Books...A Reminder

If you're looking for a book to read, please consider one of mine. All can be found on Amazon in paperback or Kindle versions; any bookstore (chain or independent) and big box stores that sell books (think Target, Walmart, Meijer, Costco) can order them. I continue to juggle, trying to finish a play so that I can begin work on a new manuscript. Isolation has provided opportunity; motivation, however, hasn't been easy as distractions and worry hinder creativity. Thank you, as always, and for more information please view my website at www.veronicabatterson.com.

August is Women's Suffrage Month - 100 Years - The Vote

It’s the Centennial Anniversary month of one of the most important Constitutional Amendments.  All of the amendments are relevant with importance, but I’m rather biased about this one. On August 18, 1920, the 19^th Amendment which gives women the right to vote in this country was ratified.  Two weeks later on August 26, 1920, US Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby formally announced this amendment as being an official part of the Constitution of the United States of America.  While the campaign for women’s suffrage began in the 1820s, the “official” fight was launched in 1848 with the first Women’s Convention in Seneca Falls, NY.  Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia Mott were influential suffragists of that time (Anthony and Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Movement in 1869).  It took 72 years from that convention to win the fight; many of us feel it continues in other ways today.

One hundred years isn’t so long ago.  If we put it into perspective, a large portion of people who read this blog were born, married, and had children in the 20th century.  Many of us had parents or grandparents (or others who factored significantly in our lives) who were born before this right was won.  In the 20^th Century, prior to 1920, some important inventions and events of note: the vacuum cleaner, air conditioning, the electrocardiogram, radar, radio broadcasting, electric washing machines, sonar, the Kodak Brownie camera, the Model T automobile, silent movies and “talkies”, the first operation of the New York Subway system occurred as did the Wright Brothers powering that infamous flight at Kitty Hawk, and then there was the Titanic.  Before women could vote.  Think about it.  While men of color faced obstacles in voting at polling places in the south, the right to vote was guaranteed to them in 1870 with the ratification of the 15^th Amendment. It took another fifty years for women; prior to that females were viewed as property of the central male figure in their life (father, husband, brother, etc).  Married women couldn’t own property, and had no legal claim to money they might earn or have inherited.  Again, think about it.  Property, servant, poor relation, wife, mother. Imagine giving birth to a son knowing he would be entitled to rights you’d never have yourself; worse might be having a daughter and worrying about her fate which would be completely out of your control.

We stand on the shoulders of all the women who came before us, but especially the women who fought and demanded women have the vote.  They suffered tremendously for it.  The first march on Washington, D.C. occurred in 1913 and was by the women’s suffrage movement demanding the right to vote. They stole President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration thunder by marching in front of the White House the day before his big event in an attempt to bring attention to this issue.  Many were arrested and tortured.  They were known as “suffragists” in the US because the suffragettes (their UK counterparts) used vandalism, destruction, and physical acts of violence to get their point across.  The suffragists thought they stood a better chance of succeeding by using peaceful tactics, and the name association might undermine their efforts.  For seven years after that march on Washington, these “Silent Sentinels” as they were known because they only picketed and held signs, were tortured, beaten, arrested, humiliated, incarcerated, force-fed with tubes up their nostrils, (and suffered many other inhumane indignities) simply because they demanded the right to vote.  In 1920, they succeeded, beating their UK counterparts by eight years.

It’s significant to note that some women could vote in certain parts of the US prior to it becoming a right for all women in every state (having equal voting rights as men); it was the same in the UK where certain “conditions” granted it.  The Wyoming Territory was the first to grant its female citizens the right to vote in 1869. Eventually, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, the Alaska Territory, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, and Washington followed suit by 1918.

The first Suffrage Proposal, which would eventually become the 19^th Amendment, was introduced to Congress in 1878, and was rejected; in 1890, the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was established.  Some important names to remember who were instrumental in seeing what was initially referred to as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment passed and ratified were Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and Carrie Chapman Catt.

Alice Paul

Alice Paul and Lucy Burns founded the National Woman’s Party, and were leaders who organized the two-and-a-half-year-vigil of picketing in front of the White House during Woodrow Wilson’s administration.  They silently protested six days per week, holding signs and marching.  During this time, many of the over 2,000 women who participated were harassed, arrested and unjustly treated by local and national authorities, including the torture and abuse inflicted on them before and during the infamous November 14, 1917 “Night of Terror” at Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia. Carrie Chapman Catt opposed the protests, believing it hurt the cause.

Lucy Burns

Of all of the women, Lucy Burns was arrested the most.  She eventually retired from the cause after 1920, saying it was time other women step forward and take on the fight. She died in 1966.  Alice Paul would eventually pen the Equal Rights Amendment, introducing it in 1923, and seeing it passed in 1972 while pushing the fight until her death in 1977. However, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was never ratified.  Of note, the 19^th Amendment is the only amendment to the constitution that mentions the word ‘woman’; the only right guaranteed to women is the federal right to vote.

There is so much history and an endless roll call of names instrumental in getting all women the same voting rights as men.  I’m surprised at just how many women in this country do not know their history; equally surprising is the number of women who choose not to exercise their precious right to vote.  History is important.

Finally, I’d like to share the beginning of a play that I’ve been working on that is based on a fictional meeting between Alice Paul and Nellie Bly.  Lucy Burns plays a role in it, as does a fictional character by the name of Adelia Jones.  It opens with an explanation of its title, Silent Sentinels, and with a soliloquy by Lucy Burns. Please keep in mind it is a rough, first draft.  I can only hope that one day it will see the stage.

As always, please remember that copyright applies, and equally as always…thank you for continuing to read my work.

SILENT SENTINELS

By Veronica Randolph Batterson

©Veronica Randolph Batterson 2019

On November 14, 1917, 33 women (after multiple arrests for nearly two years) had once again been arrested and were being held in Virginia’s notorious Occoquan Workhouse. Their “crime” involved silently marching in front of the White House in an appeal to President Woodrow Wilson to give women the right to vote. They marched and they held signs. On that fateful night, they suffered brutal physical abuse at the hands of those who held them incarcerated, under the directive of a judge who had grown tired of sentencing them.  Later known as The Night of Terror, the suffragists were tortured, with one having a heart attack after being physically thrown by a guard.  Lucy Burns spent the entire night handcuffed with her hands above her head.  Because she refused to eat, eventually it would take five guards to hold her down while they force fed her by shoving a tube up her nostril, causing severe nose bleeds. Of all the well-known suffragists, Burns spent the most time in jail.

Eventually, public outrage at how these women were treated would force Wilson to call a special session in May of 1919.  The Susan B. Anthony Amendment was passed in June of 1919, and was ratified in August of 1920.  The 19^th Amendment to the Constitution finally guaranteed women the right to vote due to the bravery of over 2,000 women who, throughout a 2 ½ year vigil, picketed silently and were harassed, arrested and unjustly treated by authorities.  These suffragists were known as the Silent Sentinels.

While it is probable that Nellie Bly and Alice Paul might have known each other, there is no record they ever met, nor any record Bly ever reached out to either Paul or Lucy Burns.  The Bly/Paul encounter is fictional, as is the character of Adelia.

Act One

Scene One

Open.

Setting: a park in Brooklyn, NY. November, 1921

There is a bench, covered with snow. LUCY BURNS appears clutching an open letter. She is distraught and paces before wiping the snow from the bench and sitting down on it. She is alone.

LUCY BURNS

This horrible woman! (she shakes the letter and reads it aloud) ‘I am certain you realize that public interest is great. Why not inform the readers what has happened to the suffragists of yesterday?’ (she stops reading) Yesterday? The gall. Does she not realize that we are still fighting? Fighting the demons of yesterday that no one would understand, including herself, that’s what. Fighting for our sanity and peace. Hoping someone else will take up the fight for tomorrow? Fighting for simply being left alone. (she weeps, then continues looking up) Why is it that I feel such dislike for this woman? Did I not march and endure the unspeakable so that all women, including those such as herself, would have opportunity and see their rights equal to men realized? Try as I might, I cannot shake the feeling of resentment toward her, and those like her. Those who chose to sit at home, knitting or saying ‘yes, dear’ to their husbands who no more thought they deserved the vote than the ones who cuffed me to a jail cell while I bled from my nose. (she stares, and in barely a whisper continues) Even now, after all that, they will more than likely never vote, thinking they do not deserve to, and believing those same men who tell them they cannot. What was the fight for then? (she stands) If they had just taken part, perhaps they would know the sacrifice it took to give them the right they do not exercise. (she stares in a trance as lights dim over her)

Audience hears what LUCY BURNS is remembering: the roll call of each woman incarcerated in Occoquan. As each woman says her name, a spotlight appears behind her, disappearing as the next is called.

Offstage

LUCY BURNS’ VOICE:  Roll Call!

©Veronica Randolph Batterson 2019

  

Her Story

This month marks the centennial anniversary of the 19th Amendment being ratified, giving women the right to vote in the United States. I'm working on a blog post about this and hope to share it in a couple of days. The following is a poem I wrote recently. The words came to me quickly and it reads like song lyrics I think. The photo is a painting in progress, too. While I still have quite a bit more to do it, any amount of painting I can do is something I'm proud of due to some history I've shared here in past posts. Acrylic on canvas. As always, thanks for reading. Also, as always, copyright applies.


Her Story 

By Veronica Randolph Batterson 
©Veronica Randolph Batterson 2020

Driving down that dirt road 
Taking her back…to football games, high school dances 
In her memories 
Tried to fit in, now she feels so old. 

Where’d time go? 
Scraped knees, mud pies and fireflies
Learning to drive 
How is she ancient…wasn’t it yesterday when she turned eighteen? 

He said he missed her, she said it was a rebound 
He said he loved her, she said find another 
He said it meant nothing…she said it meant everything 
It meant everything. 

Riding bicycles in the rain 
Running through puddles 
He shared his umbrella and said be mine 
She said that’s fine…it was so fine. 

It’s her story but his is different 
She showed him…told him 
He didn’t see it or hear her 
He never did…no, he never would. 

He said he missed her, she said it was a rebound 
He said he loved her, she said find another 
He said it meant nothing…she said it meant everything 
It meant everything. 

She’s 21, and 39, and just turned 50 
Makes no difference when his story is the same 
And her story is full of pain…again 
All because of his story…always his story. 

Blue jeans and cowboy boots 
Sitting on the front porch 
His eyes wandered to the nearest scent while she talked to him 
Testing the waters and jumping the fence…while she waited…always waiting. 

He said he missed her, she said it was a rebound 
He said he loved her, she said find another 
He said it meant nothing…she said it meant everything 
It meant everything. 

Those magical nights under the stars 
Stolen kisses and hidden smiles 
She cooked his dinners and laughed at his jokes 
Even when they weren’t funny. 

Then he left and never said goodbye 
She packed up too and moved away 
He went through that revolving door…and didn’t believe in karma 
She wondered if he did now. 

He said he missed her, she said it was a rebound 
He said he loved her, she said find another 
He said it meant nothing…she said it meant everything 
It meant everything. 

It’s her story…but his is different 
She showed him…told him 
He didn’t see it or hear her 
He never did…no, he never would.

©Veronica Randolph Batterson 2020

Seneca Falls Convention of 1848

On this date in history, July 19, 1848, the first women's rights convention in the United States was held in Seneca Falls, New York. One hundred and seventy-two years ago! This two day meeting launched the women's suffrage movement that would ultimately lead to the 19th Amendment to the Constitution being ratified which gave women the right to vote. It took over seventy years.

Adopted were the Declaration of Sentiments, modeled after the Declaration of Independence, demanding women have equality with men under the law in education and employment, among other things. Many believe this convention started the women's rights movement that continues today.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton opened the convention with the following, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal."

Say her name. Know her name. Remember her name.

Plans Change...Books Continue

It's always such a nice surprise when someone reaches out to me with a positive message about my books. Williamsburg Hill was published in 2018, yet I still receive kind words about how readers enjoyed it. I'm grateful for this, and for the fact that it's still being read while appealing to a new generation of people.

Covid-19 has affected life in ways that have forced us to change plans. I'd been working on a play about the suffragist movement and women getting the vote in 1920 (anticipation of a staged reading to coincide with the centennial anniversary in August). This won't happen for obvious reasons.  The performing arts suffer and the stage remains dark. At some point the play will be ready for the stage, just not as I'd hoped.

While the play is paused, I'm outlining the next book. I've a couple in the works, but research on a historical fiction piece has stalled due to limited access to records (again, the virus); so I'm proceeding with the one that is closer to having a green light. I'll share as it gets going.

For now, I'm going to repeat a blog post about the backstory to Williamsburg Hill since it continues to invite new folks to visit its pages. It can be ordered in paperback from all bookstores and every big chain store that sells books in the US: all of the independent booksellers in any city,  as well as Indiebound, Barnes and Noble, Walmart, Meijer, Books-a-Million, Target, Costco (I know I'm forgetting some), and of course, Amazon. It's also available for Kindle readers and is part of the Kindle Unlimited program on Amazon, too.

Thank you, again, for supporting my books. If you're interested in sharing this to invite new readers, well, thank you for that, too. Please visit my website www.veronicabatterson.com for more information and updates.

Now for the backstory...

In early 2014, I began listing ideas for my next book.  Historical fiction was a genre that I wished to attempt, but it was important to me that the historical part of the book be something that wouldn’t present a lot of challenges with research.  I lived in the Chicago area at the time, so I assumed some localized history would be easy enough to research; if travel were required, it would be simple to do by car.  Easy and simple were far from reality, as I discovered, with legends and lore playing greater roles than historical documents in creating this book.

I read about a town in south central Illinois, once active due to its main street being part of the Old Anglin’ Road stage coach route, that became non-existent in the late 1800s.  The town of Williamsburg (or village as some referred to it) was founded in 1839, and the region was referred to as Cold Spring.  Established at the time with a mill, the stage line, a general store, a blacksmith and postmaster, a medical doctor, Masonic hall and Methodist church, it is difficult to imagine how progress ultimately crippled the area and made it a ghost town.  In 1881, the stage line was discontinued as train travel replaced it, and the railroad tracks bypassed Williamsburg.  Residents and businesses moved, most to nearby Lakewood, leaving their former town to waste away.   

Williamsburg was located on the south side of Williamsburg Hill which still stands as the highest point in the area at over 800 feet.  Some speculate the hill was formed due to glaciers; others seem to think it to be an Indian mound.  There is really no definitive answer to its existence.  But resting at the top of Williamsburg Hill is Ridge Cemetery, still accessible today.  And there was the basis of my story.

I traveled to Ridge Cemetery twice (in 2014 and 2016).  It isn’t a place that one simply discovers on an afternoon drive. It is a pre-planned destination; its isolation is assurance of this.  It also isn’t a place a person should travel to alone.  As there is much folklore but little history that I could find about the cemetery, I assume it originated around the time that the village of Williamsburg did.  The dates on many of the tombstones verify this, but there are recent burials there as well.  It is an old cemetery, yet a currently used one; it is serene and peaceful, while strange and a little unnerving; it’s beautiful, yet rugged; maintained but weathered.  And yes, it is somewhat creepy.

The cast of characters in this story are fictional, with the exception of J.P. Dunaway, J.W. Torbutt, Dr. Thomas Fritts, and Orville Robertson.  Their occupations in my book are true to their history.  What is a little sketchy about them might be the location of where they settled.  I was fully into writing when I discovered a first-person historical account by a Dunaway descendant indicating the family had lived in Findlay, Illinois, not Williamsburg.  Because I was too far into the story to change anything, I took liberties.  Documented history about the area wasn’t easy to find, but plenty of folklore existed, so much of what I wrote is based on this.  And most of the folklore indicates these four figures and their families were part of Williamsburg Hill, at least at some point during the town’s reign.  It was important, perhaps out of obligation, to briefly mention the town of Findlay at the end though, which I did.  I also interchanged Williamsburg and Williamsburg Hill within the story, because it seemed to me that people living there would’ve done this as a way of generally referring to their home.

Finally, there is nothing left of Williamsburg.  Ridge Cemetery is not private, but open to anyone who wishes to visit as long as it’s done during the daylight hours.  It is a place deserving of respect.  If visiting, observe its history, wonder about its past, and listen quietly.  Perhaps you, too, will then hear the voices and laughter dancing through the breeze just as my character, Erastus, did.    

Next Time

When I was a kid, I remember believing the program dial on a radio took me from my little bedroom in Tennessee to places around the world I could only dream existed.  I would sit on the floor at night, holding the radio (with the antenna extended at maximum length) close to my ear while turning the knob and listening. Breaks in the static revealed music and conversation meant for listeners in far away places. It was probably my first introduction to hearing foreign languages spoken as many Spanish language formatted stations broke through after dark.  I learned a lot about music by doing this, hearing songs I liked and wanted to hear again.  It fueled my imagination; I wondered who might be listening to the song I was hearing from that "other-world" city, and it made me want to travel and see things beyond my own spot of earth.

That period of time was pre-FM, so the spinning dial that opened a gate to the world for me was strictly through AM stations.  FM (which had been around for a long time) became big in my neck of the woods later when I was in high school, which is probably deserving of its own blog post.  But AM radio ruled then and in our little community, just a few streets from our house, sat a giant 50,000-watt AM powerhouse.  It was no joke when someone said they could hear music from WFLI playing from the kitchen sink, or from an electrical outlet, or behind a wall, or… wherever and anywhere.  I thought it was the coolest thing.  It was music, and I was a kid opening my eyes to the world, and for some reason it meant a taste of freedom and the future.  Jet FLI, as it was known, reduced its power at night to only 2500 watts, which probably helped with other stations reaching my listening ears as I went in search of them once night fell.

It was about that time in my life when the use of “someday” and “one day” became a road map of planning things.  One day I would see this, and someday I’d visit that place; one day I’d accomplish (fill in the blank); a great deal of the time I did.  It wasn’t until later in life that those two expressions went from being a pursuit of dreams to procrastination and excuses for not fulfilling them.

On last season’s series of This Is US, the character known as Rebecca rationalized with another one: next time.  Spoilers are ahead in case you’ve yet to see it. With the show’s typical use of flashbacks, Rebecca found herself always using the excuse of “next time” to justify why she didn’t get to see/do something she had planned, usually when she took a backseat to what her kids wanted, or when time for her couldn’t be worked in around other family or work wants.  When it was revealed the character had early stage Alzheimer’s, she admitted to her son how time was running out for next times to happen.  This wonderfully written character said, “My life has been full of next times, things I assumed I would get to eventually. But now I realize I am running out of time to do them.” 

While there are people who live in the now and make the most of fulfilling every possible situation while they have it, that’s not a possibility for many of us.  We settle, balance, compromise, sacrifice, and excuse until we look around and are shocked at where the years have gone.  We realize the boat that’s carrying all of those others to the somedays and one days, and yes, now, left us behind and we’re just treading water with whatever time we have left. 

In 2015, I wrote a blog post (Your Life is Now), that explained how I’d basically started laying out a road map for my future when I was seventeen.  Recalling how I lamented a bit about wishing I could change some things, the biggest regret I had when I wrote it (and still do) was wishing I’d slowed down a bit and savored the now.  Hearing those radio stations through tiny speakers as a youth no doubt kickstarted my eventual planning for the somedays and one day; I can’t pinpoint though when it changed for me.  I have traveled, yet there’s so much more I’d like to see, but the urgency and need aren’t as strong anymore.  Maybe it’s my age or perhaps I’m finally accepting the now; like Rebecca, I also worry about running out of time, but I think that’s due to the unknown of what society is currently facing, in addition to how old I am getting.

I like to think being confined at home during this pandemic opened our eyes, brought others down to earth and made all of us appreciate how fragile life is and what a limited time we’re given. Realizing priorities. Based on some of the ugliness I see on social media though, I know I’m being naïve in thinking this. One can hope though. 

That early foundation known as music set me in motion, and helped me dream.  I wrote much of my book, Daniel’s Esperanza, listening to William Ackerman’s Meditations, and Ottmar Liebert’s Spanish Sun, all instrumental.  If you’ve read the book, and know the music perhaps you can visualize the story and scenes and how they came to be with this musical influence. It’s how I create. Listening to music. The artistic side continues but at a less frenetic and frenzied pace…in the now, and looking forward to next time more slowly.  

  

Face Masks

As the country takes steps to lift stay-at-home orders, it's difficult to believe that anything will ever be the same as we've known it. The future is about change and adjustment, compromise and being accommodating. Wearing face masks in public is the new normal, at least for the foreseeable future. 

Kudos to those who have made and donated masks; some of us are selling them, as well. Those provided via Pixels/Fine Art America are made from images created by artists on that site. All products are 100% satisfaction guaranteed. Below is a sampling of some of mine that are available; full resolution and the entire product line can be found at www.veronica-batterson.pixels.com. For masks, click on the apparel link at the top on the home page. 

Many thanks, as always, and please be safe, diligent, and kind.