Stephanie will be sharing her presentation "Calico Trails in Falls City, Nebraska, on Tuesday, June 12.
Falls City Library & Arts Center
1400 Stone Street
Falls City, Nebraska.
Supper at 5:30 (call 402/245-2913 to make a reservation)
or come to the library at 7:00 p.m. for the free presentation
The first time someone asked me
if I did public speaking as a writer, I was shocked. Of course not. I’m a
historical fiction author. I hide in the library and study dead people. And
then I play—alone—with imaginary friends to write a story based on the people
I’ve “met”—alone—at the library. Or the museum. Or the historical society
archives.
Eventually, though, I realized
that I had, after all, led women’s Bible studies at church on occasion, and maybe
I should give it a try. Why not take the opportunity to share what God has done
in my life? So I developed my personal testimony as my first talk. I called it “A
Patchwork Life,” and I used some of my old quilts to illustrate the talk—not
only as a visual aid, but also as a way to make people look at something
besides the speaker shaking in her boots over being up in front of a bunch of
strangers.
Many writers—perhaps most of the
writers I know—are actually introverts. Oh, they write and lecture and teach,
but they get their energy from being alone. Since writers spend a lot of time
alone, that’s probably a good thing, but it also fools a lot of people about
who we really all when no one is watching. Happy to be alone. Not just at peace
with silence but often energized by it.
This next Tuesday evening, I’m
taking my “show on the road” so to speak and giving my Calico Trails
presentation at the Falls City, Nebraska, Library and Arts Center. This is one
of my favorite talks, because it includes LOTS of quilts and hence, less of me
in the spotlight. I get to share what pioneer women’s lives were like in their
own words, sharing some of the things I’ve read in their diaries and
reminiscences over the years, and once again I’ll get to celebrate the women
who have encouraged me, all the way from the 19th century.
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| Couldn't resist getting out of the car and taking this photo in Kansas. |
Martha Mott wrote home, asking if
her parents might have some old clothes they could send her so she could make
her little boy a coat. And then apologized for bothering them. I discovered her
letters home in the archive here in Nebraska, and delighted as I met a sister
in Christ who spoke often of her faith in a personal God. Of praying for rain,
and praising God when it came. Or
didn’t. Grandmother Newton worked the farm alone while her beloved
husband was away during the Civil War, and then wrote of making thirty-one
quilts to give her descendents as “something to remember me by.” Her great
grandson lovingly preserved her letters and entrusted them to me for a season
of study. Katie Maze ended up using the box her father had made for her kitchen
utensils as a casket for a child she lost to diphtheria. I bought her out of
print memoir from a rare book dealer, and then enjoyed the serendipity of
seeing a quilt she made in a local collection. Emily Carpenter wrote in her diary, “Huldah sick and I care
nothing about cattle.” (Emily’s family was making the trek west with a sizeable
herd of cattle.) I read a fragment of Emily’s diary tucked into an archival
file named for someone else.
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| Miss Mary Longfellow, Custer County, Nebraska courtesy of Nebraska State Historical Society |
I once had a friend who said that
if it had been up to her to settle the American West, we’d all still be in
Boston drinking tea. The more I learn about the women of the 19th
century West, the more I am inclined to agree with her. I’m a hardy soul, but I
have my limits … and I think life in a sod house on a rainy day with a sick
baby would have reached it. Except, of course, for God’s grace, which enabled
those women, just as it enables me today. And that’s what I love about learning
about the women of the past. They encourage me. They give me perspective. They
remind me that, as poet Roy Lessin wrote, “The God who helped you in the past,
is the one who’s faithful still.”
If you can join me in Falls City,
Nebraska, please do! Falls City Library & Arts Center, 1400 Stone Street,
Falls City, Nebraska. Supper at 5:30 (call 402/245-2913 to make a reservation)
or come to the library at 7:00 p.m. for the free presentation. I’d love to meet
you and introduce you to a few of the real women who continue to inspire my
imaginary friends.
If you love reading about the
real women of the past, try the Covered
Wagon Women collection of actual Oregon Trail Diaries. Or No Time on My Hands, Grace Snyder’s
memoir. Or something by historians Lillian Schlissel or Joanna Stratton. If
you’re like me, you’ll be newly grateful for your dishwasher, your doctor, your
refrigerator, your furnace, your spider spray, and light bulbs. I’m really
thankful for light bulbs. And indoor plumbing. And … those women who endured.
