HAPPY NEW YEAR 2025 from THE INTREPID TOURIST

Caroline, ice skating at Bottineau Park in Northeast Minneapolis, 1950.

"By New Year’s Day, the pine needles of the Christmas tree are dry and brittle. It is time to take the tree down. After the lights and ornaments are removed and boxed for next year, we take the tree outside to the roof deck, propping it up in the snow. Decorated with strings of bread cubes and cranberries, it is ready for the birds to enjoy. With the excitement of Christmas over, it is now time to write thank-you notes and to enjoy skating at Bottineau Park, sledding at the Columbia Park golf course, and other winter activities."

From Chapter 7: Family Christmas at NENH, SETTLEMENT HOUSE GIRL: Growing Up in the 1950s at North East Neighborhood House, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

I have fond memories of celebrating the holidays when I was a child in Minneapolis. Now, many years later, from my home in California, I send best wishes to you and all my faithful readers.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2025

 

  

HAPPY HOLIDAYS from THE INTREPID TOURIST

Scheaffer family in apartment at NENH, 1950.

"On Christmas Eve, after my brothers and I are asleep, my parents arrange “Santa’s” gifts under the tree. On Christmas morning, after everyone is awake, my father turns on the tree lights and gives the signal to enter. We rush in, each going straight to our own pile. Santa’s gifts are unwrapped and it is obvious who they are for—a doll for me, a train for Steve, stacking blocks for Peter, a stuffed toy for Tom."  

From Chapter 7: Family Christmas at NENH, SETTLEMENT HOUSE GIRL: Growing Up in the 1950s at North East Neighborhood House, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

 I have fond memories of celebrating Christmas when I was a child. Now, many years later, from my home in California, I send best wishes to you and all my faithful readers.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

2024

 

TRAVELING THE WORLD WITH STAMPS: The Joy of Stamp Collecting

Stamps from Chile.

From the time I was small I loved collecting postage stamps, following in the steps of my father who often spent his evenings sorting, choosing, and mounting stamps in his album. The foreign names, currencies and images introduced me to a wider world and made me want to travel to those far-off places. It wasn’t until I grew up that I had the chance to travel abroad, but as I sorted my stamps and put them into albums I dreamed of going to those countries one day. I write about my childhood stamp collecting in my memoir, SETTLEMENT HOUSEGIRL: Growing Up in the 1950s at North East Neighborhood House, Minneapolis,Minnesota. Here are some excerpts from the book:

Snowy Egret, by John James Audubon.

The decorations in my father’s office at North East Neighborhood House reflect two of his favorite hobbies—bird watching and stamp collecting.  On one wall, in a framed Audubon print, a snowy egret displays elegant white plumes. On another wall of my father’s office hangs a framed map of the United States filled with stamps commemorating notable historic events. On one stamp, tiny engraved images of men on horseback mark the arrival of the Kearny Expedition in New Mexico in 1846. On another, miniature boats brave a stormy sea to honor the Coast Guard. A stamp with the Iowa state flag flanked by two elegant stalks of corn honors the state’s 100^th birthday.

Iowa Statehood commemorative stamp in my father's album.

I share my father’s love of stamps and have my own album. I love the exotic country names printed on each stamp—Magyar, Sverig, Republique Ivoire—and locating them on the maps in our atlas.  I learn more about geography and history from those colorful paper rectangles than from my books at school.

Christmas always yields a bumper crop of stamps for my collection–from the envelopes of cards and letters to blocks of stamps cut from the brown paper wrapped packages from out-of-town. Staff and foreign students who are residents at NENH save the stamps from their mail and give them to me as well.  I tear off the stamped corners of the envelopes and put them into bowls of warm water to soak.  As the water dissolves the glue, the stamps float off their backing. I fish them out and put them between paper towels, pressing with a heavy book to keep them flat. 

How to apply hinges to your stamps.

Once the stamps are dry, I sort them into glassine envelopes.  I keep the stamps in cigar boxes and catalogue them alphabetically by country for foreign stamps, and numerically by denomination for US stamps, with a separate section for commemoratives. I select the best for my album, attaching each stamp with a folded paper hinge.

At the back of my album I have special pages for blocks—groups of four stamps torn from the 100 stamp sheets printed by the Post Office. Some of my blocks are in mint condition. These I slip into protective acetate holders. Unlike the used stamps, sullied by postmark ink and without glue on the back, these stamps can still be used for postage. The best mint blocks include the serial number for the sheet. Even more prized is a whole sheet of 100 stamps.

From the time I was born, my father routinely bought a sheet of each new commemorative at the time it was issued—three dollars a sheet—with the plan that they would grow in value over time. It was meant to be an investment to help fund my college education. Thirty years later, after I am grown, my father gives me his collection of mint sheets. They come with this note:

 

THE STAMP FANTASY

Buy one sheet of every new commemorative stamp for 18 years, 1944-1962.

Sell stamps in 1962 at their increased value, some at fantastic profit.

Result: Big Money  Equals: College education for Caroline

Reality: Missed many issues after 1948. Plus, couldn’t afford to keep it up, as cost of stamps increased from 3 cents to 4 cents to 10 cents, etc.

Value of stamps in collectors market in 1979:  3 cent stamp  =  3 cents cash

Therefore: Merry Christmas, 1979. Enjoy the stamps and use them for postage. Five 3 cent stamps = today’s postage.

Hope your envelopes are large enough!

By 1979, the cost of a first class stamp was 15 cents.

My father passed on his enthusiasm for stamp collecting to his grandson, my son Matt. When Matt was growing up, they spent hours together choosing stamps to put in his album.

Matt and my father, Les Scheaffer. 1984

"The postage stamps of a nation are a picture gallery of its glories. They depict in miniature its famous men and women, the great events of its history, its organizations, its industries, its natural wonders...No one can pursue this hobby without developing a greater knowledge of their national heritage." Arthur E. Summerfield, Postmaster General 1953-1961

SETTLEMENT HOUSE GIRL is available at Amazon in both a paperback and ebook edition. 

 

THE ROAD TO CAMP BOVEY: From Minneapolis to Northern Wisconsin, Recollections from Childhood

Camp Bovey sign, 1961.

Seventy-five years ago, under the direction of my father, Les Scheaffer, North East Neighborhood House, a settlement house in Minneapolis, founded Camp Bovey near Solon Springs, Wisconsin. It was a place where children and families of Northeast Minneapolis could enjoy nature and the outdoors, learn camping skills, and have fun together. My first trip to Camp Bovey (then called Camp Hodag) was when I was four years old. Over the next seventeen years I went there many times--with my family, as a camper, and as a staff member for the summer sessions when I was in college. No matter how many times I made the trip, I always felt the excitement of going to Camp.

The four Scheaffer children at Camp Bovey, 1951.

I write about Camp Bovey in four chapters of my new memoir, SETTLEMENT HOUSE GIRL: GrowingUp in the 1950s at North East Neighborhood House, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Here is an excerpt, describing the trip to Camp as I knew it as a child.

Camp Bovey. View of the lodge from across the lake, 2022.

The trip to Camp Bovey from northeast Minneapolis is 150 miles. I know all the stops and landmarks by heart, and no matter how many times I take the trip, the excitement of going to Camp never fades. If you don’t stop, you can make it in about three hours. But for our family the trip always takes longer, with stops along the way for gas, groceries, toilets, a picnic lunch, and if we are lucky, wildlife viewing--perhaps a deer, bald eagle, or in spring, a patch of trilliums.

We always aim to get an early start, but never do, and by the time we reach Taylor’s Falls on the Minnesota side of the St. Croix River, everyone is hungry. St. Croix State Park, across the bridge on the Wisconsin side of the river, is a favorite lunch spot with its scenic view, rocks to climb, and space for my brothers and me to use up some energy before getting back into the car.

After lunch we head east to Turtle Lake, where we turn north on Highway 63 toward Cumberland, home of the Tower House Restaurant, named for the turret on the Victorian house in which it is located. When I am thirteen I taste an exotic foreign food for the first time at the Tower House—pizza! It is delicious.

Cumberland is on an isthmus between two lakes. In winter, the Chamber of Commerce drives an old car onto the frozen lake and raises money by taking bets on when the ice will melt and the car will sink. In 1960, we pass through town in early April and the car is still sitting on the ice. We are on the way to Camp to celebrate my brother Tom’s tenth birthday. By the time we go by again, on our way to Camp for a Memorial Day work weekend, the car is gone. We never find out how long it took for the ice to melt that year.

After Cumberland, the next major town is Spooner. We sometimes stop for a light meal at the Buckhorn Inn on Spooner’s main street. My brothers and I love sitting on the high bar stools. We are allowed to order anything under a dollar. As we wait for our food we ponder the heads of deer and other animals mounted on the wall and wonder if the bizarre two-headed calf is real. It is. Outside Spooner, Highways 53 and 63 merge, and we continue north, going through the tiny towns of Minong and Wascott before arriving at our turnoff at Gordon. To the left is the fire tower on top of the hill above Lake St. Croix. We turn right onto County Road Y.

At Gordon, we are ten miles from Camp and almost there. The first five miles out of town are on a two-lane blacktop. When we reach Flamang Road, we turn left onto a graded sand road. We drive for another five miles, crossing Ox Creek and passing a few cabins. A sign for Camp Bovey, across from a cluster of tumble-down log buildings that we call the haunted farm, marks the last leg of the trip, a narrow rutted road winding through jack pine forest. It isn’t long before we get the first glimpse of Lake Metzger glimmering through the trees, and then, after passing the three “boys” cabins, pull into a parking place at the back of the lodge. We have arrived at Camp.

Flagpole. Dedication to Lester Scheaffer, founder of Camp Bovey, 1949.

Today’s trip to Camp Bovey bypasses Taylor’s Falls and follows the Interstate toward Duluth, cutting over to Highway 53 at Spooner. But the thrill of going to Camp never fades.

Camp Bovey is celebrating its 75^th Anniversary this year, 2024. It is still a place for children and families to enjoy the out-of-doors. For more about Camp Bovey and anniversary events, go to the Camp Bovey Facebook page or the ESNS website. (North East Neighborhood House became East Side Neighborhood Services (ESNS) in 1963.)

 

 

MY TRAIN TRIP: Celebrating the 12th Anniversary of The Intrepid Tourist

In January 1951, when I was six, I went with my family on a short train ride from Minneapolis where we lived, to St. Paul on the other side of the Mississippi River. When we got home I wrote a report of the trip, in neatly printed letters on lined paper. It is my first travel writing--the beginning of a long life of writing down my travel experiences. On this twelfth anniversary of The Intrepid Tourist I’d like to share that report, along with a chapter from my memoir telling about the trip from today’s perspective.

The windows of our third floor apartment at the Northeast Neighborhood House faced Bottineau Park, where, beyond the chain link fence on the far side of the park, the tall brick building of Gluek’s Brewery rose above a web of train tracks.  All day long, big black engines chugged along the tracks blowing their whistles and belching smoke as they shifted cars from one siding to the other and pulled boxcars and flatcars from the mills, factories, and breweries of Northeast Minneapolis out of the city.  [Gluek’s Brewery, at Marshall Street and 22^nd Avenue, was torn down in 1966.]

Les and Kay Scheaffer, Caroline and Steve, 1948, in front of NENH 

My brother Steve, barely tall enough to see over the windowsill, loved watching the trains.  He wanted to be an engineer when he grew up. For Christmas in 1950, when he was three, he got a wooden Skaneateles train set with tracks, cars, and switches.  His favorite book was the story of Tootle, about the baby train who goes to train school to learn skills such as how to pull the dining car without spilling the soup, and most importantly, to always stay on the tracks—even when playing in the meadow might be more fun. [Tootle, written by Gertrude Crampton and illustrated by Tibor Gergely in 1945, is part of Simon and Schuster's Little Golden Books series. As of 2001, it was the all-time third best-selling hardcover children's book in English. (Publisher’s Weekly, Dec 17, 2001)]

Milwaukee Road Train Depot, Minneapolis

On January 4, 1951, Steve and I and our parents took a long anticipated train trip to St. Paul—a short but thrilling ride across the Mississippi River to Minneapolis’ Twin City. Our brothers, Tom and Pete, ages one and two, were too young to appreciate the trip and stayed home with Gladys, our live-in babysitter. The weather outside was cold but clear as we drove from Northeast Minneapolis to the Milwaukee Station downtown. At the ticket window we purchased our tickets, which, according to my account, cost 14 cents each, presumably the pro-rated portion of the Minneapolis to Chicago fare. Our train was the Hiawatha, a sleek streamliner with bright orange and maroon cars, named after Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous poem.

Hiawatha Train Engine

The train was waiting outside under the roof of the iron train shed. We boarded at the club car in the rear and walked the length of the train, passing through the parlor cars, private rooms, dining cars, until finally we reached our coach. We settled into our seats after pushing the buttons to tilt them just right and got ready for the noon departure. Then with a bump and shudder and clang along the tracks the train began to move out of the station. The tracks hugged the banks of the Mississippi underneath tall bluffs before crossing over a bridge to the St. Paul station. The total ride: 30 minutes.

By the time we got to St. Paul we were hungry so we hailed a taxi for a ride to a large department store for lunch in the dining room. Afterward, we shopped for souvenirs and gifts for Tom, Pete and Gladys before walking back to the station. In the station lobby, Steve and I were fascinated by a huge model train display where tiny engines circled on tracks through a miniature town.

Our trip back to Minneapolis was in one of the new Vista-Dome Zephyr cars of the Burlington train line. Its glass-topped seating area provided panoramic views of the passing scenery. We climbed the stairs and crowded into one of the double seats. The rest of the Vista-Dome was filled with a Scout troop--kids and their parents--also on a day excursion. I should have been excited about riding in the Vista-Dome, but according to my mother’s account of the trip, I asked to leave and go downstairs to the less crowded seats so I could work on my new embroidery set—my souvenir for the trip.

Steve’s souvenir was a miniature village set, complete with tiny train and tracks. In my mother’s account of the trip she says:  “He came home and asked for a piece of string. I wondered what for–and it was to hitch the wagon onto the bike–to be a station baggage truck. He filled the wagon high with baggage and was very happy reliving what he had seen.” Clearly Steve had absorbed every detail of our trip to St. Paul. He didn’t grow up to be a train engineer, although for a time he had a job as a bus driver. He has always been interested in vehicles and mechanical things and how they work.

Milwaukee Road Train Shed

The Milwaukee Road Railroad Depot has not had train service since 1971. While many of the surrounding neighborhood buildings have been torn down for urban redevelopment, including the Great Northern Station of the Burlington Line, the Depot has been preserved as a historic building and been converted to a hotel and restaurant; in winter it houses an ice skating rink. When I was growing up, the train stations in downtown Minneapolis were a transportation hub. Now, on my visits to Minneapolis, when I drive by the old Milwaukee Road Depot and look at the iron fretwork supporting the roof of the Train Shed, it brings back memories of my long ago train trip with my family to St. Paul. Someday I’ll have to go back in the winter and skate under the shed.

*****

From my mother’s account of the train trip:

            We returned to Minneapolis in the Vista-Dome Zephyr–which was really exciting for Stevie–Caroline enjoyed the outing in her own way. We happened to come back with a Scout Troop–about thirty kids and ten parents doing the same jaunt. I thought Caroline would be interested in them, but she wanted to leave the crowded Vista-Dome--where we were all in one seat–to a seat below where she could embroider. Her souvenir was an embroidery set–so much to Les’ disgust I showed her the backward outline stitch and she’s been busy at it every waking minute since. She does nice work too. (Kay’s letter to her mother, Jan 5, 1951)

MILL CITY MUSEUM: Minneapolis, Minnesota

 52 Places to Go: Week 41

View from deck on top floor of the Mill City Museum, Minnespolis, MN

Even though I grew up in Minneapolis, I never appreciated how much the flour milling industry contributed to the growth of the city until my visit to the Mill City Museum. Built into the ruins of what was once the world’s largest flour mill, the Mill City Museum is located on the historic Mississippi Riverfront. When I visited with my family in July 2015, my grandson proclaimed it to be the best museum he’d ever been to. Why? I asked. Because of all the interactive exhibits.

A series of graduated screens demonstrates how the finest flour sifts to the bottom

At the entrance to the museum, you are invited to turn the crank of a small rolling machine that crushes the wheat into flour. Then you shake a set of sifting screens to see how the finest flour comes out at the end. Other hands-on exhibits include a room with models where visitors (mostly kids) can experiment with dam building and water flow, a kitchen where we sampled some delicious bread made with Gold Medal flour, and videos of historic TV and radio ads for General Mills products such as Bisquick and Malt-O-Meal. In other exhibits, we learned about the invention of Wheaties and Bisquick, the history of Betty Crocker, and the early years of the Minneapolis milling industry.

Betty Crocker was invented in 1921 to personalize answers to customer letters

For the Flour Tower tour, we sat on bleachers in a room-size elevator that stopped at floors of the former mill. We saw milling equipment, videos of the mill in action, heard comments by former mill workers, and learned about the mill from the guide. At the top, we exited to a balcony with a panoramic view of St. Anthony Falls, the iconic Stone Arch bridge, and the east bank of the Mississippi. We returned to ground level in an outside glass elevator. We finished our visit (after lunch in the museum café) with the movie Minneapolis in 19 Minutes Flat, a humorous and informative look at the growth and development of the city, narrated and acted by Minneapolis radio personality Kevin Kling.

Stone Arch bridge over the Mississippi and St. Anthony Falls, power source for the mills

The Mill City Museum, operated by the Minnesota Historical Society, is inside what was once the "A" Mill of the Washburn Crosby Milling Company, which, after merging with 26 other milling companies, became General Mills in 1928. When I was growing up, I attended Washburn High School in South Minneapolis. Our sports teams were the Millers. I listened to the WCCO radio and television (owned and named after the Washburn Crosby Company); I watched the Lone Ranger and Rocky and Bullwinkle on television (sponsored by General Mills); I ate Wheaties and Cheerios for breakfast; and I learned to cook with the Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook. In more ways than I previously realized, my life was impacted by the flour milling industry in Minneapolis.

Growing up, my family always had a (much smaller!) box of Bisquick handy for making biscuits, pancakes and waffles.

Currently, the Mill City Museum is closed. Mill City Museum reopens November 4, 2021! 

This article was first published 7/27/15

All text and photographs copyright Caroline Arnold

MILL CITY MUSEUM: Minneapolis, Minnesota

View from deck on top floor of the Mill City Museum

Even though I grew up in Minneapolis, I never appreciated how much the flour milling industry contributed to the growth of the city until my recent visit to the Mill City Museum. Built into the ruins of what was once the world’s largest flour mill, the Mill City Museum is located on the historic Mississippi Riverfront. When I visited a few weeks ago with my family, my grandson proclaimed it to be the best museum he’d ever been to, and when I asked him why, he said it was because of all the interactive exhibits.

A series of graduated screens demonstrates how the finest flour sifts to the bottom

At the entrance to the museum visitors are invited to turn the crank of a small rolling machine that crushes the wheat into flour and then shake a set of sifting screens to see how the finest flour comes out at the end. Other hands-on exhibits include a room with models where visitors (mostly kids) can experiment with dam building and water flow, a kitchen where we sampled some delicious bread made with Gold Medal flour, and exhibits with buttons to push that play videos of historic TV and radio ads for General Mills products such as Bisquick and Malt-O-Meal. In other exhibits we learned about the invention of Wheaties and Bisquick, the history of Betty Crocker, and the early years of the Minneapolis milling industry.

Betty Crocker was invented in 1921 to personalize answers to customer letters

For the Flour Tower tour we sat on bleachers in a room-size elevator which stopped at various floors of the former mill where we saw milling equipment, videos of the mill in action, heard comments by former mill workers, and learned about the mill from the guide. At the top we went out to a balcony with a panoramic view of St. Anthony Falls, the Stone Arch bridge, and the east bank of the Mississippi. We then returned to ground level in an outside glass elevator. We finished our visit (after lunch in the museum café) with the movie Minneapolis in 19 Minutes Flat, a humorous and informative look at the growth and development of the city narrated and acted by Minneapolis radio personality Kevin Kling.

Stone Arch bridge over the Mississippi and St. Anthony Falls, power source for the mills

The Mill City Museum is operated by the Minnesota Historical Society inside what was once the A Mill of the Washburn Crosby Milling Company, which, after merging with 26 other milling companies, became General Mills in 1928. When I was growing up I attended Washburn High School in south Minneapolis. Our sports teams were the Millers. I listened to the WCCO radio and television (owned and named after the Washburn Crosby Company); I watched the Lone Ranger and Rocky and Bullwinkle on television (sponsored by General Mills); I ate Wheaties and Cheerios for breakfast; and I learned to cook with the Betty Crocker cookbook. In more ways than I previously realized, my life was impacted by the flour milling industry in Minneapolis.

Growing up, we always had a (much smaller!) box of Bisquick handy for making biscuits, pancakes and waffles.

WEISMAN ART MUSEUM, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Weisman Art Museum, Designed by Frank Gehry, Minneapolis, MN

Perched on a bluff above the Mississippi River, the gleaming exterior of the Weisman Art Museum on the campus of the University of Minnesota seems to hover like an earthbound space station.  Designed by Frank Gehry and first opened in 1993 (it was recently remodeled and expanded) the museum houses more than 20,000 artworks, many of them on view in the large, airy spaces inside.  On a recent visit to the Twin Cities I visited the museum.  It brought back memories of my trip to Bilbao, Spain, a few years ago and visiting the Guggenheim Museum there, also designed by Frank Gehry.  While not exactly a twin, the two buildings are close relatives.

Sculpture: Executive in a Red Chair by Duane Hanson

The Weisman Museum’s permanent exhibits feature twentieth century American art, a rich collection of ceramics, traditional Korean furniture, and works on paper.  As I walked into the large central gallery I saw what appeared to be a seated man reading a newspaper in one corner.  At first I thought he was a museum employee (the guards don’t wear uniforms), but as I got closer realized that it was a life size sculpture depicting Weisman, the businessman who donated much of the money to build the museum.  The sculpture, by Duane Hanson is called “Executive in a Red Chair.”

Special Exhibit:  Siberia, Imagined and Reimagined

An exhibit of photographs of Siberia filled the two rooms for temporary exhibits.  The pictures, which span both the history of photography and of Russian involvement in Siberia, range from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day and reflect cultural, historical and political aspects of Siberia as well as its vast landscape.  Some of the pictures depict the indigenous people who have inhabited the region for centuries, hunting, fishing, and herding reindeer and show how their lives and the landscape have changed, in most cases not for the better.  A last section of the exhibit compares Siberia with the American West, pairing photographs such as the Ansel Adams photos of a meandering river with mountains in the background with a very similar scene shot in Siberia.

Painting, Flowers by Georgia O'Keefe

The galleries with American art had works by many familiar artists–Louise Nevelson, Georgia O’Keefe, Andy Warhol, Marsden Hartley, and many more.  David Smith’s sculpture, Star Cage, 1950 was displayed in one corner.  During the year I took classes at Hunter College in New York (1967), David Smith was my sculpture teacher.  By then his works had become much more minimalist.

Sculpture: Star Cage by David Smith

Just outside the entrance to the museum is the beginning of a walking bridge across the river to the West Bank campus.  It was a beautiful day, so I walked across to enjoy the sunshine and the view.  Behind me was the museum and university campus.  In front I saw the skyline of downtown Minneapolis, which has been totally transformed since the time I was a child and grew up in the city.  While some things have stayed the same, I always enjoy coming back and seeing my home town as a tourist.

Detail, Clasp on Korean chest

Letter from Istanbul

Dome of the Hagia Sofia, Istanbul, Turkey

In May, I went to Istanbul for a writer's workshop.  One of our writing exercises was to use the form of a letter, written to a real or imaginary person, as a way to focus our thoughts and to personalize our writing.  I chose to write to the memory of my fourth grade teacher.

Dear Mrs. Guiney,

            I write to you from Istanbul, where I sit with a group of writers, mostly from the U.S., but some from Turkey too. We are here to see the city–the great domed Hagia Sofia; shops filled with spices, sweets, kebabs, carpets, jewelry; boats on the Bosphorus; the hotel where Agatha Christie wrote her book Murder on the Orient Express; a performance of the mysterious dance of the whirling dervishes, and more–and then try to put our impressions into words.  Each day is punctuated with the calls to prayer broadcast from skinny minarets aside crescent topped mosques. In the streets, trams clang along metal rails from one part of the city to another. Overhead, raucous gulls wheel in the sky and the smell of the sea makes the air slightly damp. Never did I think as I sat in your fourth grade class nearly sixty years ago in Northeast Minneapolis that one day I would be on a trip half-way around the world to the city that is the meeting point of East and West. (It is a ten hour difference between here and my home in Los Angeles. As we finish our dinner each night in Istanbul, my friends and family in California are just starting their day.)

            My dream of traveling and seeing the world began in your class when you handed out the books we would use to study world geography. I remember turning the shiny pages filled with pictures of people and places so different from our world in Minnesota. The first chapter featured the Belgian Congo and was illustrated with black and white photos of dark-skinned women pounding manioc with wooden poles in large containers. I loved the new words and ideas–what was manioc? What did it taste like? Did they eat it every day? Why was the country called the Belgian Congo? Belgium was a country in Europe!

            I also loved the maps in the geography book with their rivers and mountains and wide oceans. In Minnesota, where we lived, we had the Mississippi River, which you could cross to go to St. Paul, but at age ten I had never seen mountains or oceans. Here in Istanbul, we walk downhill from our hotel near the Galata Tower to the bridge across the Golden Horn, an arm of water separating our newer part of Istanbul from the old quarter, with its many mosques, museums, and markets. From the bridge, lined with fishermen, we can look out into the Sea of Marmara, filled with ferries, fishing boats, cargo ships, ocean liners, yachts, and party boats turned into restaurants. At night, the sea sparkles with the lights of all this water traffic in the process of moving goods and people to and from the Black Sea in the north to the Mediterranean in the south and beyond. We are staying on the European side of Istanbul, but just a short ferry ride away lies the Asian part of the city, where we went one day for lunch and to explore the market stalls.

            I think you would love Turkey as much as I do with all its sights and sounds and bustling commerce. It is a photographer’s paradise. I have taken hundreds of photos, which, when I get home, will help me remember the wealth of things we saw. I have always loved to take pictures and got my first camera for my tenth birthday. It was a Brownie box camera. I remember that I had to open it carefully to insert the roll of film, making sure to keep the film rolled tight to prevent it from being exposed to the light. You probably don’t remember, but I took it to school on the last day before summer vacation.  

           I have a picture of you, Mrs. Guiney, taken on the school playground. You are wearing a plaid dress and have your head slightly cocked, perhaps because you are looking into the sun. The picture is a little blurry, because I must have jiggled the camera, but I can see that you are smiling. You were always one of my favorite teachers and you encouraged me to read and dream. Thank you.

            Your former fourth grade student,

            Caroline Scheaffer Arnold

Note:  For information about the workshop that inspired this piece, go to my May 23rd post on my Art and Books blog.  Other posts about Turkey on this blog were posted on June 28 and July 2 and August 6.
Podcast from workshop:  On the final night of our workshop, our group read aloud our "postcards home" from Istanbul, a fitting end to diverse and full five days.  To listen to the podcast, click here.  
Writing Istanbul Online Book:  For a wonderful compilation of photos and writing from 14 members of the Writing Istanbul group, go to this online magazine Writing Istanbul at Issuu.com.

Commentary by Marie Akerman on the poem "Map" by Julie Cadwallader-Staub

We recently attended a family reunion and Art's aunt proudly shared the essay that her granddaughter, Marie Akerman, had written for the History of Cartography Project, No. 20, a commentary on "Map" by Julie Cadwallader-Staub. It is a delightful essay and brought back memories of the many maps in my life. The poem that inspired the essay was written by Julie Cadwallader-Straub, who lives in Burlington, Vermont. She included “Map” in her first published collection of poetry, Face to Face (DreamSeeker Books, 2010); it is also featured on her website, www.juliecspoetry.com and Garrison Keillor read it on National Public Radio, in The Writer’s Almanac for 23 March 2011 (writersalmanac.publicradio.org).

Here is the beginning of Marie's commentary:

Like Julie Cadwallader-Staub I, too, have grown up surrounded by maps. When I was a kid my family crowded into our car each summer, my sister and I buried in the backseat with luggage and several unwieldy road maps. My dad led us on exhausting trips across the web of highways that link Chicago, my hometown, to every other place on the continent. Although my dad was the one who toiled lovingly over the itineraries, my mom was no passive bystander on the road. She was the navigator, pointing out when my dad had strayed from the bold line of red marker that highlighted our route—“Jim! That was the exit!” At the time I didn’t realize the significance of these well-worn pieces of paper, but as I have gotten older I have come to appreciate my dad’s collection of personalized road maps. They record a childhood’s worth of family trips; they are memories of summers and days that I can no longer remember on my own. ..... Read the rest of this wonderful essay written by Marie Akerman at the History of Cartography Project.

Like Marie, I have many memories of maps, and like Julie-Cadwallader-Staub, I grew up in Minneapolis. (Her poem recalls childhood trips with her family in Minnesota as she visits her aging father.)  When I was a child, my family made annual summer trips from our home in Minneapolis to visit our relatives in Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, and once, all the way to California. This was before the days of freeways and I remember poring over the maps as we drove, calculating the total distance by adding up the distances between towns, dividing it by our speed (which was difficult because it constantly varied) and trying to estimate our time of arrival.  After I grew up and got married, some of our trips took us to Chicago where we visited my husband's relatives, which included  Marie and her family.  On one of those trips I remember using a Triptych from AAA, a kind of map flip-book that broke down each section of the trip into a page size segment.  Today, as we travel, my husband likes to use his GPS to get us to our destination, but I still prefer a paper map. Like Julie, I like to imagine us as a tiny dot following those black lines across the paper.  At any moment in time, I want to "see" where we are on the map. 

I hope you will follow the links to read Julie Cadwallader-Staub's poem and Marie's full essay.  

 

No. 20. “Map,” by Julie Cadwallader-Staub,Commentary by Marie Akerman was first published 2012 as a limited edition broadsheet by the History of Cartography Project, Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 550 North Park Street, Madison, WI 53706-1404, U.S.A.  http://www.geography.wisc.edu/histcart

Marie Akerman is daughter of geographer Luann Hamilton and map historian James Akerman, of Chicago. She recently graduated from Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa, where she majored English.

London's Toynbee Hall: The First Settlement House

Toynbee Hall is in London's East End

In the summer and fall of 1998, during our three month stay in London, I paid a visit to Toynbee Hall, founded in 1884.  I wanted to get  more insight into the beginnings of the settlement house movement in England and also how it evolved--or in fact, didn't evolve--in the same way as it did in the United States.  The visit was inspired by the research I did for my book, Children of the Settlement Houses, and my own background growing up in a settlement house in Minneapolis.  (Until I was ten, my family lived at the Northeast Neighborhood House, now East Side Neighborhood Services, which my father directed.  Go to at my website  and to my Dec 14 Art and Books blog for more about my life growing up at Northeast Neighborhood House.)

Social reformers Samuel and Henrietta Barnett founded Toynbee Hall

Much of Toynbee Hall was bombed during WWII, but the main building that has the dining room and main meeting room remains almost unchanged.  I was surprised to find out that the main focus, even into the 1980's, was still residential--that college and post college students from Oxford and Cambridge would live in Toynbee Hall and the idea was that somehow this meeting of the classes in the neighborhood would result in the enlightening of the poor.  I somewhat overstate the case, because there are some ongoing programs for children and the elderly at Toynbee Hall, but it doesn't seem to have the vibrancy of U.S. settlements, which as far as I can tell have changed a lot in the last hundred years to meet the needs of the time.  Part of the stodginess of Toynbee Hall, I'm told, is because of the huge cutbacks in funding for social programs during the Thatcher years.  Many social service agencies in Britain have still not recovered.  In any case, it was fascinating for me to see the roots of the settlement house movement.  You might say that if it hadn't been for Toynbee Hall my parents might never have met and I wouldn't be here today.  (My parents were social workers and met in Chicago in the 1930's.  They lived and worked at Association House as they were training for their careers in settlement house work.)

Settlement houses still exist today, mostly in large cities, and are community centers offering a wide range of social services ranging from day care and food banks to sports and recreational programs, services for seniors, and more.  A famous early settlement house in the United States is Hull House, founded by Jane Addams in Chicago.  I visited Hull House, now a museum, earlier in the same summer that I visited Toynbee Hall.  The neighborhood that Hull House originally served was torn down for urban renewal, but the original building is maintained by the University of Illinois.  Settlements have evolved as the needs of the people in the neighborhoods around them have changed.  Some have closed their doors but many continue to serve the people in their surrounding communities. Sadly, the Jane Addams Hull Association, which had served people in Chicago for 122 years, closed its doors on January 27, 2012, a victim of the economic downturn and inability to fund its programs.

In 1884 when Toynbee Hall was founded, the neighborhood around the settlement, which is in London’s East End, was largely Jewish and eastern European , but now it is almost totally Bengali.  As you walk down the main shopping street you see shops filled with strange vegetables, exotic spices and beautiful saris.   The neighborhood is also famous for its restaurants and on the day of my visit I had a delicious and inexpensive curry lunch at one of them.