Category: Emily Anna Bacon Hoppin

Emily Anna Bacon Hoppin/Growth through Stress/Historical Narrative Writing

This Never-Ending Spiral

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I sometimes imagine life as a spiral, circling upwards, always returning to the same spot, only more experienced, hopefully more highly functioning. So here I am again, cycling around to being a learner, after the last years of being a producer.  Actually, as a gardener, I like to think of my growing and harvesting stages.

Does this feel familiar? You can probably come up with places you keep cycling back around to. Here’s a few of mine:  from crawling toddler to walking to school by myself; from an insecure student nurse to teaching new nurses on the hospital floor; from learning the craft of writing to publishing Heart Wood – my first book (at 74 years!). And now I’m back in the learner’s seat, growing my ability to write a Historical Narrative of my Great-Grandmother Emily Hoppin’s life and times.

Growing requires stress.

I finally came to terms with that when I saw how much stronger my little tomato seedlings were when they were outside being buttressed by a gentle wind that caused them to twist and turn from their base instead of being continually protected in a warm, sunny room.

Bones are like that too.

The matrix that makes bones strong is developed by the tug and pull of muscles on the bone. Whether it’s weight-lifting or easy strolling, bones need to be prodded by pressure to become strong – a point not lost on me as my bone-density reports show I’m in the middle stages of osteopenia.

Our brains thrive on novelty – even in old age, we put down new neural pathways when we struggle to learn new things – which is why it’s good to do something different and something difficult every day.

I thought it would be easy to shift from writing Historical Fiction to Historical Narrative. Turns out, it’s a whole ‘nother world with a whole new set of “how-tos.”  So I’m now cycling around to being a learner again and immersing myself in a ten-week online course on writing Advanced Historical Narratives with Marty Levine. Now I’m vacillating between “I just love learning so many new things!” to “Aargh, this is too hard. I’ll never get it. I should just write a simple biography.”

But I think of my little seedlings, my bones, and my brain, and keep spiraling on.

Heart Wood is fictional history inspired in part by the life of my great-grandmother, Emily Hoppin. Many of her life events and writings are incorporated into the novel in the character of Eliza. My initial research on Emily and Charles Hoppin is posted on my website: shirleydickard.com under “Historical Research.”

Heart Wood can be found at your local library, bookstore, and Online.

California Federation of Women's Clubs/Emily Anna Bacon Hoppin/Heart Wood - Four Women, for the Earth, for the Future/Historical Archives/Historical Fiction/Historical Research/Yolo, California

Why I Love Archivists (2)

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(Re-formatted – Sorry, something went screwy in the layout. I’m such a perfectionist – hopefully this looks better!)

Like a kid in a candy store, I was surrounded by boxes of old documents from the 1850s to 1915, selected for me by the Archivists at the Yolo County Archives at my recent visit to Woodland, California in September. After years of researching my Yolo Pioneer and activist Great-Grandmother using online searches and old family documents, I was eager to locate primary sources, especially personal correspondence. But COVID hit in 2020, and I had to put my research visits on hold for two years.

Boxes, Ledgers, Maps, and Files
Emily Hoppin’s Scrapbook

I’m excited to finally be writing a comprehensive biography of Emily Hoppin, my great-grandmother.  Not just as an ancestor, but because she lived in an era where women were coming into new power in their communities. She was part of the struggle for women’s suffrage, and she fought to eliminate the devastating effects of alcohol from the lives of women and children. She was a farmer who ran an 800-acre farm and won the 1915 statewide election for President of the California Federation of Women’s Clubs (CFWC) based on her rural perspective, and she was a WWI peace activist.

Emily Hoppin 1915

But her gift, as Heather Lanctot, Yolo County Archives and Records Center Coordinator noted, is that she left a paper trail. Hundreds of women had joined in her efforts, but Emily left writings and speeches for posterity. Much of what she wrote has wisdom for today and will be part of her biography. Additionally, many Hoppin descendants had the foresight to donate family papers to the archives. Not many people think to do that, according to Mollie Watson, Assistant Director of the Niles History Center in Michigan.

I think about today’s electronic communications and wonder how much of our lives will be lost if not also documented in paper and archived. We may be saving trees and time, but those who follow us will have less access to our history.

As I fill in the details of Emily’s life, the deeper I research, the more content appears – like the multiplying brooms in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice! Yikes! My cousins are now helping with Emily’s early days in Niles, Michigan. Nancy Peters, who lives in Michigan, and Cathy Altuvilla from LA, took my research questions to the archive staff at the Niles History Center to find answers, and while visiting, took photos of Emily’s family house, church, and the nearby St. Joseph River.

Niles History Center Assistant Director Mollie Watson,
and Cousins Nancy and Cathy
St Joseph River in Niles – also a setting in “Heart Wood”

Closer to home in California, I had the new experience of watching professional archivists at work. Before my appointment at the Yolo County Archives, I had sent two pages of areas I wanted to research, as well as some perplexing questions I had. Archives and Records Center Coordinator, Heather Lanctot, and Rachel Poutasse, Library Assistant, were on it!  I arrived to tables and carts filled with ledgers, maps, voter registrations, deeds, wills, probate records, and fragile bound newspapers from the 1850s to 1915. They not only gave me what I asked for, but as professional archivists, they knew what else would be relevant from their vast archive storage – materials I didn’t even know existed. You may enjoy this link to a behind-the-scenes look at the Yolo Archives: https://youtu.be/SEw0cZNhEdA .

Shirley with Yolo Archive Staff: Heather and Rachel

 After giving me an overview, I was set loose…like a kid in a candy shop!

There’s nothing comparable to the feel, the smell, even the sound of fragile pages rustling in my hands. But holding my great-grandmother’s actual 1911 voter registration (first woman to register in the Cacheville precinct after California women gained suffrage in 1911!), and examining her hand-written will? Those took my breath away.

And then there’s witnessing a gathering storm as I turned the bound pages of the 1915 Mail of Woodland newspaper and viewed the events leading up to World War I and the parallel events leading to Emily Hoppin’s election as president of the California Federation of Women’s Clubs.

I wonder what people in the future will say about the progression of today’s aggressive headlines and where we are heading. 

My dream was still to find Emily Hoppin’s personal letters or journals as a way to glimpse her inner world. The next afternoon, across Woodland at the Yolo County Historical Collection at The Gibson House, Iulia Bodeanu, Yolo County Museum Curator, presented me with more Hoppin file boxes.

Iulia Bodeneau with the Hoppin Files

I held my breath, for behind the folder of Gold Rush letters from my great-uncle, John Hoppin, was a thick folder of fragile, hand-written pages. Yes, Emily’s handwriting! Not personal letters, but about a dozen of her speeches, written in pencil, words crossed out, edits made, notes on the margins. Some I had never seen before. It was like discovering gold! Of course, Iulia wouldn’t let me have them, so we arranged to have them scanned and sent to me.

Selection of Emily Hoppin’s Handwritten and typed Speeches

I asked these ladies what it takes to be a professional archivist and was impressed with their educational background:

Heather Lanctot: BA in Music History with an emphasis in History and Literature, MA in Musicology (both from University of Oregon), MLIS with a specialization in Archives and Records Management (San Jose State)

Rachel Poutasse:  MLIS with a specialization in Archival Studies from UCLA

Iulia Bodeanu:  Masters in Museum Studies from San Francisco State University. Bachelor of Arts in Art History and English from UC Berkeley

I returned to my mountain home, not only with a digital trunk load of documents, but with great respect for all the professional and volunteer archivists who work as guardians and guides to our past. Thank you!

Heart Wood is fictional history inspired in part by the life of Emily Hoppin. Many of her life events and writings are incorporated into the novel in the character of Eliza. My initial research on Emily and Charles Hoppin is posted on my website: shirleydickard.com under “Historical Research.”

Heart Wood can be found at your local library, bookstore, and online .

California Federation of Women's Clubs/Emily Anna Bacon Hoppin/Heart Wood - Four Women, for the Earth, for the Future/Historical Archives/Historical Fiction/Historical Research/Yolo, California

Why I Love Archivists

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Like a kid in a candy store, I was surrounded by boxes of old documents from the 1850s to 1915, selected for me by the Archivists at the Yolo County Archives at my recent visit to Woodland, California in September. After years of researching my Yolo Pioneer and activist Great-Grandmother using online searches and old family documents, I was eager to locate primary sources, especially personal correspondence. But COVID hit in 2020, and I had to put my research visits on hold for two years.

Boxes, Ledgers, and Files
Emily Hoppin’s Scrapbook
Deeds and Maps

I’m excited to finally be writing a comprehensive biography of Emily Hoppin, my great-grandmother.  Not just as an ancestor, but because she lived in an era where women were coming into new power in their communities. She was part of the struggle for women’s suffrage, and she fought to eliminate the devastating effects of alcohol from the lives of women and children. She was a farmer who ran an 800-acre farm and won the 1915 statewide election for President of the California Federation of Women’s Clubs (CFWC) based on her rural perspective, and she was a WWI peace activist.

Emily Hoppin 1915

But her gift, as Heather Lanctot, Yolo County Archives and Records Center Coordinator noted, is that she left a paper trail. Hundreds of women had joined in her efforts, but Emily left writings and speeches for posterity. Much of what she wrote has wisdom for today and will be part of her biography. Additionally, many Hoppin descendants had the foresight to donate family papers to the archives. Not many people think to do that, according to Mollie Watson, Assistant Director of the Niles History Center in Michigan.

I think about today’s electronic communications and wonder how much of our lives will be lost if not also documented in paper and archived. We may be saving trees and time, but those who follow us will have less access to our history.

As I fill in the details of Emily’s life, the deeper I research, the more content appears – like the multiplying brooms in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice! Yikes! My cousins are now helping with Emily’s early days in Niles, Michigan. Nancy Peters, who lives in Michigan, and Cathy Altuvilla from LA, took my research questions to the archive staff at the Niles History Center to find answers, and while visiting, took photos of Emily’s family house, church, and the nearby St. Joseph River.

Assistant Director Mollie Watson, Cousins Nancy and Cathy
St. Joseph River – Also a setting in “Heart Wood”

Closer to home in California, I had the new experience of watching professional archivists at work. Before my appointment at the Yolo County Archives, I had sent two pages of areas I wanted to research, as well as some perplexing questions I had. Archives and Records Center Coordinator, Heather Lanctot, and Rachel Poutasse, Library Assistant, were on it!  I arrived to tables and carts filled with ledgers, maps, voter registrations, deeds, wills, probate records, and fragile bound newspapers from the 1850s to 1915. They not only gave me what I asked for, but as professional archivists, they knew what else would be relevant from their vast archive storage – materials I didn’t even know existed. You may enjoy this link to a behind-the-scenes look at the Yolo Archives: https://youtu.be/SEw0cZNhEdA .

Shirley with Yolo Archive Staff: Heather and Rachel

 After giving me an overview, I was set loose…like a kid in a candy shop!

There’s nothing comparable to the feel, the smell, even the sound of fragile pages rustling in my hands. But holding my great-grandmother’s actual 1911 voter registration (first woman to register in the Cacheville precinct after California women gained suffrage in 1911!), and examining her hand-written will? Those took my breath away.

And then there’s witnessing a gathering storm as I turned the bound pages of the 1915 Mail of Woodland newspaper and viewed the events leading up to World War I and the parallel events leading to Emily Hoppin’s election as president of the California Federation of Women’s Clubs.

I wonder what people in the future will say about the progression of today’s aggressive headlines and where we are heading. 

My dream was still to find Emily Hoppin’s personal letters or journals as a way to glimpse her inner world. The next afternoon, across Woodland at the Yolo County Historical Collection at The Gibson House, Iulia Bodeanu, Yolo County Museum Curator, presented me with more Hoppin file boxes.

I held my breath, for behind the folder of Gold Rush letters from my great-uncle, John Hoppin, was a thick folder of fragile, hand-written pages. Yes, Emily’s handwriting! Not personal letters, but about a dozen of her speeches, written in pencil, words crossed out, edits made, notes on the margins. Some I had never seen before. It was like discovering gold! Of course, Iulia wouldn’t let me have them, so we arranged to have them scanned and sent to me.

Iulia Bodeanu with the Hoppin Files
Selection of Emily Hoppin’s Handwritten and typed Speeches

I asked these ladies what it takes to be a professional archivist and was impressed with their educational background:

Heather Lanctot: BA in Music History with an emphasis in History and Literature, MA in Musicology (both from University of Oregon), MLIS with a specialization in Archives and Records Management (San Jose State)

Rachel Poutasse:  MLIS with a specialization in Archival Studies from UCLA

Iulia Bodeanu:  Masters in Museum Studies from San Francisco State University. Bachelor of Arts in Art History and English from UC Berkeley

I returned to my mountain home, not only with a digital trunk load of documents, but with great respect for all the professional and volunteer archivists who work as guardians and guides to our past. Thank you!

Heart Wood is fictional history inspired in part by the life of Emily Hoppin. Many of her life events and writings are incorporated into the novel in the character of Eliza. My initial research on Emily and Charles Hoppin is posted on my website: shirleydickard.com under “Historical Research.”

Heart Wood can be found at your local library, bookstore, and online .

California History/Charles Rossiter Hoppin/Emily Anna Bacon Hoppin/Historical Fiction/Yolo, California

Creating Historical Fiction

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Note to reader: I am struck by the irony of my post Creating Historical Fiction that I planned for today. Start with the facts, I write, but if you want a richer, more powerful story, try converting your story into a fictionalized version. We’re living in a time when a president is attempting to stay in power by creating a fictional version of the election. Future historians will help us understand the facts and how we responded thereafter. (SD – 1/12/21)

A thin, wavering curtain separates historical facts from the imagination of fiction. Research files may bulge with historical documents that provide the framework for fictionalized ancestors, but imagination and inspiration weave them into a deeper story.

Start with the Facts

Nearly every family has colorful characters and fascinating stories. You can probably think of a few yourself; maybe you have considered writing about them. But how? When I first became interested in my gold-rush era great-grandmother, I decided to write a biographical account of what I knew about how she came to California, ran an 800-acre farm, and worked to better the condition of her community.

Facts evolve into Fiction

At some point, I realized there was a larger story to tell – not just of her life and work, but how it related to the present generation, and even to our unknown future generations who will inherit our stories. I was encouraged to stretch into the realm of historical fiction. Gary Noy, editor of The Illuminated Landscape, A Sierra Nevada Anthology, agreed that fictionalized history carries an emotional resonance that far exceeds the presentation of facts. By writing a novel inspired by historical facts, I was free to tell a deeper, unhindered story.

From Fiction Back to Fact

Like the tip of an iceberg, fictionalized characters are more believable because of the bulk of research that lies beneath their story. Now that my fictionalized version is published, I return full circle to all the facts that launched Heart Wood. In conducting years of research, I’ve been delighted to know my great-grandmother as a larger-than-life thinker, writer, and activist. This research is now posted on my website under “Historical Research.” I am pleased to share my findings with my greater family and to make it available to the public for historical research.

I invite you browse the research that went into the creation of the past in Heart Wood. Perhaps it will be an inspiration to create something from your own family’s story!

Emily and Charles Hoppin (Yolo, California, 1850-1915)

The ancestors whose story inspired me to create Eliza and Silas in Heart Wood

  • Wedding Portrait of Emily Anna Bacon Hoppin 1874
  • Wedding portrait of Charles Rossiter Hoppin, 1874

I have recently posted over 25 documents and photographs on my website , including:  

Charles Hoppin’s letters home from the Gold Rush (1850-1863)

An oral history with my grandmother, Dorothea Hoppin Moffett, about growing up on the Yolo Ranch with her mother, Emily Hoppin

Pages of Emily Hoppin’s personal scrapbook (1890s-1915) with news clippings of her campaign for president of the California Federation of Women’s Clubs, 1915

Photographs, maps, and selected documents from internet research

Conducting historical research has changed dramatically over the years

The Internet was unheard of when I first started investigating my family’s history in the late 1980s. To locate and read documents back then, I had to get in my car and travel to distant libraries and archives. Today, it’s a different world: my recent internet search for “Emily Hoppin, Yolo” found over 240 references to her in the California Digitalized Newspaper Collection!

AND…without the invaluable assistance of the Yolo County Archives and Records Center, Emily’s scrapbook would still be sitting on my bookshelf.  I am grateful to Coordinator Heather Lanctot who scanned each page with their large-sized scanner so that the scrapbook can be read on my website, and in time, will be a permanent public record at The Yolo Archives. Like all volunteer-based organizations during this time of COVID, The Yolo Archives appreciates donations (bit.ly/fyca-join).

I hope you will enjoy browsing my Historical Research page and perhaps be inspired to be creative with your own family’s history. If you’re curious about writing historical fiction, traditional memoir, or a biography, you can find a wealth of support on the internet, on-line classes, writing coaches, and books.

“Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges into the past.” – James Joyce, Ulysses

Heart Wood can be purchased online and at all bookstores

Thank you for supporting independently-published authors and local bookstores!

HERE: To support your local, independent bookstore

HERE: To purchase on Amazon (ebook and paperback)

www.shirleydickard.com

California History/Charles Rossiter Hoppin/Climate Change/Dystopic Future/Eco-Novel/Emily Anna Bacon Hoppin/Environmental Concerns/Feminine Power/Yolo, California

Open House at shirleydickard.com

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You’re invited to an Open House at the newly remodeled website dedicated to my eco-novel: Heart Wood – Four Women, for the Earth, for the Future.

Years ago, when Heart Wood was in its infancy, I created my first website and blog. Having since outgrown the space, I’ve been working with a web designer to give it an updated look with new rooms and décor. Please stroll around and take a look!

There is one last room I want to remodel and I’m hoping readers can help me. If you click on the “Research” tab, you’ll see tabs for Past, Present, and Future. These are where I’m gathering Present data and evidence of mankind’s cumulative impact on the Future, as well as my family’s historical documents from the Past.

If you’ve read Heart Wood, you may share my concern for what we’re doing to our air, water, food, and earth, and the impact on our health and longevity – especially of our children. You can contribute by sending articles and links that I can post. Discussions welcome!

Thank you to Sky (who actually spent her first years in the mythical “Luna Valley”) for this first article: Why the World is Becoming Allergic to Food  https://getpocket.com/explore/item/why-the-world-is-becoming-more-allergic-to-food?utm_source=pocket-newtab.  Cue the rise of Pharm.food!

For history buffs, especially my family, I will post all the documentation I gathered about my great-grandparents, Emily and Charles Hoppin of Yolo, California – the inspiration for the characters of Eliza and Silas in Heart Wood. In my research, I found previously unknown speeches, writings, and interviews with Emily Hoppin. She was a woman before her time and now, 100 years later, her voice can be heard! I invite anyone with information about Charles and Emily Hoppin to add to this documentation on my website.

Please sign the guest book by leaving a comment. If you see any corners that need attention, let me know. I’m learning how websites nowadays must work across all types of screens: computers, tablets, and mobile devices – rather like a three-dimensional tic-tac-toe board! My appreciation to Katie (who also grew up in the “Luna Valley”) and her design team at Urban Sherpa Marketing: www.urbansherpa.marketing 

California History/Charles Rossiter Hoppin/Emily Anna Bacon Hoppin/Gold Rush

Family Myth-Makers

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A cherished story in my family is that Great Grandma came to California by covered wagon during the 1849 Gold Rush.  Only she didn’t.  Hard as I try to hold on to the version of my great grandparents making  a tortuous six-month wagon “road trip” from Michigan to California to start  a new life together, the evidence just isn’t there.

Nonetheless, I refuse to be swayed by facts. So what if dusty historical biographies and frayed yellow obituaries record that it was actually 1874 when Emily Anna Bacon Hoppin accompanied her new husband, Charles, back to his 800 acre ranch in Yolo, California. She might even have taken the new transcontinental railroad, recently opened in 1869 for all we know.  But inside of me is a small child who won’t release her fingers around a favorite shiny pebble. In my heart, Great Grandmother did come to California by covered wagon during the Gold Rush.

“It’s the storyteller’s right to embellish the story,” my Grandma Dot-Dot once confessed as she spun yet another legendary tale about her mother’s life in the late 1800’s. I interviewed Grandma before she died and transcribed her stories into a book which I gave to the extended family. It was a meritage of memory and facts. From her child’s-eye perspective of early California ranch life, Grandma fashioned her mother into a larger-than-life figure who was not to be reckoned with. “Emily Hoppin was known as a woman who stood by her principles,” Grandma told us. “Why she and her women friends threatened to close down the local saloons so many times, they were known as the Three Musketeers. Grandma delighted in planting family stories into our fertile imaginations. She was our myth-maker.

I learned from Grandma Dot-Dot that stories are more important than facts.  Stories nurture the heart; facts languish in the head.  This is why I describe the novel I’m working on as part historical fiction, part memoir, and part future-fantasy. Despite my struggle to be historically accurate, I’m finding that the family’s mythology is much more enduring.

In my next blog, I’ll describe my discovery of an historical detail while traveling through the Nevada desert – a fact that somehow never made it into the family’s records or mythology.

© All materials copyright Shirley DicKard, 2015, except as otherwise noted.

California History/Emily Anna Bacon Hoppin/Feminine Power/Yolo, California

“Our Foremothers” 1915

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Emily's 4th July Speech 1

Hey, enough about our Forefathers this Independence Day!  Back in 1915, my Great Grandmother Emily Hoppin gave this speech about “Our ForeMothers” to a Fourth of July celebration in Yolo County, California.

I’ve transcribed her words from my copy of her handwritten notes.   To read her full speech go to  Emily’s Speech.                      Here are some excerpts:

“OUR FOREMOTHERS”

For over a hundred years, on this anniversary of our nation’s birth, men have written and poets have sung of our forefathers.  Today, for the first time in the history of – well – I will not say our nation, but will say of Yolo County, you are to hear not only of your forefathers but your foremothers, and I wish I had the eloquent tongue to tell of them.

Neither do I today expect to give a small meed of praise to these foremothers of ours – but I would try to win for them some of the gratitude we give our forefathers.

 Often women are the leaders and organizers of great enterprises.  Our own country owes its discovery to the masterful mind of a woman. (note: I assume Queen Isabella of Spain, who financed Christopher Columbus’ voyage to the New World.  She also took an unusual interest in the Native Americans he brought back to Spain as slaves, by ordering the Indians returned to their homeland and freed.  However, she and her husband, Ferdinand, also started the Spanish Inquisition!  Now back to 1915).  

In the history of this beautiful state of ours where the pioneers of ’49 were enduring their hardships – the women were by their side and endured with them the hardships and lessons of the plains. 

Women have however been content with no praise at all, or the praise such as the old pioneer settler out west gave to his wife when an old grizzly bear came into his cabin one day.

          Perhaps you recall the man’s scream to his frau. 

         There’s a bear in the kitchen as big as a cow. 

          And how she advised him to murder him then. 

          And how his reply was, Yes! Betty, I will if you’ll first venture in. 

          So Betty leaped up and a poker she seized. 

          While her man shut the door and outside he squeezed 

          And then you remember, she laid on the blows. 

          While her man, through the keyhole kept shouting with din,

          Well done, my brave Betty.  Now hit him again.

           So with rapping and poking, poor Betty alone

          at last laid old Bruin as dead as a stone. 

          Then when the brave man saw the bear was no more,

         he ventured to poke himself in at the door.

          And off to the neighbors he hastened to tell,

          all the wonderful things –that morning befell. 

          And he published the wonderful story afar,

          How “Me and my Betty we just slaughtered that bar.”

Now my dear friends there is nothing personal in this story – nothing that is applicable to you – for you have never said to us in regard to taking hold of work.  Yes!  Darling we will, if you’ll first venture in.   We all know how energetic you men of Yolo County are, and how anxious you are that our county shall be well governed.

How glad you are to give due praise to women today, we who are proud to stand beside you and tell of the grand women of the past. Tis like stirring living embers when one calls to mind “all the achings and the quakings of the times that tried men’s souls.”

(Her speech continues with descriptions of women’s roles in the major events of America’s history.  The complete speech is on my website:  Emily’s Speech).

We who live in these days of railroads and telegraphs and books cannot realize the lonely days and nights of these women.

Speak of (women’s) brave words, their true hearts, their noble deeds.  Tell of their purity, their faith, their heroism, and let this fourth of July celebrate their deeds, as well as he deeds of our forefathers – and if between the living and the dead, is stretched, as some believe, a spirit wire, let it signal to them the words we speak today, and may their spirits – our guardian angels watch o’er our  country and may the God of our fore fathers and mothers, who through the gloom and night has guided our people. 

© All materials copyright Shirley DicKard, 2012 – 2013, except as otherwise noted.

About "Heart Wood"/California History/Emily Anna Bacon Hoppin/Environmental Concerns/Feminine Power

Great-Grandmother Emily’s Vision of Universal Peace -1915

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I was awestruck when I read this 1915 article about my Great Grandmother Emily Hoppin (the inspiration for Eliza in “The Desk”) after she was elected President of the California Federation of Women’s Clubs.

Mrs. Hoppin 1915

“Mrs. Hoppin is an optimist . . . even in the face of the greatest war of all ages (WWI), she still hopes that work for peace, which she feels must be largely woman’s work, will not – cannot – be in vain. She anticipates that the condition we pray for, the prevalence of an effective sentiment for universal peace, may come about suddenly and unexpectedly, likening it to the movement for the abolition of slavery, which seemed a far, Eutopian vision in the minds of its supporters. Practically all they dared hope for was the restriction and limiting of the traffic – and then, of a sudden, Emancipation! – more glorious than their fondest dreams! And so she prays it may be with the peace sentiment.”                                               (The Overland Monthly, 1915 – “The New Executive in Feminine Clubdom”)

Though I also consider myself an optimist, I get easily discouraged by what feels like a tsunami of greed and self-interest. I lose hope. Think of today’s big issues: gun control, the Afghanistan war, reproductive choices, the right to marry, genetically-modified foods, etc. (obviously reflects my liberal perspective). Sure, I sign internet petitions, donate to causes, make an occasional call to elected representatives, but I recognize a little voice that says, “I’ll do what I can, but it’s probably hopeless – too much money and corporate interest backing it.”

And then I read my Great-Grandmother’s words and come face to face with the paucity of my vision. Remember Ken Keyes’ book, The Hundredth Monkey? He wrote: “When only a limited number of people know of a new way, it may remain the conscious property of these people. But there is a point at which if only one more person tunes-in to a new awareness, a field is strengthened so that this awareness reaches almost everyone!”

I return to Great Grandma’s vision that “universal peace may come about suddenly and unexpectedly, likening it to the movement for the abolition of slavery, which seemed a far, Eutopian vision in the minds of its supporters. . . then, of a sudden, Emancipation! – more glorious than their fondest dreams!”

I realize now my work is to join with others to hold a strong, clear image of the world I want. A world where guns are registered like cars, and users are tested for skills and safety. Where any committed couple can marry. Where the earth has a sustainable population because women can control conception. Where we learn to live with less energy … and so on. I encourage you to think about the images you hold – and how they can add to the tipping point.

 

© All materials copyright Shirley DicKard, 2012 – 2013, except as otherwise noted.

About "Heart Wood"/Emily Anna Bacon Hoppin/Yolo, California

Seismic Shift in Access to Information

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p_g10afjmr5gq0462_bThere’s been a seismic shift in access to information since I first did serious research on my Great Grandmother, Emily Hoppin, almost 25 years ago.  Back then (before Internet, mind you) I had to travel to Woodland to do on-site research in the Yolo County Archives – a small building in an industrial section of town.  When I found a newspaper article I wanted to copy of my gold-rush era ancestor, the kindly woman held a column-wide copier over the paper, and reproduced the article in that filmy fax-type paper (print is faded and useless today)

I’ve also relied on my Great-Grandmother’s scrapbook (patented in 1873 by Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain) that contains her pasted newspaper clippings of family deaths, her speeches, and the hot political contest for President of Federation of Women’s Clubs of California (which she won -1915).  Someday, I’ll make it part of Woodland’s historical archives.

I’ve found Ancestry.com helpful for locating records of births, deaths and census reports.  Interesting to see who else was living on the farm.

But recently Stephanie Korney, a friend and a founder of the Camptonville Historical Society, emailed me an article about my Great Grandmother from the 1915 Overland Journal. (Stephanie said after seeing my blog, she just couldn’t help digging around herself!)  I thought I’d seen most things printed on my ancestors, but here was an article filled with delicious details about this woman.  Wow!  Made Facebook look pale!

In the last 25 years, the Internet has  democratized access to information.  Google Books, a service from Google Inc. scans the full text of books and old magazines, converts text using optical character recognition, and stores it in its digital database. There’s been a lot of controversy over copyright issues and fair use.  That aside, I’m delighted to be able to search for Emily Hoppin, Yolo, California and find 30 sources of information on her.  I’ll put some on my website, and some of it will be incorporated into The Desk as a backdrop for Eliza, the fictionalized woman inspired by my Great-Grandmother’s life work for California, Women’s Suffrage, Temperance, Water, Farming and hopes for Universal Peace.