Spring Cleaning With The Classics: Uncle Tom's Cabin

As head cook for the St. Clare family,  Dinah had her own system for cleaning up. Perhaps some of you super-organized people out there won't be able to relate to Dinah's system, but I can -- all too well:

[Dinah] had, at irregular intervals, periods, paroxysms of reformation and arrangement, which she called "clarin' up times," when she would begin with great zeal, and turn every drawer and closet wrong side outward on to the floor or tables, and make the ordinary confusion seven-fold more confounded. Then she would light her pipe, and leisurely go over her arrangements, looking things over, and discoursing upon them; making all the young fry scour most vigorously on the tin things, and keeping up for several hours a most energetic state of  confusion, which she would explain to the satisfaction of all inquirers, by the remark that she was a "clarin' up."

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin (ch.18)

I don't smoke a pipe, but the point where Dinah lights her pipe is where I would make a pot of tea . . .

Have you started your spring cleaning clarin' up?

Here's some helpful links:

Living Well Spending Less has a "Spring Cleaning Checklist" free printable. I will be spending the rest of this week on step one. Right now it's still a bit cold in my neck of the woods. When it warms up, I'll be glad to have the organizing behind me so I can focus on dusting and scrubbing with the windows open!

Fly Lady is a free personal online housekeeping coach. I've been following Fly Lady off and on for a few years. She encourages you to start where you are and just take baby steps. Fly Lady was really helpful for me when I was emerging from postpartum depression and my entire house was a disaster. 

I Heart Organizing is for when you have things pretty much under control and you are ready to take order to a whole new level. Sometimes visiting this site is inspiring and sometimes it's depressing; it depends on were I am with things. I don't recommend I Heart Organizing for when you are feeling overwhelmed with chaos. For CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome) go to FlyLady.

Have fun! :)

The Secret to Mastery (Why I Blog)

by Adriana

Twenty years ago I attended a writer's conference in South Carolina. Though I took several workshops that weekend, I only remember one thing:

If you want to be a writer, you have to write.

A published author told me this. (I wish I could remember her name.) Profound, huh? Though it sounds obvious, there is an underlying shard of truth. I have had a strong tendency to dream about being a writer and read about being a writer, but when it comes to hauling my carcass out of bed at 5:00 a.m. so that I can actually get down to the grueling business of actually writing -- that has only been happening consistently for a short time.

Starting this blog last year was a good decision. It has provided me with accountability and communication. I have a plastic storage container in my basement full of partially used journals that no one but me has ever read. That kind of writing is a dead end for me. Perhaps I lack the self discipline to be my own critic for years on end; I must communicate! Blogging offers that crucial feedback so necessary to fuel my fledgling writer-self.

It takes a lot of fuel, faith and feedback to become truly great at anything. Yes, anything! Maybe you have no desire to be a writer or read through the Great Books, maybe you want to be a superb violinist, or architect or a lion tamer. May I share a secret with you? (I just learned this -- it's SO exciting!) The following is a quote from neurologist Daniel Levitin -- this comes from Malcolm Gladwell's bestselling book, Outliers:

Ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert -- in anything. In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again.

This is true if your name is Bill Gates, or if you play in a band called "The Beatles" or even if your name is Mozart! 10,000 hours. I happened to be reading Outliers around the time I was studying Harriet Beecher Stowe and I calculated that she put in over 10,000 hours of writing time in before she wrote her magnum opus, Uncle Tom's Cabin, which as we know, changed the world! (And she wrote that book so fast it makes my head spin to think about it.)

Daniel Levitin goes on to say,

Of course, this doesn't address why some people get more out of their practice sessions than others do. But no one has yet found a case in which true world class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.

This information is empowering. I can master my craft even though I wasn't in the gifted program in gradeschool! Mastery is attainable, though it comes at the end of a long quest. As Gladwell put it,

...the closer psychologists look at the careers of the gifted, the smaller the role innate talent seems to play and the bigger the role preparation seems to play.

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What skill do you dream of mastering? Are you willing to restructure you life for the next ten years or so to make this happen?

Harriet Beecher Stowe's Inspiration: A Visit to the Rankin House

Road Trip to Ripley: Part Two

These bullet holes have been made in the last thirty years as a statement against what the Rankin House represents.

After the Civil War, when Henry Ward Beecher was asked, "Who abolished slavery?" He is said to have responded, "The Rev. John Rankin and his sons did it." 

A view of the Rankin House through a bullet hole in the sign.

During the years before the Civil War, the Rankin Family aided over 2,000 fugitive African Americans whom they sent toward freedom in Canada. Their home, perched high above the town, is visible from Front Street. For desperate souls in need of refuge, it became a "lighthouse for freedom".

One Hundred Steps to Freedom

Harriet Beecher Stowe made several visits to the Rankin House, where she listened to first hand accounts of the Rankins' experience as conductors on the Underground Railroad. One particular story inspired a critical scene in Stowe's incendiary novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin. Stowe constructed  the character of "Eliza" from what the Rankins told her about a real woman. The same tale is now inscribed upon a plaque by the river:

In the winter of 1838 a slave woman and her baby began their journey to freedom. To avoid capture in Kentucky she crossed the ice floes in the Ohio River to the safety of the Ripley shore...

From Ripley, the real Eliza climbed Liberty Hill to the Rankin House taking the One Hundred Steps to Freedom, which are still accessible today.

Runaways entered through the kitchen door, on the right.

Once they were safe inside, fugitives could at last breathe a sigh of relief.

Guests were greeted with a welcoming fire and food.

This doll was hand sewn by a local resident, recently deceased. At one time, her "Eliza" dolls were for sale. The last one now graces the mantel.

Portrait of Rev. John Rankin: Presbyterian minister, loving husband, father of thirteen children, and conductor to freedom for thousands.

Proof I was really there!

The Rankins did not have a piano in their home. This one was constructed in town at the "Ohio Valley Piano Company".

Reverend Rankin's Bible, published in 1793

Viewing Rev. Rankin's Bible was the highlight of my journey. I think it could safely be assumed: this was the Book that made the man.

My house has been the door of freedom to many human beings, but while there was a hazard of life and property, there was much happiness in giving safety to the trembling fugitives. They were all children of God by creation and some of them I believe were redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. ~ Reverend John Rankin

Reverend Rankin's inkwell

Wallpaper from the 1800s

Tucked into a corner, I discovered the familiar image of one of the Rankins' most famous guests, Harriet Beecher Stowe.

In my next post, we'll go upstairs, where runaway slaves were sometimes hidden.

First post in this series:  Road Trip to Ripley: Front Street

More on Harriet Beecher Stowe: How Did She Do It?

Other posts on Uncle Tom's Cabin: The Power of Love  &  My Soundtrack for Uncle Tom's Cabin

Road-trip to Ripley: Front Street

Part One

I recently took my first Classical Quest road trip to Ripley Ohio! I was joined by my dear friend Christine, her lovely mother, and three awesome children.

Ripley is located on the Ohio River about fifty miles east of Cincinnati. Almost two centuries ago, it was the epicenter of the abolitionist movement in Ohio. Ripley's courageous past was an inspiration to Harriet Beecher Stowe. Her character, Eliza, was based on the true story of a woman who escaped a life of slavery by crossing the Ohio River on ice floes with her child in her arms.

 During the Civil War, the Ohio River separated free states from slave states.

What happened in that little river town nestled in a majestic valley would forever change a nation and aspire to rank as pivotal and seminal moments in the heritage of a free people. That place is Ripley-Freedom's Landing in Ohio.  ~ Judge Thomas F. Zachman

Inscription on the monument at Freedom's Landing.

View of Front Street which faces the river.

When you walk the streets of Ripley and climb the steps of Liberty Hill you are on hallowed ground.  Courage, compassion, and moral outrage against slavery dwelled in the hearts and minds of men and women who lived and walked here. Their words and deeds are not of our time, but have shaped our time and their stories are stories for all time and all mankind. ~ Judge Thomas F. Zachman

A view of Kentucky, which was slave territory during the setting of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

"A little town with a big heart."

Peering above Liberty Hill is the Rankin House -- a very important part of the Underground Railroad. It  is often referred to as a "lighthouse for freedom".

Home of Thomas Collins, "Chief conductor on the Underground Railroad"

"Thomas Collins,

Englishman, cabinet-maker, chief conductor on the Underground Railroad. Its portals were always open. Through this door stole refugees innumerable. The night was never too dark, nor the journey too long for its owner to issue forth, leading the helpless across the hills to freedom."

"Through this door stole refugees innumerable"

... I am reminded of the most important incident that ever took place at Ripley, during all the years of the activities of the abolition group. Strange as it may seem, no one placed any importance to the episode when it occurred, because we did not know what was in the mind of Harriet Beecher Stowe. It was she who took the incident and wove it into the pages of Uncle Tom's Cabin, making it one of the most appealing and forceful attacks of this epoch-making book.... I am referring to that incident of Eliza with her babe in arms crossing on the ice, chased by dogs to the water's edge. This all really happened, and it took place at Ripley... I have heard the story directly from Rev. John Rankin, to whom Eliza told her story within an hour after she had made the crossing, as she sat by his fireside in his hilltop home.  John Parker -- freed slave who became a conductor on the Underground Railroad. His home is on Front Street.

...nerved with the strength such as God gives only to the desperate, with one wild cry and flying leap, [Eliza] vaulted sheer over the turbid current by the shore, on to the raft of ice beyond. It was a desperate leap -- impossible to anything but madness and despair... 

...The huge green fragment of ice on which she alighted pitched and creaked as her weight came on it, but she staid there not a moment. With wild cries and desperate energy she leaped to another and still another cake; -- stumbling -- leaping -- slipping -- springing upwards again! Her shoes are gone -- her stockings cut from her feet -- while blood marked every step; but she saw nothing, felt nothing, till dimly, as in a dream, she saw the Ohio side, and a man helping her up the bank...

The Signal House -- "a historic home with rooms overlooking the Ohio River. Legends tell of its involvement in the Underground Railroad. A lantern from a skylight in the attic signaled Rev. John Rankin that the waterfront was safe to transport slaves to freedom." Now a Bed & Breakfast.

..."I'd be glad to do something for ye," said he; "but then there's nowhar I could take ye. The best I can do is to tell ye to go thar," said he, pointing to a large white house which stood by itself, off the main street of the village. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin

Window on the rooftop of the Signal House -- clearly visible from the Rankin House on the hill above.

The proprietor said these roses were prettier a few weeks ago. I thought they were still picture-worthy.

A view of Front Street facing East.

In my next post, I'll show pictures of my visit to the Rankin House, where Harriet Beecher Stowe was once a guest.

Other posts in this series:

Harriet Beecher Stowe's Inspiration: A Visit to the Rankin House

Road Trip to Ripley: Wrap-Up