Sunday afternoon just before we hit the road for home: playwright Julie MM, generally awesome Ashley W, Mayor David Cardenas and director Laurie W.
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| St Lucy's Catholic Church |
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| Window at Andy's barber shop |
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
lookit! pictures from Fowler visits
Sunday afternoon just before we hit the road for home: playwright Julie MM, generally awesome Ashley W, Mayor David Cardenas and director Laurie W.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Fowler Visit: June 2011
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Met with Dorothy Feaver at her house on E. South Ave, Selma/Fowler border. I had met her at the Presbyterian lunch event May 22. The Feaver family name has come up a lot and Dorothy has been in Fowler a long time, given that she is 97 years old.
We were greeted on the this rainy grey day by two friendly dogs and then by two friendly people, Dorothy and her son George who lives with her. Dorothy had a pot of tea and a plate of cookies out for us. (When I called her earlier this week, she said she’d love to talk with me but she was in the middle of baking cookies and could I call her later.)
Even though she was only 4 or 5 when it happened Dorothy remembers the day that WW1 ended. Stacks of newspapers were dropped around the shops in town and everyone was yelling “the war is over!” She shared with us a newspaper clipping about “Mortgage Burning Day” in 1943 and the backstory. She described a panic in the town when she was a little girl of 7. The Presbyterian Church was on fire and the fire bell rang and rang for many many hours. He dad was a Volunteer Fireman and he’d come home every few hours because he was drenched and needed to clean up a bit then would head back out to continue fighting the fire. This was in 1921, and the church was quickly rebuilt but the bank would not give a loan for the rebuild. Members of the church took out mortgages on their own property to pay for the church rebuild. At least one family lost their ranch because of this. But in 1943 the church was paid off and there was a lot of celebration for that long recovery from the 1921 tragedy.
Dorothy grew up in town at Adams and N Grove living with her parents and 3 siblings. Her dad died when she was 7. “We had everything right there. Mother grew flowers and vegetables in her garden. We had chickens. We could walk down to the store or the meat market.” The meat market had sawdust on the floor and she loved that, partly because after customers had been in then left, a man would use a special rake to redistribute the sawdust evenly across the floor.
Dorothy shared with us her mother’s ice card—a heavyweight paper card that has large numbers on each corner and you’d hang it in the window so the ice man could see how much ice you needed delivered that day. She and her brother had the job of making sure the drain pan under the icebox didn’t overflow but they were not always good at it. Finally her mother arranged to have a hose made from the bottom of the icebox leading outside so the melted ice would go directly to watering the garden.
Dorothy described the streetlights in Fowler at the time: a line across the roadway with a single bare bulb hanging on it. The line would swing with the wind at night and create fascinating and comforting shadows.
Dorothy married Clifford Feaver who had 4 brothers all of whom were farmers as were their parents. When Julie asked Dorothy about working on the farm, Dorothy said “To this day I won’t open a window” meaning, heck no I didn’t farm. She also remembered telling a friend who did work on her husband’s farm “I wouldn’t know which side of a tractor to get on.”
During the years they owned and ran the farm, the Cardenas family, recently emigrated from Mexico showed up looking for work. Mr. Feaver said we have work but we don’t have a place you can live. But the Cardenas said they could live in a small shed/shack on the property, which was not something the Feavers thought possible. The Cardenas did move in there and the family helped fix it up some for the Mexican family of six. The Cardenas’ have always felt like family to Dorothy. David Cardenas was one of the younger boys in the family and is now both a longtime businessman (Dave’s Auto Shop) and the Mayor of Fowler. Dorothy said that at the reception after her husband’s funeral David was sitting at the “family” table and was questioned about it. He told the inquirer, I am part of the Feaver family. Which is the way Dorothy feels too.
Julie asked about WW2—Dorothy’s husband and many others in Fowler worked on towers throughout the war, watching California skies for enemy planes. Dorothy seemed to feel the sadness and injustice as she talked about what it was like when the Japanese were sent away to the concentration camps, as she called them. “They were called Relocation Camps but concentration camps is what they were.” She and her family drove down to the one in Arizona to visit. “Everything was so orderly. Families had their gardens, everyone productive.” [Mas had mentioned this to us—a local family who had helped out their Japanese neighbors including driving some of their furniture down to them at Gila River.]
She told us that there were no Mexican kids in the school when she was in elementary and high school. She said that the Armenian kids were the ones who were treated with bigotry. They were undesirables to the kids. No one wanted to dance with the Armenian boys at school dances. They danced with the Japanese boys “of course” and their Black friends. But the principal told them that if they wouldn’t dance with any boy who asked them, there would be no more dances. They have had many class reunions over the years and they always greet each other with hugs and affection and have great time together.
The women’s club – Fowler Improvement Association—did not allow Armenians, Blacks, Japanese, Mexican women for a long time though now all groups are represented.
There was more in our conversation with Dorothy but these are the main moments we walked away with. Also, we should be sure to invite her son George to come audition. He’d probably be great.
We grabbed a quick bite then went to meet Lucy Covarrubias at the Fowler Library. We thought our date was for 2:30, she thought is was for 1:30—we connected on the phone and had coffee and a conversation at Starbucks. Lucy lives on South Golden State Hwy in an apartment at a former motel. It is great to meet someone from a different part of town. Lucy got in touch with us after seeing our project flyer at the library. She grew up in the area, did theater in high school, is currently writing a novel, helps take care of her parents both of whom have Alzheimer’s and is unemployed. She got a degree in liberal arts from Fresno State and really wishes she had a teaching credential. She’s interested in helping out on the play in any way. She gets back from a trip to Texas after auditions, but she’ll come find us when she’s back. We talked some about language. She gets a kick out of the mix/blend of Spanish and English that people use now, including her mother. Mostly Spanish with very clearly English words liberally utilized throughout. She thinks that monolingual Spanish speakers in the area would be the migrant workers, less so those who work packing houses &/or live in Fowler.
We stopped in to meet Andy the Barber. Reportedly the man in town who knows everything. He talked with Julie and Ashley as he continued to cut clients’ hair. His father was Robert the Barber. Julie will be reaching out to continue the conversation with him later. (Andy is referenced in this 2007 article.)
I met Ransi the tailor & taxi driver. He has a fabric/tailor/alterations shop on Merced. He might be interested in being in a play this summer. Or he might just enjoy talking to women. Difficult to say.
Julie and Ashley also spoke with the owner of the newish antiques & collectables shop A Little Bit of This And A Little Bit of That. She had her family hanging out in the shop with her and they were having fun. A happy group that makes you want to hang out in the shop with them.
We were a little late to our appointment with the fantastic Frances Roberts. She lives on Vista Street, near the high school. She’s 102 years old. She loves chocolate and candy and has been eating it all her life. She mostly knits and watches news television. She had a wish to live long enough to vote for a woman or a Black man for President of the United States and she got her wish. She is a staunch Democrat. “Are any of you Republicans?” She is not a fan of Fox TV but watches it partly because she wants to get mad. She’s for all kinds of equality including marriage equality.
She has 3 kids I think (who are in their 60s & 70s). Daughter Mary Frances lives in Lompoc (Santa Barbara County) and is working through brain cancer lately. Frances thinks cell phone use is a culprit bringing on this health crisis. Another daughter lives in town with her partner and their 2 kids. Her son Tommy lives with her, though he spends weekends in Fresno w/ his lady friend and golfs on Thursdays. She has a caregiver come stay with her on the weekends and a neighbor helps out on Thursdays.
She is disappointed in the “fellowship” from the church which used to be that elderly folks got visits once or twice a week but now they just drop off cookies and don’t even come in to say hello. She doesn’t need to cookies. She also feels like everything is focused on the kids and only kids these days.
She and her family moved around a bit but eventually she resettled in Fowler with her husband. They had a great time. “I could go to the doctor across on the corner across the street, go to the pharmacy on the other corner and if I didn’t get better go to the funeral home on the fourth corner!” She had a great group of friends, about a dozen of them that would play, dance, drink and take trips together to gamble.
(I got distracted from writing this and now it’s hard to bring back a lot of the details of our visit with Frances, darn it.)
Laurie met us in the early evening and we all had dinner at the local Italian restaurant which was full of happy diners. After dinner we drove out to see the house in Reedley we are renting for some of our staff to live in for the Institute.
Krystle who runs P.A.W.S. cancelled our visit with her for the evening. We were sad about this partly because we were looking forward to meeting some of the dogs that she rescues and wants to find homes for.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Sunday morning Ashley went to Sunday School at Second Baptist Church and then services at AME Church. Julie, Laurie and I attended Presbyterian service here we’d made arrangements to be announced at service and then to talk with folks as they were interested/available during the post-service coffee hour.
Presbyterian service was swell—Pastor Paul is away on vacation so there was some friendly disorganization at the beginning. So many people were friendly with us and welcomed us. The church is one of the biggest buildings in town and the stained glass windows are fantastic. We all talked with different folks during coffee. Marie Gonsalves was there and was introducing us to people right and left. I enjoyed a conversation with Andrea the organist at this church for past 11 years. She talked about how much she enjoys working the funeral services because you learn so much about people—especially the old-timers. Marie reminded me of Mrs. Soames when she said “Oh I love funerals!” -- though Mrs. Soames loves weddings.
Second Baptist had about 9 folks attending, including Ashley. They don’t have a regular pastor right now. AME had a turn out of 4 including Ashley. The service was terrific due to Pastor Sharon Avril. She’s been the pastor there since last fall. She lives in Sacramento and commutes four hours round trip for services and any calls she needs to answer in Fowler. She is a welcoming, wise and friendly person and offered Cornerstone use of their property for anything to do with the project. We all went over so Ashley could introduce us to Pastor Avril and it was a great if short visit. We had to run to our story circle at St. Lucy’s Catholic Church.
David Cardenas had set it up. It was our first visit there though we’d driven by once or twice in the past 9 months. the Spanish language 1:00 mass service went over a little. We met with 5 young girls and 3 of their madres who mostly did not speak English, plus Gloria who is 55? and one of those people who really is involved in a lot of things and has her own style and lots of short sayings of advise. She and Mayor David Cardenas tended to dominate conversation but Laurie eventually got to elicit some thoughts specifically from the awesome young Latinas who all want to go to college and want to be a doctor, 2 vets, a dancer and a model/nurse. And a few questions for the very quiet mamas who started all sitting back, not quite in the circle, and eventually all were in the circle and bravely spoke up to answer the lovely questions that Laurie proposed specifically for them.
This was our last story circle and now Julie is going to jump in and write a script. We all feel the pressure of the lateness of this process. We also feel like this weekend was particularly full of inspiring images and stories from the people we spoke with and other positive elements.
Met with Dorothy Feaver at her house on E. South Ave, Selma/Fowler border. I had met her at the Presbyterian lunch event May 22. The Feaver family name has come up a lot and Dorothy has been in Fowler a long time, given that she is 97 years old.
We were greeted on the this rainy grey day by two friendly dogs and then by two friendly people, Dorothy and her son George who lives with her. Dorothy had a pot of tea and a plate of cookies out for us. (When I called her earlier this week, she said she’d love to talk with me but she was in the middle of baking cookies and could I call her later.)
Even though she was only 4 or 5 when it happened Dorothy remembers the day that WW1 ended. Stacks of newspapers were dropped around the shops in town and everyone was yelling “the war is over!” She shared with us a newspaper clipping about “Mortgage Burning Day” in 1943 and the backstory. She described a panic in the town when she was a little girl of 7. The Presbyterian Church was on fire and the fire bell rang and rang for many many hours. He dad was a Volunteer Fireman and he’d come home every few hours because he was drenched and needed to clean up a bit then would head back out to continue fighting the fire. This was in 1921, and the church was quickly rebuilt but the bank would not give a loan for the rebuild. Members of the church took out mortgages on their own property to pay for the church rebuild. At least one family lost their ranch because of this. But in 1943 the church was paid off and there was a lot of celebration for that long recovery from the 1921 tragedy.
Dorothy grew up in town at Adams and N Grove living with her parents and 3 siblings. Her dad died when she was 7. “We had everything right there. Mother grew flowers and vegetables in her garden. We had chickens. We could walk down to the store or the meat market.” The meat market had sawdust on the floor and she loved that, partly because after customers had been in then left, a man would use a special rake to redistribute the sawdust evenly across the floor.
Dorothy shared with us her mother’s ice card—a heavyweight paper card that has large numbers on each corner and you’d hang it in the window so the ice man could see how much ice you needed delivered that day. She and her brother had the job of making sure the drain pan under the icebox didn’t overflow but they were not always good at it. Finally her mother arranged to have a hose made from the bottom of the icebox leading outside so the melted ice would go directly to watering the garden.
Dorothy described the streetlights in Fowler at the time: a line across the roadway with a single bare bulb hanging on it. The line would swing with the wind at night and create fascinating and comforting shadows.
Dorothy married Clifford Feaver who had 4 brothers all of whom were farmers as were their parents. When Julie asked Dorothy about working on the farm, Dorothy said “To this day I won’t open a window” meaning, heck no I didn’t farm. She also remembered telling a friend who did work on her husband’s farm “I wouldn’t know which side of a tractor to get on.”
During the years they owned and ran the farm, the Cardenas family, recently emigrated from Mexico showed up looking for work. Mr. Feaver said we have work but we don’t have a place you can live. But the Cardenas said they could live in a small shed/shack on the property, which was not something the Feavers thought possible. The Cardenas did move in there and the family helped fix it up some for the Mexican family of six. The Cardenas’ have always felt like family to Dorothy. David Cardenas was one of the younger boys in the family and is now both a longtime businessman (Dave’s Auto Shop) and the Mayor of Fowler. Dorothy said that at the reception after her husband’s funeral David was sitting at the “family” table and was questioned about it. He told the inquirer, I am part of the Feaver family. Which is the way Dorothy feels too.
Julie asked about WW2—Dorothy’s husband and many others in Fowler worked on towers throughout the war, watching California skies for enemy planes. Dorothy seemed to feel the sadness and injustice as she talked about what it was like when the Japanese were sent away to the concentration camps, as she called them. “They were called Relocation Camps but concentration camps is what they were.” She and her family drove down to the one in Arizona to visit. “Everything was so orderly. Families had their gardens, everyone productive.” [Mas had mentioned this to us—a local family who had helped out their Japanese neighbors including driving some of their furniture down to them at Gila River.]
She told us that there were no Mexican kids in the school when she was in elementary and high school. She said that the Armenian kids were the ones who were treated with bigotry. They were undesirables to the kids. No one wanted to dance with the Armenian boys at school dances. They danced with the Japanese boys “of course” and their Black friends. But the principal told them that if they wouldn’t dance with any boy who asked them, there would be no more dances. They have had many class reunions over the years and they always greet each other with hugs and affection and have great time together.
The women’s club – Fowler Improvement Association—did not allow Armenians, Blacks, Japanese, Mexican women for a long time though now all groups are represented.
There was more in our conversation with Dorothy but these are the main moments we walked away with. Also, we should be sure to invite her son George to come audition. He’d probably be great.
We grabbed a quick bite then went to meet Lucy Covarrubias at the Fowler Library. We thought our date was for 2:30, she thought is was for 1:30—we connected on the phone and had coffee and a conversation at Starbucks. Lucy lives on South Golden State Hwy in an apartment at a former motel. It is great to meet someone from a different part of town. Lucy got in touch with us after seeing our project flyer at the library. She grew up in the area, did theater in high school, is currently writing a novel, helps take care of her parents both of whom have Alzheimer’s and is unemployed. She got a degree in liberal arts from Fresno State and really wishes she had a teaching credential. She’s interested in helping out on the play in any way. She gets back from a trip to Texas after auditions, but she’ll come find us when she’s back. We talked some about language. She gets a kick out of the mix/blend of Spanish and English that people use now, including her mother. Mostly Spanish with very clearly English words liberally utilized throughout. She thinks that monolingual Spanish speakers in the area would be the migrant workers, less so those who work packing houses &/or live in Fowler.
We stopped in to meet Andy the Barber. Reportedly the man in town who knows everything. He talked with Julie and Ashley as he continued to cut clients’ hair. His father was Robert the Barber. Julie will be reaching out to continue the conversation with him later. (Andy is referenced in this 2007 article.)
I met Ransi the tailor & taxi driver. He has a fabric/tailor/alterations shop on Merced. He might be interested in being in a play this summer. Or he might just enjoy talking to women. Difficult to say.
Julie and Ashley also spoke with the owner of the newish antiques & collectables shop A Little Bit of This And A Little Bit of That. She had her family hanging out in the shop with her and they were having fun. A happy group that makes you want to hang out in the shop with them.
We were a little late to our appointment with the fantastic Frances Roberts. She lives on Vista Street, near the high school. She’s 102 years old. She loves chocolate and candy and has been eating it all her life. She mostly knits and watches news television. She had a wish to live long enough to vote for a woman or a Black man for President of the United States and she got her wish. She is a staunch Democrat. “Are any of you Republicans?” She is not a fan of Fox TV but watches it partly because she wants to get mad. She’s for all kinds of equality including marriage equality.
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| Frances & JMM |
She has 3 kids I think (who are in their 60s & 70s). Daughter Mary Frances lives in Lompoc (Santa Barbara County) and is working through brain cancer lately. Frances thinks cell phone use is a culprit bringing on this health crisis. Another daughter lives in town with her partner and their 2 kids. Her son Tommy lives with her, though he spends weekends in Fresno w/ his lady friend and golfs on Thursdays. She has a caregiver come stay with her on the weekends and a neighbor helps out on Thursdays.
She is disappointed in the “fellowship” from the church which used to be that elderly folks got visits once or twice a week but now they just drop off cookies and don’t even come in to say hello. She doesn’t need to cookies. She also feels like everything is focused on the kids and only kids these days.
She and her family moved around a bit but eventually she resettled in Fowler with her husband. They had a great time. “I could go to the doctor across on the corner across the street, go to the pharmacy on the other corner and if I didn’t get better go to the funeral home on the fourth corner!” She had a great group of friends, about a dozen of them that would play, dance, drink and take trips together to gamble.
(I got distracted from writing this and now it’s hard to bring back a lot of the details of our visit with Frances, darn it.)
Laurie met us in the early evening and we all had dinner at the local Italian restaurant which was full of happy diners. After dinner we drove out to see the house in Reedley we are renting for some of our staff to live in for the Institute.
Krystle who runs P.A.W.S. cancelled our visit with her for the evening. We were sad about this partly because we were looking forward to meeting some of the dogs that she rescues and wants to find homes for.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Sunday morning Ashley went to Sunday School at Second Baptist Church and then services at AME Church. Julie, Laurie and I attended Presbyterian service here we’d made arrangements to be announced at service and then to talk with folks as they were interested/available during the post-service coffee hour.
Presbyterian service was swell—Pastor Paul is away on vacation so there was some friendly disorganization at the beginning. So many people were friendly with us and welcomed us. The church is one of the biggest buildings in town and the stained glass windows are fantastic. We all talked with different folks during coffee. Marie Gonsalves was there and was introducing us to people right and left. I enjoyed a conversation with Andrea the organist at this church for past 11 years. She talked about how much she enjoys working the funeral services because you learn so much about people—especially the old-timers. Marie reminded me of Mrs. Soames when she said “Oh I love funerals!” -- though Mrs. Soames loves weddings.Second Baptist had about 9 folks attending, including Ashley. They don’t have a regular pastor right now. AME had a turn out of 4 including Ashley. The service was terrific due to Pastor Sharon Avril. She’s been the pastor there since last fall. She lives in Sacramento and commutes four hours round trip for services and any calls she needs to answer in Fowler. She is a welcoming, wise and friendly person and offered Cornerstone use of their property for anything to do with the project. We all went over so Ashley could introduce us to Pastor Avril and it was a great if short visit. We had to run to our story circle at St. Lucy’s Catholic Church.
David Cardenas had set it up. It was our first visit there though we’d driven by once or twice in the past 9 months. the Spanish language 1:00 mass service went over a little. We met with 5 young girls and 3 of their madres who mostly did not speak English, plus Gloria who is 55? and one of those people who really is involved in a lot of things and has her own style and lots of short sayings of advise. She and Mayor David Cardenas tended to dominate conversation but Laurie eventually got to elicit some thoughts specifically from the awesome young Latinas who all want to go to college and want to be a doctor, 2 vets, a dancer and a model/nurse. And a few questions for the very quiet mamas who started all sitting back, not quite in the circle, and eventually all were in the circle and bravely spoke up to answer the lovely questions that Laurie proposed specifically for them.
This was our last story circle and now Julie is going to jump in and write a script. We all feel the pressure of the lateness of this process. We also feel like this weekend was particularly full of inspiring images and stories from the people we spoke with and other positive elements.
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