teh context of a soccer camp seemed like complete insanity.

   “Elam turned to me and asked, ‘What is this?’

   ‘It’s a soccer camp,’ I said.  I felt my soul tense.

   ‘What is ‘soccer’? Elam asked blank-faced.

   ‘It’s a sport.  Like baseball.’ (I knew some Amish played baseball at family outings.) ‘These boys are here to learn how to play it better,’ I replied quickly.

   ‘But why?  It’s a game,’ Elam said, puzzled.

   ‘These boys have paid money to come here to learn how to play a sport better,’ I repeated tersely.

   ‘But why would they go to school to learn a sport?’ he persisted.

   ‘Because the outside world doesn’t have or value productive, meaningful work for its young men, so it teaches them that it’s important to know how to play a sport well.  This keeps them occupied until they go to college and THEN THEY PAY A LOT OF MONEY TO COME HERE AND ASK WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE!!!’

   “I practically turned on him- and my own world.  I shocked Elam with my vehemence.  I shocked myself as well.  I wondered what was happening to my view of the world.

   “Now, standing in Levi’s meadow in the middle of the night, suddenly I understand what has happened.  At this hour, in this stillness, among these people, life makes perfect sense.  The outside world does not.  I have become a witness.

   “I return to the upstairs bedroom as the blue mantel clock in Elam and Rachel’s room chimes three, and fall asleep to a cow lowing in the moonlight.”

To live in a way that embodies your deepest values, despite persecution, propaganda, and perspiration.  That seems like an honest life to me.  I hope I have the courage to live like that.

(photos taken at Old World Wisconsin, the living history museum where I work as a costumed interpreter)

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We Amid The Flood

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It’s been pouring and thundering and lightning all day.  The Bustle Hustle was cancelled, and I ended up waiting out the storm in the basement of 4-Mile Inn, which flooded.  Rain went down those cellar steps and right into the staff room where we were sitting around chit-chatting.  Out came the mops and buckets and dust bins…anything to scoop the water up.   Suddenly the whimsical display of brightly colored swim fins and floaties and paddles someone had tacked to the back of the door made sense.  When it let up a bit, I made the trek down the road to St. Peter’s under my umbrella.  I didn’t stop to think that an umbrella isn’t wide enough to cover my enlarged behind!  My bustle was soaking wet…on the outside.  I didn’t feel it under all those petticoats, but when I sat on the pews, I left water marks.   I needed to inject some humor into the situation, so I pumped up the organ and began to play “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”….a bulwark….our helper, He, amid the flood (of mortal ills prevailing).   Visitors finally trickled in along with the rain, but I only had about ten in 5 hours. 

I met some new volunteers and staff people in the course of the day, and enjoyed talking to them about dreams and lifestyles.  How do you want to live?  What are you finding important at this stage of your life?  Many are retired or old enough to be.  Hobby farms, family history, grandparenting and traveling were hot topics with this crowd.  There are also the college students, who talk about classes and shopping at Good Will and how to survive on minimum wage.  Most took cover under ground in the storm, a few stayed out on the porch to watch the power of nature in the sky.   The horses turned their rear ends to the oncoming winds and whinnied a bit, but weathered the day in their own way. 

I think about resilience, expectations and comfort.  The immigrants whose stories we tell at Old World Wisconsin were of heartier stock than us 21st century types.  They pushed across miles of unknowns without a “smart phone” to tell them where they were, what was ahead, and what the weather pattern was likely to be.   They looked up and around, assessed the situation to the best of their ability, and went ahead.  What happened…happened.  They made their own fun, they solved problems with their own strength and wits, and they passed on what they could to their children.   I like their spirit. 

And when the rains come, “don’t forget to wear your rubbers!”  (My mother’s voice echoes from my childhood…)

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The Village People

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Today was my first day as one of “The Village People” at Old World Wisconsin.  I interpret St. Peter’s Church, built in 1839 as Milwaukee’s very first Roman Catholic chapel and cathedral.  Only 7 years after the cornerstone was laid, the parish had grown from 20 members to 100 families and they began to construct a new cathedral to accommodate the growing population of Catholic immigrants.  St. Peter’s was preserved and used for Sunday school, meetings, and a boys’ school (in the basement).  It was also moved around (3 times), added to, and then restored to its original design.  We acquired it in 1975 and restored it to its 1889 appearance.  The wood stove is no longer used for heat; since we store some of our collections artifacts in the basement, we’ve updated to central heating.  Still, it was chilly and damp today.  Here’s the interior and a close up of the altar.  The framed pieces are the Missal (service prayers) in Latin.

 

I hang out at the back of the church, stitching my pin cushion for the Christmas Bazaar or playing the pump organ.  I am getting used to pumping with my feet, adding volume and overtones with my knees, and keeping all ten fingers busy on the keyboard.  The organ is placed underneath one of fourteen Stations of the Cross displaying the German woodwork of that time.

Of course, I sit on that little chair and play while in costume, complete with corset and bustle.

Tomorrow is the 5K Bustle Hustle, a run/walk event for all ages (children can do a 1K route).  I will be cheering the participants on before taking my place in the church.  So tonight, I am turning in early!  Before I close, though, I have to share a photo of the most handsome man of The Village People standing outside The Wagon Shop. 

I said, “Young man! There’s a place you can go…”