Meeting Fredrick and Lucretia

On Monday, June 10, we wend to hear a conversation between Fredrick Douglass and Lucretia Mott. They were in town, or the actors portraying them were, and I couldn't pass up the chance to see as close to REAL HISTORIC FIGURES as we could come.

I took Kai, EV, and Eloise and we enjoyed our nearly two hours spent with them!

The first nearly 90 minutes was them reminiscing about their lives. Mr. Douglass shared how he learned his ABC's - how he learned a few letters and then would "bet" his "young masters" he knew a few to get them to show him more. About his mother who was not done nursing him when she was sold to another plantation 12 miles away, and how he has only a few memories of seeing her by firelight after she'd walked 12 miles to rock him to sleep, and how she was gone in the morning, walking the 12 miles back to where she "belonged." He heard how he had only 2 shirts and not a pair of pants until he was 8 years old. We learned how his freedom was purchased for $750 with money raised by others.

Mr. Douglass even called Eloise and another young man up on stage to help him recite the first poem he put to memory.

There she is! And it was Eloise's FIRST day with her new glasses! After, she said a few people told her she did a good job. She loves that kind of attention! (And she said she was so glad she had her glasses so she could see the actors' expressions from where we were seated.

Later in the program he recited a part of the speech he gave at a conference on women's suffrage. It made me want to stand and applaud and shout amen. (It really made me want to share it with my Relief Society sisters AND the male church leadership!) In fact, I've gone and found the words that thrilled me, and here they are:

When I look around on this assembly, and see the many able and eloquent women, full of the subject, ready to speak, and who only need the opportunity to impress this audience with their views and thrill them with “thoughts that breathe and words that burn,” I do not feel like taking up more than a very small space of your time and attention, and shall not. 

Men have very little business here as speakers, anyhow; and if they come here at all they should take back benches and wrap themselves in silence. For this is an International Council, not of men, but of women, and woman should have all the say in it. This is her day in court. I do not mean to exalt the intellect of woman above man’s; but I have heard many men speak on this subject, some of them the most eloquent to be found anywhere in the country; and I believe no man, however gifted with thought and speech, can voice the wrongs and present the demands of women with the skill and effect, with the power and authority of woman herself. The man struck is the man to cry out. Woman knows and feels her wrongs as man cannot know and feel them, and she also knows as well as he can know, what measures are needed to redress them. I grant all the claims at this point. She is her own best representative. We can neither speak for her, nor vote for her, nor act for her, nor be responsible for her; and the thing for men to do in the premises is just to get out of her way and give her the fullest opportunity to exercise all the powers inherent in her individual personality, and allow her to do it as she herself shall elect to exercise them. Her right to be and to do is as full, complete and perfect as the right of any man on earth. I say of her, as I say of the colored people, “Give her fair play, and hands off.” 

 The demand of the hour is not argument, but assertion, firm and inflexible assertion, assertion which has more than the force of an argument. If there is any argument to be made, it must be made by opponents, not by the friends of woman suffrage. Let those who want argument examine the ground upon which they base their claim to the right to vote. They will find that there is not one reason, not one consideration, which they can urge in support of man’s claim to vote, which does not equally support the right of woman to vote.

Men took for granted all that could be said against intemperance, war and slavery. But no such advantage was found in the beginning of the cause of suffrage for women. On the contrary, everything in her condition was supposed to be lovely, just as it should be. She had no rights denied, no wrongs to redress. She herself had no suspicion but that all was going well with her. She floated along on the tide of life as her mother and grandmother had done before her, as in a dream of Paradise. Her wrongs, if she had any, were too occult to be seen, and too light to be felt. It required a daring voice and a determined hand to awake her from this delightful dream and call the nation to account for the rights and opportunities of which it was depriving her. It was well understood at the beginning that woman would not thank us for disturbing her by this call to duty, and it was known that man would denounce and scorn us for such a daring innovation upon the established order of things. But this did not appall or delay the word and work.

There are few facts in my humble history to which I look back with more satisfaction than to the fact, recorded in the history of the woman-suffrage movement, that I was sufficiently enlightened at that early day, and when only a few years from slavery, to support your resolution for woman suffrage. I have done very little in this world in which to glory except this one act—and I certainly glory in that. When I ran away form slavery, it was for myself; when I advocated emancipation, it was for my people; but when I stood up for the rights of woman, self was out of the question, and I found a little nobility in the act.

The relation of man to woman has the advantage tell us that what is always was and always will be, world without end. But we have heard this old argument before, and if we live very long we shall hear it again. When any aged error shall be assailed, and any old abuse is to be removed, we shall meet this same old argument. Man has been so long the king and woman the subject—man has been so long accustomed to command and woman to obey—that both parties to the relation have been hardened into their respective places, and thus has been piled up a mountain of iron against woman’s enfranchisement.

When a great truth once gets abroad in the world, no power on earth can imprison it, or prescribe its limits, or suppress it. It is bound to go on till it becomes the thought of the world. Such a truth is woman’s right to equal liberty with man. She was born with it. It was hers before she comprehended it. It is inscribed upon all the powers and faculties of her soul, and no custom, law or usage can ever destroy it. Now that it has got fairly fixed in the minds of the few, it is bound to become fixed in the minds of the many, and be supported at last by a great cloud of witnesses, which no man can number and no power can withstand.

Lucretia Mott, a name less familiar to us, was an outspoken abolitionist and at the birth of the women's suffrage movement. I loved hearing how, in her upbringing from her birth in the late 1700's, she always sensed her equality with men. She was raised on Nantucket in a Quaker community. The men were fishermen and whalers and the women ran the shops and did the business. She was crushed to discover a major discrepancy in the pay of male and female teachers. It was her first glimpse at the reality of the world in which she lived. I was impressed by her tenacity. She said the nearly all-women delegation who attended a world conference in London on ending slavery was not seated or given the opportunity to speak or vote. She didn't leave, as I would have been tempted to do in my frustration. She said her greatest persecution for fighting for both the rights of enslaved people and the rights of women came from her own Quaker friends. Still she kept her faith.

When these two were asked for advice in our present fights for equality for minorities and women, they had curious advice: from Fredrick Douglass, read and know the constitution; and from Lucretia Mott, have faith in God and seek him for guidance. EV made this comment: when it was asked what they thought about our modern leaders and movements, Black Lives Matter and the Women's March, she noted that they demurred and it seemed to her that these modern causes felt so different from what she was witnessing on the stage and had learned about. The words of these guests shone with truth and justice. Our modern movements seem infused with hate and division. Lucretia Mott even said we seemed to be a society of complainers. And Mr. Douglass urged us to look inside ourselves for what we see is wrong in society.

The kids with Nathan Richardson as Fredrick Douglass.

That was a good call to action. But I had a question for the both of them I wished to ask, and found in the answer a greater call. I was only able to ask the actor who played Douglass, but my question was why, did he suppose, that we do not tell the stories nor celebrate the heroes of the women's suffrage movement as faithfully as we tell the stories and celebrate the heroes of ending slavery. We've seem movies about the civil war. There are story books about escaped slaves - even that we know the name Fredrick Douglass and NOT Lucretia Mott should be telling. He said there was a saying  of his people (African Americans?) that until the lion learns to read and write, the hunter will always be the hero, will always tell the story. I don't know that that is WHY these stories don't already exist, but it was a call to begin to tell them.

I am not the ablest person to seek to change the narrative, to seek to help boys and girls know the strength and importance of girls and women, in their sacrifices, in their bravery. But I do have a voice. And I love sharing my own story here. Beyond that, I have prayed that God show me the way, show me the stories, and help me tell them. We'll see where this leads.

(Oh, and I was in interviewed in the Herald Journal. Here are my quotes:

 “They had a deep knowledge of the characters, but also the context of the time that they lived in,” said Steffanie Casperson, a local community member who attended the event. Casperson said she brought her children to the program because she had recently taken them to some of the places where Douglass spoke in Boston. She said she was excited for them to learn more about his life and the life of Mott. "I wanted my children to hear that older context, to hear some of the struggle,” Casperson said. “Anything you can do like this where people are live and they are speaking in first person I think is such a deeper, richer experience than reading about it in a book.” Overall, Casperson said the event reminded her of the power she has to make a difference. “Sometimes I have to go, ‘I have a voice.’ And I can speak and advocate for myself. I don’t need the agreement of the men around me,” Casperson said.)

Away for a Week in Mantua (MAN-uh-way)

As you might guess from the pictures, Mantua hit the spot for our family in early June. The house was booked on airbnb for a week for a wedding, so we were homeless and had decided to relocate to Mantua. The weekend before, Q and I scoped out the Box Elder Campground AND the campground directly adjacent to the reservoir. By our standards, the Box Elder one was far superior. Lots of trees, a stream running through it, off the road. We eyeballed the sights we hoped to score, but found lots of options when we headed up on a Tuesday, so getting just the right one was no problem!

This was only our second big run in the camper, and our longest! Q, to the tune of $300 had replaced our batteries which died on day 2 when we were in Lodge after such minimal light use. These new ones were like the energizer bunny - they kept going and going and after a week (although still a week of paranoid under-use) were still almost at full charge. We did run quite low on fresh water. Our campsite was convenient to the bathrooms, so space in the black and grey tanks held out fine, but we wound up filling our 6 gallon container at the camp spigots to keep water running in the sinks, etc.

I'd also fitted out the camper with more organizational features which mostly did their job at keeping the counters and camper in general free of clutter and usable as work space. And though we fit around the table inside, which was nice for the cold and rainy few days at Lodge, we brought a table and enjoyed eating and cooking outside too. Our favorite camp meal, by far, is tinfoil dinners, and the coals are great for roasting marshmallows to make our favorite camp dessert: s'mores. 

Lettuce wraps hit the spot for a fast, refreshing dinner.

And it seemed no one minded sleeping all together, which was surprising considering Kai was along on this trip and the camper was more crowded than ever. But each night Q would play a guided meditation from his phone, and the kids really got into it. And snuggling in the morning is nice too! 

The campground right next to the reservoir was $60/night, and much more like a cramped mobile home park, so it wasn't difficult to just decide to drive 5 minutes from our site to the reservoir, and we enjoyed a day on the water early in the week. I'm a big boob when it comes to cold water, and I don't much like natural bodies of water either, but the kids were troopers. Everyone else went in. Kai and Q swam out to the buoys, the girls played near the beach, and Arthur, who is my little freezer bum, tried to keep up for a bit before joining me on the sand to get the blue out of his lips. Eloise, for all her friendly, social savvy, probably had the most fun. She quickly made friends with girls who had better gear and in no time was on a paddle board with 2 other girls paddling around the water and battling with their brothers, falling in, and shrieking with delight. After we'd had our fun, we got shakes to share at the little market there by the lake, and those hit the spot too. (Though the wait was painfully long - I can't imagine how they run the place when it gets busy!)

The other benefit to Mantua was it's relative proximity to Logan AND to  Ogden. On Thursday we commuted in to take Eloise to swimming and Q worked. On Friday, I had a long over-due appointment with a physical therapist, Sean Wayne, in Ogden for my knee. We scheduled it so I was able to drop the rest of the family off in Ogden Canyon at the Huntsville Reservoir before hitting my appointment, and then meet back up with them at the Casper-cousin reunion.

Every year, Q's cousins have organized a cousin reunion, and as family reunions go, it's pretty fun. First, though Q is on the older end of his cousin spectrum, it is organized and FOR families more or less our age. And it is primarily FOR the cousins, or the kids of Q Sr., Claudia, Frank, and Shannon Casperson. I don't know all of their children well, but the cousins who come are a lot of fun, and our kids had a blast with their second cousins. (Especially Eloise and Arthur, who in addition to not being too old on the cousin spectrum themselves, are just the right age to have a fun time playing with kids they don't know well.)

When I got back up the canyon, all my family was on uncle Kyle's boat. Kai and Eloise both tried water skiing and weren't too bad at it. After a while, the girls were dropped off in the water near where the rest of us were hanging out at the beach, and they swam in to play on the paddle boards and get warm on the beach. The sun was nice, but there was a pretty strong wind which grew tiresome to me after a while of sitting and visiting in it. So I was glad when everyone made their way back to the campsite and the boat came in.

After that, there was a hodge-podge dinner. I think everyone was supposed to bring their own, but maybe the girls in the family communicated that a bit more clearly to one another and the message didn't come through my husband. We mooched, and everyone was nice to share. We did add s'more fixings to the mix and I don't think my kids left hungry. It was fun to just sit around what was initially two fires and visit. (Q, however, had built a superior fire, and eventually everyone landed where the flames were bigger, and thanks to Kai's chopping action, the fuel was plentiful.) Fun and funny stories and memories were shared, and we left late and feeling relatively excited about joining the party the following morning.

The crazy second-cousins the following morning.

Only once again, communication wasn't that clear. We arrived late with hash browns to share but all the breakfast food was put away. While we mooched once again, and they were sweet to fire up the grill and do a few more pancakes, everyone began to pack up. Before we knew it, everyone was saying good-bye. It was a short camp - maybe as long as the little kids and adults sleeping with them in tents could handle, but we had just arrived and were ready to party. Right as everyone was about to pull out, Kris and Zoey pulled up too. So when all the cousins left, we convinced them to join us exploring Ogden's Dinosaur Park.

We totally scored! It was their free day and it just hit the spot. We strolled about and followed the kids' lead and pacing, chatting with Kris and Zoey and snapping funny pictures. After seeing most of what was outside and a bit of the inside displays, we chilled in the shade while Eloise, Arthur and Zoey hit the playground. It was more crowded than when we'd been there in the past, but still so fun. And after THAT, Kris said he was stopping by the Maddox drive-up in Brigham City and we opted to join him. Q, for all of this eating, was trying a 3 day fast. Q really enjoys the spiritual cleansing long fasting provides, so he dropped us off at the drive-up and we ate at a picnic table while he went to see if a cowboy we saw broken down on the side of the road needed a ride. (He didn't.)

So that was Saturday. On Sunday we drove back in to Logan to attend church with our branch. And Mimi and Gaga came for dinner on Sunday and brought us a vehicle to tow the trailer home with too. We left the campground Monday, but didn't go home before we'd stopped for one last dip in the reservoir.

That wrapped up our Mantua adventures, and they hit the spot! Near to the campground, there were gorgeous poppy fields in bloom and EV and Eloise had a lot of fun gathering and arranging the wild flowers. Kai took out a lot of his teen angst by chopping wood, and made me laugh in the process, singing "I don't got no lady-friend hound dog vowing to be true," as he chopped. Q was able to push a reset button with his fast. The littles got a lot of play and snuggle time. It was just lovely, all in all.

This Is The Place for Us

As another blast from our past lives, for the memory of the younger kids, we are back at This Is The Place to volunteer. When we volunteered last, EV was 2. So I suppose the only kid with a memory of it is Kai. And it was the memory of it that drew him back for one more volunteering shift on Memorial Day, May 27. It so happened that Kai did not have ballet, and we had Q get clothes when we were fitted for our costumes, just in case he wanted to do a shift with us. So Kai put on Q's clothes, which fit quite nicely, and had a day at the park with us.

We picked Kai up from Kaysville and he changed in the car. We'd left early that morning, so I brought breakfast and we dined in our version of pioneer style when we arrived at our location: the Rich home. It was our first time there, and we had chosen it for one strong benefit: it is the only property that can be hosted by two volunteer families. This year we are supposed to be volunteering with my long-time friend, Ashley Noonan Copas and her kids which my kids call cousins. But despite our best scheduling efforts, we have only been there once with her family. And we understand! Family schedules in the summer are INTENSE! So we had to make due all on our own, me acting as BOTH polygamist wives!

Just kidding! I didn't act like any wife. In fact, we've served twice in this location now and both times I didn't have more than one guest! It is a bit off the beaten path at the TITP park, and there aren't really kid activities to do there either. In some ways, the slow traffic is something to LIKE. AND there are no employees, who I always feel cramp my hostessing style. EV really enjoys weaving rugs at this location, and it keeps her occupied for hours. Otherwise, there is also a lot for kids to do now, compared to 10 years ago. There is a kid service/game/competition called This Is The Place Chase, where the kids go do service or go on a treasure hunt for a prize. They also can go to school. When the Copases are there, they play together. And playing on the playground and getting donuts to eat are other hits. 

So we had a nice time with Kai, and he was helpful to have around for Arthur's sake. And I think he liked doing all the things he remembered. He also noted a few of the changes, like paved roads instead of dirt ones, and didn't appreciate the modernization (purist!) but after an hour or so, I think his nostalgia wore off and he found things as dull as the rest of the kids. He hasn't been back - hasn't really had the opportunity to BE back. But it was so lovely to share THIS day with him.

And of course, we'll have many more shifts this season. Eight are required to volunteer. And the volunteers get the costumes free on loan from whenever you get them until whenever you are done. That means we've been able to wear them to Golden Spike and we'll wear them on Pioneer Day too.

But back to This Is the Place.

The other place we have served is the Gardner Cabin. It is far more busy with guests, being right inside the door, and a place where visitors learn about pioneer games and chores. When we've come without the Copas kids, I like being there because my kids actually add value as volunteers. Arthur has mastered the stilts and gives a decent demo on how to use those, as well as how to wash clothing. Eloise is good with the guests as well, though she is my most likely to complain when she thinks things are dull. (When it's slow, EV has just disappeared back to the Rich house to work on the rug.)

During out last 4 hour shift at TITP, one of the staff members at Gardner was deaf. For the guests' sake, it may have been a bummer as she was EXTREMELY difficult to understand. However, Arthur, as often as he could, found me to help him communicate with her and wanted to learn sign language. We learned a bit, AND learned that because of our signing time videos (which I have had Arthur and Eloise study as their "second language"), they already knew a decent amount! I think Arthur really enjoyed putting it all together, so we hope Anne is there again when we go back. Though thankfully, for the heat, our next shift isn't until the end of August!