(3)

Once upon a time our planetary neighbors--and the rest of the cosmos--were still a huge, imagination-tweaking mystery.  We had not yet landed on the moon.  Sputnik 1 was still a few years away.

We only knew what we could see and what we could imagine.

And as so often happens with humans, our imaginings, fears and guesses became muddled up with bits of science and a lot of theory and boom--you have books like these written by hopeful people yearning for that GREAT CONNECTION.

I discovered this treasure where I discover so many of my vintage book treasures--at a Half Price Books Store.

You'l find no sketches of space people here.  No faux luxurious binding.  Just a simple book, inexpensively printed, documenting a collection of quasi-scientific, undoubtedly earnest explorations into the existence of intelligent  extraterrestrial life.

Enter the authors.

(4)

Chicago born George Hunt Williamson began his fascination with mystic phenomena as a teenager, shifting it into the field of archaeology as an adult (2).   He studied archaeology at the University of Arizona, centering his interest on Native American  history (2).   In "The Saucers Speak!" he delves into  Native American folklore and tales across a variety of tribes that describe  "flying boats" and  "little wise people". George was convinced that these tales served as a  kind of  proof of early extraterrestrial visits (3).

George's fascination with extraterrestrial life, mysticism and the occult grew rather than diminished.   He became a devotee of cult leaders William Dudley Pelley and George Adamski, using supposed telepathic communication via a homemade Ouija board to contact what they came to call the "space brothers"--an interplanetary group of space beings who evidently had learned enough English to engage in telepathic chats. (2,3)

(1) George H. Williamson (left)

Unlike George Hunt Williamson, Alfred C. Bailey was a bit more difficult to research.   George seems to have been the front man in this extraterrestrial-searching duo, with Railroad conductor Alfred Bailey (as well as his wife)  serving as George's main partner in Ouija-informed communications (2,3).

It should come as no surprise then that "The Saucers Speak!" is a "documentary" primarily relying on George and Alfred's copious Ouija-board sessions detailing repeated and at times lengthy "conversations" with "space intelligences" from our neighboring planets  as well as from  distant planets (Andromeda, Planet 15 of Solar System 22, the Toresoton Solar System, among many others*). (3)  Tucked in here and there amid the Ouija-based findings are tales of interstellar contact made by  ham radio operators, space being visitations made to remote  areas, often at night, and  reports of saucer sightings from around the globe.

However it is the transcripts of the Ouija-style "contacts" that are the most engaging--and there are plenty of them.

"Good and evil forces are working now.  Organization is important for the salvation of your world.  Contact us as soon as you can."  (Message from Masar (Mars) to Saras (Earth))  (Pg. 44)(3)

"'To apples we salt, we return.'  You may not understand this strange saying now, but someday you will.  It is from one of our old prophecy legends." (From Zo on Neptune to Earth. Pg. 50)(3)

"Kadar Lacu, my brothers.  I am several hundred years old.  A mere youth.  The time has come to reveal these things to you. If man would only realize that he should love his brother." (Pg. 75)(3)

Here and there George and Alfred also share various radio contacts made with our space brethren, mostly comprised of strings of numbers or letters with jumbled messages tossed in the middle:


"450 TE SA AFFA SWAP YOUR R 450 K SWAP T I ARE YOU APPEAR TO YOU LATER WHEN AS OR SHIP COMPREHEND DA DA K SE WID26 EE WID26 Q QRA WID26." (PG. 68)(3)

So what exactly is "The Saucers Speak!"?  A documentary as the authors claim?  A sci-fi spoof like "War of the Worlds"?  The obsessed fantasies of grown dreamers who are convinced that correlation really is causation?

I don't know.

As I read this book I realized how easily intelligent, well-meaning people can be led astray--led astray by a charismatic leader, or an engaging idea, or by their own minds.   Even now, over 60 years after this book was first published, we have a sizable swath of people who view scientific fact as optional--people who believe that   climate change is a hoax and that evolution is a theory.

Now, I'm not saying that I believe we are entirely alone in the universe with our big brains and opposable thumbs.   I think it is only a matter of time before SETI stumbles upon something mind-blowingly real that will put us in our place.

However I highly doubt that life forms living in distant galaxies would choose to communicate with us via Ouija board or  ham radio.

But you know what?  I may be wrong.

And that's the beauty of the unknown--you never know.

















*Don't bother looking up the names of these distant planets.  They resided exclusively in the head of George H. Williamson, Alfred C. Bailey and all their fellow Ouija-board loving interstellar enthusiasts. 

Sources

1. http://science.howstuffworks.com/space/aliens-ufos/ufo-history6.htm
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hunt_Williamson
3. "The Saucers Speak!" by George H. Williamson and Alfred C. Bailey. New Age Publishing Co. 1954. 
4. http://rr0.org/people/h/HuntWilliamsonGeorge/

ぞうのホートンひとだすけ (Horton Hears a Who)

(3)

Last week I was once again huddled on the floor in the vintage books  corner of "Half Price Books".

My eye caught sight of a familiar orange-spined children's book.   The corners of the front and back cover were predictably soft and rounded.  Inside on the front end paper a name was printed in bold, decidedly adult handwriting and a large, faint ball point "X" had been scrawled across the smiling elephant face on the front cover.  I got a strong, happy vibe that this may have once been a teacher's book.

Aside from these signs of age, the book was in very good condition.  I levered myself off the floor and sat in a chair, "Horton Hears a Who" gently cradled in my arm.

"Horton Hears a Who!", written and illustrated  by Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel)  is just one of Dr. Seuss'  many iconic, instantly-recognizable and, indeed, universally beloved creations.  Dr. Seuss' works have been translated into over 20 languages (2) including, of course, Japanese.

And yes, there is a reason I am fixating on Japanese.

(3)

I looked at the copyright date inside the front page--the year "1954" hovered  near the bottom. Not quite trusting that I was holding a first edition book, I pulled out my iphone and after about 15 minutes of poking at the tiny screen, I ascertained I was indeed holding perhaps a 1965  or 1966 edition, based on the back cover details and the fact that the list  Other Books by Dr. Seuss in the front of the book ended with two books published in 1965: "I had Trouble Getting to Solla Sollew" and "Fox in Socks" (10).

 As a student I must have read this book--or had it read to me--countless times.  As a Early Childhood/Kindergarten teacher I must have read it aloud to students a hundred times more--at least--over my 25 years as a teacher.  I recognized each picture. I recalled each turn of phrase.

(3)

But there was one thing I did not recall noticing.  Not once.

The dedication.

"For My Great Friend,
Mitsugi Nakamura
of Kyoto,
Japan."


How was it that I had never noticed this before?  I lived for coincidences like this.  I had lived in Japan for 8 1/2 years--5 of those years in Kyoto.  And here was a detail in a beloved children's book just screaming coincidence.  Even more perplexing was the fact that I always, ALWAYS pointed out the dedications in the books I read aloud to my students.  Doing so not only brought us closer to seeing the author as a real person, but sometimes also planted a tiny seed in many students about who THEY would dedicate a book to, if THEY were to write a book.

So how did I miss THIS dedication?


Before I could try to discover the identity of Mitsugi Nakamura I had to step back a bit, before "Horton Hears a Who!" was written, back to World War II. Back to the years 1940 to 1948, when Theodor Geisel was the chief editorial cartoonist for the New York newspaper PM. (4)

(8)

Throughout World War II Theodor Geisel turned his talents, not to writing and illustrating whimsical tales of cats and elephants, but to creating scathing political cartoons and newsreels  that caricatured and demonized those people and countries against whom the United States was fighting in the war--namely Germany and Japan.(5)   While many sources I could find described Geisel as a supporter of civil rights, women's issues and labor unions (5, 6), at the same time he was creating anti-German and anti-Japanese political cartoons which he considered to be part of the defense of his country in wartime. (4)  He, like so many other Americans, felt it was his patriotic duty to stand against Germany and Japan--a duty carried out as much through  his art  as through his 1943 enlistment in the Army as part of Frank Capra's Signal Corps unit.(4,8,11)


So if Theodor Geisel was so anti-Japanese, how is it that he dedicated  "Horton Hears a Who!"  to his "...Great Friend, Mitsugi Nakamura, of Kyoto, Japan"(1)?

Simple.  He went to Japan.

On March 23rd 1953 Theodor Geisel visited Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe Japan (4,7,8).    He went there on assignment by the Ford Foundation to investigate the effects of World War II upon children and to ascertain the effects of the American occupation. (8) Geisel's friend from Dartmouth, Professor Donald Bartlett, arranged for him to meet with teachers in each city, who then had their students draw pictures to give Geisel of what they hoped to become in the future. (8)

I don't think it is too much of an exaggeration to say that his trip to Japan was life changing.

It is as true now as it always has been:  it is much harder to demonize people once you get to know them. Once you see the world through their eyes.

It was during that trip that Professor Bartlett  introduced Geisel to  Mitsugi Nakamura, who was then Dean of Doshisha University in Kyoto. (8)

According to sources I could find, a close and lasting friendship grew between Geisel and Nakamura-san, with multiple trips made to visit each other over the years and Nakamura-san's daughter even being sponsored by Geisel and his wife to attend college in California. (8)

Geisel's trip to Japan ultimately fueled his desire to write "Horton Hears a Who!"--a book that
has been interpreted to represent Geisel's desire to offer protection and guidance to Japan as they tried to heal from the war, and more specifically, from the bombs that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (12)  Across all the articles I read, there was a general consensus that "Horton Hears a Who!" was written as both an apology of sorts for Geisel's earlier, war-tainted views against the Japanese people, as well as a cautionary tale for all of us, countries, governments and individuals alike.

In the course of researching for this post, I came across many academic papers, opinion pieces and blogs that asked multiple versions of the same questions:  How can we reconcile that Dr. Seuss, creator of so many powerful, beloved children's books, was the same man who once drew such painful, racist and dangerous political cartoons? And can we forgive him?

This is perhaps a question wrongly put.

It is not for us to forgive.   Theodor Geisel chose to re-evaluate his beliefs rather than allow himself to stagnate in his former fear and hatred of former enemies.  He kept growing, not towards perfection (a human impossibility), but towards greater understanding.

"Horton Hears a Who!" may have been partly written as an apology. However as I re-read it now, it seems instead to  reflect Geisel's attempt to share the lessons he learned, perhaps with an eye towards building a better future.

The question  is not "Can we forgive him?" but rather "What can we learn from him?"

As it turns out, we can learn perhaps a great deal, and not just through his words and pictures.

Sources

1. http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Horton-Hears-a-Who-Japanese-Edition-Dr-Seuss-/162150032379?hash=item25c0e523fb:g:kn8AAOSwTZ1XmMHG

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Seuss

3. "Horton Hears a Who"  Dr. Seuss.  Random House. New  York.  1955.

4. http://www.openculture.com/2014/08/dr-seuss-draws-racist-anti-japanese-cartoons-during-ww-ii.html

5. http://www.history.com/news/when-dr-seuss-went-to-war

6. http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/14765-radical-reading-the-progressive-dr-seuss

7. https://derwombat.net/2015/08/06/after-visiting-hiroshima-dr-seuss-atones-with-a-book/

8. http://www.drseussart.com/horton-60/

9. http://1stedition.net/blog/2007/01/horton_hears_a_who_1954.html

10. http://www.best-books-for-kids.com/list-of-dr-seuss-books.html

11. http://masshumanities.org/about/news/f04-pds/

12. https://seussblog.wordpress.com/tag/dr-seuss/page/7/

The Unexpected Imagination of Tom Seidmann-Freud

(6) Photo courtesy of Max Halberstadt 1921

When a person hears the name "Freud" I would imagine that a very specific image  comes to mind.

This one. The stern, bearded face of  Sigmund Freud, famed father of psychoanalysis.


Yet I'd argue that as intriguing as Sigmund Freud was, he was by no means the only member of the extensive Freud family worth learning about.


I was meandering my way through the Weinstein Collection of vintage and rare children's books (which I have the honor of working with  through my position with the Center for Teaching Through Children's Books in Skokie, Illinois).   There were many distracting treasures.  And then I saw this:

Everything about it piqued my interest, not the least of which was the mysteriously free-floating orange fish and the author's name--Tom Seidmann-Freud.

Tom was born in Austria in 1892 under her  given name Martha Gertrude Freud. (7)  Her mother, Mitzi, was Sigmund Freud's younger sister and her father, Moritz, was Sigmund and Mitzi's cousin. (7)

Before World War II Tom enjoyed a privileged life, growing up in Berlin and later attending art school in London. (1)  Tom abandoned her given name "Martha" as a teenager in hopes that using a masculine name would smooth her path as an artist. (1).  Many sources claim that Tom also dressed in men's clothing, although there are family members who dispute this. (1)

A number of sources I found described Tom as a sensitive, nervous child who grew into an adult with emotional issues and a tendency towards eccentricities, including her name change, mens clothing and heavy smoking. (2)(3)

(1) Angela and Tom Seidmann Freud

When Tom was 28 years old she fell in love with Jakob Seidmann, marrying him a year later and giving birth to their daughter, Angela, a year after that. (1)  Throughout this time Tom created a number of children's books including "Peregrin and the Goldfish", published in 1929. (1) Her books received favorable reviews, but sadly many of Tom's creations--books as well as works of art--were destroyed when Hitler came into power. (2)

In 1922 Tom and her husband decided to partner up with the Hebrew poet Chaim Nachman Bialik to create a publishing company called "Ophir". (1)  They put their trust in the wrong person however. Bialik betrayed them, refusing to contribute his share of funds to the fledgling publishing company. As a result Tom and her husband were left penniless. (1) Jakob was unable to come to terms with this failure. He committed suicide in 1929; Tom followed a year later, starving herself to death. (1)  They left behind their daughter Angela, who was seven years old. (1)


Tom's  books and artwork that survived the Nazi purge point to a complex, tremendously creative woman.  The book I was lucky enough to stumble across is a testament to her talent.

"Peregrin and the Goldfish" begins with a boy named Peregrin who falls asleep beneath a tree and begins to dream.

The dream  begins softly--Peregrin sees himself carrying his pet goldfish, Nickeling, in a bowl as he  makes his way through a skewed world of tilted, rainbow-hued houses.

And then he falls down, dropping and shattering the bowl on the ground.

 Nickeling the goldfish swells up to huge proportions.

Freed from his bowl (and now appropriately large), Nickeling encourages Peregrin to accompany him to "...go out into the world together, for there is much to see.  Come with me!"

Nickeling brings Peregrin to yet another strange land.  Peregrin feels frightened and out-of-place, but soon enough he begins meeting an array of children who reach out to him.







Peregrin joins the children, helping them with their various daily tasks--picking fruit, selling the fruit at market, building houses, studying books.

Finally, exhausted and homesick, Peregrin calls out to Nickeling to bring him home.

Nickeling appears, takes Peregrin into his mouth.  The fish carries Peregrin into increasing darkness, finally diving down into the water until Peregrin wakes up.

The story and writing style (albeit translated from the original German) is simple and almost musical at times.

However the tale has an underlying darkness that I can imagine children delighted in as well as feared.  The images of odd landscapes, unknown people and an eventual plunge into darkness are the stuff from which  fears and troubling, thrilling dreams rise.

These dark undertones  seem all the more obvious when paired with Tom's crisp artistic style (a stencil and layering method called 'pochoir' (2)), the clean lines and pure jewel tones of the colors almost like folk art.  While not all of Tom's work follows this style, many of her books certainly do.

The tragic lives of Tom Seidmann-Freud, her husband and daughter  are but one piece of the troubling story of the entire Freud family.  Tom's mother, Mitzi, outlived her daughter  only to be put to death in a Nazi Concentration Camp in 1942. (7)  Four of Sigmund Freud's five sisters died in Concentration Camps, the rest of the Freud family splintered apart in their search for refuge. (7)

Reflecting upon Tom's life, I find myself wondering how much of her   unique sensibilities snuck onto paper through story and art.  The bright surfaces of Tom's art seem to  hide intricate and unexpected secrets, and I find myself unable to look away.

Although many of Tom's books and works of art were destroyed in the Nazi purge during World War II, enough (now very rare) copies survive to give us a peek into Tom Seidmann-Freud's volume of work that includes fairy tale books, moving picture books, counting books as well as illustrations completed for other writers. (2)

As I hold this copy of "Peregrin and the Goldfish" in my hands,  I can only feel gratitude for the chance to learn about Tom, and sadness for all that was lost.





Sources

1.  http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/92277/not-a-fairy-tale

2. http://www.tomseidmannfreud.com/

3. http://50watts.com/The-Rabbit-Dreams-of-Dr-Freud-s-Niece

4. http://marjorieingall.com/the-sad-short-life-of-tom-seidmann-freud/

5. https://www.geni.com/people/Tom-Martha-Gertrude-Freud/6000000015578563662

6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud

7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freud_family

Imagining the Moon: Moon Landing Fictional Non-Fiction

You Will Go To The Moon by Mae and Ira Freeman.
Illustrated by Robert Patterson. Beginner Books Inc. 1959. 

 I wonder if there was a first human to look up into a moonlit night sky and wonder what it would be like to walk upon the faraway moon.

I can't help but feel that it had to have been a child.

I happened upon this children's book wedged into an overcrowded bottom shelf at Half Priced Books (which is quickly becoming one of my favorite book haunts).   It was an easy book to overlook--the spine is an unremarkable brown with white block letters spelling out the equally unremarkable title.  

But I slid it out anyway, and I am so glad that I did.

This book feels like a non-fiction book.   Easy vocabulary aimed at a 1st or 2nd grade reading level.   Specific scientific vocabulary such as "gravity", "centrifugal force" and "inertia" are discussed  in the text and then defined and described in detail in a brief, simply written glossary in back.

And perhaps in 1959 this was considered a non-fiction book of sorts--a scientific inspiration-sparker for young starry eyed someday astronauts designed to whet their whistles for the future of space travel.

But reading it now in 2016, 57 years after it was written and 47 years after the first actual moon landing, it seems almost campy--like a written version of early science fiction TV dramas.

Clearly the seeds for the actual moon landing in 1969 had been planted and informed by the Russian space endeavors, starting with the first ever earth orbiting satellite Sputnik 1 in 1957. (1).  This was followed closely by Sputnik 2 which sent the first living creature into orbit--a dog named "Laika". (1)

The gauntlet had been thrown down and the race was on between the USSR and the United States--who would get to the moon first?

Vostok 1 (4)

By 1961 the Russians had sent the first human (Yuri Gagarin) into orbit around the earth.(1)   Gagarin's spacecraft--named "Vostok 1", did not resemble the sleek rockets dreamed up by science fiction writers or even forward-thinking scientists. But the fuel for dreams was there--and I can't help but feel that images of these early Russian spacecraft fueled the illustrations for this book, at least in part.  And since the concept of multi-stage rockets has been around since between 1300-1350 AD in China (5),  both the authors Mae and Ira Freeman, and illustrator Robert Patterson must have had ample source material upon which to base the story and drawings.

But this book was written and published before Yuri Gagarin made his historic trip into orbit--and it shows.

Authors Mae and Ira Freeman must have been aware of where this book would stand--straddling science fiction and science fact.   To bridge this, they wrote the book in second-person future tense.  It reads like a narrator directing you through your particularly detailed and realistic dream and is reflected in the title You Will Go To The Moon.  






Take for example how space travel is depicted in the illustrations--the young main character and the "rocket man" (as he is called in the book) are shown wearing regular clothes, reclining in modified airline seats.










Also note the presence of a space station--depicted in the book as a kind of roadside rest stop at the halfway point between earth and moon.

*Please notice the obvious lack of women in space.  In fact the only woman
shown in this book is the boy's mother (accompanied by his father)
as they walk the boy to the rocket to see him off on his trip to the moon.

*Also space travel is not only devoid of  women, but also of any kind of
diversity.   Space travel in 1959 was evidently imagined as being solely
a "white guy" thing.   This makes me crazy.

In this space station, the young space traveler and his "rocket man" friend are able to enjoy various types of recreation while they wait for their "moon ship" which will take them the rest of the way to the moon.

The glossary  handily provides scientific definitions of "gravity" and "centrifugal force" to explain the presence of gravity on the space station.

The moon ship is shown as a 2-story vehicle encased in a dome of clear glass.

The text goes on to describe the three-day trip between the space station and the moon as a kind of weightless vacation in a space-age rec room replete with a tv showing a baseball game broadcast from earth, floating books to read, a magnetic chess set and various refreshments to enjoy.















Finally, one of the last pages in the book shows a "moon house", where evidently people will be able to live once they reach the moon.


When I read this book I ended up feeing rather wistful.  Once upon the time the idea of scientific endeavor and space exploration fired our imaginations and even built bridges between nations--shaky and perhaps short-lived bridges, yes, but bridges nonetheless--as we collectively tried to expand our understanding of the universe.

Now, in 2016, it seems that we humans have lost a lot of our curious spark, and have drawn away from imagining any kind of future except the kind we can peek at on the tiny screens we hold in our hands.

I admit my cynicism.

However I do take comfort in imagining the child who once owned this book.

Maybe a little boy or girl ("Ebward"?  "E.B. Ward"?) who read this book with a parent or a grandparent or a teacher and dreamed of going to the moon and living in a "moon house".

Maybe a little boy or girl who grew up and lived up to these dreams.

Who knows?








































Sources

1. http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/soviet-union-first-moon

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11

3. http://ezinearticles.com/?Critique-Of-Ira-M-Freemans-Book:-All-About-The-Atom&id=6123395

4. http://eandt.theiet.org/magazine/2011/03/yuri-gagarin.cfm

5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multistage_rocket#History_and_development

Once Upon a Mother Goose: The Elusive Ms. Madge A. Bigham

Stories of Mother Goose Village. Madge Alford Bigham.
Rand, McNally & Company. 1927. 

Once again, as I bumble my book-lousy way through the endless quantities of old books (or what I consider endless, for practical purposes), I have stumbled on a person who seems to have been erased from history.

Not removed.

Not hidden precisely, but erased--erased in such a way that you have to look really hard at where she used to be in order to find her again.

Like when you erase something you wrote in pencil, but can still just manage to see the ghostly imprint of your words, still pressed into the paper long after the graphite has been rubbed away.

Madge Alford Bigham is one of these erased people.

Madge was born in LaGrange, Georgia in 1874. (2)  She was one of  ultimately 12 children of Rev. Robert William Bigham--Madge and her 7 brothers and sisters by their mother Charlotte, and then later joined by 4 younger siblings by their father and his second wife. (2)

This is pretty much the extent of what I could find out about Madge's early life, and the sources I was able to uncover pretty much all agreed--very little is known now about Madge Bigham.   I can't help but find this lack of information frustrating, for I always wonder how people's childhoods impact their adult choices.  This, I find, is especially true when I consider Madge.

By the age of 22 she had graduated from the Georgia Women's College, and within 5 or 6 years had become principal of the Atlanta Free Kindergarten--one of the first kindergartens in the United States. (2) From what I could piece together, this Kindergarten was likely located in an attached area in her own house, which she shared with her brother and 2 sisters--all of whom never married. (1) (2).

However Madge was not only a groundbreaking  educator,  introducing the Atlanta area to the concept of kindergarten programs.  Madge also followed in her father's publishing footsteps as a talented and savvy author in her own right. (2)

Which brings us to this book, Stories of Mother Goose Village, first published in 1903.

 This is not just another collection of Mother Goose rhymes, although Madge includes a pleasingly complete collection of Mother Goose rhymes in the back of the book.

This book most closely resembles a kind of text book, or skills book primarily focused on basic math skills and reading comprehension.  The entirety of it is couched in a surprisingly delightful storyline where the characters from Mother Goose rhymes and poems all live in Mother Goose Village.  The skills and/or lessons in the book are then couched in various stories involving these characters.

That Madge was a teacher and principal is obvious when one turns to the back of the book where she has added a section specifically for teachers that offers a brief summary of each chapter and skills objectives.

Ordinal numbers, sequential thinking and creating lists

Numbers, symmetry, geometry--using an activity that is still in use today

As so often happens when I start digging around in old books, I stumbled on a lovely small epiphany.  Most Early Childhood and Kindergarten teachers today are familiar with the apple-based story of the "The Little House with No Doors and No Windows and a Star Inside".  Many teachers bring out this story in various forms and levels of complexity during autumn months, when apples are seasonally plentiful.   In this story, the apple is the house, and when you slice the apple open horizontally, you find the seeds in their little pods in the shape of a 5 pointed star.   Usually this story is attributed to "unknown".

(2)

Not any more.

This story originally comes from none other than Madge Alford Bigham, in her book Overheard in Fairyland (1914).(2)   When I think of all the years I taught young children, and used this story, never knowing who first cut open an apple one day and saw, not a snack, but a story.

Which also reminds me of my original wistful consideration of how people get erased. Some, like Madge, get erased, but incompletely, so that a determined enough person could find her.

 Other people get erased from our collective consciousness so completely that no amount of determination could bring them to light.

(2)

Perhaps, in the end, our "nows" are as much eternity as we can hope for.









Sources

1.http://tomitronics.com/old_buildings/hammonds%20house/index.html

2. https://adventuresincemeteryhopping.wordpress.com/2013/10/25/madge-bigham-unearthing-an-atlanta-treasure/