The Road to LaReta

I swam from a dream world to the surface through murky half-light. A new title came to me, a splash of thought. The Road to LaReta. The imagined waters calmed and it was clear to me, this may be the final title for the novel about Webb Bateman. 

Lying in the warmth of fluffy covers with an even fluffier cat backed into the crook of my waist, I reflected on the sound and meaning of The Road to LaReta. It rolled off my tongue; sounded right. I felt a bonding with the words.

Including LaReta’s name in the title was inspired by her daughter, Nicolette, as we stood by her dying mother’s bedside. She advised me to include something about a woman in the title. “We need more books about women,” she said. She didn’t specifically suggest her mother’s name, but it made me step back and think more about the important women in the story and the one person who motivated Webb’s journey and the opportunity to redeem himself. It was LaReta, his three-year-old daughter.

The book, a historical fiction novel based on a true story, had two other titles during the writing: Cat Skinner and Nicolette’s first inspired title, LaReta’s Cat Skinner. But the third title seemed best, The Road to LaReta.

The father LaReta and I share, Webb Bateman, was a Cat Skinner – a heavy equipment operator, but the story is not just about the earth he moved. It’s also about a man honed behind a cue stick, at the end of a fist, behind a plow, in a circus giraffe suit, and in the belly of a coal mine.  It’s the story of a man who married because he thought it was the right thing to do, but a man more interested in his construction jobs, drinking and playing cards than he was in raising a family. His wife’s sudden death provided a chance at redemption. Could he do what was right and make up for the pain he caused? Could he raise LaReta?

The journey of 900 miles to Dorothy’s funeral takes just a few days, but gives Webb time to reflect on his twenty-seven years of life; too much time and not enough to grapple with who he is and the man he wants to be.

The novel is in revision, after being read by four wonderful women who offered right-on suggestions. The one woman I wanted to read the story, is gone. My half-sister LaReta passed away at age eighty on June 14, 2016, but she knew her name would be in the title and I’m hopeful her sweet spirit will live on in The Road to LaReta.

The Beginning and The End

It’s strange. Very strange. I don’t know how to describe my feelings when I write about LaReta, ("Lore") as a three-year-old and then see my eighty-year-old sister at the Wesley Homes Health Center.

I’m sad. Her beginnings were difficult as a child when her mother, Dorothy, died in 1939 . Lore was three years old. Dorothy’s death had repercussions the rest of Lore's life. It impacted how she was raised, her relationships with our father, Webb, and what became important to her.

To see her now on hospice care and near death also makes me very sad. I’m looking at both ends of her life at the same time. Her son, Dan, pointed out that the beginning and the end are very close together. So true.

But I’m also glad that Lore and I became close, not only as sisters, but as friends. We've had great fun together talking, eating out, going to movies, and traveling to Hawaii to see two of her children, even though we had to walk up a hill to her home in six inches of snow when we got back. We laughed about that a lot.

Lore's told me more than once she had a good life. She is very proud of her five children, knows she is loved, and can say she had one great love in her life.

On our trips back and forth to the clinic this year for her radiation treatments, Lore let me know she’s ready to die. She’s been ready for five years, having made all her preparations when she was first treated for breast cancer in 2011. She did have four years of being cancer free, but this year she was diagnosed with bone cancer, her breast cancer had metastasized. It's hard to believe that the end of 2015, she was leading her life, walking her son's dog every day and just being Lore.

A couple months ago, I wasn’t ready to let her go. I was focused on keeping her alive for as long as possible, but it was an excruciating process for Lore. Any movement at all was extremely painful in spite of all her pain medication. The meds only succeeded in causing chronic nausea.

Now seeing her comfortable and no longer in pain, I can more readily accept the inevitable. Yesterday, her words were few, She said over and over, “I love you very much.” Who could ask for more.

A New Title

The first draft of Cat Skinner is finished and the work of revision has begun. It's going slowly, but serves as a refuge for me to focus on the story in a new way and think about nothing else for a few hours at a time.

I've been doing a lot of driving to transport my sister to doctor appointments and serve as her advocate with doctors and the nursing staff at the Swedish Cancer Institute in Burien and at the Wesley Homes Health Center in Des Moines.

Since my last post in April, LaReta's health has declined. She's gone through radiation in an effort to reduce tumors close to her spine and is on a regimen of shots for cancer which has metastasized into her bones. Her oncologist said, "There is no cure, only treatment."

Unfortunately, the treatment has not eased her pain or chronic nausea which is the worst he's ever seen - and he's been in the cancer business a long time. In an effort to find out what's causing the extreme nausea aside from radiation, chemo therapy and pain pills, he's ordered a brain scan for next week.

The story of Webster Warren Bateman (the Cat Skinner) is also the story of my sister, LaReta, when she was three years old. I'm hoping and praying she'll find some comfort at age 80, in her last days. She already knows I've changed the title to LaReta's Cat Skinner, A Story of Love and Loss in the 1930's. Right now, her story is one of love from her family and our sense of loss at the prospect of her passing.

His Women

The story, Cat Skinner, is not only a story of a young man finding his way and learning what’s important in life, it’s about the women who influenced him. There were six. All of these women, whether they assumed the Bateman name in marriage or were born to it, were survivors whose strength and perseverance becomes more evident as the story goes on.

Webster Warren Bateman’s mother, Dena, is initially seen as cold and detached, preferring her boys stay out of trouble and out of sight. Once you see her life circumstances in the 1920’s, you understand her motives.

Toots, Webb’s older sister, and the oldest of six children takes on the role of mother hen to her wayward brothers and younger sisters. She fills the emotional void Dena can’t muster because she’s running a hotel and restaurant to keep the family afloat financially.

Dorothy, Webb’s first wife, is initially in love with the concept of marriage and family, but once she experiences the reality of being married to a man whose work comes first, finds her own strength to survive and make her own way.

Blanche, Webb’s youngest sister, gives birth at sixteen to a baby boy she gives up for adoption. Although she regrets her “mistake,” she longs for a relationship with a child and determines she’ll make something of herself.

Laura, Webb’s mother-in-law (Dorothy’s mother) has experienced extreme loss, the death of five of her twelve children, but fights fiercely to raise her granddaughter, LaReta.

And LaReta, Webb’s three-year-old daughter, who doesn’t understand her mother’s death, is determined to “find my mommy.”

While Cat Skinner has an end when LaReta is three-years-old, her real life story goes on as does her determination. Today, “Lore” as she nicknamed herself years ago, is nearly 81-years-old. She has survived two divorces, nervous breakdowns, breast cancer, surgeries, and is now facing the challenge of bone cancer and its treatment. But she’s focusing on the positive.

Lore has five children of whom she’s very proud, grandchildren whom she adores, a beautiful home on a hill and she’s managed her finances and her life with independence and flair. Funny, opinionated, generous, controlling and artistic, Lore is most of all carrying on the Bateman women’s legacy of strength and perseverance.   

Journey

The difference between the writer and the wannabe writer is … one writes and the other, due to choice, chance or circumstance, thinks about writing rather than getting it done. That’s where I’ve been the last couple weeks. Thinking, reading, procrastinating.

From what I’ve read and been told, that’s not unusual, but it’s also what keeps a story in one’s head and not on paper. 

I’m now in Part 3 - The Funeral of Cat Skinner: A Story of Lust, Love and Loss in the 1930’s. This is the final third of the story. Webb and his sister, Blanche, have exchanged personal information and experiences as they motor the 350 miles from Billings, Montana to Dunn Center, North Dakota on Friday, March 10, 1939. Their goal is to reach Dunn Center by 1 pm in time for Dorothy’s funeral.

The journey is more than watching the straight-as-an-arrow highway disappear beneath the spoke wheels of the 1930 Chevy. It is a journey for Webb to figure out, with the help of his sister, what kind of man he wants to be, the real thing or a wannabe. Is he going to think about what he should have done and what he should do now regarding his three-year-old daughter, LaReta, or is he going to do it.

I’ve been stuck these past few weeks trying to think my way to the end of the story. How do I pay homage to the real people who lived this story, show their perspectives, their feelings and fears, in a fictionalized version of the truth? Tonight is the first time I’ve gained a little traction. I'm letting the story tell me where it wants to go.

Hopefully, the story will reveal itself in a way that readers remain sympathetic to all the characters, including Webb, and in part, to this wannabe writer, his daughter.

Dunn Center, North Dakota

I've never been to Dunn Center, North Dakota, but here it is.

With the assistance of Google Maps, I am able to see the road from Billings, MT northeast along old Highway 10 to Glendive, then east to Dickinson, ND. It gives me a birds eye view of the route my dad, Webster Warren Bateman, and his sister travelled on March 10, 1939 to the funeral of dad's first wife, Dorothy. From Dickinson, they turned north on Highway 22 and then east on Highway 200 to arrive - late - to the funeral at the Normanna Lutheran Church.

In this photo, you can see the location of the church. It's the grey area on the east side of Dunn Center, the right side of the photo. The grey area is parking lot. The north/south road on the far right of Dunn Center leading to the church is the same road where Webb's 1930's Chevy kicked up snow as he put the pedal to the metal (literally) the last mile to the church. Top speed for the vehicle was about 45 miles per hour the entire 350 miles from Billings.

I'm sure the church itself has been remodeled over time, but when I zoomed in I could still see a tall steeple so typical of other Lutheran churches in North Dakota.  I have a photo of the small, white wooden church in which Dorothy was confirmed, she and Webb were married, and where on that day in 1939, her funeral service was held. This aerial view shows the same church 77 years later.

March 10, 1939 was a sad day. Dorothy was only 26 years old. She would have been 27 on August 8, 1939. The novel I'm writing, Cat Skinner, A Story of Lust, Love and Loss in the 1930's is not only a story about Webb and Dorothy, but about the other women in his life: his mother Dena, sister Blanche, his three year old daughter LaReta, and another woman - my mother, Julia. It's on the road to Dunn Center and to the church, that the stories of these women unfold in surprising ways.

Stuck in the Middle

I’m in the middle, the middle of Cat Skinner, A Story of Lust, Love and Loss in the 1930’s.

At least I believe I’m in the middle. According to experts, a story has a beginning, middle and end. Since I haven’t finished the novel, I’m estimating that I’m in the middle. This is the part of the story when the dramatic arc is supposed to rise to a crisis point, then dip a bit in terms of action, then rise again to the climax and recede to the denouement. (Love that word; just fancy and French for ending or resolution).

Visualize Mt. Rainier from the Puyallup Valley. I’m climbing up the left side of the mountain and when I reach the top, there is a double scallop on the way down.

My problem? I feel I’ve plateaued on the left side of the mountain. I gained traction in Part 1 of the story which is my dad, Webb’s wild and crazy youth. Now that I’m in Part 2 – His Women, the women are more sedate and the pace of the story has slowed instead of escalated. It’s more about the characters than about action.

To get a better run at the mountain, my tendency has been to retreat to more familiar territory in chapters previously written. I review and revise, hoping that will give me inertia to keep moving toward new territory.

I asked my husband for ideas. His sage advice, certainly not unexpected from Scott was, “Add sex and violence.” Thanks, Honey Haverly. He may have something there, but I’m not sure it fits with who ‘His Women’ were.

Dena, Webb’s mother is 51 years old in this portion of the story. Blanche, Webb’s sister is almost 21 and riding with him to Dorothy’s funeral; and of course there’s Dorothy who is lying in a coffin at the end of the journey.

My mountain is certainly worth climbing, even though the challenge seems daunting. The answer I’m told - by those who know – Keep going. I’ll give that a try.

Carbide Lantern

In 1928 at the age of seventeen, my dad, Webster Warren Bateman, went to work in a coal mine in New Salem, North Dakota. The historical fiction novel I’m writing, Cat Skinner: A Story of Lust, Love and Loss in the 1930’s will include this experience and many others during his youth.

I was talking to my husband, Scott, about dad’s experience in the mine. This led to a Google search of Carbide Lantern.  What I found gave me a whole new appreciation for Dad’s own written description about the experience. The lantern, so small it could be held in a man's hand, had two chambers. The bottom was for the solid carbide chips. It screwed into a top chamber that held water. A drip system allowed water droplets to reach the carbide creating acetylene gas. A lever on top of the lantern regulated the length of the flame which came straight out the front, brightened by a round, metal reflector plate behind the flame. Once lit by a spark from a striker wheel on the reflector plate or a match, the lamp gave off a bright, warm light. Still, I can't imagine that as a miner's only source of light 300 feet into the earth. Webb's own words follow: 

One of my next jobs was for a coal mine in New Salem, North Dakota (1928). My earnings were the mainstay for the family that winter.

I worked for a few days for free with another miner to learn how to mine coal. We dug coal rooms working in about 5 inches of water most of the time. We wore the same dirty, crusty long-handled under-wear, overalls and rubber boots every day. Each man had to get out 10 – 1 ton car loads of coal and a car of slack (fine powder) each day or you got no bottom cut by a machine that night.

You had to lay a short length of rail-track and bore the shot holes with a hand auger, make your black powder shots and load the coal. The mule-skinner brought empty cars to the entrance and pulled out the loaded cars. The mules lived in the mines until they had to be changed.

I was only 17 years old, the youngest miner ever there and maybe the poorest because of lack of experience. I would almost always be last to ring for the pump-man to lower the cage 300 ft. to haul me up to the shower room but I’d have my cut out.

We were paid .50 a ton for the coal mined. The car of slack was free. We furnished the black powder, dynamite and fuse. Our only light was a carbide lamp fastened to the cap on your head. It put out about a 2 inch flame. Sometimes it would go out. No one but an old miner knows what darkness is. You had to make your lamp work again in total blackness. From then on you know no fear of anything.

 

 

Growing Up On Prairie Farms

Novelist Laurence Durrell once said, “It takes a lot of energy and a lot of neurosis to write a novel. If you were really sensible, you’d do something else.”

He was right and it’s why I’m so admiring of an acquaintance of mine, Phyllis Pahl Mitchell. With the help of my friend and author, Joan Tornow, Phyllis compiled stories she’d written about growing up in Nebraska in the 1920’s and 30’s. Her paperback book, Growing Up On Prairie Farms – A Rough and Tumble Childhood is now available on Amazon.

You can get a sneak peek at the stories and see this photo of Phyllis on the back cover. Phyllis, also an accomplished artist, created the artwork. At 93 years young, you can definitely see the likeness to her father in the beautiful water color. I was privileged to have taken the photo for the book cover and the other photo of Phyllis and Joan.

The compilation of stories in her book was written over a number of years while Phyllis was a student in Joan’s memoir writing class. She was encouraged to create a book, but it wasn’t until this fall, with Joan’s editing and design skills, that Phyllis’ dream became a reality.

Phyllis’ first person account of life on the farm, attending a rural one-room school and eventually teaching in a rural school herself shows similarities to characters in my novel, Cat Skinner: A Story of Lust, Love and Loss in the 1930’s. It also shows stark contrasts. Phyllis' loving parents provided guidance and support, while my father, Webb, was tossed out of his home, not once but twice by his parents, before he was fifteen.

While world events and environmental changes were the same for these families, the experience of the children was indeed very different.

My hat is off to Phyllis and Joan and anyone else who writes their first book. If we were sensible… But we’re not.

The Objective - What Does Webb Want?

(Note: If you are receiving this as an email, the paragraph spacing is not accurate. For a better view, click on the title to see the actual blog post).

The Wordsmith’s met Wednesday evening. This is my writing group that meets once a month. I share a couple chapters of Cat Skinner with them a week before we meet. The other members do the same and we critique each other’s work. The group: Phebe, Renee, Judy and two new members, Sabrina and Sydney (mother/daughter), has provided me with invaluable feedback.

This week’s suggestions included moving chapters around to better prepare readers for the maturity of my father, Webb, who at the age of 12 in 1923 had a sexual encounter with a teenage girl slightly older than he was. While the scene was written in a humorous way, concerns were expressed by the group about the girl taking advantage of Webb. That’s certainly giving me pause to think about doing some rewriting. As I understand it from the little (very little) my father wrote about it, it was quite innocent.

There were also suggestions that Dorothy, Webb’s wife, be introduced as a more fully developed character earlier in the story.

I’m coupling group feedback with information from James Scott Bell’s book, Revision and Self-Editing for Publication (Second Edition). This has me writing out what I believe was Webb’s objective in life from the time he was first sent away from home to the end of my novel when he was 28 years old. Understanding his objective (what did he want) will help me develop the plot line (what happens to Webb), the structure (where to place incidents along the plot line), and how best to end the story. I also have relatives who may be checking the actual chronology of events!

In the end, I have to figure out:

1.     Did Webb gain his objective (happy ending)

2.     Lose his objective (unhappy ending)

3.     Gain his objective but lose something more valuable (classic tragedy)

4.     Sacrifice his objective for the greater good

5.     Is the ending ambiguous or bittersweet

Regardless of all this, I am gaining more insight into my father’s life than I ever thought possible. He spent a lifetime trying to prove he was worthy and ended up hurting a number of people along the way.

Giraffe Jargo

“Jeezus christ, Webb!” Shorty screamed as the truck careened over the side of the road and into a ditch. The load of poles shifted and caused the old Model T to buck and sway like a bronco.

Webb sprang back to life. He’d closed his eyes for a second, but that was all it took for the truck to head off the road. He cranked the wheel slowly back to the left, shifted down and gave the unwieldy, top heavy rig enough gas to get her back on the road.

“Want to get us killed, kid! That’s a sure way to do it. Good thing we’re not hauling the dogs or ponies. They’d be kickin’ shit about now.”

“Hey, Shorty, Good thing you don’t weigh more or it woulda been all on you. Get it?” Webb grinned sheepishly. 

“Look. I’ve been with a lot of these small time circuses and managed to survive. I don’t want my headstone to read, ‘Shorty – Mighty Midget bought the farm at the bottom of a pile of Big Top tent poles."

“Awe, come on. I was just catchin’ a couple winks. Can’t blame a guy, can you? We work from first light, way past midnight, get only four or five hours sleep a night. How’s anybody s’pose to stay awake under these conditions?”

“You’ll be awake alright when you and your brother are hitchin’ it down the road without a job and probably without pay either. Good ole Honest Bill’s been known to leave roustabouts in the dust, if he doesn’t like somethin’ or somebody. Good thing we’re the last truck or you would be hoofin’ it in short order. Not a pretty thought in the heat of summer in the middle of goddamn nowhere, South Dakota.”

###

This is the circus chapter's opening scene (at least for now) in Cat Skinner, A Story of Lust, Love and Loss in the 1930's. I admit, writing this chapter is intimidating. It may be because there is such richness of possibility with the characters, the setting and where I might go with the story line. It's not a case of writer's block, it's a case of obsession with the research!

Last week and this I've spent time contacting a book distributor, publisher and an author to get permission to use a photo of a giraffe jargo. My dad and his brother, Ray, were the two humans in a giraffe suit led around the Big Top by a clown. Since the circus was small, everyone had multiple jobs. Webb and Ray, as roustabouts, also put up the circus, took it down and drove it from town to town the summer of 1925.

So far I've only found dead ends in terms of legally using the photo. But the author did give me other suggestions for where to find other photos. I've started that search today. As a photographer myself, I'm hoping to share the visuals of my dad's story as well as the story. But now it's time to keep writing.

 

 

 

How Can You Ever Forget Old Norway - Kan du glemme gamle Norge?

There is a Christmas party scene in Cat Skinner: A Story of Lust, Love and Loss in the 1930's where the majority of the attendees are immigrants from Norway or descended from immigrants.

As a child, I can remember my Dad, Webster Warren Bateman, singing this song in Norwegian. The only part of the song I remembered was the first line which is also the title. Thanks to my cousin, Janet Peterson Esser, I now have all the words in both Norwegian and English.

I'm sharing them here because this blog will eventually become my personal book of memories of what it took to write my first novel. It's an eye-opening, sometimes heartwarming (this song for example) and surprising look at who my father was as a young man.

Kan du glemme gamle Norge?   Norwegian – American Folksong

1.     How can you ever forget Old Norway? I can never forget that country, with its proud castle-like mountains is and will remain my native land.

2.     How can you forget this country which first embraced you? Do you think you’ll ever find another country with such a proud and glorious name?
3.     How can you ever forget Norway^’s forests with their pines, and birches and firs? If you can forget the waves of the ocean, then you are able to forget everything. 

4.     How can you forget these narrow fjords which twist and turn? There as a child you often were rocked by a stiff breeze. 

5.     Don’t your thoughts at times take flight to the place your cradle stood? Don't you feel your heart is beating for the land you left behind? 

6.     Let, Oh let your thoughts take flight; let them fly so easily. Long live Old Norway, forever young, in the hearts of all Norwegians.

 

1.     Kan du glemme gamle Norge ? Aldri jeg det glemme kan, som med stolte klippeborge er og blir mitt Ødeland.

2.      Kan du glemme dette landet som dig først tok i sin favn ? Mon du finne vil et annet med så stolt og herlig navn?

3.     Kan du glemme Norges skover med sin furu, birk og gran ? Kan du glemme sjØens vover, alt du da forglemme kan.

4.     Kan du glemme disse trange fjorde, som sig bukter inn ? Hvor som barn du mange gange vugget dig for førlig vind.

5.     Svever stundom ei din tanke dithen hvor din vugge stod ? Føler du ei hjertet banke for det land som du forlot? 

6.     La da kun din tanke sveve; det kan aldri falle tungt. Må for nordmenn lenge leve.