My Soul's Home

The Catskill area is where my family is rooted. My great great great great great grandparents settled there from my mother, father, and biological father's families. These roots are very deep and many family members still live there or are buried in the region. Every time I work there, it is like going home, comfortable, soothing, real. I get to return there to work June 12 and 14.
June 12: Oneonta Storytelling Festival featuring Laura Simms, Marni Gillard, Lorna Czarnota, and Susan Trump.
http://thedailystar.com/communitynews/x433575145/Area-storytellers-sought-for-festival/print

My recently deceased mom and dad met at the Oneonta Hotel. The story goes that Mom was giving out kisses and my dad bought one for a dollar. I don’t doubt that at all since Dad used to carry a pocket full of nickels as a young man and bet the girls a nickel he could kiss them without touching them. I suppose the dollar had to do with inflation, and I am sure my mother was worth much more than that.

The hotel later became a bank and I don’t know what it is now, perhaps vacant. The first time I told stories with the Oneonta storytellers, I recall visiting what had been the hotel and touching the exterior wall just to be able to say I had been there, in that place where my parents met.

Mom and Dad's first photo together.

After meeting the Oneonta tellers for the first time, I realized what wonderful people they were and was invited to return many many times to not only tell with them, but teach them about storytelling. They became my family. As with many things in my life this year, I think this is their farewell festival, not enough young tellers to carry on the tradition and the work of running and organizing a guild.

It maybe no real coincidence that I will return there now that my parents are gone, a sad and fitting end of their journey, and the happy ending for the Oneonta Storytelling Center too.

I will also present Wild and Wooly Tales on the morning of June 14 at Downsville Central School and my dear friend and storytelling partner Merri Lee will join me in the afternoon to present "Letters Home, Stories of the North and South" at Unadilla Elementary School in the afternoon.

The following is a little history of my roots which spread across the region from Oneonta (where my mom, myself and my deceased younger sister lived for a while when I was just a toddler) to Delhi, Walton, Morris, Unadilla, Laurens, and New Berlin.

Cobb/VerValin my mother’s side of the family: Mom was born in Unadilla and may even have attended the school where Merri and I will visit on the 14th. My grandmother’s family VerValin has a small cemetery on a back road in Unadilla. I found it mentioned in the archives at the Cooperstown Historical Library and visited it a few years ago. The small cemetery is located in a farmer’s field and is surrounded by an old wrought fence with the name VerValin on the gate. There were four stones there but trees had grown up through everything and it was sadly in need of work and may not survive. There is no telling what condition it is in now. The farmer kept a path mown to it but that was years ago.

MacDonald/Beers : my dad’s side of the family hails from Delhi, Walton, and Beerston. Yes, the town is named after them. Pretty cool huh? Personally, I know little about the Beers. I think my dad’s mother was a school teacher.

I know more about the MacDonalds. They arrived in the early 1800s at Fayetteville, North Carolina from Dunbarton Scotland. They moved north and settled in the Delhi, NY region where years later, my dad was born. I’ve never had the chance to work in his old school or in Walton either, but spent much of my childhood there at memorable family reunions, clambakes, and Christmas’. My deceased sister is buried in the Walton cemetery with my dad’s mother and father. Her name was Pamela Irene and she died at age 3 when I was just 5 years old.

There is one Beers uncle, Neil, who fought in the American Civil War.

Southern/Pope my biological father’s family: The Southern’s settled in the areas of Morris and Laurens and became farmers. I forget which great it was but it was at least four generations ago that one of my grandfathers brought the first long haired, bred sheep from Sheffield England to Otsego County. I know we have Sheffield roots but have not been able to trace them to England.
The Popes settled in the area around New Berlin, NY. I know nothing beyond my great grandparents history but that is very rich.

My great grandfather Spencer Pope was an entrepreneur in New Berlin. At one time he opened the first bicycle shop and later ran a grocery. His wife, my great grandmother, Hattie was a milliner and had a shop on the main street. I don’t know where Hattie is buried but Spencer is in the New Berlin cemetery. His grave is shown on a cemetery map but there is no headstone. I may remedy that as Spencer was a writer. He wrote poems and stories for the New Berlin Gazette for years. I have a bound notebook of all his writings that a local farmer had gathered and published. Their only daughter, my middle namesake, Theral became a dressmaker.

One great grandfathers and an uncle who fought in the American Civil War are buried in the Morris Cemetery, at least that is the war I recall. I know there was a grandfather who fought in that war as I have a photocopy of his letter to his wife from the hospital where he recuperated from a wound. Theral is buried in that cemetery also. I never found her grave.

So you see, my history is full of people who influenced me, though I never knew most of them. There were poets and storytellers, teachers and entrepreneurs, shepherds, a milliner and a dressmaker, all things I have done or aspired to do in my life. And the Catskills really are home to my soul.

I used to work there often but not in the past two years. I am so excited to be going home once more. I will have Sunday between programs to try to find the old cemetery in Unadilla again and to visit my sister’s grave and tell her of her parents’ recent passing, although I am sure she is with them now.

There are cousins scattered everywhere in the area and I have not maintained contact with them. One aunt and uncle still live in Walton. Many others have moved to warmer climates, including four half-sisters and two half-brothers. Many others have passed.

But their memories and stories linger. They cling to walls of old hotels, stone walls separating farmer’s fields, and brooks that wind from one side of the road to the other. They live on in the smell of oiled dirt roads, and old wooden general stores, and in this storytellers dreams and words. For you see the very first story I recall telling, was told when I was 10 years old, sitting on the porch with my cousins at their home in Andes, NY, while looking at the foothills of the Catskill Mountains.

As long as I draw breath, I will keep them alive.