A Priceless and Precious Piece of World War II History
I have had the privilege of friendship with the talented poet, Stephanie Peirce for some years now. We met at Goddard College where we were both pursuing our MFAs in creative writing, Stephanie as an aspiring poet and I as a writer of novel length fiction. It was love at first sight (for me anyway!) when I sat in on a poetry group she was in. She was, I fancied, a younger and more talented version of me. We both had the same long, wild mass of hair, though mine was beginning to silver by then and hers was golden. Somehow, though we were on different paths and didn’t see much of each other at school, we began a long distance friendship after graduation, checking in on each other’s writing journey and eventually serving as reader-editors for one another’s manuscripts.
Glimpses is Stephanie’s newest achievement, and it is wonderful! I recommend it heartily, and I am so proud to introduce you to it here.
Glimpses is a slim volume of letters, photos, and commentary that offers precious glimpses into the lives of the author’s paternal grandparents, Catherine “Treenie” Barham Peirce and Chichester “Chit” Tapscott Peirce Jr., who was killed in Germany on February 9, 1945. It tells a compelling story of love and loss, one that is carefully compiled and beautifully rendered. It is an absolute treasure, a gift not only to the memories of Stephanie’s grandparents, but also to the countless lives altered by World War II, and to readers and historians everywhere.
Glimpses will fit perfectly on this shelf!
Stephanie’s first book of poetry, The Bright Dark
Wishing you all ample time to read, to write, to dream and to create–and beautiful friends to share it all with. Love, Lori
I recently had one of those decade milestone birthdays. I am not an enormous fan of birthday celebrations in general, and less so when I am the one in the spotlight. I can’t remember ever being excited about my own birthday, at least not in the way I imagine other people get excited. I guess I really don’t know if other people are truly excited on their birthdays or if it is all performative theatre. Maybe some of each? I know I get embarrassed, especially when I open presents in front of people. I feel like I’m going to let them down in some undefinable way.
My first memory of my own birthday was when I was very young—perhaps three? Definitely no more than four. I was a shy little kid who liked to be alone and sleep a lot. Who knows why. As far as I know things hadn’t yet fallen apart in my world at that point, so I don’t think I was depressed per se. Though disaster was looming, no one knew that yet. Definitely not little Lori. So, I was just a little odd, I guess. Anyway, my older brother, Billy, was the sunny opposite—funny, excitable, energetic. Everything delighted him.
The thing I remember about that early birthday is being shaken out of the soft cocoon of sleep by Billy jumping up on my bed and hopping around whooping, “Sissy, sissy, wake up. It’s your birthday!” I am pretty sure he stepped on me during the process. I reacted the way a fifty-year-old spinster might, groaning and covering my head with my pillow and telling him to go away. It was a story often repeated in the family. Billy was more excited about Lori’s birthday than she was.
Over the years, birthdays never really got more exciting, except, perhaps, for the 18th, because when I turned 18 it became legal for me to drink alcohol in the state of Wisconsin and I was, sadly, very interested in taverns in those days. I was a bit of a lost soul. By the time I turned 21, I was a mother, and so there was little reason or opportunity to celebrate my own birthday. I could instead focus on making birthdays memorable for my son, and then my daughter when she came along a few years later. I enjoyed making their cakes, choosing presents for them, planning little parties. I began taking my daughter to Disneyland every year on her birthday since we lived nearby at the time, and she continues to be a huge Disneyland fan to this day.
Friends
I think it was when I was in my late thirties that my friend Cheryl suggested we start a birthday tradition of meeting somewhere special to celebrate our milestone birthdays, the ones that ended in 0, and so it was that we went to Robert Redford’s Sundance Resort in Utah for our 40th birthdays. We have been friends since we were little girls, and we are only a couple months apart. The once-a-decade birthday trip suited me. No big gatherings. No embarrassing surprises, just two old friends going for nature walks and eating nice food. Perfect!
Friends
This year I had three birthday celebrations! That’s a lot of cake! Not that a lot of cake is a bad thing. I had several days with my friend, Sandy, then several with my friend, Cheryl, and then a little visit with my sister-in-law, Kathy, and some of her family at her new home in Menominee, Michigan. It’s been wonderful. The only thing missing is my kids and grandkids who are far away. Spending time with them cannot come soon enough!
Aunt Lori Gets More Cake?
Dinner at a Wisconsin Supper Club
Birthdays can be a bit like New Year’s in a sense—a time to reflect on the past, celebrate, remember, and look forward—a time to plan ahead. My friends and family reminded me of the good things about reaching this milestone, of the experience and love, of pain, too, but also wisdom. Somehow, over the years I managed to raise two children, put myself through college and grad school, teach wonderful young people, and a few older ones, write several novels (and finally am in the process of getting the third one published), maintained rich and meaningful relationships (but also lost a few), and am experiencing now the joy of watching my beautiful grandchildren as they grow. A long life provides a kind of strength, a strength that recognizes the good, the bad, the hopelessness and the hopefulness—the totality of it all. And I have been all those things at one time or another.
Kitty Bliss
I wish I could say I’ve put all my mistakes behind me, and that I have reached a state of peaceful benign bliss, but I definitely can’t! Just after priding myself on what I considered my valiant composure while under stress, and, in fact, bragging about it, my husband jumped into a swimming pool and got my hair wet. I lost my mind. I shot through the water like an angry shark, whipping and whacking water into his surprised face with an intensity never before seen outside of a hurricane. I was as surprised as he was! Where did that come from?
I guess I still have some growing up to do. I Am So Sorry, Sweetheart!
Sending Love and Blissful Blooms to You Today! And Birthday and UnBirthday Best Wishes Galore!
Lake Arrowhead, California, USA. Photo by Hayley O’Kelly
“A writer finds peace in silence, speaking only to the page, yet the words survive only by stepping into the noise of the world to be seen, heard, and held by others.” ― Lawrence Nault
I have found a great deal of peace in the silent world of writing, “speaking only to the page.” First as an insecure and introverted girl, and later as an adult, writing has provided a safe place for me. A place of comfort and security, and a place to grow.
In my experience the act of writing places the writer in a sacred space both inside and outside of the constraints of normal consciousness. It’s also a place of discovery and healing. Writing has probably saved me from a thousand unknown terrible fates by keeping me grounded, probing, perceptive, and awake. At least it feels that way. Writing has awakened in me a million possibilities, become my friend, my coach, my inward eye. Writing has shaped my existence.
An entry from my journal which was made from an old book owned by a lady named Mary Miller
And so, it with great trepidation that I send my writing into the world. The tension between the safety of my personal writing bubble and the “noise of the world” is immense. Sending your manuscript out has been compared to sending your child to school for the first time (“Sending a book out into the world is a lot like sending your child to the first day of kindergarten. You hope the other kids play nice and that she makes friends”—Mitchell Zuckoff), and having a child has been compared to giving your heart away (“Making the decision to have a child – it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body” ―Elizabeth Stone). These are apt descriptions of my state of mind as I wait to hear from my publisher.
The contract has been signed, and the editor will soon be digging into my manuscript. This stage feels surreal after a lifetime of reading, writing, studying and dreaming. And years of querying agents and publishers. There’s not much to tell yet, but it looks as though there will be a book with my name on it coming out at some undetermined date in the future. I’m guessing it will be many months from now. I don’t even know if the title I’ve chosen will be used. I can say this, it is a World War II homefront historical fiction novel. It’s set in Lake Arrowhead, California, USA. The protagonist is named Mary Miller. And there are bears.
One of my oldest friends called me last week. I’d been having a rough time and had withdrawn in a way that only a very close friend would recognize. I’d still been “in touch” with her, but I was withholding, and she could tell. She called, and I don’t remember exactly what she said, but her voice was soft and patient and expectant. She made it possible for me to reveal my heartache and gave me time to say the things out loud that I hadn’t been able to say.
Dr. Gerald Stein in his post, “Why the Clock is Essential in Therapy (and Relationships)” (https://drgeraldstein.wordpress.com), discusses that making time for “tender issues… can be like a dance, the partners move together as if choreographed…”, and that is what my friend did for me. She didn’t try to stop my tears or give me advice. It was like a dance in a way, or maybe like a prayer. Total acceptance and love.
After a while my breathing settled and we continued our conversation. She told me about “Dayenu,” the prayer and Passover seder song that tells the story of Exodus. The melody of the song is joyous and upbeat, a list of fifteen things God did for the Jews, anyone of which, they say, would have been enough for them. Sefaria Library’s reading of the text begins “How much good, layer upon layer, the omnipresent has done for us. Had He brought us out of Egypt without bringing judgment upon [our oppressors], that would have been enough for us.”
Traditional Seder Plate with Symbolic Foods for Passover- Pexels Free Photos
It would have been enough. Dayenu is a prayer of gratitude, but, she intimated (or perhaps I misunderstood and twisted it to suit my own situation), that sometimes the word Dayenu can also be used as a cleansing release. I don’t want to be disrespectful. But when I think of her saying “Dayenu! Enough!” I feel a little better.
Unlike my friend, I wasn’t raised in any specific faith. Though I believe my divorced parents were given religious instruction, I think my dad more than my mom, they did not, evidently, feel the need to share it with their progeny.
Why not? I’ve wondered. Parsing that is loose. My grandfathers died long before I was born, and one of my grandmothers died when I was a baby. The only grandparent I knew was my mom’s mom who died when I was nineteen. Sadly, I didn’t see her enough, nor know what to ask her about when I did. And for some reason, religion wasn’t much spoken of in my childhood, unless you took the Lord’s name in vain. That was frowned upon, unless Mom was really angry, in which case, she couldn’t be held to account. Dad never lost his temper and never cursed, so there wasn’t a lot of reason, I guess, for him to even bring up sin or religion or God. Anyway, Mom and Dad didn’t live together after I was four-years-old, so I would never be a member of a traditional united family like the ones I fantasized about.
Openverse, New York Public Library (Obviously I had very grand and old-fashioned fantasies about family life–I read a lot!)
I know Dad attended a Methodist church growing up in Chicago, and that his widowed librarian mother was a model of decorum, and that, in the 1920’s and ‘30s meant adherence to social norms such as church attendance. I’m not sure whether Mom was taken to church as a child, but given the times, I imagine she was at least exposed. Her upbringing was less city, less refined than Dad’s. Mom grew up in Faribault, Minnesota with a terminally ill father she adored, a Swedish immigrant who was bedridden by the time she was of school age, and her mother worked many hours a week to support the family. There were eight children, but by the time Mom came along several of them had left home. It wasn’t a farm, so it wasn’t as if the siblings had a reason to stay once they reached maturity, though I believe several of her older brothers helped contribute to the family income.
Both of my grandmothers worked outside the home, which I used to think was somewhat unusual, but now I know women have always worked in all kinds of ways other than homemaking. It just didn’t get reported. Women’s contributions have always been underrepresented in American society. For me, born in the 1950s and growing up in the 1960s and early 70s, it was normal to think that women had always been home. I grew up watching The Donna Reid Show, I Love Lucy and Leave it to Beaver. Sitcoms regularly featured women as married and caring for husbands and children, even if the woman happened to be a witch, as in Samantha of Bewitched. It was the ideal. Only a rare few Katherine Hepburn types, charming enough, but come on, not really practical, lived independent lives or made money of their own. That’s what we were told. I mean neither of my grandmothers was even allowed to vote when they were young, but they were allowed to work to support their families.
Dad’s father, a Scottish immigrant, died when Dad was four. Dad’s only sibling died at age twelve, and his spinster aunt, a seamstress, lived with them, bringing in an extra bit of income and caring for my dad (now an only child) while his mother worked, so even though it was the Great Depression and the family had experienced horrible loss, between his mother and his aunt, things stayed afloat. Dad was well looked after, educated, participated in church and school activities, and was enrolled in a pre-med program at college before WWII changed everything. Mom, on the other hand, didn’t, couldn’t, get the same amount of attention and help. When would her mother who cooked and cleaned and cared for other people and other people’s children probably for most of the day and most of the night, day after day without reprieve have had the time to take my mom to church?
Mom didn’t talk about it. Both of my parents claimed to believe in God and considered themselves Christian, and I believed them, but it was sort of incidental. God was why you didn’t lie or cheat or hurt others. Jesus was why we had Christmas and Easter. Despite their professed faith, both of them shunned churches and had little good to say about people who attended them. Organized religion, Dad said, had caused most of the world’s problems. Mom was less philosophical. She just didn’t care for their “holier than thou” ways. I was left to find my own path if I so desired, but was never given any formal, or indeed informal, religious education.
It took me a long time, with a lot of detours, to begin to travel my own spiritual path, and I haven’t been exactly good at it, but in my own halting way I’ve touched—not held, but touched, fragments of comfort, peace, and wonder over the years. The ways grace arrived for me are varied. A Lutheran friend. A Jewish friend. A Latter-Day Saints friend. A longing to give something lasting to my children. A church bell, and then another, and another. Calls to worship. Two Presbyterian congregations, one large and one small. One Episcopal congregation, tiny. A community where different faiths worked together. Health scares. Reading. Love. All of these. And Prayer. Something I always did, instinctively. Prayer.
I was surprised to find handwritten prayers in Dad’s bedside table drawer when he died. A nightly prayer list, it appeared. All beautifully written, eloquently phrased personal prayers for me and my brother and our families.
So Dad prayed, too, more than I knew.
Perhaps that was enough.
Thank you for reading, and my hopes for you today are these—may you have enough friendship, enough time, and the opportunity to grow in love and joy in all the ways that fill you.
It’s been two weeks since I left Nevada and one week since I arrived at my new Michigan home. All of these days have been solo; I drove alone, I arrived alone to an empty house, I spend my days here alone. There’s a theme building . . . For now!
The Way In
But husband and kitties will be joining me soon.
The Dreaded Cot(I do not love it)
A Lonely Room (but I love it!)
As an introvert, this hasn’t been particularly tough. I love people, but I also love solitude. I just got the internet yesterday, and that’s fun because now I can write and publish my writing more easily. No TV here yet. No furniture to speak of. I have one little lamp table that fit in my car, a folding camp chair, and a cot. That’s it. Everything else will come in the moving van next week. So, what do I do all day?
I clean and I read. Often, at the same time, by listening to audiobooks using the Libby library App. One of the books I’ve enjoyed so far during this extended period of solitude is aptly The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah. It’s a tough book about a tough time and a tough place, but I liked it. Alaska in the 1970s, mental illness, abuse . . . it’s got it all, but it isn’t only that, of course. It’s also a book filled with nostalgia, love, and the awesomeness of nature.
Other books I read either just prior to moving, during the drive, or since my arrival are: We All Live Here, Moyes; Sandwich, Newman; The Secret Book of Flora Lea, Henry; Remain, Spark and Shyamalan; The Missing Half, Flowers and Kiester; and currently, The Island of Sea Women, See. Each book has its merits.
I found both We All Live Here and Sandwich charming and humorous. Both are light, contemporary novels with women protagonists wrestling with life changing events and the love of family.
The Secret Book of Flora Lea took me to one of my favorite historical settings, World War II England, in the countryside and also to London in the 1960s. It’s a delightful book about sisters, families, love, and the importance of stories.
Remain and The Missing Half are mysteries, with Remain being the more entertaining of the two for me. The Missing Half helped pass the time, but Remain’s ghostly love story captivated me at times, including during several memorable scenes that made me shiver.
And now I’m listening to The Island of Sea Women. It’s taken me to a part of the world I know very little about, which I love, because I am learning so much. It’s set in Korea from the story’s beginning in the 1930s and will move through the war years and take me to the present day. It’s about women sea divers (an amazing group of female divers who earn the money for their families while their husbands care for the children), and it’s the story of two friends Mi-ja and Young-sook.
As you can see, I’ve not been alone, not really, for I’ve been traveling through time and place along with the characters created by the authors of these varied and appealing novels, carried away by their stories. It’s a kind of magic really, the way a reader lives both inside and outside of a book—simultaneously in the room, and also somewhere else far away.
I love this line about reading from Stephen Chbosky from his young adult novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower:
“Sometimes, I read a book, and I think I am the people in the book.”
My Family Spelling of the Name Has an “E” at the End: Johnstone. (candle/ image courtesy of scotstee.com)
Welcome to Billings, Montana, where I have hunkered down to avoid driving on the Interstate during one of the many reported snowstorms traveling around the US of late. If I had planned better, I would have chosen a cozier hotel to get stuck in, and I would have paid attention to where my husband stored the ice scraper in my fully packed Jeep, and I would have brought socks. And I should have planned better because Nunquam Non Paratus—Never Not Prepared—is the ancient motto of my family. I was raised under the plaid and the crest and the motto, yet here I am, sockless in Billings, Montana (not exactly sockless, but the pair I had on when I left Austin, Nevada several days ago needs a good washing, which I will give it, in the sink with my tiny bottle of shampoo. That might mean I’m a little bit prepared).
I haven’t driven much since moving to Austin over five years ago, as it is a compact town and I could walk to my part-time library job and to my beautiful historic church. Also, my guy always drives when we go “to town” to get groceries and supplies in Fallon, a mere 112 miles away. Ah, the open road!
As I mentioned in an earlier post though, Mr. P and I have sold our home in Austin and we’re moving to Michigan. Hence my solo interstate journey. Mr. P and his heroic childhood friend will be coming soon with the moving van, but they will be driving tandem (?), I guess, taking turns sleeping and driving and only stopping for gas and food. I left earlier because I am the world’s slowest driver, and I refuse to drive after dark when everything goes all fuzzy and weird, and also, I am not a morning person. So, I don’t get too far within the slow-motion window of light between say, 11 AM and 6 PM (this time of year).
The Kitties Will Be Coming to Michigan Soon!
It was a deeply emotional parting, my leaving Austin. There were library patron visits, homemade cards and cookies, a sumptuous church luncheon, and these amazing gifts (I’m keeping names private as I haven’t asked permission to share):
Book Quilt Made by Dear Friends, My photo
Saint George’s Episcopal Church Original Painting by Dear Friend
Austin Library Original Painting by Dear Friend
Flowers!
A Special Friend Luncheon in Fallon, NV
And now we’ve arrived at the Dreamy Forest Music and Afternoon Spritzers portion of the post, which is a radio station and a white wine spritzer in a plastic glass, but it is lovely, and I feel loved, and safe, and scared and excited all at the same time, because I have left a wondrous place, and I’m off to a new unknown. Wish me luck?
Cake!
Thanks for the Memories!Remember Bob Hope singing that? It always moistens the eyes. We are all so lucky, you know, to have each other and love each other for as long and as well as we can.
Be well everyone, and safe! I am so grateful for your visit. Where are you, in this wild, wild, harsh and beautiful, sweet and mixed-up world? I’d love to hear about it!
“You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.” ― Annie Proulx
“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to send it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.” -Annie Dillard
One way I manage my writing is with the free online Query Tracker (QT) service, which makes it easy for writers to search for literary agents. I love that I can narrow my search to suit my particular manuscript—by genre and length—and also by providing links to the agents’ respective agencies, where I can read extensively about the agency itself, what authors it represents, and much more. Locating an updated list of literary agents currently accepting queries and providing an organized space to keep track of who I submit to and when is immediately helpful.
Have you used Query Tracker? I’ve been using it for several years now, and I find it very useful. In the beginning I used it to research agents, looking for professionals who represented my genre of fiction. Gradually, I felt ready to send out queries and began the laborious process. I also keep a paper file where I jot down notes about the various agents’ manuscript wish lists and guidelines, as well as the dates I submitted to them. That is my messy but personalized backup, and I intend to continue the practice, but it’s also extremely helpful to use the free online Query Tracker.
Over time, I’ve found that I also greatly appreciate the features for recording the date I get a response (if ever), and the type of response. Agents request different content. Some accept only a query letter. Some want a certain number of sample pages along with the query (the number of pages varies). Some request a synopsis. Most of them have a loosely specified timeline given for responding to queries, with many of them stating that if you don’t hear from them within that time frame, it counts as a pass on your manuscript. If you get a response asking for more pages, or the full manuscript (Hallelujah!), there’s a place on QT for you to record that information as well. You can organize the submission chart alphabetically by agent or agency or by date submitted. This is just a quick overview.
Photo by Lori Pohlman
In my case, after sending out over 80 deeply researched and personally tailored queries to agents, with a couple of requests for more material that sadly didn’t bring an offer of representation, I went back to the drawing board. I revised the manuscript again on my own and then had the whole thing professionally edited. That accomplished, I felt ready to start submitting again, but this time I decided to submit the manuscript to small publishers that accept submissions without agent representation. I’ve read there is a better chance of getting traditionally published going this route.
Query Tracker has a search engine for publishers as well, so it was easy for me to search for publishers, again by genre and length, to research those who published my genre, and to begin submitting again. Currently I have 7 submissions out with these small presses, one of which contacted me within a few days. It’s currently under review there, but it could be some time before I hear anything, so I’m keeping the other submissions out there, and will continue sending out more.
It’s still early days in this process, but with the new year just hours away, I’m energized about new possibilities! I’d love to hear about your writing life journey—not only the path to publishing, but about all aspects of this beautifully messy creative life we share. With Love!
Dear Readers, Writers, Friends, Family and Artists of All Kinds,
Thank you for being here, and for all the wonder, thought, goodness, and genuine love you bring to the world. Wishing you rest, refreshment, and everything you need, today, and in the new year. You are, to me, all beloved members of the pack.
The strength of the wolf is the pack, and the strength of the pack is the wolf. Rudyard Kipling
“The strongest oak of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun.It’s the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun.” – Napoleon Hill
Hello, Reader and Writer Friends! I hope this post finds you well and blessed with the energy, time, and resources you need and deserve. I am grateful to you and wish you joy. The past few weeks have brought both expected and unexpected news, tasks, challenges, joys, and sorrows to my little corner of the planet, and I suspect they may have to yours also.
Changes of season, the holidays, national and world events, community and family celebrations, work, play, plans, and the shadow of illness and even death for some have been on the hearts and minds of many.
This week in my little town we’ve lost a young woman to suicide. The tragic and violent event has left many of us in shock, and the pain is palpable. And yet, standing right beside that horror, we also have grace in the shape of a group of dear people who planned and cooked and decorated our community center, and fed everyone in town who wished to come. And we had the Christmas tree lighting in the park, followed by fireworks. And we have a live nativity on Main Street coming in a few days. And I’m going to Disneyland with my grandkids next week. And yet, a friend’s cat died and one of our own adopted cats disappeared (you see how the sadness creeps back in). And yet, I got a surprisingly good medical report from my doctor. And in the netherworld of being a writer, I began another round of manuscript submissions today, sending out queries to six publishers.
The light shifts, the wind blows.
We manage as best we can, remembering that the strongest oak
LakeArrowheadLadyWriter 
Book Review: Glimpses, Grandfather’s Life During World War II by Stephanie Peirce
I have had the privilege of friendship with the talented poet, Stephanie Peirce for some years now. We met at Goddard College where we were both pursuing our MFAs in creative writing, Stephanie as an aspiring poet and I as a writer of novel length fiction. It was love at first sight (for me anyway!) when I sat in on a poetry group she was in. She was, I fancied, a younger and more talented version of me. We both had the same long, wild mass of hair, though mine was beginning to silver by then and hers was golden. Somehow, though we were on different paths and didn’t see much of each other at school, we began a long distance friendship after graduation, checking in on each other’s writing journey and eventually serving as reader-editors for one another’s manuscripts.
Glimpses is Stephanie’s newest achievement, and it is wonderful! I recommend it heartily, and I am so proud to introduce you to it here.
Glimpses: Grandfather’s Life During World War II | Barnes & Noble®
Glimpses is a slim volume of letters, photos, and commentary that offers precious glimpses into the lives of the author’s paternal grandparents, Catherine “Treenie” Barham Peirce and Chichester “Chit” Tapscott Peirce Jr., who was killed in Germany on February 9, 1945. It tells a compelling story of love and loss, one that is carefully compiled and beautifully rendered. It is an absolute treasure, a gift not only to the memories of Stephanie’s grandparents, but also to the countless lives altered by World War II, and to readers and historians everywhere.
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