Last Minute Substitute

Thursday I had a surprise phone call from a school district wanting me to do a program...the next day!  Northville Schools annually produces Heritage Day for their third graders, both public and private schools looking at Victorian times.  It's part of their annual Heritage Festival.  Covid hit the gentleman who works at Greenfield Village and would normally have been their storyteller.  Could I do it?  My website and various directories mention that I do a LOT of historical storytelling.  Victorian?  I do a Hired Girl from Victorian times, but she's usually talking about how here in the United States we celebrated a Victorian Christmas.  Hmmm.  September is a long way from Christmas.  I decided it was best to present as the One-Room Schoolteacher who had tales of schools from long ago.

Five groups of roughly 100 students each heard a 20 minute version of the sort of stories and facts from that time a teacher might share with today's children.  It was fun and I was delighted to introduce them to a past their grandparents or great-grandparents may have experienced.  It made me realize I want to tell more of the stories, all Public Domain, that might have been told to students by a teacher in a classroom, but this time, with only 20 minutes, it was better to explain what a One-Room School was like.

On my own, I found myself thinking back to the pandemic of 100 years ago.  I couldn't present it this time as that was a bit after their focus on the Victorian era.  When I see masks, I've asked at times my adult historical audiences, if the Spanish Influenza  has returned!?!  With my Third Graders, since it was so hard to hear their small voices normally and, even worse, with a mask, I said they all looked like they were going to rob a bank!  They really were quite good with their masks and enjoyed the comparison.

Still I found myself wondering about schools during the Spanish Influenza.  I'd never learned about that aspect of the previous century's pandemic.  I especially wondered about Michigan schools, even though there was good coverage and comparisons about schools on the national level.  

A while back for those earlier historical programs I had learned (not sure about the original sources):

By mid-October, the governor and state health department ordered the closing of churches and "places of public amusemënt," from movie theaters to saloons.  Many communities also closed schools.  After those establishments were re-opened in November, deaths went up in December.

While I have specifics about the death toll throughout the state (first hitting urban centers, but eventually spreading throughout the state) that was as far as my knowledge covered the schools, summarized as "Many communities also closed schools."  When doing a historical program in an area, I research local coverage (such as when presenting my current Prohibition program).  Many cities have coverage about how they were affected by the Spanish Influenza.  Even the little town of Pullman, for example.

Not just Sunday Schools but the regular schools.  At the other size, Hour Detroit did a timeline of how it played out in Detroit and went from   

Oct. 19, 1918

Gov. Sleeper orders the shutdown of “theaters, movies, churches, lodge meetings, political gatherings and all gatherings which can legitimately be construed as non-essential,” the Free Press reports. Schools remain open. 

to

Oct. 22, 1918

Detroit schools are closed, and 56 deaths are reported in the city. Nearly 3,000 teachers are reassigned to “work visiting homes of influenza sufferers and advising in their care,” the Free Press writes.

 Similarly M Live reported:

By mid-October, the epidemic was alarming enough that the state Board of Health and Gov. Albert Sleeper issued an order closing all churches and "places of public amusement."

"There was a lot of push back about closing the saloons and, to a lesser extent, the churches," Navarro said.

Schools were exempted in the state order, but many local officials made that decision on their own, including officials in Detroit.

Of course M Live reports about University of Michigan a great deal.  While I encourage people to look up online information on how specific Michigan cities and villages decided, there's a wealth of information about the University of Michigan (and a bit on Ann Arbor).  Michigan Today is the official university blog.  It tells why the university stayed open rather than let students return home and spread disease or stay in Ann Arbor without classes, gathering at the many restaurants and other spots.  The university did cancel football, however.

Beyond that the university used its resources, including buildings and people (the SATC was the World War I version of the ROTC):

October 11. The old Michigan Union building on State Street — originally the home of Judge Thomas M. Cooley, dean of the Law School — is converted to an infirmary to handle the overflow from University Hospital, the Homeopathic Hospital, and St. Joseph Hospital. Another infirmary is set up in Barbour Gymnasium to house SATC members with only mild symptoms.

and

October 15. Eight die, including five in SATC. Ralph Smith, an Ann Arborite in the corps, dies of a hemorrhage in the lungs; he’d first reported sick at reveille only the day before. Three sisters of Chi Omega are diagnosed. Seniors in the Medical School are assigned to care for the sick. Many SATC men are confined to their quarters, awaiting diagnosis.

“It is like the Hun,” says an SATC sergeant-major. “Either you down him or he gets you.”

Two Army trucks are sent to Detroit for surplus oxygen tanks. Food for quarantined SATC men is transported from University kitchens.

“Squads of men loaded with trays of steaming food hastening through the streets at a gallop have become such a common sight that citizens have ceased to turn and stare,” the Daily reports.

October 16. Ann Arbor schools are closed.

While university students should be more capable of handling mask requirements, even then it was controversial, including among the military who were heavily impacted.  Camp Custer had devastating deaths here in Michigan as a preview before it killed in the trenches of World War I.  

(Remember masks then were made of gauze.)

 October 17. With six to 10 deaths each day in the SATC alone, U-M President Harry Burns Hutchins directs students and faculty to wear face masks at all times. Red Cross volunteers move into the President’s House to sew masks for distribution across the campus starting at seven the next morning. Captain B.C. Vaughan, medical officer of the SATC, says the masks may do more harm than good, since students are unlikely to use and wash them properly. Dr. W.E. Forsythe, head of the University Health Service, says masks are essential to containing the spread.

I hope you enjoyed this historical look at similar times.  I imagine there were Substitute Teachers called, even as I was a last minute Substitute Storyteller.

KEEP ON STORYTELLING & STAY WELL!

"Nobody gets out alive!"

Back in 2013 I took a sabbatical while managing Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.  I'm delighted it's in my rear-view mirror, but at the time I accepted a possibly different end, saying "Nobody gets out alive!"  This weekend seems determined to remind us that death comes to all of us.

This century has seen terrorism with 9/11 starting it.  The pandemic has also taken many away.  (Let's not have a "twindemic" -- get your flu shot.  At the end of today's blog there's a bit of information I'm sometimes asked about the end of the Spanish Influenza which was the pandemic of the 20th century.)  Additional deaths are occurring out west with fires.  Protests are nationwide around the U.S. about deaths caused by police action.  Locally a seemingly "freak accident" started this month with a falling tree killing a man driving a busy road, while his daughter as a passenger was spared.

This sent me looking for a story probably best known as "An Appointment in Samarra."  I was surprised to not find it in folklore indices.  It has been used by a variety of authors.  Most recent attention came when used on the 2017 television show, Sherlock.  There is no reason to "reinvent the wheel" of research.  Feel free to put "An Appointment in Samarra" in your favorite search engine.  The blog by Abdul Fatir does an excellent job of giving three versions and tracing the story's origins.  He gives the paragraph of W. Somerset Maugham's telling.  If you're academically inclined,  Kansas State University instructor, Lyman Baker, has a study guide to it.  To really get academic, "Professor Rau" has an online discussion of if it's a fable, allegory, or parable.

Abdul Fatir's Blog, however, gets us into its origins.  He remembers his mother telling something similar, so he went looking and finds its earliest known version in the Babylonian Talmud tale of King Solomon (or Sulaiman in Arabic).  He further adds a slightly longer Islamic literary version.  Going into the post's comments, Rich Horton gives a three paragraph version from Edith Wharton's autobiography that she said Jean Cocteau told her from "a story he read somewhere."  

Hmmm.  Like Death, the tale does get around.  There are YouTube versions and Alvin Schwartz in Scary Stories 3 gives us a modern version.  If you choose to tell it, clearly it has plenty of meat, like a stew bone, for you to make it your own.  

I promised also to answer the question about how the Spanish Influenza ended.  Yet again it's some copyrighted material, in this case from the Washington Post.  While it may give us hope in the current pandemic, there still is a need to remember death comes to us all as "Nobody gets out alive!"

Primary Manual Work (Plus) - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

One of the things about live storytelling, especially historical storytelling, there's always more that can be said.  It reminds me of the final chapter of Peg Bracken's Appendix to the I Hate to Cook Book which she titled "Tail Gate, Shutting the; Now What Did I Forget This Time?"  This past week I was once again the One Room School Teacher, treating the board of the Iosco County Historical Society as if they were a local group considering starting a One Room School.  The program was live streamed and I've given permission for a clip from it for their website or their Facebook page. I'm not able to post it yet.  Volunteers work as their time permits, but will add it here when available.

Because everyone was wearing a mask, I acted as if I thought the Spanish Influenza might have returned.   This let me expand the program a bit to talk of how it affected their county (a 25% increase in deaths), how it had affected Michigan including soldiers at Camp Custer (nearly 700 deaths), and how President Wilson's refusal ever to discuss it led to deaths here and in the trenches of World War I.  I also mentioned his own stroke led to Mrs. Wilson being the undeclared first woman president.

Probably coverage of both Spanish Influenza and briefly women's suffrage made my omission of today's material reasonable.  Still I was sorry to leave out this aspect.

The term "manual work" refers to the crafts a teacher would use to supplement course work.  In this case it was for the public schools of Los Angeles, California.  While other instances of manual work can be seen online, this book is only available for sale at present.  The book might be interlibrary loaned, however, and the bibliography pages at the end are particularly worthwhile.  The example I wanted to include was the start of second grade when it was tied to Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.  With the interest in survival, it was interesting how it could tie curriculum elements together with this classic.

Second graders?!?  While one-room schools served roughly ages five to fifteen, U.S. second graders are approximately seven years old.  How could they handle Robinson Crusoe?  I grew up with "Classics Illustrated" comic books and wondered how much was eliminated, but here are two versions listed in the book's bibliography.  Robinson Crusoe for Boys and Girls and  An American Robinson Crusoe do a surprisingly good job of eliminating the more adult part of the classic.  The crafts essentially start where Crusoe began to establish his island survival home.  The first book opens that topic in chapter three, "Robinson in His New Home", while the other is chapter eight, "Robinson on an Island."

Later I'll point out some projects still used in crafts today.  Let's see how it is suggested.

You'll notice the cover isn't completely shown.  This is because the book is 9 1/2" by 13 1/2" and I will need to add a little bit of what didn't scan.  Several of these projects are standard crafts worth using even without the Robinson Crusoe thematic work.

First the text and then the illustrations.

Notice the quotations at the top, including from Plato and the second page has the poet, Whittier.

I believe most of the first column on the second page can be easily guessed with the possible exception of "Jute Hammock."  The definite exception is the material for "Special Days" where a "Portfolio" is suggested.  Since the text is not complete (and small) I'll give it all.  It also is a general idea useful throughout the year (and is first shown in the September of the First Grade).  The materials and tools are "1/4 Sheet Manila or Kraft Paper, 36"x48"; Paste; Scissors."  The third column says:

As no Special Days occur during this First Month, the time assigned for this work may be utilized in making a Portfolio from Manila or Kraft paper, to be used as a receptacle for preserving incomplete work.  Divide the large sheet of paper, 36"x48", into fourths, resulting in sheets 12"x36".  From each of these sheets cut off a square 12"x12", leaving sheets 12"x24".  Fold lower short edge up to within 4" of upper short edge.    Open.  Beginning at lower short edge, cut off strips 1"x10" from right and left edges.  Again fold on horizontal crease.  Fold over side flaps.  Fold down upper flap, cutting off the inch margins.  Paste side flaps.  (Figs. 93 and 93a)

 Those figures were earlier in the First Grade material where they also made a Portfolio:

The top 3 pictures on the page are not part of the Portfolio

 Nowadays a quick trip to the office supply store is probably how most of us would handle it, but it's interesting to know how it was done before that and could be made again.  The time would supposedly be 30 minutes.

Here are the two pages of examples, numbers 165 through 174 with a few explanations of what is cut off.

The top rows' numbers were cut off.  The Tree Spelling Blank is 165, the Furniture for the Table has 166 in the center and then 166a.  Number 169b is part of the tent with the bottom of the paper cut off when scanning.

The top row middle is 171a for the Tool Chest and the upper right is 172a for the Circular Raffia Table Mat and that's certainly a craft idea worth using beyond the Robinson Crusoe projects.  The cut off of 173 and 173b are the sort of pot holder and mat loom projects you may remember from scouts or summer camps just like the Raffia Mat.  Robinson Crusoe's Raft, number 170, while not explained beyond being a "supplementary model by interweaving slats", should be recognized as something often made nowadays with craft or popsicle sticks to make a trivet.  Number 174, the Jute Hammock can be enlarged to make a hammock for things like toys or a catchall in the car or kitchen.

Bet you never realized those craft projects from summer camps and scout meetings were common even at the start of the Twentieth Century (and probably much earlier).  You also may note my copy of this book originally came from the Grand Traverse County Normal Training Class.  Normal today has other meanings, but back then said it fit "norms" or standards required in education.
******************

This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.

Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-

• There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm

• You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.
  
  Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:            

         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

         - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

         - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible through the Wayback Machine, described below, but the late Jackie Baldwin's wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google search doesn't work), at https://archive.org/ .  It's not easy, but go to Story-lovers.com snapshot for October 22 2016  and you can click on SOS: Searching Out Stories to scroll down through the many story topics and click on the story topic that interests you.

       - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 
           - Zalka Csenge Virag - http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com doesn't give the actual stories, but her recommendations, working her way through each country on a continent, give excellent ideas for finding new books and stories to love and tell.

     
You're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she could no longer maintain it.  Possibly searches maintained it.  Unfortunately Storytell list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is now only on the Wayback Machine.  It took some patience working back through claims of snapshots but finally in December of 2006 it appears!

Somebody as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html.  I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. Archive.org, when that becomes the only way to find them.

You can see why I recommend these to you. Have fun discovering even more stories!

The "Spanish Lady"

This month telling my World War I "Hello Girls" program and next month as the "One-Room School Teacher" I  will have the opportunity to include some information about how nearly 100 years ago we went through the chaos of a pandemic before.  A recent controversial photo shows an average family from then. Why is it controversial?  As fact checker, Snopes.com, points out it's hard to be sure if the cat in the photo is masked or merely happens to have facial markings in that area looking like it is wearing a mask.  The museum with the photo said it is small and old and impossible to verify.

Still Snopes agrees some people did mask their cats.  They show a dog, but I prefer this bit of sports history featuring a canine mascot.

Just as current pandemic information has taken time to shake out the facts, this Axios article is primarily about the sports of Baseball, Football, and Hockey.  Beyond sports, it shows back then it was even more difficult to spread the news.  This was due to a fear it might violate a federal Sedition Act because we had entered World War I.  Especially interesting here is Babe Ruth was treated with "medicine" that nearly killed him, rather like current criticism of using an inappropriate malaria medicine.

Similarly here's another sports focused article.  The sport is soccer and it comes from Philadelphia, with lots of good cartoons about the cancellation of sports.  It shows even in the early 20th century, when sports were not the big business they are today, people were desperate to have their "sports fix."

 More seriously the National Library of Medicine shows national guidance from then now looks both familiar and simplistic. 

 Now we would say gauze is insufficient, but even then people were making them.

Today masks are both homemade and a fashion item, but here's one I've yet to see for smokers.

 

That mentions a San Francisco ordinance: 

which leads into the problems mask laws currently face

 


















Just like today, you will find people saying it's no worse than the flu we normally see.

Homemade cures and patent medicines were suggested.

 and this one which might at least keep people "socially distant."

I wonder if onions were in this Cleveland soup kitchen offering to children.

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2018/10/17/city-suffered-through-deadly-1918-flu-pandemic/1669793002/

While looking at the state to the south of Michigan, this graduate of the University of Michigan for my degree in library (and now also information) science enjoyed this look at how U. of M. defeated the Buckeyes during that pandemic for a bit of history in that long rivalry.

Still closures happened either at first or eventually.

That was from Pullman, Washington, but the tiny town of Pullman, Michigan and other Michigan towns of all size were affected. 

Mlive.com's display of Flint mask order and other orders

I particularly found useful See-how-1918-flu-pandemic-impacted your Michigan county.  It's interesting to see how each county hit a spike, whether from the holidays or otherwise.  A 2018-19 look at the state as a whole called it our deadliest year.

Of course metro Detroit was a major hotspot, too, as their timeline shows.

Right now the big debate in Michigan and nationally has to do with the safety of reopening schools.  Back then virtual learning wasn't an option, but when cases became so numerous tracking was impossible, most schools closed down for a time.

Stepping back from our state and returning to a broader look, History.com offers an audio presentation with graphics from 2010, then updated this year.

As always, Wikipedia has a fascinating article worth getting for its thorough overview.  What I found interesting was its explanation of how the virus kept mutating until it killed off the people meant to die, then it stopped being a problem.  Still it was an H1N1 virus, so it could be said to be related to later 20th century influenzas.

I titled this "the Spanish Lady" which was one of its names, but the only reason Spain was named was because it was neutral in World War I, so it was willing to announce the problem of the virus when the warring parties hesitated to let what was happening be known.  To add to the Spanish connection, Spain's King Alfonso XIII did become gravely ill (but lived until 1941 after abdicating).

Often the high death rate of Philadelphia, who refused to cancel a city parade, is contrasted with St. Louis, where I grew up.  St. Louis "flattened the curve" and it supposedly paid off.  The Wikipedia article still lists them as hit by the "third wave."  I just remember as a child seeing a plaque to those lost in the Spanish Influenza in a church on the campus of St. Louis University.  As a child I didn't know much about that almost forgotten pandemic.