Deborah Heal

Connections in Historic Alton

 

I only sold a few books at my signing at The Second Reading Shop in Alton on Saturday, but the trip was well worth the effort and time. For one thing, the building at 16 East Broadway is so charming and historic. It was built in 1831 and became a stop on the Underground Railroad in 1840. What could be a better location for a signing for my novel, Time and Again, which is set in Alton during the Civil War?

That morning, just minutes before I left for Alton, I decided to take a look at the bookshop’s  website so I’d know a little more about my host for the day. That’s when I discovered that the owner, John Dunphy,  was the author of Lewis & Clark’s Illinois Volunteers, an informative little book I have been using as a resource for my sequel, Honor at Stake. So I happily brought it along and had him do a book signing for me.

John, also the author of several other books (all available at his shop), is knowledgeable about a variety of historical topics. So chatting with him was fun, and I got several leads for information I can use in Honor at Stake and the third story in the series that is brewing in my brain. In it, I plan to explore slavery in southern Illinois. (You do realize, don’t you, that the free state of Illinois, that bastion of liberty, had slavery?) When I told John I have been contemplating a white heroine who discovers she has black roots, he quickly suggested Kingsblood Royal by Sinclair Lewis and Sundown Towns by James Loewen.

I met other interesting people too, among them, a couple who came in because they had heard about Time and Again’s portrayal of Miles Station. They live just down the road from where that village used to be. Another woman bought a copy for her elderly father, who waited in the car, also eager to read about local history. And Nancy Alexander, a local historian, came by to buy my book (for which I am honored) because Cathy Bagby from the Alton Museum of History had recommended it. Nancy had lots to add to the conversation John and I were having about early Alton. She was pleased to learn that I had included her personal hero Elijah P. Lovejoy in Time and Again. She suggested I read It’s Good to Be Black by Ruby Berkley Goodwin to get a sense of the black experience in southern Illinois. The owner of a bookshop in Quincy stopped in to browse and he turned out to be history buff as well. He recommended Galvanized Yankees by Dee Brown, Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose, and The Year Of Decision, 1846 by Bernard Augustine De Voto, all of which I plan to scope out.

After I said goodbye to John I took the opportunity to admire several of the other old buildings in downtown Alton, and like my character Abby, I wished I could set up her computer and do a little time- surfing. Oh, the stories some of these buildings could tell! I stopped at the remains of Alton Prison just off Broadway, ignoring the eyesore that squats nearby on the river. (And don’t look for the Alton Belle to appear in Honor at Stake either!) I visited State Street Market, once known as Franklin House, one of the largest and finest hotels in Alton. Lincoln was headquartered there in October of 1858 when he was in town for the last of the seven debates with Stephen Douglas.

I topped off the day by indulging in a piece of ‘Peanut Butter Lustre’ pie at My Just Desserts across the street from John’s bookshop in the Ryder Building on Broadway. Holy cow! I’ve never had a better piece of pie in my life! It was even sweeter knowing Lincoln had often visited the same building when it was used as a courthouse. In 1840, Lincoln delivered a political speech there, and I wondered if it was the same one he gave on July 4^th of the same year in Woodburn, my home "town."

 

This, like everything else that had happened on Saturday, illustrates how connected everyone and everything is. Definitely a good day.

Why I Want a WABAC Machine

When you have a birthday coming up you probably start dropping hints about the latest techno-gadgets you’d like to have. As for me, I’m hoping for a WABAC Machine. I’ve always wanted one. It comes from growing up in an old house, in an old village, both steeped in history.

 

I grew up in Woodburn, Illinois, a town—an unincorporated village, actually—so tiny it only had one store, where you could get bread, bologna, bacon, cokes, cookies, and gasoline. Woodburn may have been boring compared to the city we had left behind, but we lived in a cool vintage brick house. I loved that old house for its character or as I like to say, its “soul.”

 

And some of that soul seemed to be embodied in "The Brick," which we discovered when we moved into the house.  1874, the date the house was built, was engraved in the brick. I used to run my fingers over that date, wishing I could be transported for a visit to that time so long before.

 

Then I discovered another treasure in the neighboring town’s library: The History of Macoupin County.  From it, I was amazed to learn that Woodburn hadn’t always been so small. Once it had been a thriving little town with numerous stores, including the one owned by Mr. Welch, the builder of our house, and had stood where the petunias grew in our front yard. I learned that the brick for our house had been made in a brick works right there in Woodburn. That where our pasture was there once had been a livery stable and blacksmith shop. That down the street from us once stood an inn that served as a stagecoach stop. That Abraham Lincoln used to travel through our town and sleep in the inn and some of the houses too. I used to tell the kids at school that he slept in my house. How I wish that were true. But since the house was built in 1874 that wasn’t likely unless he had managed to be reincarnated and decided to come back for a visit to Woodburn for old time’s sake.

 

My brothers and sister and I were thrilled the summer we discovered Mr. Stevenson had an actual stage coach stored in his old barn. We may have trespassed just a bit to sneak in and explore this wondrous blast from the past.

 

I loved imagining the bustling little town. Late at night I could almost hear the sounds of horses and wagons clomping down the street, the stage coach rushing by, the blacksmith clanking out horseshoes. I could read the history books, and I could imagine those earlier days. But I always yearned to know more.

 

So when the cartoon Sherman and Mr. Peabody was first televised on our black and white TV I loved it immediately because they had a time machine called The WABAC Machine and were able to go back to visit different places and eras. Of course Sherman and Mr. Peabody’s take on history was always humorously skewed. I laughed at their antics, but inside, I really wished I had a WABAC Machine of my own.

 

All that history seeped into my bones as I grew up there in Woodburn. It’s no wonder that when I began to write historical fiction it all came spilling out. And though I never have been able to acquire the means for time travel myself, I am a generous creator and allow my characters to go back to discover what the olden days were really like.

 

If Only. . .

I just got back from a lovely afternoon of wine and live music at a fundraiser for the newly restored Sand Bank School, built in 1850s in Columbia, Illinois. That was impressive enough, but the original building was a log cabin built in 1801 for the seventeen families pioneering in the area. Perched on a hill overlooking the Mississippi Valley, the one-room schoolhouse looks like the sort of place that might be a portal for time travel. Maybe if I went back tonight when the sun was down and all the visitors gone…? Is it just me? Every time I visit a historical site I start imagining the people who lived and died there, wishing I could just see what it was like.

The two men who bought and restored the school (along with many generous volunteers) deserve a big thank you from all of us. This time the story ended happily. Not so for the stage coach house near where I grew up. A friend recently told me the farmer on whose land it stood allowed it to decay and then tore it down. This, in spite of the fact that history lovers were begging for the chance to preserve it.

History wasn’t my favorite subject in school. Teachers managed to make it seem like random, disconnected and useless factoids that had nothing to do with me. (Except for larger-than-life Mr. Anders and earnest Mr. Scott who made history relevant.)

That isn’t to say that I didn’t love history. I thought about it a lot, growing up in Woodburn, the not-so-much village and Bunker Hill, the shrinking town the railroad had bypassed. How could I not, living in a house with the date 1874 carved into its soft red brick

My siblings and I acted as amateur historians when we collected artifacts the Native Americans had left behind and explored the old, nearly forgotten roads. On one we found a barn where an old stagecoach was being kept out of the rain. (Sorry for trespassing, Mr. Stevens. We couldn’t help it.) And we listened to the stories about how the village had bustled back in the day with its stage coach inn, blacksmith shop, stores, mill, and brick factory. (I wonder where that clay seam was? All the soil in Woodburn I ever saw was black and rich enough, as Miss Bouillon said, to “grow doorknobs.”)

We heard how the stages used to pass through on their way from Springfield down to Alton. And how Abraham Lincoln sometimes stayed at the inn. The Likes’ children swore he slept in their house too. But that may not have been exactly true. We argued for the honor and I’m sure Abe would have been polite enough to accept an invitation for a sleep over at our house, except for the fact that our house wasn’t built until 1874 and by then Mr. Lincoln’s time on earth had ended. Besides he had long before left his Illinois roots for the big time in Washington.

I heard the stories and read the scant entries in the Macoupin County History Book and I wished there was more to find out. I wished someone had written more. I wished I could see for myself. I wished Mr. Peabody would loan me his Way Back Machine.

I never found a way to go back. But the beauty of fiction is that my characters can. Writing Time and Again was my small way of preserving history. In it I allow Abby and Merrideth to see it all exactly the way it really was when a girl named Charlotte lived in their old house. And while Abraham Lincoln didn’t spend the night, he did sit down to a nice meal Charlotte cooked.