Clearing the thickets and building the nest

If you visit my blog regularly, you’ve surely noticed the lack of entries of late. Or, if you’re a new visitor, you may be wondering why you should return to a blog that hasn’t had a new entry for two weeks.

First, let me apologize. I know many of you have come to look forward to the little morsels I find about Abraham Lincoln or Lincoln books and events. I, in turn, look forward to sharing.

Last October, while I was taking a community college course about Lincoln, I began this blog. As I was learning, I was sharing. It just seemed selfish not to. I love learning and I love “teaching.”

Writing, I believe, is a form of teaching. The writer’s classroom consists not of desks in a room or seats in a lecture hall, but words on a page, a computer monitor or, now, even the screen of a mobile device. It’s amazing how this classroom has grown.

So, don’t worry. This isn’t a last blog post. What it is, however, is a window into the past and a lens looking toward the future.

Bringing dreams to life
“Out there, somewhere, there’s a dream. You just have to catch it.”

In my life, I’ve chased and caught many of the same dreams most people pursue – someone to share my life with, a home of our own, children, a career.

Along the way, I’ve seen lots of our shared dreams come true, and I’ve pursued some individual ones as well. Here are just a few of my own:

• As I pursued my other dreams, I’d set my college education aside midstream. I got back on board and finished it when I was 41 and a brand-new grandmother.
• I wanted to write for a newspaper. In 1998, that dream came true when I had my first freelance book review published in The State Journal-Register, the paper Lincoln called his friend.
• As I learned of the plans for a Springfield (Ill.) library and museum honoring the 16th President, I looked forward to it for years. I was the seventh person in line on the day it opened to the public and wrote of the experience for two central Illinois newspapers.
• I started a seven-year plan in 2002, when I first learned of the celebrations planned for the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth. I wrote, “I want to be doing significant Lincoln-related work by his 200th birthday.” I had to set this plan aside for awhile, and worried it was a dream that wouldn’t come true. Yet, as dreams often do, when things began to fall into place – the Lincoln course, the blog, the opportunity to attend many Lincoln-related events – it was better than I’d ever imagined possible.

The next dream – even bigger than the rest
With other dreams behind me, I’m now ready to move on to the next – and it’s a big one!

I’ll soon begin work on my own Lincoln books. I know it will be a lot of long days, short nights and painful battles making words work together just so. It will also require research beyond anything I’ve ever done in the past – making sure no stone is unturned, perusing hundreds of existing works on Lincoln and my proposed related subjects, spending long hours pouring over primary sources, trying to find some truth in all the myth and everything mythic that surrounds this subject who is gargantuan.

Before I begin
Before I begin, however, I must make sure conditions are right. I can think of endless imagery to describe what I’m going through right now, but two come to mind most strongly – a thicket and a nest. Let me tell you why.

Those of you who know me know I’m not a person who has just one thing going on at a time. I’ve never just gone to work, come home at night and settled into the nest. I’ve nearly always had another job or obligation, including but not limited to, apartments, school, and outside interests.

I’m also one of those people who buys magazines boasting, “Organize your life,” on the front cover, but then adds that volume to the stack in the box in the closet. It’s topped by two other boxes before the next “Conquer clutter” volume finds its way into the house. Creating order has always taken a back burner to all the other things I wanted to or had to do. And, I’ve always saved all those things I “might need for a story some day.” Never mind that I couldn’t have found them anyway. Just knowing they were there somewhere was comforting – sort of.

What wasn’t comforting was realizing I couldn’t move forward without clearing the way. I knew I had to clear the thicket before I could truly forge my Lincoln path. So, folks, that’s why I’ve been absent from cyberspace. I’m sorting and purging and organizing the things I’ve gathered in the past.

The image accompanying this blog post is a thicket behind the lean-to on a barn at New Salem. As I looked at it, I remembered some of the stories I’d read in John Hallwas’s Western Illinois University course, Literature of Illinois.

When early settlers came to Illinois, they often encountered such scenes and had to forge through the thickets and bramble bushes to get to the beautiful virgin prairie lying on the other side. I imagined what it must have been like for Lincoln and his family as they moved westward. And, then, the thicket became a symbol for me. Clear the path, Ann, and you can start your journey. You can write your book.

So, I’m currently working to get all those things I “might need someday” well organized so I can find them when I do. And, as I do, I’m building the nest where my books will be germinated, incubated and hatched.

Still learnin’ and comin’ back
While I’m spending evenings and weekends on this other project, I haven’t set my quest for new Lincoln knowledge aside, though. I’m listening to books on tape on my commute to work and reading the latest Lincoln books over lunch and when I can steal a few minutes here and there. You’ll hear all about them eventually.

So, please, come back. I will. In the meantime, if you haven’t read all my previous posts, please do. I’ve written more than 170 articles about Lincoln since last October. Though a few are time-sensitive, most are not. Please scroll down on the left-side of the blog to the Labels area or the Blog Archive, or just use the Search at the top left to seek a Lincoln topic in which you’re interested. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll find something you’ll enjoy reading.

And, don’t worry. I’m not leaving you. I will be blogging again soon, even as I begin research on my books. Until then, please, continue your quest to learn more about Lincoln. I’m continuing mine.

© Copyright 2009 Ann Tracy Mueller. All rights reserved.

Hallwas book earns Midland Authors highest bio honor

John E. Hallwas is the quintessential Illinois historian and his latest book, Dime Novel Desperadoes: The Notorius Maxwell Brothers, captures the socio-economic forces at work in Illinois during Lincoln's time. Though the book is not a Lincoln bio, news of the Hallwas volume belongs on these blog, and good news it is.

The Society of Midland Authors has just awarded its highest honor for a biography to Hallwas. The University of Illinois Press, which published this and others among the author's 24 volumes, shared the following information with me today. In a future blog post, I'll share more about the book, the Society and Hallwas.

Please join me in wishing John Hallwas congratulations on this well-deserved honor.

Dime Novel Desperadoes takes top honor
"Dime Novel Desperadoes: The Notorious Maxwell Brothers," by Illinois author John E. Hallwas, received this year's Midland Authors Award for "Best Biography from the Midwest" at an awards banquet in Chicago, at the Congress Plaza Hotel, on May 12.

An exciting account of robbery, gunfights, manhunts, and lynching, "Dime Novel Desperadoes" recovers the long-forgotten story of Ed and Lon Maxwell, outlaw brothers from Illinois who once rivaled Jesse and Frank James in national notoriety. The 300-page narrative, illustrated with more than forty photographs, also delves into the cultural and psychological factors that produced lawbreakers and created a crime wave in the post-Civil War era.

In announcing the award, Robert Remer of the Society of Midland Authors referred to "Dime Novel Desperadoes" as "a great biography, massively researched and powerfully written, that probes deeply into the lives of the outlaws and the violent era in which they lived."

The Society of Midland Authors, established in 1915, has been giving awards for outstanding literary works from the Midwest for more than fifty years. Previous award winners have included such notable Midwestern writers as Gwendolyn Brooks and Dave Etter in poetry, Saul Bellow and Kurt Vonnegut in fiction, and Bruce Catton and Studs Terkel in nonfiction.

Commentators on, and reviewers of, "Dime Novel Desperadoes" have referred to it as "a fascinating true crime story," "extremely well written and . . .massively researched," "a superb narrative," and "a masterwork."

It is the 24th book that Hallwas has written or edited, related to the history or literature of Illinois. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Western Illinois University.

Learn more about the book

I wrote about Dime Novel Desperadoes and Hallwas last fall shortly after the book came out. Learn more about the author, the Lincoln connection and the book by reading my Nov. 16, 2008 article, "The Spark that got the Fire Burning."

© Copyright 2009 Ann Tracy Mueller. All rights reserved.

Thank you, Governor Quinn

Lincoln buffs and others who are passionate about keeping the history of Illinois alive join together in a big round of applause for Illinois governor Pat Quinn, who has reopened our historic sites, closed by our last governor in what seemed to be a short-sited attempt to ease a budget crunch. Never mind that it was the Lincoln Bicentennial year. That other guy just didn't care!

This Lincoln buff is thrilled about all the site reopenings, but particularly excited about the opportunity for people to again see the birthplace of my favorite Illinois bard, Carl Sandburg. I was born a mile or less from the home, my uncles have owned a grocery store just down the block for more than 50 years and I write for a living today as a direct result of attending a Sandburg Days writers workshop in the late 90s. Oh, and did I mention I won the Sandburg Days trivia contest two years in a row?

You can read all about the site reopening in the Galesburg Register-Mail, not hailed as Lincoln's Friend like its sister paper, The State Journal-Register, but a pretty fine publication, nonetheless.

Birthplace website and Sandburg Days
Be sure to visit the Carl Sandburg Historic Site website to learn about the place where the prairie poet breathed his first breath and where his ashes rest. (As of this writing, the website has not been updated, though, with news of the reopening.)

And, if you're looking for something to do this weekend, head to the Burg for Sandburg Days. I'll be there, excited that my mentor and friend, John E. Hallwas, will again offer his writers workshop. He'll also give a presentation about his latest book, Dime Novel Desperadoes, at my favorite book haven, the Galesburg Public Library. And those are just some of the events!

You oughta join us.

© Copyright 2009 Ann Tracy Mueller. All rights reserved.

One inspiration reflects on another

It never ceases to amaze me how our paths in life sometimes intersect with just the right people to help us uncover our true passions and propel us toward our dreams.

Island holds hidden treasure
I found one of these people on a late afternoon in the early 1990s in a classroom on Arsenal Island in the middle of the Mississippi River. John E. Hallwas, a Western Illinois University professor, regional historian and prolific author, was teaching a course on the literature of Illinois. I knew by the end of that first class period that this course and the instructor were going to leave indelible marks and help forge a new path in my life.

I’d always had an interest in regional history and I truly can’t remember a time when I wasn’t mesmerized by the life and legacy of Abraham Lincoln. Hallwas’s class was going to provide the backdrop I needed to better understand the state which I call home and, as the semester evolved, was to expose me to the literary eloquence of the sixteenth president and the work of authors who wrote of him.

The course and the professor’s encouragement were to lead me down a winding path which continued out of the classroom, through writers’ workshops, onto the pages of Illinois newspapers, into the mediums of corporate communications and out into the world of Lincoln as an enthusiast, lifelong learner and blogger.

Hallwas is now retired from the classroom, but he’s digging deeper than ever into the people and forces that helped to create the Prairie State we know now. When he’s not holed up in some archive or working at home on one of his latest books, you’ll find him traveling from one end of the state to the other, giving talks about Illinois history or his books. From time to time, he steps back to one of his earlier side jobs, providing thought-provoking columns for newspapers in the region.

Hallwas on Lincoln
In that last role, Hallwas recently wrote a series of four articles beginning with Obama’s inauguration and ending on Lincoln’s birthday. The articles cover how Lincoln’s shadow is felt in Illinois and the nation today, the importance of his legacy as a writer, his spiritual journey and why studying Lincoln continues to have value.

I found his columns in the online Lake County Journals:

• Hallwas: Obama’s inauguration and the shadow of Lincoln
• Hallwas: Lincoln as a writer
• Hallwas: Lincoln’s spiritual journey
• Hallwas: The quest to understand Lincoln

I’ve taken enough of Hallwas’s courses and read enough of his work to know some of the common themes he would cover in these articles, yet even after more than a decade and a half of exposure to his work, I always take away a new perspective and a greater appreciate for the subject at hand, thanks to his insightful coverage and well-developed narrative.

Hallwas was a big proponent of his students reading their work aloud, so I wasn’t surprised to see him share how it helped mold Lincoln the writer:

Through exposure to such noted books, frequent reading aloud, much effort at writing, and eventual practice at speaking, he gradually developed a feeling for the rhythms of language and a talent for precise word choice. He even wrote a few poems.

One of the things I’ve always liked about reading Hallwas is that he can get his point across and show his authority on a subject without resorting to a bunch of fancy-scmanchy big words and convoluted intellectual discourse. He shared how Lincoln touched his listeners with this same skill:

His years of study and work as a lawyer, starting in 1837, also helped to make him a very capable writer and speaker. In court, he repeatedly used reason (for which he had enormous regard) and plain language (which anyone could understand). His spoken and written comments were never artificially literary but always direct and forceful.

Finding more inspiration
Hallwas’s final article, on why the study of Lincoln is still important, talks about the specific value of several new works or works of recent years. Not surprisingly, some of the authors and works who have captured my attention, inspired me and earned my devotion also got good marks in my mentor’s grade book.

I’m currently reading Daniel Mark Epstein’s The Lincolns: Portrait of a Marriage. Hallwas wrote that Epstein’s book, “…showing how time and adversity can change people, would be a more fascinating read for most book clubs than Doris Kearns Goodwin’s fine book on Lincoln’s cabinet.”

Epstein drew me in and held me tight in the opening pages. I’ve had to set the book aside for a while due to the bicentennial events and other obligations, but you’ll hear why I agree when I’m done reading it. What Hallwas didn’t know when he wrote this is that Epstein is also an engaging speaker and quite personable. I got to hear him and meet him in Springfield. Epstein truly does seem to appreciate his readers as much as they appreciate his work.

As I began my studies of Lincoln, there were others who inspired me – through lectures, answers to my questions or taking time out of their busy schedules to visit with me. Hallwas, too, found value in the work of the following Lincoln scholars who have touched my life.

David Herbert Donald was one of the three-generation panel who gave me advice when the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum opened in 2005. Douglas Wilson of Knox College, in my hometown of Galesburg, has been there for me whenever I’ve needed the answer to a Lincoln question. Though I didn’t get a chance to meet him, Eric Foner’s speech at the Lincoln Bicentennial celebration in Springfield provided a great springboard for my bicentennial week activities. And, when I wanted to learn more about his attraction to Lincoln, Richard Cawardine, the British Lincoln scholar, spent equal time asking me about my own Lincoln interests and providing encouragement.

The life and legacy of Lincoln are an inspiration – to scholars like these, to those who've followed in Lincoln's professions, to politicians like our new President, Barack Obama,and to youngsters of the last couple centuries. Yet, after Hallwas wrote of American’s fascination with Lincoln, he closed his series with the same question I’ve long had.

A more important question for us all, I think, is why some Americans can go through their lives unfascinated by Lincoln, unwilling to read about him, and thus uninfluenced by our most complex and astounding public figure.

Who inspires you?
If you’re reading this blog, you’ve likely been inspired in life by the life and legacy of Abraham Lincoln. If you’re really lucky, you’ve also been inspired and mentored by someone like John Hallwas. In that case, you’ve been truly blessed.

My Hero essay/artwork contest deadline: March 1
Do you have a hero in your life who represents Abraham Lincoln’s heroic qualities? If so, don’t miss out on the chance to share the story and win a trip to the Land of Lincoln. The deadline for My hero essay contest is March 1, 2009. Not a writer? That doesn’t matter. You can also enter with a work of art. See the website for further details.

The spark that got the fire burning

Sometime in the not so distant past – in boomer time, where distant becomes more abstract as time goes on – a woman starving for intellectual growth and yearning to complete her college degree stepped into a classroom on Arsenal Island in Rock Island, Ill. The course, offered through Western Illinois University, was Literature of Illinois. The instructor was John E. Hallwas. That class started a fire of passion for the history and literature of Illinois in the boomer which can’t be extinguished. Bet you can’t guess who that student was – this blogger, perhaps? Right.

Although Hallwas isn’t among the Lincoln scholars you often hear mentioned in the popular press, his name and work is well known in west central Illinois. He’s without a doubt the quintessential scholar of the literature of Illinois and of the forces which mold its communities and help them live on in memory. Lincoln, of course, is one of those forces. And, yes, Hallwas has written of him.

I’d like to step away from Lincoln for a few minutes to tell you about Hallwas’ latest book. It may not seem like it at first, but there is a Lincoln connection here.

Dime Novel Desperadoes
Dime Novel Desperadoes: The Notorious Maxwell Brothers, the latest Hallwas book, published by the University of Illinois Press, is significant to the study of Lincoln because it explores and exposes many of the socioeconomic elements at play in nineteenth century Illinois.

The book is the true tale of Ed and Lon Maxwell, sons of often-relocating, struggling tenant farmers. The Maxwell boys’ paths went astray and lives went awry, due to a number of circumstances on their life’s journey, one of which most certainly was the hardship on their family when their father left them to serve in the Civil War and returned home in more fragile health than when he left.

Lincoln buffs among us will find interest in the coverage Hallwas gives to the differences which divided the people of Central Illinois over the Civil War, often leading to unrest and acts of violence. “Some viewed Lincoln – who had visited Macomb twice in 1858 – as a destroyer of the Union and a threat to constitutionally guaranteed rights, while others viewed him as the preserver of the Union and champion of freedom.”

Hallwas also wrote of a number of Illinois murder trials where the murderer was let off because of the perception the victim “had it coming” – reminiscent, I find, of when Lincoln defended Peachy Quinn Harrison for the murder of Greek Crafton. Harrison got off because Lincoln called the suspect’s grandfather, Methodist circuit rider Peter Cartwright, to testify. Cartwright’s testimony about Crafton’s words from the deathbed played on the sympathy of the jury. In essence, the victim said he’d brought it upon himself. Hallwas writes about how this same frontier justice comes into play in older brother Ed Maxwell’s life, when he receives harsher punishment for stealing a horse than many do for murder.

"Horse thieves aroused the ire of residents in Illinois and other western states like no other robbers, simply because people were so dependent on horses for work, travel, and emergency situations. And like America’s soon-to-be-mythic cowboys, many homesteaders deeply prized their horses. So, prosecution for assault of some kind, and even murder, often resulted in acquittal or a light sentence, especially in turbulent Fulton County, but horse theft was more dependably and severely punished."

It was this inequitable treatment of lawbreakers which was to land Ed inside the limestone walls of the penitentiary at Joliet and set in stone his identity as a criminal. From here, the Maxwell brothers continue on a downward spiral which ends…

No, I won’t tell you how. You need to read the book yourself to see how two farm boys from Illinois get so far off the path that they end up being memorialized as the desperado Williams brothers in dime novels.

In this, as in all his books, Hallwas uses a creative voice which is second only to that which he uses in his lectures. In his writer’s workshops, Hallwas always teaches his students to read their work out loud. It’s obvious he practices what he preaches, as the color and rhythm in his well-written words will captivate you and keep you coming back for more.

Other Hallwas books
So, for more, check out any of the 20-some other books Hallwas has written or edited, including

• Vision of This Land: Studies of Vachel Lindsay, Edgar Lee Masters, & Carl Sandburg
• The Poems of H: Lost Poet of Lincoln's Illinois
• Illinois Literature: The Nineteenth Century (a wonderfully done compilation of Illinois works which define Illinois during Lincoln’s time)
• Spoon River Anthology: An Annotated Edition
• The Bootlegger: A Story of Small-Town America
• Studies in Illinois Poetry
• Western Illinois Heritage
• McDonough County Heritage
• Selected Writings of Robert G. Ingersoll
• Macomb: A Pictorial History
• Kingdom on the Mississippi Revisited: Nauvoo in Mormon History
• Cultures in Conflict: A Documentary History of the Mormon War in Illinois
• First Century: A Pictoral History of Western Illinois University
• Keokuk And The Great Dam
• McDonough County Historic Sites
• The YMCA of McDonough County: A centennial history
• Thomas Gregg: Early Illinois journalist and author
• Essays in Literature
• Tales From Two Rivers I
• Tales From Two Rivers II
• Tales From Two Rivers III
• Tales From Two Rivers IV
• Tales From Two Rivers V

Hallwas to speak in Bloomington
For those of you who live in Central Illinois, you’ll have a chance to hear Hallwas this coming Thursday, Nov. 20. He’ll be at the Bloomington Public Library for a book signing, slide show and lecture about the Maxwells and other Illinois outlaws, sponsored by the Illinois Humanities Council.

© Copyright 2008 Ann Tracy Mueller. All rights reserved.