Annie Sullivan, On Genesee Hill

[dgriffin]

[dgriffin]

We've forgotten the gap between the wealthy and the lower classes in the late 19th century. Even if your father had skills and was employed 80 hours a week, and your mother, sisters and little brother too, you might still find yourselves living in a tenement. On the far horizon were the unions, bringing riots and blood, broken bones and other mayhem that should not have been a surprise to anyone attempting to squeeze money from the rich. Eventually, workers would be able to afford 3 bedrooms, kitchen, living room and even a dining room, all laid out front to back in a flat on Cornhill.

Lewis Hine titled this photo "Leisure." It inspired Norman Rockwell to paint a cover or two for The Saturday Evening Post. Rockwell, living the life of a squire near the very new-enland-y town of Stockbridge in the eastern Massachusetts hardwood forest (not far from where I sit) often found inspiration and warm feelings in other people's misery.

[dgriffin]

[dgriffin]

[fiona]

Dave: love the work of Louis Hine. Thank you. The girl above is also our Annie, pensive and dreamy. Let's use her. I also have a scene at the Albright's during and after the fire, where Annie is taken there and she is injured. The scene with the doctor is perfect for the kitchen scene of the Albright house. Can these images be used? If so, let's.

[dgriffin]

Posts re kitchens moved to other thread, "OGH, Questions and Comments."

[dgriffin]

Carpe momentuum.


www.windsweptpress.com/images/to let.jpg[/img]

[fiona]

Bio for Sarah Miller Wood

Sarah Miller was born in 1845 and was the daughter of Mary Foreman Seymour and Rutger Bleeker Miller. She married John Brandegee Wood on August 20, 1874. The couple had one child, Mary and lived in Morristown New Jersey, the home town of the Wood family. She was the sister of Blandina Dudley Miller of Utica NY, author of "A Sketch Of Old Utica" in which she describes her sister as an accomplished musician, a pianist as well as a harpist.

Sarah's husband John was a succesful attorney in New York City but due to deteriorating health, the family moved across the country to Riverside California where he invested in and managed citrus groves. In the summer of 1895 the family once again relocated, this time to utica NY, where both had relatives and where Mary B. would attend finishing school.

"To Sarah the whistle of the train was like a mournful keening and her thoughts flew behind her like ghosts, ghosts of black smoke tinged with red fire and streaming cinders that flew from the smokestack as they sped forwards towards the Utica station.

"These are my dreams" she thought, as the shadows of cities and towns, places she had never been and could never hope to be, flew by the windows of the private parlour car. Never, she felt, since they had left New Jersey, had she been happy. The home life that wealth, status, education and social contacts had promised had faded away in California and she had slowly drawn away from John, loosing herself in music, novels and the day to day minutia of the running of a large household. Year after year she searched for a solution- she was by nature a nester, a quiet homebody, reserved. John was by nature a wanderer, a talker, a mover. She had married late, after rejecting various suitors and for many years had never regretted it. But now, all this moving... they were like Gypsies on the face of the Earth... All they had built together was behind them now, all they were ever to have was in front of them now...there seemed to be no middle, no center. She and John were forever, it seemed, coming amd going and there was nothing to cling to now except her daughter and ... the girl was growing fast, there was no denying it.

In what health would she find her 87 year old mother and would the old woman even know her? Sarah hadn't seen her for many years. Over time her sister Blandina and then Helen had written that the mother's eyes had grown dim, her hands unsteady, she was now increasingly frail and spent most of her time sleeping, taking only small spoonfulls of laudenum to ease the pain of old age and debilitation.

[fiona]

All this preyed on Sarah's mind. There were so many unknowns: Utica was a rough canal town where anything could happen. New people were flooding in, immigrants to work the spools of the cotton mills; flats were being built everywhere, it was not the quiet place of her youth. And the daughter... she couldn't very well keep her locked up. She was used to the warm open days of California, the Santa Anna River, the easy camadre of the Mexicans who picked the fruit, did the gardening, served the meals, cleaned the home, drove the carriages...

She thought of her daughters education. Mrs Piatt's was one of the best in the East - yet she feared for her Mary B. - she hated being closed in. And there were always those girls with more wealth, more family and political connections. She inwardly cringed at the memories of her own days at Mrs. Piatt's: The social cutting, the cliques, the afternoon calls not returned; calling cards dropped into the dish with the corners turned sharply down. She hoped it had changed but her heart was doubtful.

Her worst fears were realized at the Utica Station as she watched her daughter flash her ankle at the conductor... it was beginning...and that slovenly couple on the platform. The red haired Irish girl and that drunken man. The girl was probebly from a house of ill repute. Sarah saw how her daughter stared at the girl, wanted to help her. Heavenly God! She would have to watch her like a hawk!

Several months before the trip Blandina had sent a letter- of course one should never speak openly about such things- but the sister had strongly indicated that, knowing how Sarah was longing to attend the new Opera House- that she should be careful. On those nights the streets were full of itinerant men, slovenly women; some of the girls as young as 12 and they thronged everywhere, often rushing the carriages for money; they were like a flowing tide and their viscious habits would not be denied.

Sarah was exhausted by the time they arrived at the hotel. Though her waist was still slender and many still considered her a handsome woman, she felt out of place in the dining room, as if she were clothed in a frock from another age, another time. Her greying hair was parted in the middle, pulled back from a broad open face with full lips and lively eyes. She would have to change the hairstyle, pull it up somehow. She walked slowly, letting John and Mary lead the way. Her stays pained her, her feet swollen in low heeled shoes, she wanted nothing but to bathe and sleep.
Sarah had chosen a darker grey traveling suit with a white shirtwaist and black broad brimmed hat. At her neck she wore a simple cameo, matching ear rings hung from her small ears. Hat, parasol, purse, gloves, suit, blouse, shoes! She felt overloaded and tired. What was to become of them here? Surely she did not know.

As the waiter showed them to their seats she saw the dark haired woman who sat knitting at the small corner table. Her thoughts flew at once to Madame Defarge in a Tale Of Two Cities. DeFarge! Fate knitting while heads rolled! The woman looked every inch the Madame to her, a disguise perpetrated to lure young girls into lives of disarray and dishabille. And the darkness of the woman's skin. A foreigner obviously! Sarah felt a cold chill creep up her spine. Yes, she would have to watch the daughter every minute. Utica was not what it used to be and she shuddered at the thought.

[dgriffin]

That's terrific, Fiona. I really get a picture of Sarah from it, as well as the view from inside her head. I'll put the bio part up on the website. Should I also begin to put pieces of narrative up? Shall I call them various scenes? Snippets? Pieces? What do we have? What you just wrote, above, and your scene at the RR station. We could put the road scene up. I think I wrote a couple of other snippets, but don't know if we want to use them.

I was thinking the other night that if we were in "production mode," I think I'd recommend we begin to construct a list of "scenes." Such a list would help us form the narrative and begin to put a story together.

I tend to think cinematically, and when I plan out a story I often see it in scenes such as you would see in a film. Often a narrative story is arranged that way. In fact, some novels are very cinematic, each scene opening with sort of an "overview shot" placing the characters in the eye of the reader before the dialog begins.

[fiona]

Dave: Glad you like it. I personally think it's full of holes. OK. We can start a list of scenes. Let's talk about it. I have this idea about how this book should begin. I will send it to you via e mail. Also, I am going to begin working on the street scene, where Annie falls in the road. I am going to send this to you from my desktop. I want to send you this before I do the father's bio. I have more research to do on that. When you recieve the street scene, we can combine our work and please proof read for any errors, logical or otherwise.

[fiona]

Dave, the web site OGH is beautiful ,but, where is the rest of the bio?

[dgriffin]

Oh .... I thought only the first post was the bio and the following post was part of a scene. But I'll add it now.

[dgriffin]

? " ... the dark haired woman who sat knitting at the small corner table." ?

[fiona]

Dave: Who is this exotic woman above who wants to meet us and live in our novel? About the dark haired woman: she keeps coming back again and again. I am not sure who she is yet, she's very mysterious. But, I'll give you a hint: She knows Latcher and she's not who Sarah thinks she is.