Monthly E-News from Michael Bouman, Executive Director
Missouri Humanities Council
Contents:
- Sac and Fox Heritage Exhibit in Hannibal
- Missouri Chautauqua in Kirkwood, Maryville, Cape Girardeau
- The "Dance" of Family Reading by Julie Douglas
- A German Looks at German Heritage in Missouri by Uwe Simon-Netto
- On Telling a Big Story in a Small Space (my occasional essay)
- Calvin Trillin and ReadMOre
- Some Family Reading for Adults
Sac and Fox Heritage Exhibit in Hannibal
Sunday, June 11 marks the opening reception for a new touring exhibit produced by the Sac and Fox people to explain why northeast Missouri remains in their hearts as a Homeland. The public is cordially invited to the Mark Twain Museum in Hannibal to view the exhibit and meet members of the Sac and Fox tribal communities in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Iowa. The reception begins at 3:00 p.m. There is no charge.
The exhibit is the product of a national initiative titled, "We The People." The initiative is intended to promote knowledge about our national history and ideals. In Missouri, that has meant an active process of friend-making to recover the stories of people who once considered this place home. Projects are now under way to create exhibits in partnership not only with the Sac and Fox people, but with the Osages, Shawnees, and Delawares.
Sandra Massey, whose family memoir appeared in our last E-Passages, served as the primary curator and coordinator for tribal information in the exhibit. She worked with historian, Fred Fausz (UM-St. Louis), and with designer, Greg Olson, to create a portable exhibit that could easily be taken down and set up again in a variety of small museums. The focus on the exhibit, presented in for form of a circle, is a tribal story of twelve boys, each of whom is granted a wish for his people. The story expresses one of the central sacred qualities of the Sac and Fox way of life.
For twelve years, June has been the month to enjoy the MHC touring Chautauqua. It's a festival of family entertainment featuring five people who take you back in time by impersonating historical figures. For twelve years, Missouri communities have recruited volunteers to help raise a big tent, organize local entertainment before the main show, and organize programs all over town. When our Chautauqua visited Lexington, Congressman Ike Skelton arranged to have the program documented as part of a national commemoration American life that was organized by the Library of Congress. Our Chautauqua has been "on the road" in Missouri for twelve years, and the time has come to pause and take stock of how to continue this vibrant form of education in the future. We will announce our plans about this in the fall.
This June marks the conclusion of the historical theme we named America the Bountiful last year. We have assembled a cast of characters who are expressive of the great natural bounty of the United States, and of its stewardship. We've never had a better cast, so now is the time to make plans to see this distinctive program, either in Kirkwood, in Maryville, or in Cape Girardeau.
http://www.mohumanities.org/programs/chautauqua/index.htm
Our tour opens with a tent-raising in Kirkwood on Monday, June 5. From Tuesday through Saturday evenings, our historians will take you back in time during an evening program under the big tent. This year we're also going to showcase a new "Young Chautauqua" program developed in Kirkwood to encourage teens to learn how to combine research with acting.
Philip Nigro, St. Louis, and Clayton Weems, Farmington, have been working diligently on this task all during the Spring. Philip just graduated from Marquette High and plans to attend Mizzou in the fall. Clayton, age 13, was inspired by the annual Big River Chautauqua in Bonne Terre, MO.
Maryville's tent-raising is Monday, June 12, and Cape's
is Monday, June 19. Joining us in Maryville are students and adults
who signed up for the first "Woman Chautauqua Institute" at
Cottey College in Nevada, MO. This institute was developed to encourage
a national talent pool of women who have developed skill in the Chautauqua
style of presentation. This institute, and "Youth Chautauqua"
programs in high schools, are part of the future of Chautauqua, I think.
Bonne Terre's example in creating a sustainable annual event is worth
close study. We look forward to building a new set of Chautauqua
opportunities that more and more towns will be able to embrace.
Our Family Program Specialist, Julie Douglas, has written
a fine piece on what she observed at one of our training programs for
parents.
http://mohumanities.org/E-News/May06/dance.htm
A German Looks at German Heritage
Two miles down the street from my house is Concordia Seminary, where my grandfather was given an honorary doctorate many years ago. My grandfather, Heinrich: born on Minnesota's prairie in a German-speaking town named Hamburg, recruited into the Lutheran ministry, married to one of the original white settlers of South Dakota, father of eleven children, and known to me on the two or three occasions I saw him as Gross papa. His son, Herb, my uncle, was a resident theologian thirty-five years ago, when a cultural war broke out at the seminary and Uncle Herb, in what must have been an agony of conscience, went voluntarily into "exile" with the expelled members of the faculty.
My
cousin, Chuck, who lives in the state of Washington, subscribes to The
Atlantic Times, an English-language newspaper from Germany.
He recently noticed an article by Uwe Simon-Netto (pictured), a foreign
correspondent and theologian who is currently a scholar-in-residence at
Concordia Seminary. I didn't think I would do more than skim the
piece, but as one sentence led to another, I found that I couldn't put
it down. He says there are no real Brats in St. Louis, so I suspect
he didn't go to a Cardinals game! Or maybe those delicious better-than-hot-dogs
aren't really "German" bratwurst after all!
http://www.atlantic-times.com/archive_detail.php?recordID=491
On Telling a Big Story in a Small Space
I've been wondering and wondering for a long time about communicating the essentials of something in a short time. Within organizations, there is a discipline of working out an "elevator speech." It's what you would say to a stranger during an elevator ride when they ask, "what's the Missouri Humanities Council." You have to work out a 30-second version for yourself.
Imagine if you were asked to do this, not for an organization, but for a people. That's the challenge of the Sac and Fox heritage exhibit, and that's the theme of something related to that, concerning something of the problem of thinking about, and then expressing, the essentials about a people.
http://mohumanities.org/E-News/May06/bigstory.htm
Reminder that ReadMOre 2006 author is visiting Union and St. Louis MO June 8 & 9, details here:
http://readmoremissouri.org/visit.htm
Some Family Reading for Adults
I'll bet I've just finished two books that are so far off the path you usually read that you'll want to be sure to put them on your Summer reading list. My few thoughts are here: