Churchyard Socials

I enjoy a good cemetery. I’m not sure why. Possibly it’s the silence, or maybe the history, or sometimes just a beautiful fence. For that matter it might be the names, the trees, the mystery, or the location. I’ve planned visits to specific graveyards, and I've stopped the car to peruse a resting ground by a roadside, or to follow arrows to old family plots here and there. I have laughed, cried, worked, and played in cemeteries. 

My novel, Don’t Ya Know, has a cemetery in it that plays an important role in the story: 

“The cemetery stood in a field off the turn-around where the shell road ended, not far from the Shellfoots’ land and a good stretch from Scylla’s Cove below. An expansive wrought-iron fence surrounded a motley outcropping of gravestones. Some of the island’s earliest dwellers were laid to rest there; two graves, with faded names, dated back to the 1730s. Several slates stood like tiny teeth among them. They were markers for small children.”

I incorporated the cemetery into the book after a trip to St. Simon’s Island in Georgia where a friend took me to a family plot, nestled back off a main road at the side of the property where her ancestors lived and died. 

St. Simon's

My friend hadn’t been there in a while, and when we approached she let out a gasp. The burial grounds had been vandalized. The intricately-wrought, iron fence had been destroyed, parts of it stolen for salvage. Several of the grave markers had been pummeled. Recovering from the shock of the sight, my friend introduced the dead, those she knew and those whose stories she had learned. She pointed to a strip of graves at the far end of the plot. The stones were simple, just names and dates - no angels, no scrolls. This is where the  family’s servants were buried, not apart from but honored within the borders of the fence. I was struck by the power of that in contrast to the disrespect dealt by the 21st century grave robbers.

                                                                              ***

On a recent trip to New York, my husband and I stopped at the Records’ Office of Calvary Cemetery, one of the oldest burial grounds in the US which has the largest number of interments: More than 3 million, all Roman Catholics, in 500,000 plots over 364 acres owned by the Archdiocese of New York. There have been four expansions, the last occurring when graves had to be moved to build the Long Island Expressway. My mother’s family members, 8 of them, are buried in “Third Calvary.” The plot was purchased in 1902 by my grandfather, James Joseph O'Neill. A child was buried then. We found this out from a genial, office worker who actually provided great customer service. He looked my grandfather up in a microfiche database and then hauled out a huge leather binder from a vast library. There are no computer records. All information comes from the original files, so precise dates are required. He found my relatives in section 32.

Calvary

It was a misty day in June when we visited. A large, pink marble marker indicates the O’Neills’ resting place. There are no individual names for the interred, but I know who most are. Few of the dead were very old. Most were victims of immigration, tuberculosis, grief, and heredity. I paused for a moment, placing a stone on the marker and murmuring “Thank you." Later I reasoned I was acknowledging how hard their lives had been - theirs and so many of the others whose monuments rose and fell into the horizon of a settling fog that blocked the city's skyline. The scope seemed infinite.

Calvary

                                                                               ***

Several years ago, my sister and I made a trip to Elm Springs which is my paternal grandmother’s birthplace in Columbia, Tennessee. We came on a lark to connect with our heritage, at least the part of it that isn’t second generation, New York Irish. We arrived to discover that the house we’d known from a grainy, black and white photo is an historical site, the headquarters of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Our visit became more solemn.

Elm Springs

We learned Elm Springs, built in 1837 on an old stagecoach road, served as the Confederate headquarters of General Frank E. Armstrong in 1864. We were told by a docent that when the Yankees came, a loyal slave attempted to burn the manse down rather than have it occupied by Union soldiers. For proof, the docent opened the door to a scorched closet. This bore witness to a story our dad had told us, and at that moment we realized we really are a part of this place.

Todd Cemetery, Elm Springs

We asked to visit the family cemetery which sits on a hill to the left of the house. Walking within its stacked-stone walls, we felt an eerie sense of wonder. An obelisk rises from the center of the plot. It honors James Dick Todd, 21, the first to be interred in 1843. There are approximately 11 graves. All are clearly marked with the Todds, Looneys and others who came along. However three of the graves bear only initials: ABW, STW, and MP. There are no records indicating who they are. I’d like to think one of them honors the loyal slave who tried to save Elm Springs from the Yankees.

But I don't know. That's the thing about heritage, one takes what one finds, and unfortunately that usually involves some kind of war. Those stories are told in old cemeteries, too. My paternal tree dates back to the Virginia grave of a great, great (etc.) uncle who fought England in the Revolution. My friend's Georgia family and my Tennessee kin waged a war among cousins, North and South. The O'Neills' fight was with immigration on the streets of New York in the 1890s. And so many wars  followed. Maybe that's what I like about cemeteries: At last, after all of life's turbulence, death has brought an ironic peace.

                                                                     ***********
                           (to be continued, don't ya know. I've visited many a cool cemetery)

Click below to order paperbacks or ebooks
http://www.amazon.com/Suzanne-McLain-Rosenwasser/e/B006ZC9R7Y/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_ebooks_1

Manhasset Stories

Carla Sarett's Blog: Interview with novelist, Suzanne Rosenwasser about...

Carla Sarett's Blog: Interview with novelist, Suzanne Rosenwasser about...: Today’s interview is with writer Suzanne Rosenwasser who has released her debut novel, DON’T YA KNOW, a novel about the changes on a ficti...

Refrigerated Saran Wrap

I found the Saran wrap in the refrigerator today.

I know it was I who put it there because the other person who lives here doesn’t put the Saran wrap away. Nor does he use it, come to think of it.

And then there is the issue of calling all plastic wrap, Saran. This particular box isn’t Saran wrap. In fact, I don’t know the brand. I first learned it was so, and so it continues. It’s like “oleo,” I guess. I say that, too. But the good news is, I have yet to find the oleo in the cupboard where the Saran wrap belongs.

When I got into my 60s, I began to assess my forgetfulness differently. There are some certain facts: I’ve always lost my keys and my friends will tell you I rarely depart from their homes without leaving something I brought behind - my scarf, my coozie-cupped glass, the plate that came under the cookies I baked. I tell them those are markers to make sure I’ll see them again. However, I expect to hear from someone soon that I put their leftover cole slaw in the microwave when I was helping clean up after dinner.

I do find forgotten items in the microwave, by the way. The coffee I meant to reheat and drink; the four day old pasta in the cardboard box that I didn’t want to eat but was going to because I know there are starving people who would love it; the remains of the sponges I was cleaning for 1:00, but hit 10:00 by mistake. I blame these events on the microwave which is white noise to me. I never even hear the bell ding, but you’d think the smell of burning sponges would have jarred my memory.

As for forgetting names, well, I can remember those of everyone in my grammar school classes. Yet, as a high school teacher, I only remembered the names of my current students. As soon as they moved on to another level, only face recognition remained. I had a student who challenged me on this. I saw her in the hall the year after she was in my English class. We greeted each other enthusiastically and chatted for awhile (with me struggling internally to recall her name). During a pause, she said: “You don’t remember my name do you? Geez, Mrs. R. I thought I was your favorite student. I was sure of it.” I had to admit I remembered the fondness, but still couldn’t remember her name. She, literally, introduced herself and then said: “Don’t you ever forget. Every time I see you I’m going to ask you to tell me my name.” And with the persistence of a teenager, she asked me for the next three years. I rarely got it right and still fear I may run into her in town and face the question again.

Which brings me back to that face recognition thing. I had to examine how that was working for me as I got older, too. I taught thousands of high school kids and now I think I see them everywhere. I often ask people in a waiting room or at a random gathering if they went to Roswell High School. Most often they say, “No.” The ones who say “Yes,” either don’t remember me or say something to this effect: “Wow. I never would have recognized you, Mrs. R.” Once I said to a clerk who told me she was in my class 20 years before: “I’m surprised you recognized me.”  She said: “Well I didn’t. I mean, you’ve changed a lot. I just saw your name on your credit card.”

Oh.

Well the truth is, I can’t remember who I am when I look in a mirror or catch my reflection in the glass window of a department store. The age my mind plays out is this strange eternal 35 and sometimes I’m right there. These days I talk to young mothers at the playground while I push my granddaughter on a swing. They tell me their “mom war stories” and then I tell them mine, the ones that took place more than 30 years ago; but I hear myself as the young mother who was telling the same stories at similar swings then. 

Time has a funny way of traveling lately. This new little toddler of my blood is a clone to her mother, my own little girl. In whole spates of time, my granddaughter takes me back to where I once was and I feel my feet bridging two worlds. I wipe a sticky hand, hit my head on a playhouse door, or spend an hour on my stomach coloring with a two year old towhead. In these moments, there is no then and now.

Time ticks differently when we get older, and I’m fine with that. I never know what day it is anyway. The truth is I rarely need to know, as long as I remember to log all upcoming dates in my iPhone. I’m also fine with the Saran wrap being in the refrigerator; but that’s mainly because I found it before my husband did,  and I’m telling on myself.
                                                      ***
                                                CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO BLOG 

a novel of wonder and whimsy:
DON'T YA KNOW
available in ebook and paperback
mid-May, 2015
Read about it at: www.suzannerosenwasser.com

"Heyyyy. What's up, Mrs. R?"

"So what are you doing these days?"

It's a question I hear often as I make my daily way through the towns where I've lived and worked for a total of 30+ years.

When I retired from teaching in a local high school, I knew exactly what I wanted to do and did it. It took four years, reams of paper, a quart of printer ink, and crippling moments of self-doubt.

"Wow. Good to see you. So, you're retired? Reading books and going on vacation, huh?"

I hear variations of the same at the gas pump, in the produce aisle, at the nail salon, etc. 

My answer always follows a pause on my part, deciding whether to lead with the part-time care of my two-year-old granddaughter or with the all-the-rest-of-the-time care of writing. The latter is the more difficult choice. But over the course of those four years, there were times I needed to say it aloud to prove my intention to myself. And of course, now that the novel is about to appear on the book market, it needs to be the first-choice answer.

"Well, I just finished a novel," I say to reactions that are generally along the lines of:

"No kidding. Wow. Now what?" or "Really? What's it about?" or "Seriously? Do you have a publisher?" and a few times: "What's your elevator speech?" 

More questions. I like answers - even though, ironically, Don't Ya Know  is all about questions, the ones that haven't any clear answers.

I have stumbled through different replies, finally coming up with a quick and descriptive one: "It's a story of faith told by unbelievers."

I really liked the sound of that, but I had to drop it after awhile because the people who were actually interested wanted to know more. I didn't have more to say on the topic, I wasn't sure it was a topic to begin with, and how tall is the building  this elevator is in anyway?

So I changed my answer to: "It's about the people of a secluded island who find themselves facing a whole new world when the beaches of the area become recreational havens at the turn of the 19th century."

That seemed to be a conversation-ender, earning a pat response: "That sounds interesting."  Click.

So for a long while I just just said: "Well, we have our first grandchild now..."

Then I wrote up a script for myself and went to a writers' conference in Atlanta.

Every conversation I had was delivered as if the conversants were living sandwich boards. "I'll tell you  my elevator speech if you tell me yours." One woman, who presented her companies' services under the guise of helping writers master the universe, asked to read the first page of Don't Ya Know and followed up with an invitation to have coffee in the dining area. Ten minutes into an 11-minute conversation she explained what paying her marketing experts $10-20,000 would get me. It was an answer I already knew, so I excused myself and asked for my first page back.

I'm familiar with this part of self-publishing. It's the lonely part where I spend time wondering who I am to think other people will enjoy reading what I write?

I go to confession and tell my writer friends that I don't have an answer. They whisper back to me in the darkness of the internet confessional booth that they don't know either.  Is it a compulsion, I ask? Were we the kids who demanded all the adults watch us perform in the living room? Am I doing that again in my 6os?"

Bless me, for I confess to all of the above. I love to tell stories. I love to trade mine for theirs with friends around a dinner table. Hear our grown kids' stories of how they viewed their childhoods. Listen to the time you ran on a Long Island beach with me under the moonlight, or how you felt the day we knew your ailing mother would die, or your marriage would end, or a fear was real or a baby was coming.

Don't Ya Know is the story of all those stories. The ones you told me. The ones I told you. The ones we read, the ones we taught in classrooms, the ones we acted out on stage, as well as the stories that wove around us while we did those things. How can we be anything but a sum of our stories?

So one answer came to me: Don't Ya Know published itself.

***************

Available in ebook and paperback from online booksellers,  May 2015.

www.suzannerosenwasser.com

Carla Sarett's Blog: Holiday Reading List: New York Reads Recommended ...

Carla Sarett's Blog: Holiday Reading List: New York Reads Recommended ...: Our Holiday Reading Marathon continues!  This guest post comes from author Suzanne Rosenwasser, whose charming memoirs I highly recommen...

Don't Ya Know: What I know, think I know, and know I don't know

The woods at Ke'was End

DON'T YA KNOW is the first novel I've written.  The story takes place on Corycian (Core'seen) Island in the early 20th century as Islanders cope with the change a new time period enforces.

Once odorous fish-processing plants dotted the New York shorelines; however, by 1900 they have been replaced with grandly gracious homes; breezy, yacht clubs; and palatial, resort hotels.

The indigenous community of Corycian Island watches as a new culture disembarks from the Westside Ferry. Lovelorn secretaries, sharp-eyed spiritualists, breathless bachelors, wealth-seeking developers, idiot klan members, disgraced priests, naive nuns, and muscular Christians arrive. They are shoreless refugees seeking a connection to the ether sifting through the universe.  

It is said such a vortex exists on the east point of the Island at Ke'was End, where the Runapewak, the tru-people, are stewards
of the land, protecting it for Mother Earth and Father Sky.

Runapewak. The Tru-people. All-a-wanna.

Large docks extend from Corycian's Strand Hotel

Great American Planes stand tall on Ke'Was End

The Corycian Island Reader, a weekly broadsheet tells the Island's story