Edie Ewing - Rest in Peace

The end of 2008 was a sad time for me because of the death of a close friend, Edie Ewing (in the blue top at my 60th birthday party in 2006) after living almost 14 years with metastatic breast cancer. I was honored to be asked to speak at her funeral last night and below is the text of what I said which is posted in her memory and will be my last post until sometime next week.

It was my good fortune to know Edie Ewing for some 33 years – all of her adult life, and it was my privilege to be her friend for most of that period. Like all of you I have been thinking a lot about her and have come to focus on two things that I would like to talk about tonight.

The first is what was it that made Edie such a special person? The more I think about that question, the answer is best captured by an idea contained in Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians – the idea that three things endure for ever – faith, hope and love. For me those three things best symbolize or capture what made Edie so special. She believed those things, but wasn’t just that, Edie also tried to live by them and live into them.

Take, for example, faith – faith for Edie was not a destination, it was a journey and she was on that journey for her entire adult life. Edie was always reading, thinking, studying and talking about what she believed. On more than one occasion, she was there when I preached a stewardship sermon that I thought was the last word on stewardship – a sermon that had the ultimate answers. And then Edie would say to me, “John, the highest compliment you can pay a sermon was to say that it made you think." She was more concerned with asking the right questions than finding ultimate answers. She was on that journey almost right up until the end, one of the last times I saw her, she couldn’t do much, but she could at least read and she was reading about faith related issues.

Edie also lived in hope. Given everything she faced it would have been easy to have sunk into depression, despair or anger –all kinds of negative feelings, but that wasn’t who Edie was. She lived in hope and I think it was that hope that enabled her to decide that she was going to live as fully as she could. Living in hope enabled her to go on those trips that were so important to her, France earlier this year, not to mention trips to England and a Mediterranean cruise as well as the vacation home in Maine on her beloved Linekin Bay.

Lastly love, Edie once told me what love meant to her – to care as much about another person’s well being as you care about your own. That certainly wasn’t an original idea with her, but what was more important was how she lived into that idea. Edie did her best to love others, not just when it was easy, but also when it was difficult. Whether it was people behaving badly or people who just weren’t that lovable, Edie tried all the same. In the all years I knew her, I can remember her criticizing people, but I can never remember her saying negative things about others.

Faith, hope and love are very important qualities, powerful on their own. But in Edie’s case they didn’t exist separately, in isolation from one another. Rather they were woven together in a wonderful tapestry of her life. I was privileged to see her live in at least three different contexts.

The first was the church, before coming here to Redeemer, Morristown, Edie was part of three other communities of faith. Each time she had faith in that community, she had hope for that community and she loved that community. When it was time for her to move on, she did so because it was part of her journey and she left in the most positive way possible. I especially want to say to those of you from this congregation that she was really happy here – I think that part of her journey was complete. She told me many times how much she liked it here because Phil Wilson and the congregation works so hard at making everyone feel welcome. I especially want to thank you for that because if anyone deserved that kind of church home it was Edie Ewing.

The second context was that of friendship. I don’t claim to be an expert on many things, but I am an expert on what it means to have Edie Ewing as a friend. When my father died all of the funeral arrangements were during one week day. I knew how careful she had to be with taking time off from work so when I called to tell her about my father I told her not feel pressured to be there. There was a long silence on the other end of the line and I knew what was coming next. She said, “John, I am going to be there for you!” And she was always there for me both in the good and the bad times. I will always cherish the note that she wrote to me when I retired from the Diocese of Newark – she wrote that she was proud to be my friend. She was proud to be my friend! Trust me I have enough honesty about myself to know that in the course of over 3 decades she saw me say and do a lot of things that weren’t inspired by the better angels of my nature – yet she was proud to be my friend. And boy was I proud to be her friend.

And finally there is the context of family. Edie and I talked a lot both in person and on the phone. I want to say all of you in the Ewing and Tanis families that she talked about you a lot, about the good things and also about those other things, but there was never once that she didn’t have faith in you, hope for you and love for you. I hope that knowing that can be of some comfort in these difficult times.

Faith, hope and love made up the essence of Edie Ewing. An essence that in the words of one her favorite authors, Charles Dickens, was from God.

And that leads to the second thing that I have been thinking about – what do we do now? Obviously there are a lot of things we should do now. But those are things for another day – what should we do about this special person Edie Ewing? If it is true that faith, hope and love endure forever then someone who had such a full measure of those qualities should also endure forever.

Each of us can do something to help make that happen, not just by remembering Edie, but by telling her story. Perhaps each of us should leave here tonight resolved to write down some memory of Edie. And perhaps those memories can be collected and given to her family. If there is an interest in that I would be honored to coordinate it. But even if that isn’t a good idea, we all need to talk about Edie so that future generations will know that there was this woman named Edie Ewing and she was special. Because she was special, she is special and she always will be special.

And so dearest Edie to paraphrase the words of another of your favorite authors, William Shakespeare, “Good night beloved friend. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

Reading and Writing - 2009 goals

For the first time in my just over 62 years, I am going to set goals for the coming year - goals in two specific areas reading and writing. I hope that doing this will enable me to hold myself accountable in my writing and be better able to reflect on what I read over the next twelve months.

In reading my goal is simply to keep a record of every book that I read in 2009. Since I was retired for all of 2008 I probably read more books than in the previous five years combined. But I kept no records of what I read and trying to recreate the list at this point would be hopeless especially given the number of library books that I read. My best guess is that I read about 50 books. My goal for 2009 is to read as much as possible, but not to get caught up in some kind of numbers game. Rather I want to be able to have a full list of what I have read and use that as a basis for choosing the books that I enjoyed the most - much like Elaine at Random Jottings and Simon at "Stuck in a Book" have done on their blogs.

I will also admit to some level of curiosity as to the number I will read. Certainly there is no way I will be in Elaine's over 200 level, but it would just be nice to have a sense of the number of books read. Of course, the type of books has a lot to do with that and the amount of history that I read will limit the number as will my preference for very long novels. In any event, it will be an interesting exercise and I look forward to it.

In terms of writing I have some very clear goals in mind. First Paul and I have to finish the final work on "The Major League Pennant Races of 1916," which should/better be done in the first week of January. Next I want to finish my part of the pioneer project by no later than March 1st. I am fairly far along on that and should be able to meet that self imposed deadline - the real deadline is May 1st. After that is done, I want to finish the editing of the William Lloyd letters so that a manuscript can be sent off to potential publishers. This is a little aggressive, but I would like to have that done by September 1st or about the beginning of the 2009 Rutgers football season.

The aggressive target date for the Lloyd letters is that I have been working too much on my writing without any real break. The manuscript of the 1916 book was sent in February of 2008 and I was almost immediately working on the pioneer project and the Lloyd letters (actually I had been working on the Lloyd letters all along). So once I finish the Lloyd letters project I want to take an extended break both to carefully choose my next book project and to get my English family history research organized in anticipation of a 2010 trip to England.

As noted at the beginning this is the first time, I have done anything like this so it will be interesting to see how it all works out.

Christmas Books

Of course yesterday was Christmas and loving family members wisely gave me books. This time two books that I suggested would be very welcome -John Meacham's "American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House" and Fred Kaplan's "Lincoln Biography of a Writer." I read an interesting review of Meacham's book in the New York Times book review that sparked my interest in reading this one along with renewing my interest in the "bank war," which I wrote about a few days ago. I have already started this book and think that I will enjoy it.

Probably the only president I have read more books about than Jackson is Abraham Lincoln which isn't surprising. As with Jackson, I am being careful about reading any more full length academic biographies as I have read so many of them before. In the case of Lincoln there seems to be a new focus on writing about some very specific aspect of Lincoln's life as, for example, Harold Holzer has done with the Cooper Union speech and Lincoln as president-elect.

This current book by an English teacher at Queens College in New York is a study of Lincoln as a writer. Having read several books about the Gettysburg address and the second inaugural, Lincoln's writing is of great interest to me. This book will be next up after the Jackson book. Since I am concurrently finally reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals," it will be a period of some focused Lincoln study which is just fine with me. I hope any one who is reading this is as happy with their Christmas presents as I am.

Miss Silver Mysteries or Elaine Strikes Again

The order from Alibris which brought "Andrew Jackson and the Bank War," also included three books by authorsall of which were once again suggested by Elaine at Random Jottings. I started out with "The Clock Strikes Twelve" by Patricia Wentworth, a Miss
Silver mystery. Thinking about realistically I shouldn't be surprised about the number of authors that I am hearing about for the first time.

However, I think the realm of the mystery story is to some extent an exception. As I noted in some of my first posts on this blog, I have read pretty widely in the mystery field - especially British mysteries and especially those that are published in a series. Yet for some reason I had never heard of Patricia Wentworth or her amateur sleuth - Miss Silver. So given Elaine's track record I started with this story of murder and deception that takes place during World War II.

The structure of this story is not unusual - James Paradine the patriarch of the Paradines call his whole family together on New Year's Eve to tell them that one of them is a thief and perhaps even a traitor. He tells them he knows the culprit and gives the guilty party until midnight to present themselves in his study. Of course a number of the Paradines have guilty consciences unrelated to the theft and present themselves in the study before (again of course) Paradine is murdered. This sets up the dynamic of multiple suspects all of whom have something to hide.

Like most mystery readers, I look at mysteries as puzzles/challenges that I try to solve along with the detective or detectives. I would say that my success rate is probably fairly low somewhere in the 10-15% level. For some reason in "The Clock Strikes Twelve," I had a hunch about the guilty party even before all of them were introduced. To my surprise (and delight) it turned out that I was right. Not, however, before the story took a number of twists that made me feel I was wrong.

That aside I have to say that once again Elaine has come through with a new author (to me anyway) who's work I really enjoyed. The book is short, just over 200 pages and I read it in a little over two days. Yet it had a complicated plot, interesting characters and I will certainly be back to read more. I am not sure how soon that will be, however, at the moment the novels about British country life suggested by Elaine have even more appeal. In any event I have two more books from this order to read, "Diary of A Provincial Lady" by E. M. Delafield and Mavis Cheek's "Mrs Fytton's Country Life," so we will see how I do with those.

Andrew Jackson and the Bank of the United States

Sometime in the first half of 1962, a group of Wayne High School sophomores including myself were called into a class room to hear about an alternative American History class that was open to us for our Junior year. Unlike most classes in those days there would be no text book, rather the course called "American History Through Literature" would use various works of fiction and non-fiction for different periods of American History. For example, for the colonial period we read Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" and then Catherine Drinker Bowen's "John Adams and the American Revolution" as part of studying the revolutionary period.

"The Crucible" didn't make much of an impression on me, but the John Adams book started a life long interest and fondness for our second president long before David McCullough's best selling biography. I greatly admire and respect David McCullough, but I think it is almost impossible to capture Adams 90 plus years in one volume - Page Smith's two volume version, in my opinion gives a more appropriate level of coverage to the subject.

Two other books from that course had an impact on me, but in less clear and certain ways. These were Marquis James' two volume biography of Andrew Jackson - "The Border Captain" and "Portrait of a President." Today James' works are considered to be less than objective in the portrayal of our 7th President. What I remember is that I was in way over my head with those books - as a high school junior I wasn't ready for that level of academic writing.

Since that time I have always had a mixed reaction to Andrew Jackson. At the time I couldn't articulate it and to some degree still can't. On the positive side Jackson's presidency and political career was about broadening participation in the democratic process -certainly he presented himself as the candidate and even President of the people as opposed to those of the upper class or who would make themselves into the upper class. At the same time there has always been something about Jackson that bothered me. Perhaps it was his somewhat demagogic, dogmatic attitude - Jackson was right, his opponents were not only wrong, but almost unAmerican.

Although it made no impression at the time, looking at Jackson today it is much easier to see his faults. When Jackson talked about the people, he had a very clear definition in mind - white people with native Americans and blacks definitely not part of that definition and probably considered to be even less than human. Certainly it is interesting how many histories simply ignored or overlooked these issues. James Lowen in his book, "Lies My Teacher Told Me," points out that Arthur Schelsinger's "The Age of Jackson" doesn't even mention the Indian removal issue. This in a book that won the Pulitzer Prize and is praised over and over again by

Jackson biographer, Robert Remini.

To go back to Wayne High School, 1962-63 for a minute, the specific issue about Andrew Jackson that has always interested, if not fascinated me, is the Bank of the United States. This is, of course, the famous bank war where Jackson vetoed the renewal of the bank's charter before the 1832 Presidential election and then gradually destroyed the bank even before its charter expired in 1836. Part of my interest is that I have never understood (even after 11 years in banking) how the Bank of the United States operated and what it was doing wrong.

In addition to reading James' books, when I admittedly couldn't understand them, I have read Robert Remini's three volume biography of Jackson, not to mention his biographies of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster and still didn't understand the BUS. Remini had written a short book in the late 1960's called "Andrew Jackson and the Bank War," and after being unable to find it in a library, I decided to buy a used copy from Alibris. When I ordered it I thought I would read it at some time, but when it arrived on Saturday I immediately starting reading it and finished it this morning after about three days of intensive reading (only 175 pages, but academic writing not fiction).

Once again I have to say that I still don't understand the how the bank worked and I have a feeling that Remini doesn't understand it either - he is an historian, not an economist. Remini insists that it was a political issue more than an economic and financial one and I am sure there is truth in that. From my point of view, I still have this curiosity about the issue not to mention fascination with the cast of characters (including Jackson). As always Remini provides a lot of suggestions for future reading, but I am starting to wonder if this is a possible topic for my own research and perhaps a book of mine own. It would have to be at least a year away, but given this continued interest I wonder if this is some kind of authorial "calling?"

Someone at a Distance

At one point during the Lincoln Forum, Frank Williams, Chief Justice of the Rhode Island State Court and Chair of the Lincoln Forum made the comment that decisions have consequences and that frequently once a decision is made, there is no going back. I think that is one of the themes of "Someone at a Distance," a novel by Dorothy Whipple that I finished last night. This is another book that was suggested to me by Elaine at Random Jottings - Elaine and her blog have introduced to me to an extraordinary number of writers and books that I had never heard of before. One of the pluses about Dorothy Whipple is that unlike Harriet Martineau ("Deerbook,"), Whipple wrote other novels so there is more to look look forward to reading.

"Someone at a Distance" is the story of the North family, Ellen and Avery and their children Hugh and Anne. They live an almost Eden like existence in the a country town within community distance of London. That existence is destroyed when they unwittingly invite a serpent (Whipple's word not mine) into their midst in the person of Louise, a young French woman with literally no redeeming qualities. Louise sets out to seduce Avery which destroys all of the family relationships.

The story has plenty of drama that kept me reading on to find out what happens at the end. Supposedly Whipple's strength was characters, not plot and certainly the characters in "Someone" are well drawn, not just the main characters, but a full range of people both in England and in France. A range that is almost Shakepeare like in its breadth and depth. As noted earlier at one level, "Someone" is a book about decisions and their consequences, but also about how things are inter-related, something that Whipple points out in the book. Apparently a big part of Louise's motivation for destruction is based upon her rejection by an upper class lover in the town she grew up in. Certainly it is a clear lesson about the importance of thinking about possible consequences because some decisions even if taken on a whim can be irrevocable.

It is, however, the latter issue - the irreversibility of such actions that is another level of the story. As Whipple makes clear throughout the book both Ellen and Avery's reaction to Avery's decision are mistaken - they put interpretation on what that action means that are simply incorrect. It raises the question of whether things would have worked out the same if there had at least been some open communication right after the event instead of reactions based upon interpretation rather than direct communication.

The issue I think is whether a relationship based upon mutual love can survive stupid decisions and stupid mistakes. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians wrote that love "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." If that is true, and certainly that is something we want to believe, then the question is can mutual love allow an incident that is clearly wrong and hurtful to be ultimately destructive. This is not in anyway suggesting a "turn the other cheek" approach, but rather for a relationship based in shared love to figure out a way to "endure all things." This theme and question is there in "Someone," somewhat under the surface, but there none the less and ultimately it plays an important part in the novel's conclusion - a conclusion that is not in any way "an all ends well" type of conclusion.

So thanks again to Elaine for suggesting Dorothy Whipple and "Someone at a Distance." I look forward to reading more of her works as well as so many other books that I have learned about through Elaine.

Writing - The good and . . . .

In my last post I mentioned how the long period between manuscript submission and publication can cause writing projects to overlap. That is the current situation as I wait for Paul to arrive on Tuesday with the proofs of "The Major League Pennant Races of 1916" while working on the last stages of the New Jersey portion of the Pioneer Project. Once I see the proofs of the former, I need to proofread it one more time and work with Paul on the index.

There is a lot that I like about writing. I especially love both researching and writing. Researching is a lot like detective work, looking for sources, combing the sources for information and looking for little touches that can make a big difference in telling the story. An example of this was when I found two or three paragraphs in a New York newspaper about the moods in the Dodger and Phillies club houses between games of a crucial late season doubleheader. Just those few paragraphs gave me wonderful connections to what came before and after.

The writing itself is also something I enjoy a great deal - the challenge of taking the material weaving it into a story and telling the story in the best way possible - accurate and interesting. As with anything else, there are, of course, some things that I don't enjoy. Probably the least enjoyable thing for me is the final proofreading. Proofreading one's own work multiple times is almost unbearable. Next to final proofreading my least favorite thing is what I am doing now on the Pioneer Project - fact checking.

Fact checking, or the way I do it, is going through the material paragraph by paragraph looking at the facts, looking at the footnotes for the sources and then going to the sources themselves. It is very time consuming, sometimes frustrating and not especially interesting. Unfortunately it is also essential. I have now completed two of the five team histories and found a number of mistakes that I have corrected. Fact checking is also worse with the earlier part of any work - fortunately the last three are relatively short and were written fairly recently so the remaining work shouldn't be that difficult.

I was reminded of the importance of fact checking the other day when I was in a bookstore looking at a copy of Marjorie Garber's new Shakespeare book. Garber is a distinguished professor at Harvard and her book is a series of chapters discussing specific plays and their relationship to today. One of the chapter is about "Henry V," my favorite Shakespeare play so I skimmed what she had to say (without buying the book!). In writing about the famous "Band of Brothers" speech, Garber writes that the speech is first directed towards Warwick and then the entire army.

The only problem with that is that it isn't Warwick, it is Westmorland. And it is not like this is difficult to see - Henry's opening line is something like "Who is he who wishes so, my cousin Westmorland?" and his name is mentioned at least once more in the speech. It reminded me of something I saw in James Shapiro's book, "A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare 1599." Writing about this same speech and the brotherhood image, Shapiro writes "Henry refers to his aristocratic kin, Gloucester and Bedford, as brothers." When I read this I felt like screaming - "The reason he refers to them as brothers is because they are his brothers - Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester and John, Duke of Beford.

In both of these cases, these are not crucial issues but they are also not obscure issues. First, it is hard for me to believe that a Shakespeare scholar would make such a mistake. But what is even more surprising is that a major publishing house like Harper Collins (in Shapiro's case) could let such a mistake get by. After seeing some of the mistakes in John Feinstein's book, "Living on the Black" last summer, I wonder how much checking some of these publishing houses actually do. IN any event all of this is probably to my benefit, reminding me again that this onerous task is really important - so back I go, now to the Irvington club.

How's the book going?

Not infrequently someone will say to me how's the book going? When I hear the question I'm not sure what book they mean. Are they referring to my part of the Pioneer Project, the book covering the amateur era of base ball or do they mean the William Lloyd Civil War letters. In fact they don't mean either of those works in progress - in most cases they don't even know about them.

Of course the book they are asking about is "The Major League Pennant Races of 1916" which Paul and I completed last February (cover to the right). My experience thus far with both of my books is that they are submitted to the publisher and then you hear very little about it for months. In this case, we had a few minor questions the end of September and that was it. Then you wait for the day when the proofs arrive in the mail.

Ironically the proofs for "The Mutinous Regiment" showed up unannounced when Carol and I returned from a trip to Toronto. The irony is that we were attending the Society for American Baseball Research's annual convention along with Paul and Sarah. During the convention Paul and I introduced ourselves to Gary Mitchem of McFarland and asked (with more than a little trepidation) whether they might be interested in a book about the 1916 season. Thankfully Gary was very interested and because I was already a McFarland author he kindly eased the submission process. I arrived back from Toronto ready to get started on what they did want, only to find the proofs of my first book which required my immediate attention.

This morning I was working on editing and re-drafting the beginning of my Pioneer Project section on the Newark base ball club when the phone rang. It was Paul letting me know that he had just received an e-mail from McFarland telling him that the proofs were on their way to him. We now have to review them and prepare an index which is our final work on the book. If we do our part in a timely fashion, McFarland plans to send the book to the printer about January 15th. If my first book is any indication that should mean that it will be published by about the middle of February - just in time for spring training.

That's obviously good news which means, among other things, that Paul and I have to start talking about how we are going to promote the book. We plan to do that aggressively. So the good news is that I have a new and exciting answer to the question - How's the book going?
Assuming I can figure out what book the person is asking about.

The Jane Austen Book Club

I finished reading "The Jane Austen Book Club" in two days. Reading at that rate would be about 180 books a year which would still put me well behind Elaine at Random Jottings and there is no way I could read at even that rate. For the first 75% or so of this book I was reminded that I don't like American fiction written say after 1970, I can't think of a single piece of American fiction written in the past 40 or so years that I have enjoyed. That may say more about me than about anything else.

This book is the story of five women and one man who form a Jane Austen book club in California to read and discuss Austen's six novels. I am sure I have led a sheltered life, but I find it had to accept the probabilities of finding any group of six people that are so dysfunctional in one way or another. All of us have some quirks, but the background of this group makes looks Ozzie and Harriet look like some kind of commune. From the woman who's mother pretended she had given her a birthday party and the daughter forgot, to the man who's father took him to what sounds like an orgy when they were supposed to be on a camping trip, these people have had some strange experiences. Perhaps they looked at the book club as a less expensive form of therapy.

However, I found the last part of the book more enjoyable and I got something out of it. One thing was the correction of my blanket statement that all of Austen's characters get what they deserve. Certainly it would be a stretch to say that of Charlotte Lucas in her marriage to Mr. Collins in "Pride and Prejudice." I don't know if it was intentional or not, but it seemed to me that the six members of the book club got what they deserved at the end plus one of the endings was a Deux Ex Machina almost worthy of Austen herself.

There is a long appendix like section at the end of the book called the Response. It consists of critics and other writers reaction to Austen's work beginning in her time through 2003. The comments range from very positive to very negative. One of the especially negative comments that comes early in the book is Ralph Waldo Emerson's statement that he is "at a loss to understand why people how Miss Austen's novels at so high a rate." He goes on to say that "All that interests in any character (is): has he (or she) the money to marry with? . . . Suicide is more respectable."

I think that is probably a fairly typical American reaction especially written within one years of the American Revolution - the who cares about caste ridden British society attitude. In thinking about this, however, I was reminded about something that I believe about Shakespeare - especially the history plays. These eight plays cover a period of English history over 500 years ago - what possible relevance could they have to the 21st century. I think the answer is found in Mary Ann Evans' (George Eliot) comment that art is not the subject, but the treatment of the subject.

For example, the history plays are relevant because of what they say about leadership - good leadership and bad leadership - something that will always be relevant. I think the same thing might be true of Jane Austen's work. Their enduring appeal is at least partially because the issues raised in the novels, especially about relationships, will always be issues so that the setting of the story does not block out the relevance of the story. That may at some level be obvious, but it helps me see more clearly the merits of Austen work. I also feel a little better knowing that she does not receive universal praise so that I am not out there by myself with some negative views.

I have may have finished the novels, but I am not finished with Austen - there is reading of criticism, re-reading of the novels plus more thinking and probably posting to come.

New Jersey Civil War 150 - Governor's Proclamation

In my post about the latest meeting of our committee working on New Jersey's observation of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, I noted that we were now going to seek the endorsement of State government. While I thought it would happen, I was pleasantly surprised when it arrived via e-mail this morning. Thanks to Marc Mappen of the New Jersey State Historical Commission for moving this along - it gives us a semi-official status and should facilitate our work was we move forward in 2009.

As part of working on this, I have been looking on the Internet to see what other states are doing. Virginia seems to be far ahead of everyone else, not surprising considering the economic engine that Civil War related tourism can be for the Old Dominion. Both North Carolina and South Carolina are also working at it as is Arkansas. Unfortunately other than what appear to be some beginning efforts there doesn't appear to be much going on in other northern states. That's unfortunate and needs to change.

I also saw that bills setting up a national commission on the 150th have been introduced in both the House and the Senate, but haven't moved out of committee. The presidential election, the economic crisis and the sense of having plenty of time may account for the delays, but I hope that something happens pretty quickly on this. The reality is that these things take time and advance planning so some action as early as possible in 2009 would be really important.

I am participating in this because of my interest in the Civil War, but I also look at this as part of my work as chairman of the board of the New Jersey Historical Society. For most of 2008 I have also been involved in the vintage base ball movement in New Jersey. It is really encouraging that while New Jersey only had two vintage teams in 2007, there are three in 2008 with the promise of two more in 2009 for a total of five. Critical mass is important here as traveling to other states to play matches can be an inhibiting factor - five teams will enable us to play a lot of games without leaving the state.

All of this is encouraging from a New Jersey history perspective, studying and recreating specific things like base ball and the Civil War can also bring alive other aspects of New Jersey history. I would assume the same is true of Canal societies and other groups. One of the things I have learned is that there is a lot of passion for New Jersey history in terms of specific topics and/or specific locations and sites. Perhaps one of the roles of the only state wide historical society is to encourage and facilitate efforts in those areas.

Charles E. Thomas

In my last post, I wrote that my Civil War and 19th Century base ball interests had intersected when Bob MacAvoy (compiler of New Jersey Civil War graves) had kindly pointed me towards what promised to be the death date for Charles E. Thomas of the Eureka base ball club of Newark. Thomas was a founding member of the Eureka who played with the club from 1860 through 1868. He was profiled in one of a series of "Frank Leslie's Weekly Illustrated Newspaper" as one of the prominent shortstops of the day.

An important part of the Pioneer Project research is biographical information about the famous players especially their careers after base ball. The first complication in such research is that 19th century newspaper accounts tend only to give last names, a real problem with relatively common names like Thomas. Fortunately I did find Thomas' first name which led to the next step looking through the censuses on http://www.ancestry.com/. I found Thomas on every census through 1920, but not on the 1930 census - a clear indication that he was dead by then. Since he was born in 1841 that didn't come as real surprise.

As noted in my last post, Bob MacAvoy was able to use sources to find the death date of what appeared to be my Charles Thomas. The next step on Saturday was to go to Alexander Library at Rutgers in New Brunswick to look at the Newark Evening News on microfilm. That can be hit or miss especially the further back one goes - obituaries appear to be pretty much a 20th century innovation. As a result only those deaths that were noteworthy tend to make the paper. By 1926, however, this had changed, but was still not a sure thing.

When I began scrolling through the relevant film, I was disappointed not to find any kind of article about Charles' death. I did find a public service type notice that listed his spouse's name which, if necessary, could have been a key means to connect Thomas through other sources. One thing I have learned, however, is to go a few days on either side of the date you are looking for. I pressed on and, sure enough, found an article about Charles' funeral that confirmed his career with the Eureka plus his long banking career.

Thomas apparently began working for a Newark bank in 1859 before moving to a New York institution in 1865. Among others he worked for a bank incredibly or implausibly named the Ninth National Bank. Fortunately for every one's sanity that bank was apparently taken over by Chemical National Bank - a bank that lasted past the end of my own banking career in 1983. When Thomas retired in 1915, he had worked for 50 years for New York banks reportedly all that time as a teller.

This article as well as the contemporary article mentioned earlier suggest a higher status for the teller's position than it has today or had during my time in banking. I would like know more about the position in those days, if it was indeed more prestigious, it would be further evidence of the prominent off the field careers led by the members of the Eureka. If I do expand this pioneer project section into a book about New Jersey base ball in the amateur era further research of that nature would be the kind of thing I would want to do. For the moment though thanks to Bob MacAvoy for making a difficult problem immeasurably easier and to Rutgers Library for its collections of newspaper on microfilm.

Northhanger Abbey

I finished "Northanger Abbey" last night, completing my reading of the Austen canon. When I read the works of one author, I like to read them in the order that they were written. That's especially true when there is some continuity between works because I don't want one book to spoil my reading of another. But even in the case of authors like Austen and/or Dickens where there is no continuity, I still like to read them in the order they were written.

At some level that's just due to a desire for order or routine, but it can also help to see how an author's work develops. That has been true with Jane Austen especially as I moved from the shorter "Sense and Sensibility" and "Pride and Prejudice" to the much longer "Mansfield Park" and "Emma." Of course, as any "Janeite" knows, I made a mistake with "Northhanger Abbey." The fact is that while it was the last of Austen's works to be published it was apparently the first to be written.

The introduction to the Penguin edition that I read indicates that the novel was written in the early 1790's and the editor believes that Austen made few changes to it later years. So what I was, in effect, doing was reading her first work after her reading her more fully developed novels. Perhaps that made me more conscious of the fact that I was reading something written in their early 20's. From that perspective, I think "Northanger Abbey" is quite an accomplishment, it is funny - to me funnier than Austen's other novels and creative in the way it uses books/reading and their affect on readers as sort of a structure for the book.

Some of my previously described doubts about Austen also exist in this novel. Once again at the end every one gets what they deserve especially in terms of "journeys end in lovers meeting." I am not sure why that bothers me so much. I think it especially relates to the fact that if marriage is the "happy ending" and Austen herself never had that ending why does she include it in all her novels. The marriage is only part of it, however, it is really the idea that everyone gets what they deserve - both good and bad. Life certainly doesn't always work out that way so I guess I believe that an author's art should reflect life in that way at least to some degree.

As someone who married later in life (by 1970's standards!), who never believed he would marry, I try to be sensitive to the idea that those who don't marry have somehow failed and can't have a happy ending. I guess it makes me feel as if Austen is somehow engaging in escapism in her fiction. That may be unfair, I don't claim to be an expert on Austen, and I also want to be sensitive to potential gender issues/differences. I need to do more thinking about Jane Austen's fiction, read more criticism, perhaps even take some kind of course in an effort to better understand her popularity. I will start "The Jane Austen Book club" tonight as a small, not very intensive way to do that. Certainly I don't in any way regret reading my way through her work and while I may not be a Janeite, like them, I wish she had survived to write even more.

New Jersey History - A Busy Week

As noted in the title of this post, it has been a busy week for some of my special interests in New Jersey history. Early in the week I finished the last of the draft histories of early 19th century New Jersey base ball (two words at the time) clubs - the Champion club of Jersey City. This history along with those of the Eureka club of Newark, the Newark club, the Olympic club of Paterson and the Irvington club will be part of the Pioneer Project, a book being compiled of the most noteworth teams of the amateur era, roughly 1855 to 1870. There is still plenty of work to do, some additional research plus much editing on the above plus writing an introduction and conclusion.

My involvement in this began almost by accident. As posted earlier I became involved in April in the formation of the Eureka vintage team - a team choice that I had nothing to do with. Then I was on Peter Morris' web site about base ball history, learned about the Pioneer Project and volunteered to write a history of the Eureka. My research as well as Peter's wish list developed names that were also candidates for the project. I though for sure that others would volunteer for none of those names, but no one did, so now I am basically writing the New Jersey section.

That's rewarding on at least two levels - first ,if I wasn't doing this, the New Jersey clubs wouldn't have been included. In addition it has been an opportunity to do some original research in areas where it seems very few people are working. At the end of the week, it was announced that McFarland & Co. has been chosen as the publisher. That wasn't a real surprise to me, but it was nice to hear since McFarland has published my first two books and I have always found them easy to work with. The book is scheduled to be published in 2010 which means that my sections are due May 1, 2009. Fortunately that deadline should not be a problem and I am going to try to submit well in advance - say February 1st.

The other activity was with regard to New Jersey Civil War 150. We had our third meeting this past Wednesday at the Peddie School in Hightstown. This was an expanded meeting, we had a good turnout plus some others who couldn't be there. There seems to be a good cross section of re-enactors, round tables and historians. Interestingly we had a Lincoln re-enactor sitting next to a Governor Olden re-enactor which sort of gave the meeting a 1860's type atmosphere. We still don't have much, if any, representation from south Jersey and no racial diversity. Both areas need work especially the latter.

Most of the discussion thus far has been about organizational issues, but ideas are starting to surface. One that came up on Wednesday was a state wide project to replace all of the government issue veteran's grave markers. There was a massive effort in this area at the Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn - some 3000 as I recall. Of course, they had the advantage of being located in one place, but this sounds to me like an important idea. The grave markers are provided at no cost by the Veterans Administration so it is more of a logistical issue than a financial one - for once, thank God!

We formed a sub-committee to work on the content of our web-site which is called www.NewJerseyCivilWar150.org/com. The name of the group will be the same - The New Jersey Civil War 150th Anniversary Committee and we will operate under the good offices of the New Jersey Civil War Heritage Association. Our next step is to seek state endorsement (not funding) so that we have some kind of semi-official status. Vision, mission and project brainstorming should begin during January. As far as I can tell from the Internet, we (New Jersey) are ahead of most other northern states in this work.

Both projects came together in a nice and helpful way this week. Peter Morris has a list of famous 19th century players that he is seeking information on. One of them is Charles E. Thomas who played shortstop for the Eureka. Peter is looking for his obituary (as am I) for information about his post base ball career. Without a death date that is looking for the veritable needle in a hay stack. The Civil War grave marker suggestion was made by Bob MacVoy who is the co-compiler of "Our Brothers Gone Before" - a two volume compilation of the graves of all New Jersey Civil War veterans. I asked Bob if he had any suggestions on Thomas - in less than an hour, he sent me an e-mail with what is almost certainly Thomas' death date. I am off to the Rutgers library in a little while to look in the Newark papers.

Oh, to finish the week off, I exchanged e-mails with the Lifelong Learning Program at Caldwell College and I am going to teach a course about the 33rd New Jersey next spring. Retirement is great, but I am working far too hard!!

History - The So What Factor

One of the things I struggle with as chairman of the board of the New Jersey Historical Society is
how to explain to existing and potential donors and the public at large why it is so important for
all of us to know our history. Frequently I meet people through NJHS who say,
"Oh I love history." I think what they mean by that is they love it sort of as a hobby, for example, reading David McCullough's biography of John Adams or watching the HBO adaptation. That's fine, but the problem is that it is a personal interest, it doesn't speak to why history is important to all of us.

I have come to think of this as the "so what" question. All this historical knowledge is fine, but so what - why or how is it important. The stock answer, of course, is that knowing our history will help to us do better in the future, at the very least to avoid the mistakes of the past. The classic quote in support of this argument is from the philosopher George Santayana, "Those who remain ignorant of the past are condemned to repeat it," or something like that.

I used to believe that, but my experience as a member of the Vietnam generation makes me somewhat less confident. I remember watching a television show after that war was over (and after I had returned home from my army service there) that said that those who made the decisions to get heavy involved there were doing so based on the idea of "no more Munichs." This refers, of course, to the failed policy of appeasement followed by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and other British politicians. But as this television show noted after Vietnam, the motto was "no more Vietnams." The point being that simply knowing what happened before World War II and then applying it as a blanket policy may not have been the best approach. If so how important is it not to be "ignorant of the past."

Earlier this week, I was looking at the web sites of some different historical societies as part of thinking about the future of NJHS. On the web site of the New York Historical Society, I found the following quote from David McCullough, "History is who we are and why we are the way we are." The second part, history is "why we are the way we are" makes a huge amount of sense to me as the reason why history is so important.

One aspect of American life where this is clearly true is the area of race. Having read and thought so much recently about 19th century American it is obvious that the racist view point was the majority viewpoint well into the last quarter of the 20th century. Some may believe that it still is, I don't think so, but more importantly for this post, is how obvious it should be to all of us that racial issues are still serious issues because of that history. It is "why we are the way we are." On a more local basis there is a connection to the "What's Going on Exhibit?" at the New Jersey Historical Society - an exhibit about the civil disorders, riots, etc. that took place in Newark in the summer of 1967. Having lived in Essex County since within a decade of those events, I think it is more than fair to say that those events have a lot to do with "why we are the way we are."

I think this explanation of why history is so important makes sense because it can help to answer the "so what" question. The key, to me, is that we need to know the past to understand why we are the way we are in order to decide how best to move forward. Understanding how the past has shaped the present should increase the probability (not certainty) of creating a better world in the future. Perhaps this is part of what Abraham Lincoln meant when he said, "My fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.

Northbridge Rectory

After spending several weeks with the residents of Deerbrook in the 1830's, I made a quick visit over the past few days to the village of Northbridge around 1940-41. Northbridge is an imaginary village in the imaginary county of Bartsetshire, the fertile area of the imagination first cultivated by Anthony Trollope in the 19th century and then by Angela Thirkell in the 20th.

I have read two-three of Thirkell's novels prior to this, but was attracted to this one, once again by Elaine over at Random Jottings. In fact, the book was so attractive that I violated one of my cardinal principles of books in a series - read them in order. Elaine, who has just recently discovered Thirkell, has apparently found it interesting to read them out of order so I thought it was worth a shot. I believe it is correct to say that there is not much at risk in reading Thirkel's chronicles of Barsetshire out of order and while I am glad I did it in this case, I am planning to resume reading them in sequence.

One of the intriguing aspects of Thirkell's 20th century protrayal of Barsetshire is how she works in the locations and characters of Trollopes six novels. Very early in "Northbridge Rectory" we encounter a minor character with the last name Bunce. It sounded very familiar and sure enough a Bunce is one of the primary supporting characters in Trollope's first Barsetshire novel, "The Warden." As a side note, anyone considering reading something by Trollope, "The Warden" is an good place to start, it is a fairly easy read at a very manageable length. By that time the reader will know whether or not he or she is hooked on Trollope, if so then the greater length of the later novels will be a plus, if not, there is no harm done.

I found "Northbridge Rectory" different than the other Thirkell novels I have read. The other ones seemed to focus on the major characters and the major issue or issues fairly quickly. Instead this novel seemed to present a series of vignettes about life in Northbridge early in World War II without any clear focus. This surprised me rather than bothered me and once the focus became clearer, I enjoyed this novel as much, if not more than the others I have read.

Not unlike Jane Austen and/or Trollope, Thirkell sets up a two/one female-male situation at the heart of the book. It is very different, however, in that the characters are not young people in or out of love, but older people with much accumulated history and issues. What appealed to me about this situation was that the ultimate focus was on each of the three people considering and working through what it is they really wanted - especially in the case of the male. These decisions, once made, led to the resolution of the two/one dynamic in a way that was honest and believable or at least it was to me.

As in any Thirkell novel, the book is full of interesting characters all with their quirks. These include Mrs. Spender, one of the most loquacious characters in English fiction, who, in spite of all her talking, really understands what is going on among the other characters in Northbridge. The servants and working class are also highly visible which adds more color and depth to the novel. Two extremely minor characters are the Talbott sisters, two English gentlewomen living with their aged father. Thirkell writes that they live "hard working and blameless lives." Not a bad way to be described.