October 2006 Kentuckyhumanities

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Kentucky Humanities Council Inc. October 2006 Kentuckyhumanities

“Son, You Rung the Bell” page 9 Thomas D. Clark’s memoir is full of good stories, including one about a talk that hit the mark. Camping Out with Theodore O’Hara page 17 O’Hara was a Kentucky poet who wrote a widely quoted poem, but just who was he?

The Freetown File page 2 Will Harbut, who became famous as Man o’ War’s groom, was from Maddoxtown, one of the freetowns that gave former slaves a chance for a better life. Kentucky Chautauqua

How sweet it is—Ruth Booe founded a candy dynasty.

eeing Kelly Brengelman portray candy maker Ruth Booe may make your mouth water, but don’t try to snatch a Spiece of the stage candy—it’s wax. Not to worry—the real thing is readily available because Rebecca-Ruth, the company Booe and her friend Rebecca Gooch founded, is still going strong. In 1919, dissatisfied with their poor-paying jobs as substitute teachers in Frankfort, Ruth and Rebecca decided to change careers—from teaching to chocolate. It was unusual in those days for women in their twenties to become entrepreneurs, but these two had uncommon nerve and imagination. They marketed their candy by staging loud conversations about how wonderful it was in theater lob- bies and on busy street corners.They also bought a used car, stripped it down to a racer, mounted Rebecca-Ruth signs on the sides, and drove it all over central Kentucky. Rebecca-Ruth prospered, but Ruth left the business in 1924 when she married Douglas Booe. She returned after his death in 1927. Rebecca left to marry in 1929 and Ruth bought her out, just in time for the Great Depression. Determination and a genius for marketing got her through the 1930s. First, she invented the Mint Kentucky Colonel—a mint center surrounded by pecans and coated with dark chocolate. The taste of the “Colonel” helped revive the company’s sales. Then came the topper: the Bourbon Ball. This famous confection was inspired by a chance remark to the effect that bourbon and chocolate are the world’s two best tastes. Booe worked for two years to perfect the Bourbon Ball, which was an immediate sensation. Business boomed, but then came World War II and sugar rationing. Her customers apparently couldn’t live Ruth and Rebecca without Rebecca-Ruth— decided to they brought their personal sugar rations to Booe so she Kelly Brengelman as Ruth Booe, Bourbon Ball Belle. change careers— could keep making candy (Photo by Larry Neuzel) from teaching throughout the war. In 1947, the company got a to chocolate. boost when the food editor of the New York Times rec- Her original recipe is still in use, and is still a closely guarded secret. ommended Rebecca-Ruth John’s son Charles, who bought the company from his father in 1997, candies. Many other national publications have followed suit over the is now at the helm as Rebecca-Ruth Candy closes in on a century of years. service to Kentucky’s sweet tooth. Ruth Booe retired from Rebecca-Ruth in 1964. She died in When we say our mission is Telling Kentucky’s Story, we’re 1973 at the age of 82. Her son, John C. Booe, had taken over after her talking about Kelly Brengelman as Ruth Booe and our many other retirement. He expanded the business, developing many new liquor- great Chautauqua performers. To learn more about Kentucky flavored chocolates, but nothing could replace Ruth’s Bourbon Balls. Chautauqua, please visit our web site: kyhumanities.org. G KHC Board of Directors Page 2 Page 9 Page 25 Chair: James S. Parker Lexington October 2006 Vice Chair: Edward de Rosset Barbourville Secretary: William G. Kimbrell Jr. Lexington Treasurer: William L. Ellison, Jr. Louisville Executive Committee: Richard Crowe humanities Hazard Executive Committee: FEATURES “Bivouac” are prominent in American Ernestine Hall military cemeteries. How did that happen, Louisville and who was Theodore O’Hara? Thomas Carole A. Beere Kentucky2 The Freetown File Villa Hills C.Ware, a distant relative of the poet, spent The freetowns of the Bluegrass gave Rebecca H. Eggers years looking for answers. Owensboro former slaves the chance to own land. Mary C. Farrell They also re-created the unequal labor 25 Going for 50 Edgewood relationships of the pre-Civil War era. Sandra J. Jordan The Kentucky Book Fair celebrates its Focusing on the remarkable Harbut Murray 25th anniversary in 2006. It has changed Brigitte LaPresto family of Maddoxtown, D. Cameron the perception of Kentucky as a state Pikeville Lawrence looks at the history and where people don’t buy and read books, William C. Parker achievements of these unique central Lexington and now ranks as one of the nation’s old- Kentucky communities. Mike Philipps est and finest book fairs. Cincinnati 9 “Son, You Rung the Bell” Bruce B. Pope 28 The Light in the Distant Room Paducah The last history the late Thomas D. Clark Stephen M. Ruschell In this short story, John Hay writes of gave us was his own, a memoir called Lexington three children, a young woman, and a My Century in History. In these excerpts, Harold Shoaf very old man, together in a warm room Louisville Clark recalls his first visit to Kentucky, on a snowy night. Michelle Tooley recounts his adventures on the speakers Berea circuit, and reflects on the rewards of a Scott Vander Ploeg life in history. DEPARTMENTS Madisonville Wayne B. Yeager 33 Name Game Lexington 17 Camping Out with Robert Rennick doesn’t just ferret out the Staff Executive Director: Theodore O’Hara secrets of Kentucky place names—he also Virginia G. Smith O’Hara, a Kentucky poet and soldier, wrote collects other kinds of stories, such as this Associate Director: “The Bivouac of the Dead.”Verses from one about a guy named George. Kathleen Pool Assistant Director: Charles Thompson Asst. to the Director: © 2006 Kentucky Humanities Council ISSN 1554-6284 Steven Price Kentucky Humanities is published in April & October by the Kentucky Humanities Council, Inc., 206 East Maxwell St., Lexington, KY 40508-2613 Speakers Coordinator: (859/257-5932). KHC is an independent, nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington, D.C., and provides Catherine Ferguson more than 400 public humanities programs for Kentuckians every year. Supporters of the Council’s programs receive Kentucky Humanities by Editor mail. Views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the KHC Board and staff. For information on our Charles Thompson very favorable advertising rates, please call Charles Thompson at 859/257-5932.

On the cover: Will Harbut with Man O’ War in 1937. Photo: Keeneland—Meadors BY D. CAMERON LAWRENCE

The freetowns of the Bluegrass re-created the unequal labor relationships that had existed before the Civil War, but they also gave former slaves the chance to own land and move up. The Freetown File A t

hey sit among fields and hills, l a s

circling Lexington like a neck- f

K e

lace. Their names evoke the n t u c k

power of place and of hope: y

Frogtown, Fort Spring, New 1 9 9 8

TZion, Zion Hill. Founded just after the U n i Civil War by emancipated slaves, Ken- v e r s i t tucky’s Bluegrass freetowns—sometimes y

P r called “the black hamlets of Lexing- e s s

ton”—were established on land freed- f

K e men and women purchased from farm n t u c k

owners or land speculators, or on small y tracts given to them by wealthy estate owners eager to rebuild their labor force after the war. Some of the freetowns are almost gone, just a few old houses standing sentinel against Lexington’s urban sprawl. A handful thrive, as young people return to homeplaces and build among historic houses and churches. The freetowns hold in their history a rich and difficult chapter of Ken- tucky’s—and the nation’s—past. After emancipation on December 18, 1865, Kentucky’s 225,000 former slaves were on their own. Literally overnight, tens of thousands of black Kentuckians were scrambling for the basics of life in an often hostile environ- ment.What were they going to do? Where were they going to go? Most had no money, no housing, no transportation, no jobs and no land.The state offered no aid of any sort, and the underfunded federal Freedmen’s Bureau, which operated in Kentucky from 1866-69, could offer only Some 30 freetowns, also known as black hamlets, arose in Fayette and surround- limited assistance. For the freedmen and ing counties in the decade following the Civil War.

2 October 2006 • Kentucky Humanities © U n i v e r s i t y

o f women of the Commonwealth, the years K e n t after the war were dangerous, disorient- u c k y

ing and extraordinarily difficult. Many S p e c

joined a mass migration to the cities, but i a l

some found stability in the unique, semi- o l l e c

feudal economy that developed in central t i o n s

Kentucky in the years after the Civil War. a n d

“A number of individuals (farm D i g i t

owners)…out in the country developed a l

P r

ways of attracting an African-American o g r a

population out of the cities back into the m countryside,” says Dr. Karl Raitz, chair of s the geography department at the Univer- sity of Kentucky. “That was through the gift of land, the sale of land, the renting of land, onto which a house could be built, and usually these were built in clusters, or what we call hamlets, small villages.” These hamlets, or freetowns, reconnected former slaveholders with the labor force they had once enslaved and still needed. “The labor relationships that existed Raitz says that in just a few years— Bracktown: Students at a Bracktown before the Civil War were strongly repli- from about 1869 to the middle 1870s— school in 1901.This sizable freetown is cated after the Civil War,” says Raitz. For some 30 to 35 black hamlets took shape. right in the path of Lexington’s the freedmen, the advantage was that Nearly all formed next to large estate farms. expanding northwestern suburbs. “work would have been available nearby, Some of the freetowns, such as Firmantown within walking distance across the road, in Versailles, are set up on a square grid and doing the same things for the same indi- look much as one might expect a planned docks… that whereas the said parties viduals… that’s what makes this settle- labor village to look. Others are almost lin- of the first part hath this day bar- ment pattern interesting and so different ear, like Maddoxtown, which is laid out gained and sold a certain piece of from what you would find elsewhere in straight along Huffman Mill Pike beside Mt. land… at the price of sixty three dol- the country.” Brilliant Farm, a major Thoroughbred horse lars per acre, and whereas the said operation northeast party of the second part has paid the of Lexington. sum of three thousand dollars… y k c Maddoxtown u t n e was named for A white man buying land was noth- K f o Samuel Maddox (or ing new, but other deeds in Fayette Coun- s s e r Maddocks—the ty’s courthouse sketch the beginning of a P y t i

s name is found both new chapter in the nation’s history: the r e v i

n ways in old land end of slavery and newly emancipated U

9 deeds), a farmer blacks becoming landowners. In 1871, an 9 1 and land speculator African American, Margaret Hollum, © y k c from Scott County purchased a piece of land from Samuel u t n e who bought a large Maddox and became a founding member K f o tract of land in of the new community of Maddoxtown, s a l t

A 1853. Kentucky.

This indenture, This indenture, made this 8th day of made and entered December, one thousand eight hundred into this first day and seventy one, between Samuel Mad- of March, 1853, dox and Sarah A. Maddox, his wife… between Abram and Margaret Hollum… in considera- Ware and Nancy, tion of the sum of one hundred and sev- The layout of a typical post-Civil War Bluegrass farm and its his wife… and enty dollars...the parties of the first part adjacent freetown. Samuel Mad- do bargain, sell, convey, release and

Kentucky Humanities • October 2006 3 Maddoxtown:This freetown supplied labor to Mt. Brilliant Farm, directly across Huffman Mill Pike, and other area farms.The Harbut family home is on the right.

Carridder and I produced a public radio documentary about the freetowns in 2000. With grant support from the Ken- tucky Humanities Council, I am now in the process of bringing the story to KET in a television documentary titled People of Free- towns. Through one family with deep roots in Maddoxtown, the Harbuts—from Will Harbut, groom of the famed racehorse Man o’War, all the way down to his great grandson—we’re researching and exploring the history, achievements and challenges facing people of the freetowns. Did the freetown blacks have to leave their communities to advance their lives? What did they lose by leaving? What did they gain? In our transient contemporary society, are there lessons here for all of us? Will the history of the freetowns grant to the party of the second part… the only work in these outlying, rural die as we lose their older residents? Our doc- a certain tract of land situated in said areas was low-paying, grinding toil on umentary explores these questions. county of Fayette near Huffmann Mill the horse farms, especially because Pike… and containing two acres… to transportation was extremely limited. A Family’s Heritage have and to hold… to the parties of the Late on an afternoon in July, as the second part and their heirs and first heard about the Bluegrass freetowns sun puts a warm glow to his weathered assignees forever… nearly ten years ago from Carridder M. face, Tom Harbut stands on the front IJones of Louisville, who’d learned about porch of the house his father built 80 years Today, this transaction seems ordi- them from a friend. At the time, the free- ago and looks out over a rolling landscape nary, but at the time it represented a towns—or black hamlets, as most people where horses graze in rich green pastures. stunning change. (I was unable to find further information about Margaret Hollum. Chances are good that she was employed on one of the nearby farms, “The labor relationships that existed before perhaps as a domestic worker.) By 1877, the Civil War were strongly replicated after there were seven families in the small the Civil War… that’s what makes this community of Maddoxtown. Eventually, Maddoxtown supported its own church settlement pattern interesting and so and school, and had three thriving different from what you would find “roadhouses,” popular eating and drink- ing establishments. Most freetown resi- elsewhere in the country.” dents, according to Marion B. Lucas in A History of Blacks in Kentucky, “built their own houses, drew water from a were calling them then—seemed to be an Harbut lives in Maddoxtown, in the heart community well, tilled small garden undiscovered story except among people of the region that holds more Thorough- plots to supplement their incomes, and who had grown up there or among the bred stud farms than any other place in the worked for wages on the nearby estates handful of researchers exploring their his- world. Amid the expanses of undulating on the white man’s terms.” It was a diffi- tory. Outsiders didn’t know much about fields, board fences and handsome barns cult paradox: while the freetowns were them because much of their history was that are Kentucky hallmarks, the finest indeed free and offered residents the unwritten, held in the memories of older blooded horses have been bred, foaled and very important step of land ownership, residents, passed on in oral stories. raised for more than 150 years. From his

4 October 2006 • Kentucky Humanities front porch, Harbut can see several horse farms, including what used to be Faraway Farm, where Man o’ War stood in retire- Similar Yet Unique ment. A modest walk leads to other illustri- r ous stables, including Elmendorf, Castle- he freetowns share some e d a ton Lyons, Spendthrift and Dixiana. The e characteristics: they were L - d l a graceful ghosts of equine legends seem to all founded as free, largely r T e H linger in the late afternoon shadows. agrarian communities. All pro- n o t g n

vided labor to nearby businesses, i x e L

mostly the large horse farms, , h t i

though this is not always so. m S

Most freetown residents a Keene, southwest of Lex- d n i “built their own houses, ington, was a spa prior to the L Civil War, its white sulphur drew water from a springs esteemed for their sup- community well, tilled posed medicinal value. The spa was a popular weekend destina- small garden plots to tion for white Lexingtonians, supplement their who stayed in large hotels in the town; one of these hotels stills incomes, and worked The Keene Springs Hotel in the winter of stands.When faith in the sulphur 1868.The building still stands. for wages on the nearby springs’ healing wonders faded, estates on the white so did Keene’s popularity as a resort. African American slaves who had worked at the spas stayed in the area and man’s terms.” built small houses. After the Civil war, Keene became a black settlement, though in recent memory the town has been integrated. Other hamlets have similarly interesting histories. In Scott County, along Route At 86, Harbut still moves with a hint 922, survives New Zion, one of the bigger freetowns, a community established in 1872 of athletic grace even as crutches support by freedmen Calvin Hamilton and Primus Keene. Hamilton and Keene bought 23 his weakened knees. Join him for a con- acres of land, then divided it up and sold it to other freedmen. They named the town versation and it becomes clear very Briar Hill (for the many brambles, apparently.) The community’s oral history has it that quickly that he knows a great deal about the two men were investigated by whites who could not believe that two black men had horses. “I grew up around horses,” he the wherewithal to buy the land legally. The same tradition holds that the men did it says. “I rode and we had workhorses. with a small down payment and credit. No one Every one is different. With Thorough- is quite sure when the name was changed to breds, there’s the fleetness, the nervous- New Zion.Today, the community is a thriving ness. That’s what makes a good horse- place of some 20-odd houses, an active church man:You get to know your horse and you and a hilltop cemetery with tombstones dating let your horse get to know you.” back to the late 1800s. Harbut is one of a long line of Several researchers in the state are now African-Americans from the Bluegrass digging into the history of Kentucky’s free- freetowns who were expert horsemen. towns. And the documentary People of Free- The tight relationship between freetown towns, with Kentucky Humanities Council African Americans and horses has deep support, will feature rare, archival footage historic roots, going back to colonial Vir- and interviews with several freetown resi- ginia, where slaves with horse savvy dents. But as Lexington sprawls outward, became favored jockeys and handlers. many of these communities are at risk of Kentucky was originally a part of Virginia disappearing. As older residents die out, and took on that state’s love affair with they take their stories with them. What we finely bred horses and racing. In 1792, are at risk of losing is an immensely rich his- when Kentucky became a state, the Thor- tory of people founding cohesive communi- oughbred breed, a cross between Arabian A marker in the New Zion ties, raising generations upward and gaining stallions and English mares, was well cemetery. a foothold on the American Dream. established in the Commonwealth. The History of Fayette County, published in

Kentucky Humanities • October 2006 5 1881, noted, “There is no region of their way down colorfully named roads top trainer Henry McDaniel, who sad- America so highly favored for the rearing like Lemon Mill Pike, Russell Cave Road dled the 1918 Kentucky Derby winner and breeding of fine horses as the Blue- and Ironworks Pike to Faraway Farm. Exterminator. Now too heavy to ride, grass region of Kentucky.” “You can’t imagine the tourists that came Harbut “rubbed horses,” the term horse- During the 1800s, blacks did most of out here even with the Depression and men use to describe a groom’s work.Two the work on the big Bluegrass farms. By the the gas rationing (during the war),” brothers had also gone into the horse latter half of the century, this relationship recalled Harry B. Scott Jr., who managed business and it was a happy time. Then with horses led to high achievement: at least Faraway from 1961 to 1989. Entertaining came World War II. Harbut was drafted, 12 of the 15 riders in the inaugural Ken- tourists with a poetic monologue about sent first to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, later tucky Derby in 1875 were African Ameri- Man o’War,Will Harbut became famous. to the Pacific. He served in the infantry can. Black jockeys won 15 of the first 28 He and the horse appeared in magazines; for four years. Kentucky Derbies.There were also talented in one classic Saturday Evening Post cover After the war,Tom’s father asked him black trainers and outstanding black in 1941, Man o’War rests his head gently to come home. He did, working briefly at grooms, the men who worked with the on the crook of Will Harbut’s arm. They Faraway with his father, then taking a horses day-to-day and held everything were described at the time as inseparable temporary job at Leslie Combs II’s together with their knowledge and attention friends. Spendthrift Farm. Soon after Tom’s to detail. Many of these men hailed from “They just melded into one,” says arrival home, his father suffered a para- the freetowns. The work was as grueling as Tom Harbut. But there was more to his lytic stroke that also took his eyesight. ever but, unlike slavery days, these workers father than the legend, he adds. “He was Tom stayed in Maddoxtown to help. On at least had the possibility of benefiting well respected, and I admired him for his October 4, 1947, Will Harbut, 62, died. from their labor, of beginning to accumu- accomplishments because for one thing, His obituary in the Blood-Horse magazine late assets and climb upward. he was closer to the slave era. At that said he was survived by “his wife, six As a teen-ager, Harbut, who first time, he wasn’t allowed to read or write. sons, three daughters and Man o’ War.” climbed aboard a horse at the age of six, And to get where he did was amazing.” One month later, on November 1, broke yearlings and exercised horses on Will Harbut and his wife Mary raised 12 Man o’War, who had been weakening for local farms. In those days, farms exercised children in Maddoxtown.The family kept a year, died in his stall. Samuel Riddle retired stallions and Harbut rode War a small thriving farm and three teams of commissioned a huge bronze statue of Admiral, winner of the 1937 Triple Crown, horses. Before he started working for Man o’ War that today marks the horse’s and War Relic. Both were celebrated sons Scott, Harbut broke horses for other grave and greets visitors at the entrance of Man o’ War. The Harbut connection to owners. He was something of a horse of the Kentucky Horse Park, the Lexing- racing started in the 1920s with Tom’s whisperer, his son says, someone horses ton equestrian museum and farm show- father.Will Harbut, a Maddoxtown farmer responded to. casing the relationship between humans with a reputation as a skilled horseman, Yet even as Will Harbut’s fame grew, and horses. Though the Harbut family went to work for a local farm manager, racism cast its long shadow, as revealed in declined a request to move Will Harbut’s grave from the Maddoxtown cemetery to a spot next to the Man o’ War memorial, Entertaining tourists with a poetic monologue a plaque next to the statue tells the story of the famous duo. about Man o’ War, Will Harbut became famous. For the next 30 years, Tom Harbut He and the horse appeared in magazines; they stayed at Spendthrift Farm. First, he worked for Clem Brooks, another groom were described as inseparable friends. who achieved fame handling the great Nashua, the first horse to sell for more than a million dollars. Later, Harbut Harry B. Scott, at a farm just outside Mad- his son’s recollection of Man o’War’s 21st became head of the stallion barn. In its doxtown.When Scott took over the opera- birthday party, in 1938. It was a big do, prime, Spendthrift was the top Thor- tion of Faraway Farm a few years later, with a national radio hookup and visiting oughbred breeding operation in the Unit- Harbut went with him. The most famous dignitaries. But when it came time to eat, ed States. From 1949 to 1963, it topped tenant at Faraway was Man o’War, perhaps Harbut had to sit at a table by himself. all sellers at the Keeneland July Yearling the single greatest racehorse in American “That kind of woke me up,” says Tom, Sale, a premiere Thoroughbred sales history, who stood at stud there. He who was 18 at the time. “I didn’t know event. Cosmetics queen Elizabeth Arden became one of Harbut’s charges. what was going on. We didn’t really think kept horses there. So did movie mogul Over the years, Will Harbut showed about segregation.” Louis Mayer. A total of eight Derby win- Man o’War to more than one million vis- In the late ’30s, Tom Harbut headed ners stood at the farm for all or part of itors from around the world who made to Belmont Park in New York to work for their stallion careers.

6 October 2006 • Kentucky Humanities K e e n e l a n d – E s t e s

“It was millionaire row,” Harbut Widener of Elmendorf Farm let him A famous team: Man o’War and says. “There were millions of dollars’ breed her to his stallion Nahar. The Will Harbut, his groom, at the great worth of horses in there and that’s a result of that breeding was Touch Bar, a stallion’s 21st birthday party in 1938. whole lot of responsibility.” During promising colt who built his stamina on breeding season, the farm bred 20 mares training runs on Maddoxtown’s dirt ments in the horse business, Gregory a day, many two or three times. Han- roads and pastures. Harbut, one of Tom’s three children, dling the stallions was a “dangerous and Harbut knew the horse could go determined early not to follow the same rough job,” says Harbut. In the late places, but he needed a backer for rac- path, despite his love of horses and his 1950s, his pay was about $30 a week. ing. “It’s very expensive,” he says. “And admiration for his father. “I had the There were never any benefits—no I didn’t have the connections.” At that opportunity to work on the same farms health care, no retirement. time, he says, it was hard for an African that he did,” says Gregory. “There just On the side, Harbut began buying American man to break into the Thor- weren’t a lot of open doors like there are and training his own horses. “I was oughbred field as an owner and trainer. now for African Americans. I remember already into breeding at Spendthrift so I So he sold a half interest in Touch Bar to many days he was supposed to have said, ‘I’m going to breed, train and race a Louisiana businessman, who got the been off and had to go in and water and my own horse. I can do that.’” His first colt into the 1962 Kentucky Derby. Har- feed just to get the rest of the day off. horse was a broken down filly named but still owned half of the horse, even There was not a lot of money. No health Free Thought. He paid $50 for her, though his name does not appear on the insurance. No sick days.” brought her around and raced her. She race program. Touch Bar finished 11th Gregory’s decision was common for actually won a few. It was a colt named out of 15th, with Decidedly winning. his generation coming up and out of the Touch Bar, though, that took Harbut the “He didn’t run last,” he laughs. “I’ll put freetowns. Most sought economic oppor- farthest. Someone gave him a brood- it that way, he didn’t run last.” tunities in Lexington or other cities. mare named Queen O’ Night and P.A.B. Despite his father’s accomplish- Today, many of the Bluegrass freetowns

Kentucky Humanities • October 2006 7 m a regarded trainer Tom Amoss, learning h d l

O how to work around spirited race horses. - u o c i It wasn’t easy, and Greg’s first attempts P e i were clumsy. One horse pinned him z u S against the wall of a stall. By his own admission, he was a “nervous wreck.” He started calling his grandfather for advice. And, he says, he got real spiritual. “It can be life and death every day.” But he persevered. Next came a job at Winstar Farm, which bred 2003 Ken- tucky Derby and Preakness winner Funny Cide. Then, in 2005, Greg was accepted into Flying Start, an intensive two-year training program that prepares young people for careers in racing and breeding. The program, in its third year, was the brainchild of Darley Stud’s

Handling the stallions was a “dangerous and rough job,” says Harbut. In the late 1950s, his pay was about $30 a week. There were never any benefits

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Mak- toum of Dubai, a top name in Thorough- bred circles. Students study at Darley Stud operations in the United States, Ire- land, Australia, England and Dubai. From among 200 applications, 12 stu- Tom Harbut (left) visiting Spendthrift and mind. Four years ago, young Greg dents were accepted for 2005. Greg was Farm with his grandson, Greg. Harbut Harbut, son of Gregory, grandson of one of three Americans. Greg stayed with worked at Spendthrift for 30 years. Tom and great grandson of Will, began the program for one year. He’s now eval- Greg is considering a career in the pursuing a career in the Thoroughbred uating career options, unsure if racing horse business. horse business. Gregory Harbut remem- will be his future work or a side interest. bers his son talking during high school Either way, one family’s story carries on, about wanting a horse. Greg says it alive in the memories that inspired a have disappeared or are dying out. Only started with a field trip to the Kentucky young man’s dreams. G recently is the trend toward young people Horse Park, where he learned details coming back to live. about his great grandfather and Man o’ In a suburban home outside Lex- War. “My interest has grown into a love ington, Gregory and his wife Monica are for me,” he said. D. Cameron Lawrence of Louisville has extensive experience producing documentaries and other raising three children. Gregory works That love manifested in a determi- programming for public broadcasting. She also for the city. Monica teaches. The horses nation to learn the business. In the sum- writes for regional and national publications. are a lifetime away. And yet, quietly, mer of 2003, Greg got a job hot walking Lawrence is the recipient of a Peabody Award, a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and other somewhere, when no one was looking, horses at Churchill Down’s summer race recognitions. desire took hold of a young man’s heart meet. He worked in the stables of well- 8 October 2006 • Kentucky Humanities BY THOMAS D. CLARK

In these excerpts from the late Thomas D. Clark’s memoirs, the legendary Kentucky historian recalls his first visit to Kentucky, recounts his amazing and amusing adventures on the speakers circuit, and reflects on the rewards of a life in history. ‘Son, You Rung the Bell!’

A fateful flip sue graduate studies in history. I received an impatient telegram from Dean native of Louisville, Mississippi,Tom Funkhouser asking for my decision. On a Clark dropped out of school at six- rainy morning I slipped away from the Ateen to work on a dredge boat. After Ole Miss campus and went to the tele- two years of hard labor, he returned to high graph office at the Oxford courthouse school and graduated at the age of 21. In square, still not fully certain which schol- 1928, he completed a B.A. at the University arship I should accept. I literally flipped a of Mississippi and in September headed for buffalo nickel, and it came down Ken- graduate school at the University of Ken- tucky. tucky.The train trip he describes here began Shamefully I had only the meagerest in Charlottesville,Virginia, where Clark did knowledge of either Kentucky or its uni- the final part of his undergraduate studies. versity. I had read one or two books by James Lane Allen and John Fox Jr. I knew My decision to seek a master’s of the state’s distilling industry because in degree at Kentucky was actually a chance my youth, prior to Prohibition, some of one. The previous spring I happened to the few pieces of mail we received includ- meet the University of Mississippi chan- ed the colorful advertisements for Ken- cellor while walking across the campus, tucky whiskey. We knew too about the and he mentioned that the president of Owensboro Wagon Works, from which the University of Kentucky was looking my family had purchased wagons. That for a scholarship applicant. He suggested was the extent of my knowledge of the Thomas D. Clark was born in that I apply. I corresponded with William state. The only Kentuckians I had known Louisville, Mississippi on July 14, 1903, Delbert Funkhouser, the dean of gradu- were H. L. Lewis, captain of the dredge- and died in Lexington, Kentucky on ate studies at Kentucky, who offered me a boat on which I had worked; an instruc- June 28, 2005. He taught history at the $200 scholarship in history. I had also tor in the department of English at Ole University of Kentucky and other schools for almost 50 years. He wrote applied to the University of Cincinnati Miss named Kenneth Demaree from or edited more than 30 books. In 1990 and was offered a like amount there. I Frankfort; and Grady Roundtree, Ray the Kentucky General Assembly delayed making a decision because I was Moore, and Rebecca Edward, students in appointed him Kentucky Historian in a quandary as to whether I wanted to the Virginia summer school. That sum- Laureate for Life.This cover photo was become a professional educationist or mer I had heard another Kentuckian, taken in 1986. give in to my innermost yearning to pur- Senator Alben W. Barkley, speak at the

Kentucky Humanities • October 2006 9 ©

U wanted him to come out and make a n i v

e speech. He patted me on the knee and r s i t y

said, “Keep your seat. This is a bad o f

e place.” While the senator spoke to the n t u

c crowd I stared out the window at the drab k y

S and shabby town, wondering what p e c i

a besides its appearance was bad about it. l

o Years later, when I learned something of l l e c t

i Morehead and its “troubles,” I wondered o n s

a if Senator Curtis really knew about the n d

D Tolliver-Martin feud or the Rowan i g i t a County War. He surely had never read the l

P r

o frank and revealing Kentucky adjutant g r a

m general’s report on the troubles. This s report had painted a grim picture of semibarbarians running wild in the hills. Later I was to learn something of the Rowan County feud from Dixon Shouse and “Tickey” Evans, Morehead natives who roomed with me at the Bender house. Shouse later became mayor of Tom Clark arrived in Lexington for me that Senator Charles Curtis, the Morehead, and “Tickey” Evans inherited the first time not long after a June Republican nominee for vice-president his father’s lumber business there. 1928 flood put parts of the University on the Hoover ticket, was aboard. I was unprepared for the pandemo- of Kentucky, including Alumni The next morning the porter awak- nium that awaited the arrival of the Gymnasium, under water. ened me at Ashland, Kentucky, so that I George Washington in Lexington. When could get dressed preparatory to detrain- the train arrived before the old Central University of Virginia summer school ing in Lexington. Totally ignorant of Station on time, at 8:05 a.m. on Septem- convocation. Kentucky geography, I got shaved and ber 15, it was met by a howling mob, My extremely skimpy knowledge of dressed in double time. When I came which the Lexington Leader later said the University of Kentucky was gleaned back into the car from the lavatory the numbered 25,000 Republicans. Many from its 1927–1928 catalogue. That doc- porter had made up only one seat, and it were crowded into the station, while oth- ument provided only limited information was occupied by a round-faced man with ers stood on the circle out front and along and made exceedingly shabby use of graphic arts in its presentation of the institution. Even I, an unsophisticated Mississippi country boy, recognized the I recognized Senator Curtis from his pictures, typographical deficiencies of this publica- which had appeared in the newspapers. tion. In time I learned that the catalogue He motioned to me to come and sit by him. was the product of a highly political state printer who gained his position by politi- He was the first Republican I ever met. cal manipulation rather than mastery of the printer’s trade. Once the George Washington got under way from Charlottesville there a cropped moustache. I recognized Sena- Main Street. One would have thought arose considerable excitement and bustle tor Curtis from his pictures, which had they were there to celebrate the Second on the train. People were rushing up and appeared in the newspapers. He Coming. As Curtis stepped from the down the aisle as if life itself depended on motioned to me to come and sit by him. train, the high school bands sent up a their getting to the rear. A chatty lady in He was the first Republican I ever met. great crescendo of welcome that would the seat in front of me was accompanied As we traveled down through the rugged have rivaled Gabriel and his horn on the by two young girls who were on their way hills of eastern Kentucky we talked, Day of Judgment. With considerable to Louisville, Kentucky. She asked me if I though not about anything much. When effort, loaded down with my overstuffed knew who was on the train. I said that I the train stopped in Morehead the porter suitcase and my set of golf clubs, I was did not but that whoever he or she was came in and informed Senator Curtis that able to stumble off the car. Happily the was creating a commotion. She informed a crowd had gathered at the station and rest of my worldly belongings were 10 October 2006 • Kentucky Humanities stowed in my trunk and checked to the adornment of sagging wires, and to cap man who introduced himself as Russell baggage room at the station, where they off the scene the trolley company had a Hocker, a watch repairman. He directed remained until the Republican storm power line down the middle of the street me to Mrs. Cooke’s boardinghouse on simmered down. That would not be until suspended from cross wires.The tall red- South Limestone Street, just across the Senator Curtis had tolled them away to brick houses along the street reflected the street from Boyd Hall, a women’s dormi- Woodland Auditorium to describe the poor taste of a multiplicity of builders. tory. Mrs. Cooke was the veritable glorious new day that lay just ahead for The taxi entered the university cam- embodiment of all boardinghouse ladies America following the election of Hoover. pus through the north gate and stopped who had ever populated the North That afternoon I read in the Lexing- on the top of a rise before a tall and some- American continent. Her dining room ton Leader that a thousand-car cavalcade what grim administration building. When was dark and gloomy, with a long table had stormed into Lexington from I was out of the taxi and trying to find extending from one end to the other. At Louisville and that special trains and directions, I encountered a slender, lean- that board she fed a mixture of college buses had brought Hoovercrats and high faced man coming toward me. He was, I boys and a few straggling citizens. I school bands to warm up the throng later learned, Alfred Brauer, assistant pro- think surely she must have been a heavy before it marched on Woodland Auditori- fessor of biology. He directed me to the stockholder in the brown-bean trade um to listen to an unmemorable speech office of Columbus Melcher, the dean of because beans were the central item of by the future vice-president. In the mean- men, in the basement of the building.The her menu. time a welcoming committee had rushed dean was head of the German Depart- The other student boarders at Mrs. Senator Curtis away to the Phoenix ment and wore an impressive array of Cooke’s were country and small-town Hotel, a block and a half from the station, organization keys strung across his vest boys who had fixed opinions on every to sit down to a breakfast with two hun- front. From there I was directed to Mrs. subject, including the coming November dred select supporters.The breakfast was Joe Bender’s residence at 450 Rose Lane election. I learned early that my erstwhile sponsored by the Republican women of and told that it was a desirable rooming friend Russell Hocker was romantically Kentucky. In the milling crowd that house. Her place was three blocks off the interested in Mrs. Cooke’s daughter morning were former governor Edwin campus, and for the next three years, off “Tootsie.” Tootsie had an upper front Morrow, Congressman John Robsion, and on, I was to make it my home. tooth missing, but that was no deterrent Senator Frederic M. Sackett, Christine After I had deposited my baggage in in her pursuit of a husband. I wondered Bradley South, and the whole Woman’s the room, I set out to find a boarding- what it would be like to kiss a girl with Republican League delegation. Also pres- house that served meals. Walking down such a dark hole in her mouth. ent was a Republican congressman of Euclid Avenue I overtook a dour-faced On Sunday I set out up Euclid note, John Wesley Langley, who had been s m

charged with accepting a bribe to get a a r g o sizable shipment of Belle of Anderson r P

l a t whiskey released from a warehouse and i g i D

onto the open market during Prohibition d n a

days. s n o i t

Almost miraculously I was able to c e l l secure a taxicab and set off over South o C

l a i

Limestone Street to the university cam- c e p S pus. As I rode along that grim, cluttered y k c u

street I thought it was the ugliest one I t n e K

had ever seen. Not even the street that f o

y circled the Lafayette County Courthouse t i s r e

in Oxford, Mississippi, was as dismal in v i n appearance. Every individual telephone U © patron must have had his own private line strung along South Limestone.The Ken- tucky Utilities Company had added its

Clark remarked on the proliferation of wires on South Limestone.This 1920s shot shows the corner of Limestone and Main.

Kentucky Humanities • October 2006 11 ©

U past, whether or not they had read an up- n i v

e to-date book in American history. Figura- r s i t y

tively they were armed and at the ready to o f

K shoot Shawnees along the Licking River e n t u

c and Cherokees in Cumberland Gap. The k y

S white crosses on the chest of British Reg- p e c

i ulars were dead-set targets. Kentucky a l

o audiences seemed never to grow weary of l l e c t

i listening to tales of frontier adventures and o n s

wars. a n d

D It would be unforgivably self-serving i g i t

a if I failed to admit that I got a thrill out of l

P r

o the challenges and excitement of speak- g r a

m ing to a wide diversity of audiences. I s could never imagine what unusual thing might happen, but I always tried to be prepared for any unexpected occurrence. I recall occasions when a program chairman would get things mixed up and two speakers would appear. When that happened, I would eat the proffered meal and leave my fellow speaker to carry on. One could write an extensive essay on those creatures who roam at large as introducers, or on those intrusive expert raptors who glide down to grab the microphone in The podium was a second home for library build up its collection of historical their talons and throw the whole system Clark, who didn’t dare to even guess materials. Dr. Clark soon became one of awry.There must have been a time far back at how many talks he had given. Kentucky’s most popular speakers, and was in history when the microphone was used in constant demand right up until his death as an amplifying device. Not so anymore. It in 2005 at age 101. He gave countless talks, has become a plaything for the self- including scores of them for the Kentucky appointed, diploma-mill electrical engineer Avenue to see my new world.The Ashland Humanities Council Speakers Bureau. Here in every audience. I shall never be able to Subdivision was new, and the houses, in he recounts some of his more memorable reconcile the facts that we can put human contrast to the older Limestone section, moments at the podium. beings on the surface of the moon but we were impressive and attractive. This was can never place a workable microphone at a the first planned modern subdivision I had At the time I joined the faculty of the speaker’s podium. ever seen. I walked on to the university University of Kentucky in 1931 I had gone Introducers range from those orator- farm off Nicholasville Pike, where I was through a dormant public-speaking peri- ical florists who scatter sweetness and interested in the heavily laden apple trees od. The nature of my job, however, errors of fact with lavish hands, to the until one of those neanderthal specimens required me to speak in public as a way to cryptic introducers who simply turn to a of watchmen who prowl university cam- make the acquaintance of possessors of speaker and say, “Now it’s time for you to puses descended upon me as if I were the historical materials or of persons who say your piece.” Many times I was baffled prince of apple snatchers.Thus it was that could give me leads to persons with collec- about who was being introduced, myself I came beneath the benevolent sky of tions. Many of the early audiences I or the introducer. One thing was clear: in James Lane Allen’s domain. addressed were patriotic societies, male most cases, neither my mother nor Saint and female, such as the Daughters of the Peter could find grounds for objection. “Son, you rung the bell” American Revolution and the Society of I learned early that persons designat- the Cincinnati. Long ago it became a hard ed as “introducers” could draw together fter earning a master’s degree in and fixed fact in American organizational an egregious number of misstatements of Kentucky,Thomas Clark did doctor- history that every meeting of a group of fact and that it was a mistake to attempt to Aal work at Duke University.When he people, from chicken farmers to the Sons correct them. Other antsy introducers returned to Kentucky to join the University of Kingdom Come, had to have a speaker were concerned less with what speakers of Kentucky faculty in 1931, he had a dou- as part of its ritual. Members of these soci- said than with the requirement that they ble assignment: to teach, and to help the new eties expressed a passionate love of the sat down at the end of twenty minutes pre- 12 October 2006 • Kentucky Humanities cisely.There were even occasions when the sent me precise directions to the school, commencement speech in Virgie, deep in introducer could not recall my name, if in but just as I reached the door of my office the highlands of Pike County. So far as I fact he or she had ever known it. I had a to start the trip, my phone rang. The call could discover, in those days there was no startling experience of this sort in 1947. I was from Goebel Ratliff, a banker in West restaurant on the road between Winches- had been invited to deliver the Fleming Liberty. He asked me to come to West ter and Pikeville. I assumed I would be Lectures in Louisiana State University. Liberty and have dinner with him. I knew invited to dinner in Virgie.When I arrived Professor James Silver of the University of Goebel, and it turned out that his invita- at the school, the building was deserted. I Mississippi invited me to come to Oxford tion was also to a meeting of the local finally located a somewhat addled local and spend the night there. He would drive Kiwanis Club. We wasted what I thought son who told me where the school’s prin- me to Baton Rouge the next day, since he was precious time, but Goebel assured cipal lived, up a creek. Somebody that had been asked to introduce me.When the me that he was chairman of the Hazel evening was frying country ham, and its moment came for him to do so, he could Green board of trustees, and nothing was aroma filled the air and whetted my not recall my name, and I had to tell the going to happen until he arrived there. appetite. audience who I was. Finally we set out from West Liberty to I had to cross a footbridge to reach There were nearly always present in wind our way through the Wolfe County the principal’s house. He greeted me bare these ritualistic gatherings one or more backcountry. It seemed to me that Goebel to his waist and instructed me to return to self-glorifiers who had to say their bit, rel- and I drove over enough winding narrow the school building and await his arrival. evant or not. Impressed deeply in my roads to reach Paducah before we finally He made no mention of a meal. I doubt memory was the performance of a lady in arrived at the Hazel Green school. that any other Kentucky commencement Frankfort who had taken on the ominous We found the place in pandemoni- speaker ever sent a graduating class out to duty of introducing me at a meeting held um. The heavily perspiring boys were face the world while on the verge of star- in one of the stately old mansions of that busy cutting a pine log into blocks on vation. I drove back to Lexington that city. She came stocked with data wholly which to place pine seating. The scene night after every country store in Eastern unrelated to the objective of the assembly. must have been comparable to the build- Kentucky was closed. I must have been She had bundles of newspaper clippings, ing of Noah’s ark. The principal told the hungriest commencement speaker in a rack of old clothing, charts, and family Goebel and me to go ahead and seat our- the history of Kentucky. Years later the photographs. After she had recited a list- selves on the platform at one end of the secretary of the Kentucky Education ing of family breeding records reaching room, and he would join us when he had Cabinet asked me to go to Virgie to rep- all the way back to Father Abraham, the seated the crowd. Occupying the entire resent her and the state library and timid chairman gave the lady a gentle nudge. She called out my name and sat down to catch her breath for another go Tootsie had an upper front tooth missing, but at the audience in an after-speech com- mentary on her version of social history. that was no deterrent in her pursuit of a husband. Then there was the occasion when I I wondered what it would be like to kiss a girl spoke to a group of women’s club members. The bosomy lady who presided was with such a dark hole in her mouth. the type who had to make certain every napkin was folded correctly, the flowers were perfectly arranged, and everybody front section were young women, each of archives at the dedication of the town’s was seated properly. When it came time whom had a baby at breast. When the new public library.This time I was royal- to introduce me, she took a flight of elo- infants were not sucking away, they were ly received and well fed. quence into the blue yonder and intro- crying. I sat there amid that commotion Soon after the Virgie commencement duced me as a professor “EM-U-Ritis.” I wondering how I could say anything caper I was invited to deliver a com- pinched myself to see if I was still alive… worthwhile to that audience. I resorted to mencement address in Tompkinsville In the years after 1930 I spent much giving a simple description of the discov- High School in Monroe County,in time “out there” in the great Neverland of ery and settlement of Kentucky. When I south-central Kentucky. That morning I organizations and public speakers. At the concluded my speech the ancient school taught two classes and attended to some outset I learned that the art of speaking patriarch jumped up and grabbed my departmental problems before I began involved generous expenditures of hand, saying, “Son, you rung the bell!” I the long drive south across the waist of patience, humanity, and good humor as think that was the most heartening thing Kentucky to the Tennessee border. I well as time to season understanding. I I ever heard at the end of a speech. arrived in Tompkinsville almost exhaust- was called on to exercise all of these when High school graduation programs ed, but fortunately I had some time on I visited the settlement school at Hazel were always colored by some unusual my hands. I went to the local hotel and Green in Wolfe County. The principal incident. I was invited once to deliver a sought a room in which to take a nap.The Kentucky Humanities • October 2006 13 s

m and I was left to sit facing the pig. I think a r g o that poor animal had the most forlorn r P l a expression I ever saw on man or beast. By t i g i D

the time the planes finally arrived, most d n a

of the allotted time had been lost. In fact, s n o i t the pig and I had only three minutes left. c e l l

o I hardly had time to say, “Mr. Chairman.” C l a i After giving a short speech about noth- c e p ing, I left the platform to the sad-faced S y k c pig, who would meet his foreordained u t n e fate as best he could. K f o I got trapped in an almost identical y t i s r

e situation in Barbourville. Some ingenious v i n

U souls dreamed up a scheme to breathe life © and excitement into that flood-ravaged town. They came up with the idea of negotiating a “treaty” with the North Carolina Indians. The citizens of Knox County would allow the Cherokees to sell an assortment of goods along the main highway and to trim cane along the banks of local creeks in exchange for a guaran- teed year of freedom for the whites from warriors of the Cherokee tribe. I think I can say with assurance that the Chero- Thomas Clark in his office in Frazee There are hound dog days, tater days, kees had no plans to raid Knox County— Hall in 1955. During 23 years as morel mushroom observances, sorghum ever. The festival intended to amuse chair, he raised the University of molasses stir-offs, and so on down to wild tourists with the firing of muzzle-loaded Kentucky History Department to onions. I have spoken to audiences at guns and a grand display of baskets, col- national prominence. some of these festive gatherings, and I orful blankets, and plaster casts of animal believe that it is not a true festival if the and human figures. On top of all the program does not get fouled up in some pow-wowing there were to be a speech clerk did not ask my name, and I was too way. On one occasion I was asked to and a basketball game. I was invited to weary to give him any information. I fell speak in a festival speak, and after the sound asleep, but before long there was a in Perryville (the usual loss of time on pounding at the door.The clerk asked my central theme of I recall occasions when such occasions, the name and said the school principal was which I have for- chairman looking for me. gotten, if I ever a program chairman announced that the That night I spoke in an impressive knew it). There would get things mixed audience could rural Kentucky adaptation of a Gothic was the usual choose to stay and chapel. The graduating class was small, milling around of up and two speakers hear my speech or but the chapel was crowded with parents a full battalion of would appear. When that go and see two high and well-wishers. When I finished my hot dog munch- school basketball speech there was not a single hand clap or ers. The arrangers happened, I would eat teams fight it out. any other sound, and not the slightest of the festival had the proffered meal and Hardly had the show of emotion. As I watched the sen- scheduled at least chairman finished iors receive their diplomas I wondered if twice too many leave my fellow speaker his announcement I was not still lying in a comatose state on events, among to carry on. than there was a a hotel bed. Later other speakers told me which were my rush to the basket- they had had the same experience. Audi- speech and a fly- ball court. I was left ences in that area of Kentucky, they said, over by a squadron of the 101st Airborne with only the halt and lame as an audi- never applauded a speaker. Command from Fort Campbell, followed ence.This was one of the few times in my Kentuckians are so enamored of fes- by the sale of a pig at auction.The pig sat life when I lost my sense of humor and tivals that some counties have difficulty in a cage directly in front of the speaker’s my temper in public. As I was stepping finding something unique to celebrate. stand. The flyover was late in arriving, into my car to return to Lexington, the 14 October 2006 • Kentucky Humanities chairman came running up, begging me my emotions. One was the dedication of privilege, and that his one regret was that he to come back and speak to the token the $39 million tunnel under Cumber- would not be around to see how future schol- audience. As I drove home that night I land Gap. On hand that cool, rainy morn- ars revised and appraised the work done by was convinced that only a damned idiot ing in October 1996 were three or four his own generation of historians. would ever agree to speak to anyone, any- governors, a gaggle of congressmen, state where. I hoped the Cherokees would officials from Virginia, Kentucky, and Advances in so many areas of human abrogate their treaty and scalp the entire Tennessee, and a large assemblage of endeavor have come so rapidly in the festival committee… ordinary citizens, all standing in the rain twentieth century as to constitute a revo- There are many audiences and at the mouth of the tunnel. In that semi- lution in the American way of life. How speeches that I recall with genuine joy. I nal moment, with a sense of the historic challenging it has been to be alive and to remember the deep satisfaction I derived changes the tunnel would bring about, I experience these transformations.The lat- from addressing the annual meetings of felt I was taking part in the opening of a ter three quarters of the twentieth century the Kentucky rural electric cooperatives. I new chapter in American frontier history. were a seminal era in which to launch a could bond spiritually with that assem- Almost simultaneously with the opening career in the field of history. During those blage.The introduction of electrical ener- of the tunnel, barriers went up across decades I read perhaps hundreds of books gy had meant a new way of life to rural both ends of the ancient road over the and turned countless pages of primary Kentuckians. I could address that audi- saddle of the gap to permit its reconver- documents, but none made such a deep ence conscious of the fact that the Rural sion to the contours of the ancient Indi- impression on me as the slender primary Electrification Administration had improved the lives of my own parents. There was a truly exciting moment When I concluded my speech the ancient school when I spoke at the dedication of the great Durrett Collection in the safekeep- patriarch jumped up and grabbed my hand, ing of the new University of Chicago saying, “Son, you rung the bell!” I think that was library. Almost the first thing I heard when I arrived in Kentucky in 1928 was the most heartening thing I ever heard at the that the state had lost the Durrett Collec- end of a speech. tion of books, papers, documents, and other basic historical materials. Making the dedicatory speech on that occasion an-buffalo path. I had the privilege also of reader of 127 pages that I first en- was truly memorable. I had similar feel- making the dedicatory speech at the countered as a child.The very first thing I ings about a speech I was invited to make reopening of the historic trail in October learned from it was that a hand-drawn cir- to Daniel Boone’s descendants in the 2002. cle was a B A L L, or so the inscription Northwest. A Mrs. Buchanan had come As I look back from the perspective said in both type and script. Nearly a hun- to Athens, Kentucky, to attend a Boone of 2005, I have no idea how many dred years later, I can observe that my dedicatory occasion. She asked me if I speeches I have made or where I made simple little circle has been expanded to would speak at the Boone assembly when many of them. One thing I have learned is become a W O R L D—marked, and often I came to Seattle to teach in the Universi- that the word gratuity has stringent limi- abused, by its human occupants, actions ty of Washington. I had supposed there tations. If I had framed all the certificates that will challenge generations of histori- would be fewer than a dozen persons I received in lieu of cash, I would have to ans to explain. present. When Beth (Clark’s wife) and I build a tobacco barn to find wall space for Over the broad scope of years I have arrived at the church, situated literally on them. I received ballpoint pens by the frequently pondered the wisdom of deci- the shore of Puget Sound, the building handful and enough mugs to drink a sions I made and roads not taken. Often I was overflowing with Boone descendants. good portion of Colombia’s production have wondered whether, had I expended Presiding over the meeting was a Boone of coffee beans. Many times I have driv- as much time and energy in practicing descendant who was president of the en home at night along a winding country another profession or engaging in some Boeing Airplane Company. At that date road after making a speech, wondering if business, my life would have been richer the mammoth 747 was under construc- I was not, after all, the victim of an incur- and more materially rewarding. Yet, after tion. Facing that impressive assembly of able cranial deficiency called “emuritis.” all, those are idle questions. I have accu- Boones and their guests was a unique mulated precious riches that thieves can- experience. I concluded that Daniel “You touched my life” not steal nor moths destroy. No human Boone had sowed his seed all the way can earn a sweeter reward than when, across the continent… ooking back on a career that covered after the passing of years, a former stu- There were at least two other speak- three-quarters of a century, Tom Clark dent, well away from the grade book, ing engagements that reached deep into Lwrote that teaching had been a great says, “You touched my life.” Kentucky Humanities • October 2006 15 collection and utilization of documentary sources and the development of better techniques for reentering these basic source materials. The phenomenal advances made and promised in the latter part of the century have lifted historical research onto a new plane.The introduction of ever-expanding electronic and technological devices has placed historical research in a new time frame. Even so, there linger the basic and essential questions of how much historical information is needed for the populace to make informed decisions in matters political, economic, and cultural. I have found both intellectual and spiritual satisfaction in the profession of historian. I cherish those exciting moments of collecting and examining records never before seen by a historian, and of writing from a new perspective or One of Tom Clark’s favorite characters I humbly offer a benediction by once revising an earlier one. As I approach the from Kentucky history was Louisville more standing, vicariously, in a classroom sunset of my career, I have one haunting socialite Sallie Ward. Here he is with facing an assembly of youthful students regret. I would cherish an opportunity to Suzi Schuhmann, who portrays Sallie from whose ranks would come governors, read the revisions of younger historians Ward for Kentucky Chautauqua. physicians, lawyers, judges, authors, and appraising the works of historians of my good and productive historians and era. Future scholars will have greater Through a half century of standing archivists. Just as rewarding, however, was access to larger volumes of primary before rooms full of students, I never lost that wide-eyed young woman whom I saw materials and will have the electronic sight of how easy it is to snuff out a stu- years later bearing the marks of a lifetime and technological devices to facilitate dent’s interest in history. Figuratively,I in a schoolroom. She glorified sat beside my students and endeavored to her fellow man when she faced instill in them both interest in and com- a classroom full of primary prehension of the vital meaning of histo- scholars and drew a chalk circle Figuratively, I sat beside ry to them personally. I held steadfastly to and proclaimed it a B A L L. my students and endeavored the conviction that every human being, For the first time in their lives to instill in them both interest no matter his or her social or intellectual her charges received a glimpse level, has a warranty claim on at least a of learning. For them the naked in and comprehension of the microscopic stone in the arch of history circle would in time be convert- vital meaning of history to and the scroll of mankind’s experiences. ed into the W O R L D, a If at this confusing moment in the first greater symbol. Deeply etched them personally. decade of the twenty-first century, I were within the circle would be the asked if I would again choose an academic historical accounts of civilized career, the answer would be yes, without man’s successive triumphs and reservation. My forty-nine years in the defeats as recorded by historians through- their searches. Will they come nearer to classroom have been the most wonderful out the ages, ever challenges to new histo- the truth? Therein resides the virtue, or experience any human could hope for. I do, rians searching for truth. lack of it, of every individual who has however, reserve the privilege to wish that I From my own modest and limited borne the title “historian.” G had been a better teacher, written a better pinnacle, I look back into the opening book, or done other things more effectively. decades of the twentieth century with But those surely must be the essential quan- considerable wonder. It was near the end daries of life itself. In a more positive vein, I of the first quarter of the century that owe a heavy debt of gratitude that I had the research, writing, and the teaching of his- Reprinted by permission from My Century in History by Thomas D. Clark, University Press of privilege of standing before classes in free tory underwent a process of expansion. Kentucky © 2006. classrooms. Greater emphasis was placed upon the 16 October 2006 • Kentucky Humanities BY THOMAS C. WARE

A professor of English sets out on the trail of a distant relative who wrote the famous poem, “The Bivouac of the Dead.” Camping Out with Theodore O’Hara

n the early 1790s Kean described as Irish American, yet O’Hara made the arduous there existed in the family a sort journey from the oppres- of assumption that, on my moth- sions of western Ireland to er’s side, we were somehow closer the Commonwealth of Ken- kin to the distinguished Theodore Itucky, by comparison a land of than we actually were. rich opportunity. This article is Branham was my mother’s also a journey, an account of my maiden name, sounding vaguely search to discover how Theodore Irish but in fact distinctly English. O’Hara, the richly talented son While in Ireland on several occa- of Kean, came to compose a sions, I never once found a “Bran- poem that became part of Amer- ham” in any telephone directory. ican culture in the late 19th and My disreputable uncle Bud liked early 20th centuries—while its to refer to himself as “Irish Buddy author remained virtually Brennan,” as if somehow that tag unknown. gave him an authentic quality of I grew up hearing frequent- street toughness in the old Limer- ly about Theodore O’Hara, a ick neighborhood of west name often referred to by my Louisville, where he grew up. father with a certain reverence. From the increasingly coarse and The man who bore that name lumpy quality of his face over the was a relative on my mother’s years, however, it appeared that side of the family, yet all I sup- he did not win many of his fights. pose I ever knew about him for My maternal grandparents were years amounted to the fact that William P. Branham, known to us he was a “Poet” and author of a Theodore O’Hara circa 1850.This was about the time as “Pop,” and Rose Harkins Bran- work entitled “The Bivouac of he wrote “The Bivouac of the Dead.” ham. Early in their wedded the Dead.” My father had copies years—one may indeed say early of that poem among the yellowing papers to her seventh child, Dennis, he was days—a bitter quarrel permanently alien- he kept in his desk, and he would from awarded the middle name of O’Hara, giv- ated Rose from Marie O’Hara Branham, time to time read portions of it aloud. ing him a kind of euphonic double Irish- Pop’s sister.That alienation encompassed When my mother, Marie Ware, gave birth ness. We were by no means what is now Marie and Pop’s mother, Mary O’Hara

Kentucky Humanities • October 2006 17 e r a W

C close, yet it was not until after the death of s a

m my maternal grandmother Rose Ann o h

T Harkins Branham, who had lived with my parents in her waning years, that Auntie Marie ever came to Sunday dinner and to the other traditional gatherings of our family. She never married, small wonder, given her fierce independence. As a young woman at the turn of the century, she had been trained as a registered nurse at Norton Memorial Infirmary in Louisville and was for a time, as I heard the story, a mule-back circuit nurse in the back roads of Kentucky. An inveterate reader and collector of memorabilia, she was responsible for many donations of books and papers both to The Filson Club (now Filson Historical Society) and to the Louisville Public Library—and, of course, a caretaker of the items on Theodore O’Hara, many of which she gave my father.

n a motor trip back south from Manhattan early in the 1960s, my Owife and I thought it would be instructive to show our children Arlington National Cemetery. In those days, one could still drive leisurely through the place. As we approached the General George McClellan Gate, the original entrance, I noticed faded gold lettering over the archway: a passage from “The Bivouac of the Dead.” How, I wondered, could that have Lines from “The Bivouac of the Dead” are inscribed in gold on both sides of possibly gotten up there? And as we later the McClellan Gate, one of the entrances to the Arlington National Cemetery made our way out, I noticed that the other in Arlington,Virginia. side of the archway also featured a gold- lettered passage from the poem. My Branham—the beautiful great grand- funeral in Danville, Kentucky, of a child curiosity stirred, and I made a mental note mother whom my siblings and I knew of one of the O’Hara branches. She was to look into the matter, although at the only from photographs. The grand- certainly a commanding presence, regal time I had no notion of where to turn for daughter of Kean, Mary was our actual in bearing and in voice, insisting always an answer. I had temporarily forgotten link with the O’Haras. It was her memories, letters, newspaper clippings, and other personal items, treasured for Yet there existed in the family a sort of decades by her daughter Marie and final- assumption that, on my mother’s side, ly coming into the possession of my father, Lindsay Ware, that ultimately we were somehow closer kin to the motivated my own research and made it distinguished Theodore than we actually were. fully possible. It is an indication of how deeply sep- arated we were from that portion of our that she be called “Auntie Marie” in the those yellowing letters and newspaper family that I did not meet my great aunt broad British pronunciation, not “ant”— clippings in my father’s desk. Marie O’Hara Branham until I was twen- as if, she said, she were some sort of And so it remained, merely one of a ty-four years old, while attending the insect. She and I ultimately became quite million such fragmented notes, tucked 18 October 2006 • Kentucky Humanities remotely away in my mind, until I taken had become so well known that Kentuckians. He was still a soldier in Mex- stopped at the Gettysburg National there was no need to identify it. This lack ico in 1847. According to family lore, the Cemetery for the first time twenty-plus of specific information made it impossi- first reading of the poem was to friends in years later. There, on an oval path sur- ble to determine where General Meigs a saloon across from the statehouse in rounding the site where Lincoln delivered may have seen the elegy. Frankfort. So by the time General Meigs his Address, was a series of rectangular chose “Bivouac” to be the official memori- metal plaques, each with a quatrain from heodore O’Hara wrote “The Bivouac al utterance for the new national cemeter- “The Bivouac of the Dead”—a stunning- of the Dead” to honor and com- ies in 1881, the poem had been widely dis- ly appropriate use of the poem, it seemed Tmemorate members of the Kentucky seminated for some thirty years, in to me. But again, how did it get there? Regiment of Foot Volunteers who were reprints, anthologies, magazines, and newspapers, especially on what was then referred to as Decoration Day, May 30. In I noticed faded gold lettering over the archway: short, the poem became widely famous, a passage from “The Bivouac of the Dead.” although it seems evident that the poet was never quite as renowned as his work. Nor, How, I wondered, could that have possibly it appears, did his family know of its use. gotten up there? Theodore O’Hara led a restless life. Raised in Frankfort, he was a fine student. After attending St. Joseph’s College And a more pressing question: why? killed during the battle of Buena Vista in in Bardstown, Kentucky, he taught there None of the rangers at the information the Mexican War (1846-48). He com- briefly, but soon moved on to read law in desk could provide an answer, even posed the work—at least an early version Frankfort with the demanding Judge though a brochure about the Gettysburg of it—sometime between the fall of 1848, William Owsley. Admitted to the Ken- Center referred to that circled area as when he returned to Frankfort from that tucky bar in 1842, he soon drifted into “The Bivouac Walk.”Yet nowhere on any war, and 1850, when it first appeared in journalism and Democratic politics. After of the plaques did I find the title of the the Frankfort Yeoman, as a document in his former taskmaster Judge Owsley, a poem or the name of the poet. The mys- the archives of The Filson Historical Soci- Whig, was elected governor in 1844, tery darkened; and the post historian, ety testifies. O’Hara did not, as some O’Hara headed for Washington, D. C. He who might have provided some light, was accounts state, read the poem at an 1847 landed a clerical job in the Treasury absent that day. Frankfort ceremony honoring the fallen Department, but was bored and left in I did obtain her name and mailing T address and through her I learned that h o m a

the only information available at Gettys- s

C .

burg about the origins of the plaques was W a r an invoice from the Rock Island Arsenal, e in Illinois, dating from the 1880s. I subse- quently wrote to the National Archives, and visited there, obtaining a copy of the authorizing letter which had inaugurated the entire project, signed by the Quarter- master General at the time, Brevet Major General Montgomery Meigs. This letter to the Ordnance Office, dated June 10, 1881, stipulated 500 castings of the tablets. An accompanying draftsman’s sketch specified the size of the tablets as one foot six inches by three feet, but no document seemed to exist indicating specifically where these castings were to be sent. Nor have I ever found any mention of the title of the poem or its author in correspondence available in the Archives. The only conclusion to be reached, it still appears, is that the elegy A plaque with lines from “The Bivouac of the Dead” at Gettysburg National from which the various passages were Cemetery in Pennsylvania. Kentucky Humanities • October 2006 19 June 1846 for the U. S. Army. Despite his O’Hara did not, as some accounts state, read lack of military experience, he was commissioned a captain. He served with some the poem at an 1847 Frankfort ceremony distinction in the Mexican War but was honoring the fallen Kentuckians. According to mustered out. He worked for a time as a newspaperman in Frankfort, then signed family lore, the first reading of the poem was on to a disastrous expedition to invade to friends in a saloon across from the statehouse and “free” Cuba from Spain. Wounded, in Frankfort. he returned to Frankfort, often seeking comfort and inspiration at the Frankfort Cemetery. During this low season of his life he composed the two elegies for Orleans for his role in the Cuban contributor to the Times, described which he is now known: “Dirge for the escapade, O’Hara was acquitted and O’Hara as “…about 5’8” with black hair Old Pioneer” (an homage to Daniel returned to newspaper work, becoming and a deep hazel eye, and with a healthy Boone) and “The Bivouac of the Dead.” part owner and sole editor of the peach-blow complexion… His figure was Brought to trial for treason in New Louisville Times. J. Stoddard Johnston, a shapely and he bore himself so erectly yet gracefully that he seemed really taller than he was… he would have attracted interest in any company as a cultivated, intellectual gentleman of the best breeding.” In fact, he was famously convivial and a welcome guest on social occasions. O’Hara relinquished his Louisville newspaper career for a second commis- sion in the U. S. Army, a venture that ended in an accusation of drunkenness while on duty.The charge, brought by Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee, severely damaged O’Hara’s reputation. After several years as the editor of the Mobile Daily Register in Alabama, he enlisted in the Confeder- ate Army in 1861. It is entirely probable that the lingering stigma of his disgrace and Robert E. Lee’s well-known ability to nurse animosity were the real reasons for O’Hara’s failure to receive promotion to Colonel during his service in the Confed- erate Army, a service which by most accounts was certainly meritorious. He was an active participant at the battles of Stone’s River and Shiloh, where he was invited to join the staff of General Albert Sidney Johnston. There is certainly irony in the fact that General Meigs chose to commemorate the Union dead from the Civil War with lines from a poem written by a man who fought valiantly for the Confederate cause.

The author,Thomas C.Ware, with a “Bivouac” plaque at the national cemetery in Chattanooga,Tennessee.

20 October 2006 • Kentucky Humanities e y own pattern of research during r a W

the year or so after my Gettys- . C

s burg encounter and the discov- a m

M o h

ery of the order for the plaques with quat- T rains from “The Bivouac” involved mainly weekend traveling to Southern battle- field cemeteries in the national system, where, I presumed it likely, these plaques might be found. That is to say, in cemeteries where Union soldiers were official- ly interred, places where no Confederate soldiers, even veterans who died much later, were permitted to be buried until well into the 20th century. In addition to those at Gettysburg, I found the plaques at Antietam, Fredericksburg, Shiloh, Stone’s River, and Vicksburg; and when I found them at Cave Hill in Louisville, I realized that they had probably been sent to other plots set aside for the burial of veterans of all U.S. wars. I did not, however, find them at the site of the notorious Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia, which was surprising to me. Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville. Also, I learned that the disappear- ance of the plaques from Arlington National Cemetery, where they were cent to the Tomb of the Unknown Sol- had been removed and despite official once prominent, had brought a series of dier. Nothing ever came of this resolu- protests simply disappeared. The superin- protests and negotiations which reached tion, and my many inquiries yielded no tendent was unable to account for the all the way to the U. S. Congress. A satisfactory answers. removal or disposition of them. House Resolution (H.J. 20) in January of And so it seemed at this point that I Later, in serendipitous fashion, I per- had almost exhausted the topic, yet with sonally found excerpts from the poem on many unanswered questions. I submitted concrete or marble slabs in other cemeter- There is certainly an essay about my findings, along with ies, such as in Greenville, South Carolina, appropriate slides, for presentation at the and in Perryville, Kentucky on the site of irony in the fact Graves and Gravemarkers section of the that major battle between Union and Con- that General Meigs American Culture Association meeting in federate forces. In Perryville, an obelisk with Louisville.The paper was accepted. Dur- quatrains from the poem sits in the mass chose to commemorate ing the question-answer session someone grave plot of the Confederate troops who the Union dead from remarked, “I’ve often wondered where fell there; curiously, there are no plaques at those plaques came from. I pass by them the cemetery in nearby Camp Nelson, the Civil War with lines every morning going to work.” where the Union dead from that battle were from a poem written “Where is that?” transported for interment. by a man who fought “Crown Hill Cemetery in Indi- I had read of people encountering anapolis.” passages from the elegy on memorials on valiantly for the So I knew the quest was far from over, the Boston Common, which I looked for Confederate cause. and in some ways it had just begun. The but never found. I learned of reports of article, entitled “Where Valor Proudly sightings in a London cemetery, and in a Sleeps,” was published in the annual “Mark- military plot in the Crimea in present-day ers.” And later I did find the usual cluster of Ukraine—and have seen photographs of 1935, referred to the Committee on Mil- the plaques at Crown Hill Cemetery in Indi- tomb markers featuring lines from the itary Affairs, stipulated that a tablet con- anapolis, and still later in the burial ground poem in other spots, such as Mount taining an entire version of the poem, at Little Big Horn in Montana. I found also Hope in Rochester, New York, where with the poet’s name, be placed in the that the plaques had once been placed in the some 5,000 Union soldiers are buried in Arlington Memorial Amphitheater, adja- Chattanooga National Cemetery, but they a Civil War section. Kentucky Humanities • October 2006 21 The Bivouac of the Dead by Theodore O’Hara

The muffled drum’s sad roll has beat The neighing troop, the flashing blade, The soldier’s last tattoo; The bugle’s stirring blast, No more on Life’s parade shall meet The charge, the dreadful cannonade, That brave and fallen few. The din and shout, are past; On fame’s eternal camping ground Nor war’s wild note, nor glory’s peal, Their silent tents are spread, Shall thrill with fierce delight And glory guards, with solemn round, Those breasts that nevermore may feel The bivouac of the dead. The rapture of the fight.

No rumor of the foe’s advance Like the fierce northern hurricane Now swells upon the wind; That sweeps the great plateau, Nor troubled thought at midnight haunts Flushed with the triumph yet to gain, Of loved ones left behind; Come down the serried foe. No vision of the morrow’s strife Who heard the thunder of the fray The warrior’s dreams alarms, Break o’er the field beneath, No braying horn or screaming fife Knew the watchword of the day At dawn shall call to arms. Was “Victory or death.”

Their shivered swords are red with rust, Long did the doubtful conflict rage Their plumed heads are bowed; O’er all that stricken plain, Their haughty banner, trailed in dust, For never fiercer fight did wage Is now their martial shroud; The vengeful blood of Spain. And plenteous funeral tears have washed And still the storm of battle blew, The red stains from each brow, Still swelled the gory tide— And the proud forms, by battle gashed, Not long, our stout old Chieftain knew, Are free from anguish now. Such odds his strength could bide. e r The grave of Kean O’Hara, father of rather than abjure their Catholic faith.They a W

. Theodore, in White Sulphur, Kentucky. came to St. Mary’s, an active Catholic C s a enclave in Maryland, where Kean met m o h

T Helen Hardy, who became his wife (and the mother of Theodore). They settled in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, where Kean Some time after my article appeared, I had frequently traveled selling household had a series of conversations with Nat supplies. Ultimately, he became a prosper- Hughes, a noted historian of the Civil War, ous land owner and a widely renowned which revealed that we had in common a teacher, mainly in schools he had estab- fascination with the elusive Mr. O’Hara.We lished, and for a time was on the faculty of decided to divide the labor and organize Transylvania College in Lexington. He is what we knew and could discover about buried in a small, relatively untended plot him. My own endeavors included visiting near St. Francis Church in White Sulphur some of the areas in the west of Ireland in Scott County. I found a clearing near a where, records indicate, O’Haras have been small brook which had evidently been a tra- property owners since at least the ninth ditional spot for baptisms since ancient century. I found the tiny village of Col- times, and was fortunate also to discover the looney, where it appears Kean and proba- ancestral home (the “Big House”) and bly five members of his immediate family meet the present paterfamilias, Dermot departed for this country in the early 1790s, O’Hara, who informed me that the only

22 October 2006 • Kentucky Humanities Twas at that hour his stern command Thus ’neath their parent turf they rest, Called to a martyr’s grave Far from the gory field, The flower of his own loved land, Borne to a Spartan mother’s breast The nation’s flag to save, On many a bloody shield; By rivers of their father’s gore The sunshine of their native sky His first-born laurels grew, Smiles sadly on them here, And well he deemed the sons would pour And kindred eyes and hearts watch by Their lives for glory too. The heroes’ sepulcher.

For many a norther’s breath has swept Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead! O’er Angostura’s plain— Dear as the blood ye gave, And long the pitying sky has wept No impious footstep here shall tread Above its moldered slain. The herbage of your grave; The raven’s scream, or eagle’s flight, Nor shall your glory be forgot Or shepherd’s pensive lay, While Fame her record keeps, Alone awakes each sullen height Or Honor points the hallowed spot That frowned o’er that dread fray. Where valor proudly sleeps.

Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground, Yon Marble Minstrel’s voiceful stone Ye must not slumber here, In deathless song shall tell, Where stranger steps and tongues resound When many a vanquished age hath flown, Along the heedless air. The story how ye fell; Your own proud land’s heroic soil Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter’s blight, Shall be your fitter grave; Nor Time’s remorseless doom, She claims from War his richest spoil— Shall dim one ray of Glory’s light The ashes of her brave. That gilds your deathless tomb.

American O’Hara who interested him was in the U.S. almost five years by that time. He And perhaps the most pressing question of “Scarlett.” But a number of questions was not invited by Isaac Shelby, first gover- all: Why were no steps taken by the appro- remained unanswered. How, for example, nor of the state (1792-1796), to come to priate Kentucky officials, as well as O’Hara did Kean O’Hara as a young man in Col- Kentucky. Kean would have earned no such family members, to see that the stipulations looney in the latter decades of the 18th century receive a classical education sufficient for him to set up as a school master when he settled in Kentucky in the late 1790s? Albert Brackett, an army compatriot, wrote Until the Emancipation Act of 1829, that O’Hara “did not appear to have that stability, Roman Catholics in Ireland were severely restricted in a number of ways, including no which is necessary to secure success.” access to higher education, even had there Alcoholism was the likely culprit. been such institutions in western Ireland. It was also illegal for Catholics to send their sons abroad for such purposes. distinction by that time. Why is there a of the 1935 House Resolution (HJ 20) were In most treatments of early Kentucky plaque in the town square of Danville stating carried out? It would not have been too cost- history, several patent falsehoods about that Theodore was born there on February ly, nor would it be today. The answers Kean’s arrival not only in Kentucky but in 11, 1820, when evidence of Kean’s opening remain for others to provide. this country were repeated, and still are. He of a new school in January of that year in The University of Tennessee Press did not leave Ireland in the wake of the infa- Frankfort almost certainly indicates that accepted our manuscript and published the mous 1798 “Rising” in Ireland but had been Theodore’s birth place was the latter city? book: Theodore O’Hara: Poet-Soldier of the

Kentucky Humanities • October 2006 23 e r The grave of Theodore O’Hara in the a W

. Frankfort Cemetery. He was buried C s

a there in 1874.The marker was erected m o 39 years later. h T

15, 1874 a crowd estimated crowd at several thousand braved threatening weather to witness an elaborate procession and ceremony honoring O’Hara and two other veterans of the Mexican War. His grave, near that of Daniel Boone in the Frankfort Cemetery, was marked with a simple military stone, later replaced. Today, the site is adorned with two slabs of Italian marble, erected by the Kentucky Historical Society in 1913. The horizontal one features a crossed sword and sheath within what appears to be a crown of bay leaf. On the vertical one, there is a scroll topped with a leaf of fern and a quill pen. The scroll con- tains sixteen lines from “The Bivouac of the Dead.” He had written his own epitaph— and that of countless others as well.

The muffled drum’s sad roll has beat The soldier’s last tattoo; No more on life’s parade shall meet That brave and fallen few. On Fame’s eternal camping-ground Their silent tents are spread, And Glory guards with solemn round The bivouac of the dead. Old South (1998). It was nominated for sev- and he died on June 7, 1867. He was 47. eral awards, including The Governor’s The stated cause was “bilious fever,” a Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead! Award in Kentucky, for which it was one of generic term that was used to cover a Dear as the blood ye gave, ten finalists. Perhaps our most gratifying number of conditions, including cirrhosis No impious footstep here shall tread response, however, has been from a number of the liver. O’Hara was always a heavy The herbage of your grave; of people across the country who have writ- drinker. Albert Brackett, an army compa- Nor shall your glory be forgot ten and called about their delight in discov- triot, wrote that O’Hara “did not appear While Fame her record keeps, ering information about the poet, to whom to have that stability, which is necessary Or Honor points the hallowed spot their own families claimed kinship, and to secure success.” Alcoholism was the Where Valor proudly sleeps. recounting their own efforts in tracing line- likely culprit. age back through those generations of Irish Some six years after his death and bur- On the back side of the marble slab, men and women who contributed to this ial in Columbus, a bill was introduced in the a harp is carved in bas-relief with one country’s achievements. Kentucky legislature requesting that broken string, a traditional symbol for the O’Hara’s remains be brought to his home Irish poet-singer, now silent. G erhaps because of his nomadic state. The General Assembly approved a habits, Theodore O’Hara never joint resolution on February 2, 1874. His Pmarried. At the end of the Civil body was disinterred and placed on a train. Thomas C. Ware is a professor of English, War, he settled near Columbus, Georgia, O’Hara’s renown as a poet and loyal son of specializing in Irish and Victorian literature, at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. entering a cotton-warehousing venture the South was such that, at a number of He has published numerous articles and that ended in a disastrous fire. He retreat- stops on the journey through Georgia,Ten- reviews and is the co-author of Theodore O’Hara: Poet-Soldier of the Old South ed to an Alabama plantation, probably nessee, and Kentucky, local tributes were (University of Tennessee Press, 1998). owned by a relative. His health declined paid to the late soldier-poet. On September

24 October 2006 • Kentucky Humanities INTERVIEW

The Kentucky Book Fair, which celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2006, has proved the skeptics wrong and changed the perception of Kentucky as a bad book market. Going for 50

s the 25th anniversary of the Kentucky Book Fair approached, Kentucky Hu- manities discussed the history and future of what is Anow a beloved institution with three Book Fair stalwarts:

• Carl West, editor of the State Jour- nal and president of the Kentucky Book Fair, Inc. • Connie Crowe, manager of the Kentucky Book Fair • Lynda Sherrard, chair of the 25th anniversary committee

West: I had put on a book fair at the National Press Club in Washington for several years prior to coming back to Ken- tucky. My experience with book fairs was all good and positive, so I began to organize one here. I didn’t think of it in terms of the need. I thought of it in terms of it being a good civic project for a newspaper to be involved in. I had no idea how it would go— none of us did. There were a few who had experiences with book fairs who thought it would not go… because of Kentucky’s rep- Planning began in 1981, and the first Book The Kentucky Book Fair in its original utation for having a low ranking in literacy, Fair took place in 1982. location—the Kentucky Department for a low ranking in high school graduates, a West: I think we had forty authors and Libraries and Archives. low ranking in the number of students we sold $10,000 worth of books. We just attending college, and a low ranking among tried to get as many authors as we could, publishers as being a book buying state. authors of current books, and from there Department for Libraries and Archives That was their concern—that the people of we didn’t know where it was going to go.We (KDLA) building. Its current home is the Kentucky don’t read books and therefore didn’t know if we’d sell a single book. Frankfort Convention Center. The Fair is a they don’t buy them. But it turned out to be nonprofit corporation, run by a 15-member the opposite. It turned out all the fears and He estimates attendance at the first fair at board of directors. Part-time manager Connie concerns were unfounded. 1,000. It was held in the then-new Kentucky Crowe is the only paid staffer.The Fair’s pri- Kentucky Humanities • October 2006 25 are most eager to talk about it. At least that’s B

o the case we’ve found with most authors. b

L a

Birthday Bash n They really want to talk about something h a

m that they’ve been cooped up maybe years

ynda Sherrard, chair of the 2 writing. Someone comes in, picks it up, 0 0 6

Book Fair’s 25th Anniver- A starts asking questions—it’s like turning a l l

r i sary Committee, says this g faucet on. h

L t s

year will be like previous years, r e s e

but more so. “We just decided r The Book Fair’s goals are to celebrate the v e d

that what we’re doing is the best book,bring authors and readers together,and thing we do, so we’re trying to raise money for literary causes—mainly turn it into a little bit of a party. public and school libraries in need. We’re going to drop down the Crowe: That’s where 98 percent of big video screen and show slides the grants go.To date we’ve awarded over and program covers and people $250,000 in public school and public who’ve been here over the years library grants. We’re in the process this and crowd shots—how authors year of looking at our grants and what have changed in physical we’re going to be able to do, but we appearance. We are going to do haven’t really announced that application some blowups of the programs process yet. Depending on our proceeds and have them sitting around the from year to year, individual grants usu- floor so that people will have an ally vary from $500 to $1000. idea of the time that’s passed. We’re going to do some things In the universe of book fairs, the Kentucky that are fun, but we really just The 25th Kentucky Book Fair Book Fair has achieved a certain eminence. want them to come and have the Saturday, November 11, 2006 West: We’ve said for years it’s one of same good old time they’ve 9 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. the oldest and largest of its kind in the always had.” nation, and it is—its kind being strictly for One special feature of the Frankfort Convention Center authors.We’ve sort of gotten away from that 25th Kentucky Book Fair will be for the last few years because we have sym- an appearance by actress Patricia Neal. A Kentuckian and Academy Award win- posiums and luncheons. For a long time ner, Neal will sign her biography, Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life, which was writ- that’s all we did, was authors. We didn’t do ten by Stephen Michael Shearer. Neal will also be the main attraction that evening these other sideshows. Still, I think, for the at a reception and screening of Hud at Frankfort’s Grand Theatre. number of authors we have and for the amount of money we take in in eight hours, we may be the largest of its kind in the mary partners now are the State Journal, For most of those who come, talking with nation. Certainly we’re in the top five. KDLA, the University Press of Kentucky, and authors is the main attraction. Crowe: We have a minimum of 150 Joseph-Beth Booksellers. It costs about West: The interchange between the authors, and sometimes it ranges on up $20,000 a year to present the Book Fair. authors and the reading public—I think close to 170 or 175, 180 one year. It’s kind Crowe: We make a very small prof- that really is the key. The bigger the of like fishing. You dip your pole in the it. We make less than $20,000 from the author, the more celebrity, the better the water and see what comes back. So any day event each year. Our attendance is a little draw. But still it’s that reader wants to the numbers can fluctuate. It’s kind of like bit over 3,000. Sales last year exceeded meet that author. riding a roller coaster between now and $160,000. We have been hovering in that Sherrard: It works the other way too. November 11 for me. We look at between area for about the last three years. A lot of the authors enjoy talking with their four and five hundred titles each year. I get West: We’re always trying to readers.They enjoy telling how they put the daily requests. It’s put us on the map as far increase attendance with promotions, plot together, whatever it is. as being a reading public.You can call New we’re trying to get bus tours. Everything West: If you just come in and see these York publishing houses now and they actu- we do, in addition to having the authors, patrons talking with these authors—sure, ally do take you seriously and not think that we look at getting more people in—semi- they can buy the book at a discount, but to we’re barefoot and pregnant in Kentucky nars, luncheons, speaking engagements, get that conversation in is what they really and not a reading public. breakfasts, entertainment on Saturday want. And of course if you’re an author, West: I think it’s met its goals. If night after the Book Fair. It’s all geared to you’ve labored in obscurity, alone for a long someone were to say to me, “You’ve not increasing attendance. time putting something together and you met your goals,” I don’t know what their

26 October 2006 • Kentucky Humanities Organizers say the chance to interact with authors is the Book Fair’s main attraction. Here Bobbie Ann Mason autographs her novel Feather Crowns.

argument would be. We do hold a one- day celebration that honors authors and what they’ve written. We do put authors on a one-on-one with their readers, and we certainly raise money [for grants]. Putting the state on the literary map is an achievement. We’ve had celebrity after celebrity in here, from Rosalynn Carter to Mickey Mantle to Erma Bombeck, but year after year our bestselling item has been the Kentucky authors—the Tom Clarks, David Dicks, Wendell Berries, James Archambeaults.We get at least 100 Kentucky authors every year. I’m going to leave out Marcia Jones, George Ella Lyon, Bobbie Ann Mason—those are the the late historian Thomas Clark is the dollar- far in the minority. Most of the authors are people who year in and year out make the volume leader. Local history is the overall best just so genuinely happy to have a chance to Kentucky Book Fair. seller. The Fair has earned a reputation for sell their books. Crowe: It’s meat and potatoes. It’s being most hospitable to its authors, although a the Kentucky authors that cumulatively few don’t seem exactly grateful. When it comes to the future, the Book Fair is have a larger effect on us. Local sales, West: We’ve had authors who have aiming high. Kentucky sales. You will have standout been difficult to the extent that we have an West: Fifty years! We would like to see star authors.You will have some that you award for one of them—the most-obnox- more sideshows like symposiums and thought were going to be standout star ious author award we give every year. breakfasts and luncheons, and more space. authors that were not. We’ve had some who’ve been amusing.We Not necessarily more authors, but more had one very prominent author who space for the authors we have. And I think They think Lexington children’s books author brought a woman with him who was not we all want to see this continue because it’s Marcia Jones has probably sold more books his wife. Everyone was curious about that. been good for everyone. It’s been good for than anyone else in the Fair’s history, and that He pawned her off as his fiancée, which the publishers—they’ve made money.The nobody believed, but authors who’ve sold their books have there she was sitting made money. The reading public has got- behind him. The one ten their pleasure out of it, and what who was the most money we’ve made has gone to buy a amusing to all of us quarter of a million dollars’ worth of books was Andy Rooney. He and who knows what that’s going to do in behaved in a most the long run. And that’s why I got into it in obnoxious manner, the first place. I couldn’t find any negatives but we couldn’t figure to a book fair. There are none that I know out whether he was of, unless it’s that we’re all tired at the end just being Andy or he of the day when the thing’s over. was really obnoxious. Sherrard: I think the public would We’ve had authors be very disappointed if anything ever who were really dis- happened to it. I know of one woman courteous to the vol- here in Frankfort—she brags that she’s unteers to the point been to every Book Fair, even though she Book Fair founder and president Carl West (right) where they were has to count that she was in her mother’s with Thomas D. Clark.West says the late historian almost asked to leave womb the first year. People truly look for- laureate was the Fair’s bestselling author and most the Book Fair. But ward to it and I think would be crushed if ardent supporter. these have been so, so it ever fell by the wayside. G

Kentucky Humanities • October 2006 27 A SHORT STORY BY JOHN HAY

In a warm room on a snowy night, Uncle Jones works his magic. The Light in the Distant Room

n the cool fall, red and gold, when the of the board to make it true. With an ease flannel shirt and a vest. His old hat had walnuts were dropping to roll in the of concentration he pushed the plane, and a broad brim darkened from wear.There pale grass, when they hit with a the yellow shaving curled out like a ringlet was a hole in the point of the crown. Joey thump against the smokehouse roof, of sun blonde hair. thought, I won’t ever say, “Uncle Jones, he was there in the blue light. He Like Mary’s golden curls, Joey there’s a hole in your hat.” “You’re right wIanted to know, and he was willing to thought. For her, I’ll get one. about that, Joey,” he would say if I did. strive to learn it all. Why should he not “How old are you getting to be?” think of wisdom? He felt like the wind. Uncle Jones asked, with that light he At sunset that same day the snow Red leaves flying from the trees. A soli- could bring to his eyes. began to float down, a storm of white nar- tary bird was speaking. To himself he Joey thought, He always asks that, cissus. It was a strange sky, for the sun said, I can be just like the wind. every few days at least. “Nine, seven, was making colors in the west and for a He thought of Mary. He thought of eleven to come, the next one better than moment all the flakes were wild red roses. Mack. Then he could not think. “Uncle the last of ‘em,” he said. That’s what he Joey was waiting for one to fall in his hand Jones, where are you? Are you down near always says to me, he thought, but he when Mack slipped under the fence. the arbor with a lattice and a sharp saw? must be a hundred. Mack lived on the farm down the road at Not there. Where?” “You right about that,” Uncle Jones the horseshoe curve. Joey thought for a moment—a lion— said. He took the pipe from his mouth “The bull chased me,” Mack said. and gracefully searched with his eyes for and tapped it on the stone walk. “The “But I got away. I hit him with a clod Uncle Jones. Out in the pasture near the next one should always be better than the right between the eyes.” Mack spit over white sycamore he saw his silver, long last one.You know why?” one shoulder and hiked his pants up with legged mare running the curve, her mane “No,” Joey said, surprised at the new both hands. He walked up to Joey and flashing high in the breeze. Joey ran too— twist. “Why?” looked him straight in the eye. “Let’s do kicking and jumping. They sailed on by: “Cause that’s the one you got.” something.” charmed particles—one this way, one When Uncle Jones eats a ripe paw “The snow is red,” Joey said. that—the race begun and won in a breath. paw from our tall tree in the lavender “Snow’s white,” Mack said. “Got any Near the greenhouse, where the light garden, he says that too, Joey thought. gum?” fluttered in the glass, by the steaming flow- Lavender was the garden’s name, with “Nope,” Joey said. “Let’s go find ers he found Uncle Jones. He was repairing silver fruit branches and wild red roses, Uncle Jones.” Joey still held out his hand, the door with a plank of yellow wood. He often all rain and sunlight. and it was wet from the red snow flakes sat on the stone walk by his leather grip Uncle Jones’s mustache was curved that were falling. sack.The old tools shone in the sun like sil- and gray. His skin was black. He was tall “I’d rather go start the tractor,” Mack ver. With a plane he was shaving the edge and slender. He wore high boots, a dark said.

28 October 2006 • Kentucky Humanities “We promised we wouldn’t.” “Thank you, Mrs. Williams,” Mary “Wait,” Mary said without looking at “I don’t care,” Mack said. said. She jiggled her arms out of the Mack. She pulled her arm away with a “Besides it’s boring. I’d rather do sleeves of her coat. quick turn of her shoulder, her open hand something different,” Joey said. “What are you having?” Mack asked. cutting downward, a deadly move from a “We could back it up.” “I’ll call your parents, and I’ll take you darker place. Again she softened. Her “We’ve done it,” Joey said. “Maybe home when I take Uncle Jones home,” eyes remained on Uncle Jones. Uncle Uncle Jones will tell us a story.” Joey’s mother said. At the big stove she lift- Jones had the look of a Captain resting “He’s boring,” Mack said. ed the lid of a rich, steaming soup. from the sea. He leaned back. He began Down the long hall, over Mary’s to sharpern a small knife, slowly against a She ducked under the low limb of the shoulder, Joey saw the glow of red fire. stone. Mary’s long curls were red with the golden rain tree by the garden gate. A Mary looked at Joey with the edges of her fire. “Would you tell us a story, Uncle branch hooked her soft, white cap, and her eyes. Mack pulled at her arm. Jones?” she asked. blonde curls cascaded to the shoulders of “Race you down the hall,” Mack “Joey?” she called. She turned to her coat. She stood there surprised, as said. He pushed her ahead and she ran, search for him, but when she met his eyes slender and graceful as the limb which lift- and he passed her, and Mary laughed in the doorway, she looked down. ed her cap. And the snowflakes, falling near the marble statue of the gentle Joey looked down, too. He wondered large and white again, began melting in her hair. Mary! Joey took an extra breath and with bright eyes sank his hands into his pockets. Mack took off running. Uncle Jones’s mustache was curved and gray. His At Mary’s side Mack told her, Joey skin was black. He was tall and slender. He wore said we should go start the tractor, and Joey said he would go in the house and high boots, a dark flannel shirt and a vest. His get some cookies and bring them down, old hat had a broad brim darkened from wear. and Joey said we should run on fast before his mother came out and not to There was a hole in the point of the crown. wait for him. When Mary ran away with Mack, tears tried to flow in Joey’s eyes, and in his woman with the blue urn, and she felt the if Uncle Jones could see him; the room pockets he clenched his fists. Why didn’t warmth of the statue’s elegant smile and seemed so full of people. Did Uncle Jones she wait for me? He brushed his eye with the freshness of the stone dress when she know that he had almost cried? No, he the edge of his hand and tried to look into brushed on by with her hand. couldn’t know. “I’d like a story too, Uncle the falling snow for comfort. But the Mack and Mary skidded on an Jones,” he said. flakes appeared small and sharp and ancient rug from Asia. And there by the Uncle Jones smiled at them with that seemed no longer beautiful. fire was Uncle Jones. They had forgotten light in his eye. He put away the knife. about him. Mack’s eyes widened. Uncle Mary sat down on the rug, and Joey sat The trees had lost their edges in the Jones made him nervous. He didn’t know down, not too close. Quickly Mack was sheets of nightfall. Through the damp why. So he sauntered up to the fire and on the rug between them, but then, with a window Joey watched the two of them, turned his back to it for a moment as if flourish of his arms, he jumped up again. Mary and Mack, fade and come again, that warmth was what he had come for all “I want to hear a story from a book, coming along the gravel walk. Shadows along. Mary said, “Hi, Uncle Jones.” not another made up one,” Mack said. “I fell across the cold. They came making “Race you. Let’s go,” Mack said to know where a book is.” footprints. She wasn’t holding his hand. Mary. “You don’t know any books here,” Mack was talking. He kicked the snow as Uncle Jones sat with his long legs Joey said. he talked, probably telling her lies about crossed. His hands were resting, and the “Yes I do. I saw it. It has an Indian on the bull, Joey thought. light from the fire shone softly over him. the front.” Mack ran down the hall, and “Hi, Joey,” Mary said. At the kitchen His old felt hat rested on the floor beside they could hear his feet on the long, door—the bright lights. He wished he him. His eyes widened when Mack wooden stairway. were damp and cool like her. twirled on one foot in discontent. Joey looked out of the corner of his “Where have you been?” Joey’s “How do you do, Mary,“ Uncle eye at Mary. Uncle Jones, who had been mother smiled. Jones said gently. “Have you all been out about to speak, saw Joey’s look and quiet- “Riding the pony,” Mack said. in the snow?” ly began to busy himself with the poker “Next time go with them and help “Yes, sir, we have.” and the hot coals of the fire. them, Joey. Take off your coats and have “Race you. Let’s go,” Mack said. He “Why didn’t you come down to the dinner with us if you like.” swung Mary by the arm. barn?” Mary asked in a soft voice that Kentucky Humanities • October 2006 29 she was sure Uncle Jones was too busy to as if what was painted was real. He put his Jones—beautiful, like the princess in a hear. finger on a word and pronounced the sylla- story, and truthful like the queen. Joey “I don’t know,” Joey said. bles slowly, “Te...cum...seh,” he said. Mack glanced at Mary and was held within her “Mack said it was because you were bit his lip, now a little embarrassed at what burning curls. Uncle Jones leaned back, afraid to drive the tractor, and because he had done, but puzzled too that Uncle easy, alert, interested in what he might you didn’t like me.” Jones had read the word. His mother had hear. “I’ve driven the tractor before,” Joey told him one time that the old man who The woman’s voice came softly, said. But then he felt tears might come if worked for Joey’s parents wasn’t as smart as strong and true, like the storytellers of he tried to say more. So he just turned Joey said he was, that obviously he wasn’t old. Her eyes, clear and sure, told the chil- warm in his chest and blended with her Joey’s uncle, and the old feller couldn’t even dren that this story was her own, that curls. read. But Mack had never been sure about what it was—its depth—she was. “Mack is going to buy me a milk- the old man. Could he read Indian? Her red dress lay like water against shake tomorrow after school,” Mary said. Joey’s mother looked into the fire lit her skin. She read, “Tecumseh was a “I never said I didn’t like you,” Joey room from the high, white doorway. She strong man, clear of eye, born under a said. But it was too late. He was almost smiled. “Dinner soon,” she said. “Don’t special star, when a meteor sailed across sure she didn’t hear him, because at that go away.” Her face, her form held the the heavens. As a youth he learned to ride moment Mack burst in with the book, youth of one who cares, and in her move- and speak and play games, and he lis- dropped it in Uncle Jones’s lap, and sat ment was grace, and her soft dress was tened to the wisdom of his elders with an between them. flowing, red. She had auburn hair, soft eye that was creative and humane.” Uncle Jones crossed his long legs and hair like Mary. One hand drifted easy to “What’s a creative eye?” Mack broke sat a little straighter in the firelight. He brush her cheek. in. “How could he hear with his eye?” held the book as he might have held a “Uncle Jones is going to read us a “That means that he listened very piece of wood that he was eyeing for its story,” Joey said. carefully, that he saw deeply into what he beauty and its use, or as he might have “Oh,” his Mother said. “He knows all was told,” Joey’s mother said. “Creative held a precious stone. He touched the the good stories.” She knew Uncle Jones means that he could make something out cover with his finger tips and brushed couldn’t read. She stepped over near him. of what he learned that was true and them across it, exploring the surface for “What story is this, let me see.” She took helpful within himself and for the life around him.” “Oh,” Mack said. They came making footprints. She wasn’t “Tecumseh not only learned the ways of his own tribe, but he learned the holding his hand. Mack was talking. He kicked ways of all the tribes. He visited them; he the snow as he talked, probably telling listened; he asked questions. He not only learned the crafts and the ways of nature, her lies about the bull, Joey thought. but he spent time with the medicine men and the holy men to learn what was known by them. He fasted and spent time smoothness. He held it up for the chil- the book and smiled. “Yes, this is my alone.” dren to see the front of it. book, I’ve read it so many times. It’s my “What’s fasting?” Mack asked. On the cover was a painting of a mag- favorite, it really is. My grandmother gave “Not eating,” said Mary. nificent man, an Indian. Across his back it to me. You didn’t know her. She was “Why?” asked Mack. was a dark green bow and a quiver of yel- strong and happy. Since I know this book “To clear his mind, wouldn’t you low arrows. His skin was as red as the blaz- so well, why don’t I read for us something think?” Joey’s mother said. ing fire. His expression held great determi- from it.” “Tecumseh became a natural nation and strength.The eyes painted there “Please do,” said Mary. And the fire leader,” she read. “Natural because he were kind. Behind him spread a scene of seemed to glow more brightly. had energy to spare, and because some- waters and woodlands; a sunrise was blaz- Near Uncle Jones, Joey’s mother thing began to develop deep within him ing. Bright feathers hung from his hair. He stood tall on the wide stones of the that gave him understanding and the was as beautiful and wild as nature herself. hearth. She read the title: “A Tribute to force to express it, even when it went The fire of the children’s eyes shown upon Tecumseh.” against the traditions of the tribe. It was it. Joey took an extra breath. Mack tucked Uncle Jones reads Indian, thought the Indians’ custom and habit, as long as his legs under himself. Mary spoke softly: Mack. any of them could remember, to torture “Who is that?” And they stared at Joey’s mother, so their enemies when they captured them. Uncle Jones hesitated, and they looked striking in the firelight, so at ease in the After a fierce battle, when Tecumseh was anew.Then Uncle Jones studied the Indian firelight, and mysterious like Uncle only twenty, he stood between his tribes- 30 October 2006 • Kentucky Humanities men and a captured enemy and eloquent- erful leader, spoke often to his people She then turned and like the shadow of a ly spoke against the practice of torture. with great eloquence. And if they were gazelle was gone from the room. He called his fellows cowards to torment not always strong enough to follow his Joey felt his eyes want to fill with a helpless man. From that day the custom wisdom, nor clear enough to see its truth, tears because of everything: his mother, of torture was abandoned by his tribe.” still they loved him. And they did what the fire, the Indian, the old hat by the “What did they do?” Mack asked. they could. He warned them against alco- chair—Mary’s curls; he breathed her. He “They put ants on them,” Joey said. hol and the weed that weakens. He spoke looked down at her hands, and he could “I saw it in a movie.” of ways to bring clarity to their vision.” not think. But finally the firelight on her Mary put her hand over her eyes and Mack lifted up on his knees. “What is hands made him remember by the green made a face. the weed that weakens?” tree the red snow when it fell. Mack had “I saw on TV where they were tor- “It was a drug they took,” Joey’s his arms around his knees and was staring turing people somewhere else, the other mother said. upward to the ceiling. day, in some country,” Mack said. “How come?” The logs fell; bright sparks, orange Then Uncle Jones studied the Indian as if and red, rained upward. Uncle Jones watched the faces of the what was painted was real. He put his finger children, but they thought he only on a word and pronounced the syllables slowly, watched the burning logs. Joey’s mother “Te...cum...seh,” he said. remained standing in the firelight. Any true man alone and capable of love would have loved her, for her, for what she was. Any child would have looked, and in that “They had drugs way back then?” Uncle Jones let them be for a few presence found comfort. In an older time Joey asked. moments, and then he leaned forward as it would have been understood that she “Even then,” she said. if to tell a secret, a secret that could not be too had listened to the stories of the wise. “Gosh,” Mary said. “That’s strange. forgotten. It was almost as if they could Riveted to their place at her feet, the chil- Why would they want them way back see Tecumseh’s quiver of yellow arrows dren waited. then?” and the wood of his long, green bow. She read, “Tecumseh saw as a hope “They say he was a prophet,” Joey’s “You know, children, if old Tecumseh for his people that they not forget the lore mother said, “that not only did he bring were here now, right here with us, he’d be of the woods, and that they keep their messages of truth to his people, but that a good friend of mine.” relationship with nature, a relationship he foresaw events before they happened. “You know about Tecumseh, Uncle which was at the very heart of truth and He predicted an earthquake that was so Jones?” Mary asked. the spirit and force of the universe—as a great the rivers and streams ran back- “Of course I do. More than you lifestyle and as the inward state of their ward, and he told of the time when a know, child. Why, I know people right being.” meteor of great brilliance would flash now, on this earth, that follow in his foot- “I don’t get that,” Mack said. across the sky. Tecumseh said, ‘Would steps.” “I do, sort of,” said Mary. that the red people could be as great as “Who is that?” Mack asked. “Yeah, sort of,” Joey said. the conceptions of my mind when I think “Why, you were just looking at her. “It’s to know what is at the heart of of the Great Spirit who rules over all.’” The very woman who was reading to us things,” Joey’s mother said. “To find the Joey’s mother slowly closed the book. from that book.” truth of life, no matter in what time you She waited to see if Uncle Jones would like Mack looked toward the kitchen light live. In the heart, what was true for to speak. The children were silent. Uncle where she had disappeared. His eyes kept Tecumseh is true for us. What do you Jones had only one eye on the fire. There searching there. think, Uncle Jones?” was a hush over the room, a hush as deep “My mom?” Joey was incredulous. “Yes, ma’am, that’s exactly right.” and as truly beautiful as in any forest or “You mean my mom?” His voice was low and clear, and his lodge or painted tent of long ago—at night “That’s who for sure,” said Uncle answer told the children, “Uncle Jones, when there was firelight—entwined among Jones in a tender voice to impart that great he’s like her!” They felt the sameness the dreams of those gathered to tell stories truth. “And there are others, too. And it between this old man and young woman, of the rain, or of the ruins, or of the waves could be that the three of you will grow up as if the two of them were parallel move- that carried them on. in that same mold, and you will be brave ments of light—just that. Uncle Jones said “I’ll get dinner,” Joey’s mother said. and the world will be happier because of no more. He knew the alchemy of her Her voice was soft. “Tell them about you. But you have to work at it some.” being. She read on. Tecumseh, Uncle Jones.” She lifted her And the firelight shown on the won- “Tecumseh, when he became a pow- head and seemed to breathe the firelight. der in the faces of three young warriors, Kentucky Humanities • October 2006 31 “How old am I?” Uncle Jones asked. hands and then lifted his broad hat from the hearth. “Maybe a hundred.” All three children bounded to their “Almost a hundred. I’ve been around a long time, feet, but hesitated...uncertain, tentative, as if they had awakened from another and I know the type. And you’re just it.” world into an unfamiliar room. Joey felt the yellow shaving in his pocket as a vision, as Mary’s golden curls. She lifted faces transformed, clear, finer than “You could,” Uncle Jones said. her eyes, but only as shining windows before, intent. “I could?” Mack said in a voice filled inward; she noticed nothing. Mack stared “I would like to be like Tecumseh,” with hope. He lifted his eyes. “Do you into the fire for a long moment as if Joey said. really think so?” stunned by the light then turned slowly to “I will be a lady Tecumseh,” Mary “I know so,” Uncle Jones said. Mary and whispered, “I think Joey likes said. “I will grow up beautiful like your Brightness returned to Mack’s face, you.” For another long moment Mack mom, Joey, and I will learn all about but tears welled up in his eyes. He crossed seemed struck by his thoughts; he then everything.” his legs under him. “How do you know?” bolted to the doorway, leaving Joey and Mack pulled his knees closer into his “How old am I?” Uncle Jones asked. Mary behind, and he knew, together. chest and tried to make himself small. He “Maybe a hundred.” “Race you,” Mack said. And down didn’t want to be seen. He looked at the “Almost a hundred. I’ve been around the long hall toward Joey’s mother he ran, logs by the fire to try to quiet his heart a long time, and I know the type. And thoughtless of who might follow, on his from beating so fast. And he struggled to you’re just it.Why, I imagine you could be own journey, alone, toward the light in keep the tears from his eyes. just like Tecumseh and help the world the distant room. G Uncle Jones waited, but he didn’t coming and going.” wait too long. “How about you, Mack?” “Sure you could,” Joey said. Mack’s voice came out very faint. “I “Uncle Jones knows,” Mary said. don’t think I could,” Mack said. He Mack smiled an inward smile; his John Hay’s stories have been widely published, including one in The Kentucky Anthology: Two looked down at the floor, his long brown eyes slowly closed. His expression was Hundred Years of Writing in the Bluegrass State. lashes rising and falling over his eyes. generous, calm, final in that time. As A graduate of the University of the South, “Could Joey?” Uncle Jones asked surely as they had closed, his eyes Hollins University, and the University of Louisville, he has held various jobs in law, film, softly. snapped open. He rocked forward and and farming. He is working on a documentary “Yeah, Joey could,” Mack said. He backward, bursting to find something to about Scotland Farm, his family’s farm in Frank- fort. “The Light in the Distant Room” first didn’t raise his eyes. do with his hands. appeared in the 2006 edition of Open 24 Hours, “Could Mary?” “I smell cooking,” Uncle Jones said. published by the Brescia Writers Group. “Yeah, she could.” He lightly slapped his knees with his

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32 October 2006 • Kentucky Humanities THE NAME GAME BY ROBERT M. RENNICK

After an evening dancing cheek to cheek with the wives of every ambassador A Change of Pace at Kissinger’s annual big bash, we retired to the Presidential Suite at the Willard, The stories Bob Rennick collects aren’t always about you know the one that’s reserved for vis- place names. Here’s one of his favorite eastern Kentucky tales. iting dignitaries, like George. Before we turned in that night he asked if I was doing anything the next day. And I said no. And he said “Let’s go to New York. I y friend George knows everyone. happened to have dated George in the want to show you something.” That’s what he says. “You mean recent past.We even visited with the pilot So the next day we flew to New York Meveryone?” I asked him. “Every- in his cabin while we were waiting for City and lunched with the U.N. Secre- one,” he said, “everyone in the whole takeoff instructions from the control tary-General who just happened to have world.” “Oh, I can’t believe that.” “It’s tower. I never knew that George had been an old fishing buddy of George’s on true,” he said, “everyone in the whole taken flying lessons years ago and earned the many visits he made to that great world, and, what’s more, everyone in the a commercial pilot’s license and flew man’s country. whole world knows me too.” “Oh, come combat missions in all our recent wars That night, before we turned in, he on”, I said. “Would you like to bet on and had earned a Distinguished Flying asked if I were doing anything for the that?” “Sure,” I said, “That’d be the easiest Cross with three oakleaf clusters. rest of the week. And I said no. He said, bet I’ve ever won.” “You busy the rest of When we got to Washington we took “Let’s fly to Europe, I want to show you the day?” he asked me. I said no. He said, a taxi to our Congressman’s office. We something.” The next day we were in “Come on down to the Court House with told the secretary in the front office that Rome to see the Vatican. There were so me. I want to show you something.” we’d come to visit Hal Rogers. “Oh, my, many people in the Square, over three So we went to the Court House George,” said the secretary, “Mr. Rogers million of them, that George was invited downtown, to the office of our County has been waiting for you. Go right on in.” to stand on the balcony with the Pope as Judge. “You busy?” George asked as he So we went in and Mr. Rogers said, he greeted the crowd. There was no stood in front of the Judge’s open door. “George, I sure am delighted to see you room for me up there but I don’t mind “I’m never too busy to see you, George. again. How have you been? Come on in and we’ll chat awhile.” It’s sure been a long time. “So, you and the judge know each Do you remember when Well, howdy yourself, George,” other, big deal,” I said, “everyone in the we…” After a three-hour county knows our judge.Who else do you conversation the Congress- said the governor, “You’re know?” He asked if I were busy to- man took us for lunch at looking real good. Know any morrow and I said no. He said “Let’s the National Press Club drive down to Frankfort, our state capital, where all the Washington good stories to share?” I want to show you something.” reporters lined up to greet So the next morning, bright and George. “Got any news tips early, we got in his car and drove down to for us, George?” they asked. And he crowds. I was standing in the midst of Frankfort, and dropped in to see the gov- spent the next six and a half hours telling them when one visitor came up to me ernor. “Howdy, Governor,” said George, each of the 237 reporters, by name, some and said “I hate to disturb you, sir, but I “Whatcha up to these days?” “Well, of the hottest scoops they’d ever heard. was wondering if you could tell me who howdy yourself, George,” said the gover- We then took a taxi to the White is that man up there on the balcony, nor, “You’re looking real good. Know any House. And all the president’s secretaries, standing next to George.” good stories to share?” And we spent the aides, cabinet officers, special reps, and Somehow, I didn’t mind losing that rest of the day swapping good stories. Secret Service men lined up to greet old bet. G “Hmmm,” I said to myself, begin- George. And George greeted them all ning to feel that maybe I’d misjudged old too, by name, each one of them. And the George. “You doing anything tomor- president instructed his appointments row?” he asked me that night at the Holi- secretary to reschedule everything he had day Inn. “No,” I said. “Well, let’s hop a for that day so he could visit with George. plane and fly to Washington, I want to And they discussed old times and how show you something.” So, early the next they used to double date back in college Robert M. Rennick is a folklorist and morning, we took the first scheduled and how George helped him to get into coordinator of the Kentucky Place plane to Dulles where we chatted up a 1aw school and got him has Rhodes Names Survey storm with the stewardesses who all just Scholarship, and everything.

Kentucky Humanities • October 2006 33 4HE5NIVERSITY0RESSOF +ENTUCKY

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