I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Slice of Life

  • Post Cards From The Heart – Mr. Roosevelt Wasn’t Home


           Friday, Sep.27 – 1907   Viewed city from Monument

    Bessie and Luke left the Jamestown Exposition and continued their honeymoon with a visit to Washinton, D.C.   The Washington Monument was a must stop for them as they got their bearings inside the city and planned their stay.   Where to go first?   So much to see and do in the nation’s capitol and only three days for sightseeing!   The answer is the same as it is for many of us who travel to D.C. a century later, whether honeymooning or not.   The White House.   The iconic symbol of America’s pride in itself.

    Visited Fri Sep 27 – 1907.  The home of Teddie – he was not there.

    Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States and held that office from 1901 – 1909.   He was famous for his Rough Riders in the Spanish American War of 1898 but in 1906 received the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to negotiaite the Russo-Japanese Treaty.   War and Peace.  Two of the thorniest obsessions of American Presidents, and Teddy Roosevelt was no exception.   So in 1907 when our friends Luke and Bessie came to call,  he would have been the inhabitant of The White House as they stood in line to get their tickets for a tour of his home.  Alas, as she wrote jokingly on her post card, Teddy was not there. Bessie was so excited to go through the historical residence she bought a post card for each change of rooms and wrote the time for every half hour of the tour.

    Blue Room, White House, Washington, D. C.

    Ten a.m. Sept 27th  1907. L and B

    State Dining Room

    10:30 a.m. Sept 27th 1907

    Luke, Bessie

    Red Room

    Eleven a.m. Sept 27th 1907

    Executive Mansion, East Room

    Eleven thirty a.m., Sept 27th 1907

    East Room

    12 p.m. Sept 27th 1907

    The tour lasted two hours and was unforgettable for the young couple who were completely taken in by the guide’s descriptions and stories that came with the house.   If these walls could talk.

    The day was half over and Luke suggested they walk past a couple of other buildings he wanted to see on the way back to their hotel for a late lunch and afternoon delight.   It was a honeymoon, after all.

    State War and Navy Departments, Washington, D.C. 

    Fri Sept. 27, 1907

    Agricultural Building 

    Fri Sept 27 1907

    Naturally he wanted to see the military and agriculture  buildings on the very first day of their visit, and Bessie went along with him.  She purchased the post cards for their memory book which she faithfully kept as a reminder of each day’s adventures.   It was a world without digital cameras, a world without cameras unless you were a professional photographer, so the post cards were Bessie’s attempt to preserve their reminiscences.

    Let’s leave our Alabama couple to themselves on this Friday night in the Big City and wish them well until we meet them in the morning.

  • Post Cards From The Heart – Greetings From Jamestown


    The leather post card on the front of the tattered photo album should have been a clue indicating the significance of the Jamestown Exposition in the life of Bessie and Luke, but it took me several days of pouring through the photos to figure it out.   Duh.

    The Jamestown Exposition was held from April 26 to December 1, 1907 at Sewell’s Point in Norfolk, Virginia.   It was one of many expositions popular at the turn of the twentieth century and was a celebration of the 300-year anniversary of the initial landing in Virginia by the English colonists.   Unfortunately, it was a financial disaster for its supporters and a cultural disappointment tainted with racial conflicts.   Attendance eventually reached 3 million visitors and included President Theodore Roosevelt and Mark Twain who came as a replacement for former President Grover Cleveland as a guest of honor on Robert Fulton Day.   President Roosevelt spoke on Georgia Day, June 10, 1907, on the steps of the Georgia Building.   Although Bessie purchased a post card marking that historic event at the Exposition, she didn’t arrive until three months later.

    In spite of the negative press and rumors surrounding the Jamestown Exposition, Luke and Bessie chose it for the first stop of their honeymoon trip.   The wedding date remains a mystery, but this trip is certainly the honeymoon.  More than 100 post cards in her album describe the trip of her lifetime.   Luke and Bessie, she wrote on almost every one of the cards that she used to carefully preserve her memories of the adventure.   September 26, 1907…the first day.

    The displays of two squadrons of ships remained one of the most popular sites throughout the Exposition and Bessie bought several post cards of the remarkable water exhibits to remind her of the sight.  The displays influenced a number of important visitors from Washington, D.C., too, and probably led to the formation of a naval base in Norfolk ten years after the close of the Exposition.

    The Main Auditorium was a must-see, of course.   Sept. 26 – eve – 1907     Luke, Bess

    A choice which surely was Luke’s was the Mines and Metallurgy Building.   Since he worked for Atlanta Steel,  he would want to visit this exhibit and Bessie bought a card for him.

    Sept 26. P.M. – 1907   Luke, Bessie

    A totally unexpected surprise of the trip was the chance meeting of a young man from Canton, New York.   No mention is made of how the meeting took place.  Perhaps they met at a concession stand having lunch?  Regardless, we learn much about him from his post cards.   His name was Wm. J. Heckles and he would maintain a friendship through their post card correspondence for many years with the newlyweds from the South.   His first post card was sent a month after their encounter at the Exposition.

    My dear Mr & Mrs Moore, I have at last reached home tired out but well pleased with my trip…Hope you had a fine trip home and reached there all right.  I only stayed one day at Jamestown and stayed the rest of the time in Philadelphia and New York.  Hoping to hear from you I remain in F.L. & T.      Wm. J. Heckles, Canton, N.Y.    What’s this?  Texting on post cards a hundred years ago?  Every one of his post cards through the years closed with F.L. & T.     LOL.  I have no idea what he meant.

    Another post card was sent while the Moores honeymooned.  Bessie wouldn’t receive it until she got home, but it came from China, Texas.

    I think you should write me, F    Clearly, Florence from our last post was feeling left out.

    The Jamestown leg of the trip lasted two days and Bessie saved this post card to mark her last day there.

    1907 on night of 27. Leaving Jamestown for Washington

    Bessie and Luke continue their journey to Washington, and we’ll meet them there next time.

  • Post Cards From The Heart – Bessie And Florence?


     February 14, 1906

    On a Valentine’s Day in 1906 Florence R.L.  sent this card from Lebanon, Tennessee to Miss Bettie Bogan in Alabama City, Alabama.   A Quiet  Spot, where I should like to be with you for a quiet chat today, Florence wrote beneath the picture on the front.  A friendly message…simple…direct and signed with the initials F.R. L.

    We first met Bettie Bogan in our last post as Mrs. Bessie Moore, wife of Luke.  Florence was a mysterious friend who seemed to have no connection to the Bogan or Moore families but was significant enough in Bettie’s life for her to save the cards she received through the years from F.  The next post card I found from Florence was addressed to Mrs. Bessie Bogan Moore in Alabama City.   It was postmarked from China, Texas which is in Jefferson County.   China is still a small town a hundred years later in the midst of  the Beaumont-Port Arthur metropolitan complex and I bypass it frequently on my trips from our home in Montgomery to visit my favorite aunt who has lived in Beaumont for more than seventy years.

    March 05, 1907

    Will write you soon.   Florence

    Much had happened in the year since Florence mailed Bettie the Valentine’s Card.   Florence left the hills of Tennessee  for the lowlands of southeast Texas where a collection of chinaberry trees that was a water stop for the Texas and New Orleans railroad  in the late 1800s became known as China Grove and later just plain China, Texas.    Why the move?   Bettie had evidently married Luke Moore in the interim and was now known as Bessie.   Bettie to Bessie?   Changing last names was the norm, but changing first names?   A woman ahead of her time?  Or an indication the friendship with Florence had changed because of the marriage?

    May 20, 1907

    A second card to Mrs. L. P. Moore in Atlanta, Georgia in May of 2007 indicated Florence’s frustration  with not hearing from Bessie.   Indeed you are mistaken, you are due me a letter.  I have about decided all my correspondents have forgotten me.  F   Polite, but edgy.

    Unreadable Date

    A beautiful view of the Neches River in Beaumont was another card Florence sent to Bessie at the Atlanta address.   Hello, will write soon.  Hope you are well ere this.  Was sick last week myself.  F

    July 5, 1910

    The last post card saved was a typical Texas Pasture View whether near Beaumont or not but this one claimed to be in the vicinity.   More than four years after the Valentine’s Day card, Florence wrote Bessie in Atlanta one more time.

    I rec’d your card few days past.  Was just wondering what had become of you…The last letter I had from you was answered long ago.   Write to me…Lovingly, F

    I wonder about the friendship between these two women in a time long ago –  but not too far away.   I think I’ll take a side trip to China when I can visit the cemeteries in the area to see if I can find a marker for Florence.   Her post cards from the heart moved me,  made me sense a kindred spirit and I am drawn to her longing for the quiet chat in A Quiet Spot.

    Lovingly, S

  • Post Cards From The Heart


    April 30, 1908  I have FAITH in you, Bessie

    Dear Husband, I certainly expected a letter this a.m.  I went to the office and returned disappointed.  They are not going to have the supper Sat night, will have a play at the Hall for benefit of Albertville sufferers.  We may go if it is not too cold.  I tell you today is terrible.  Must have been a hail storm up above us.  Write me soon.  I am ever your wife,  Bessie

    December 23, 1908

    Dear Husband, Letter rec’d and contents noted.  But Sweetheart, I’ll be there Sat sure rain or shine or sick or well.  Mr. Moore {Luke’s father} told me not to go Friday but I had decided to go Sat anyway.  Wish you were here for the Xmas tree tomorrow night.  I’ll close for this time.  Love to all.  I am as ever your wife, Bessie

    The year is 1908, and it is a time before iPhones, iPads, 4G, 3G or any G…a time before AT&T and Verizon and Sprint cellular phones…actually, it is a time before phones.  Period.   Imagine if you will the days before communication was instant.  No email.   No Facebook.  No computers.  Not a Tweet to be had from a Twitter account.  No television with a weather channel and a forecast for the next seven days.  No fax machines.  The 20th century will see the beginnings and mindboggling development of a tremendous technological revolution, but it wasn’t happening in 1908.

    As the century began, it was all about post cards and letter writing.  Bessie Moore and her daughter Lucia were separated from husband and father Luke Moore.   Bessie and Lucia lived in Alabama City, Alabama and Luke lived and worked in Atlanta, Georgia.  He worked for the Atlanta Steel Co.   Bessie kept a journal of her life through the post cards she carefully preserved in an album which was sold this weekend in March, 2012 at a yard sale.   Think of it.  More than a hundred years later this collection of a woman’s lifetime is unwanted by her descendants or friends.  Ancestry.com would be appalled.  Luckily for me, my partner Teresa spotted it and brought it to our home.   I have fallen in love with this family and feel like an intruder when I read their notes to each other, but somehow I don’t think they mind.

    April 25, 1908

    Dear Husband, Letter recd this am.  I had just returned from meeting {sister} Hattie.  She looks so much better than she did Xmas.  Today is such a lovely day, sorry you are lonesome.  Will try and hurry up and get back as soon as possible.  I may go to Huntsville next week, do not know for sure.  I hope you have a nice time tomorrow.  I thought you would stay at Mrs. Smith’s perhaps this week anyway.  Had a little rain & wind storm here yesterday.  A cyclone at Albertsville. Killed (8) eight and some 40 injured.  Just awful.  Sent relief trains and physicians.  I forgot to tell you the atcil (sp?) plant has never run and liable never to from what I can hear.  With love I’ll close for this time. Will write tomorrow of course.  your wife, Bessie 

    And so I leave the Moore family this evening with you. Alabama is trying to recover in 1908 from a cyclone reminiscent of the tornadoes we’ve experienced in the south this week while  Bessie and Luke struggle with the loneliness of being apart much like the feelings Teresa and I have had during the past year we’ve lived in different places and spaces.

     Luke sends these Easter Greetings to Bessie at an unknown date with only the handwritten words shown below.

    Luke to Bessie

  • Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh


    GOLD, FRANKINCENSE AND MYRRH

    A CHRISTMAS STORY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

                And it came to pass in these days that there went out a decree from the personal laptop computers and hand-held computers and iPads and iPods and high-definition televisions and Sirius radio satellite stations that all the world should be buying gifts for Christmas in 4G.   And all went to buy gifts, every one into his/her favorite retailer, or online.

    There was an old woman who lived in the world

    and her eyes saw and her ears heard the decree,

    but her heart refused to buy 4G.

    For, you see, too many Christmases had come and gone

    And the old woman’s heart had turned to stone.

    The gifts she wanted couldn’t be wrapped.

    They were buried in memories too deeply trapped.

    But, behold, the old woman was visited by wise women this year,

    And they came bearing gifts of good cheer.

    Gold, frankincense and myrrh from days of old?   Not quite.

    But the women followed the same bright light.

    I’m a basic Bah, Humbug Christmas person and have been for years.   I’m not clinically depressed during the Holiday Season, but neither am I joyful.  I resist the pressure to shop ‘til I drop, but that isn’t limited to a particular time of the year, either.  I’m considering the possibility I may suffer from borderline Scrooge disorder or at a minimum, Holiday Harrumphs.

    This year is different.   I’ve been jolted and shaken out of my cynicism and once again believe in the Magic that is Christmas.   I think my transformation actually began last year when my new neighbors in Texas on Worsham Street decorated their homes and yards with spectacular exterior holiday lighting.   They adorned trees, bushes, windows, doors, porches, benches, roofs – anything they could find to attach a string of lights – and the little street came alive with white icicle lights and plain white lights and multi-colored lights of all shapes and sizes that glowed and blinked and gave the appearance of a miniature Disneyland.  I absolutely loved them and of course, I had to participate with my own lights on our house on the street.  I felt my Christmas ice melt just a little each time I turned the switch that lit my bright lights.  This year the street is again beautiful, and I thank my neighbors for the inspiration of their lighting traditions.

    I miss my family at Christmas, the family that defined Christmas for me as a child.  That family is gone as that time and place are gone, but the child inside me mourns their loss every time I hear “Silent Night” and other carols sung during this time of the year.  We were musical people and much of our holiday revolved around music in our churches where my mother was always responsible for the Christmas Cantata.  Sometimes she played the piano for it so my dad could lead the church choir and sometimes she drafted another pianist so she could lead the choir herself.  Regardless, music was the reason for the season for us and we celebrated the season in church.

    Family has been re-defined in my adult life by my partner and four children in furry suits that I adore.  I have a step-son who now has a girlfriend he lives with and so our family grows together.  Through the past forty years I’ve been away from Texas I’ve been fortunate to have wonderful friends who have become closer than the DNA-linked group I left behind.  In my gay and lesbian community in South Carolina, the term “family” is a word we use to describe ourselves.  The question, “Do you think she’s family?” is translated, “Do you think she’s a lesbian like us?”  Being part of a marginalized sub-culture creates strong bonds within that environment and my friends have been simply the best.

    Coming home to Texas to live has connected me once again with my DNA family and that’s been an incredible experience and part of the Magic of Christmas for me the last two years. First cousins, second cousins, third cousins once removed and the people they’ve married and their children are good, and a few questionable, surprises for me.  Gathering for a cousins’ Christmas potluck luncheon or going with cousins to the Montgomery Annual Cookie Walk or having cousins come to our home or visiting in their homes rekindle good memories of the times when our hair wasn’t white and our figures were slimmer and the great-grandparents at the table weren’t us. I see these relatives and I am a part of them, and I feel good to belong to them at Christmas. Our conversations honor and celebrate our heritage and the ones who are no longer with us.  We laugh and cry together because we are moved by our memories. My family is a Christmas gift.

    But just as the familiar story goes of the Wise Men who followed a bright light to Bethlehem and brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the baby boy in the manger, Wise Women in my life have brought gifts that rocked my Christmas complacency. My partner surprised me with an early gift at Thanksgiving when I went home to her in South Carolina.  It’s worth its weight in gold to me.  It’s a western saddle made of leather and rides a wooden quilt holder that a neighbor gave me when she saw the saddle.  It’s a perfect combination and looks good in my Texas den underneath a picture of a cowboy sitting on a fence.  Whenever I look at the saddle, I think of two of my favorite things: my partner who knew me well enough to buy this treasure for me and my days of riding horses as a child. I feel the love of the giver of this perfect gift.

    Frankincense was used in ancient times for medicinal and calming purposes including treatment for depression.  Burning frankincense was also thought to carry prayers to heaven by people in those days.  One of the Wise Women in my life gave me my own version of frankincense last week when she bought a plane ticket to South Carolina for me to be with my partner for Christmas.  I marvel at this generosity from a friend who surely loves me and who chased away the potential Christmas blues. This gift came from prayers to heaven that were unasked but answered on the wings of a snow white dove called US Airways and the spirit that is the Magic of Christmas in the heart of my friend.

    Myrrh is an Arabic word for bitter and it is the resin that comes from a tree that grows in the semi-desert regions of Africa and the Red Sea.  The Chinese used it for centuries to treat wounds and bruises and bleeding.  The Egyptians used myrrh as an embalming oil for their mummies.  Yesterday I received another gift that reminded me of myrrh – not the bitterness nor the embalming properties – but the unexpected present was a live blooming cactus plant that arrived at my house via a congenial UPS driver who I believe thinks he is Santa Claus.  When I opened the box and removed the moss packing per the enclosed instructions, I was stunned by the beauty of the pink blooms and the deep rich green of the plant.  The gift came from another Wise Woman who is married to my cousin in Rosenberg, Texas and was an additional reminder of the Magic that lives in Christmas.  Every day I’ll see these blooms and think of my cousins who sent them and the healing power beauty affords us when we take a moment to consider it.  I’ve always loved a Christmas cactus.

    Gold, frankincense and myrrh with a 21st century twist.  The Christmas story of Mary and Joseph’s plight in the manger in Bethlehem has been told and re-told for thousands of years.  Regardless of your belief, it is a tender tale of a family who welcomes a baby boy into a world of conflict and hardship and hopes he will somehow change it for the better.   The same conflicts continue two thousand years later and hardships of every shape and description plague our families today, but we move on.  Sometimes forward, sometimes backward.  But onward we go.  And in this spirit of hope for a better world where peace becomes the norm and hardships are made more bearable, I abandon my Bah, Humbug  with a Merry Christmas to all!