Ancient creatures of pagan cultures

  For two years photographer Charles Fréger traveled throughout 18 European countries, capturing of what remains of the old religions and ancient holidays in Europe, what he calls “tribal Europe” in his “Wilder Mann” series.

By becoming a bear, a goat, a stag or a wild boar, a man of straw, a devil or a monster with jaws of steel, people from Scotland to Bulgaria, from Finland to Italy, from Portugal to Greece via France, Switzerland and Germany, celebrate the cycle of life and of the seasons.

https://www.charlesfreger.com/fr/portfolio/wilder-mann/

Krampusse

Krampusse

A BEAUTY to scare away evil

Jovita Idar, journalist

  Jovita Idar Vivero (September 7, 1885 – June 15, 1946) was an American journalist, teacher, political activist, and civil rights worker who championed the cause of Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants.^[2][3] Against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution, which lasted a decade from 1910 through 1920, she worked for a series of newspapers, using her writing to work towards making a meaningful and effective change. She began her career in journalism at La Crónica, her father's newspaper in Laredo, Texas, her hometown.^[4]

While working as a journalist, she became the president of the newly established League of Mexican Women—La Liga Femenil Mexicanista—in October 1911, an organization with a focus on offering free education to Mexican children in Laredo.^[5] She was also active in the Primer Congreso Mexicanista, an organization that brought Mexican-Americans together to discuss issues such as their lack of access to adequate education and economic resources.^[6]

Idar was honored on an American Women quarter in 2023.

Image on US quarter for 2023

Idar earned her teaching certificate in 1903 from the Holding Institute in Laredo.^[10] She taught in a school in Los Ojuelos, located approximately 40 miles east of Laredo.^[7] The reality of her first years teaching was frustrating, "There were never enough textbooks for her pupils or enough paper, pens or pencils; if all her students came to class, there were not enough chairs or desks for them."^[9] The schooling for Chicano students was inadequate. Chicanos paid taxes to support decent schooling for their children yet they were denied entry to schools. Idar realized that her teaching efforts were making little impact on student lives due to the ill-equipped segregated schools.

In November 1916, Idar founded the weekly paper Evolución which remained in operation until 1920.^{[citation needed]}

Idar moved to San Antonio in 1921 where she founded a free kindergarten and also volunteered in a hospital as an interpreter.^[20]

In 1940 she co-edited the journal El Heraldo Cristiano.^[5]

In May 1917, Idar married Bartolo Juárez, who worked as a plumber and tinsmith.^[21]: 7 They lived together in San Antonio until her death, on June 15, 1946, which was reported to have been caused by a pulmonary hemorrhage. She had been suffering from advanced tuberculosis.^[22][4]

Jovita Idar in 1905

SOURCE: Wikipedia

Humanisation

   

I Feel It Deeply

A Lady asked an old street vendor: "How much do you sell your eggs for?" The old man replied "0.50¢ an egg, madam.” The Lady responde, “I'll take 6 eggs for $2.00 or I'm leaving.” The old salesman replied, “Buy them at the price you want, Madam. This is a good start for me because I haven't sold a single egg today and I need this to live.”

She bought her eggs at a bargain price and left with the feeling that she had won. She got into her fancy car and went to a fancy restaurant with her friend. She and her friend ordered what they wanted. They ate a little and left a lot of what they had asked for. So they paid the bill, which was $150. The ladies gave $200 and told the fancy restaurant owner to keep the change as a tip.

This story might seem quite normal to the owner of the fancy restaurant, but very unfair to the egg seller. The question it raises is;

Why do we always need to show that we have power when we buy from the needy?

And why are we generous to those who don't even need our generosity?

We once read somewhere that a father used to buy goods from poor people at a high price, even though he didn't need the things. Sometimes he paid more for them. His children were amazed. One day they asked him "why are you doing this dad?" The father replied: "It's charity wrapped in dignity.”

I know that most of you will not share this message, but if you are one of the people who have taken the time to read this far...

Then this message of attempted "humanisation" will have gone one step further in the right direction.

Thanks for reading

New York Worlds Fair 64-65

  1964-65 New York Worlds Fair

Annie Oakley

As posted on Facebook by Dead Fred's Genealogy Photo Archive
 

Sharpshooter Annie Oakley while touring with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show in Italy, 1890

Annie Oakley (born Phoebe Ann Mosey; August 13, 1860 – November 3, 1926) was an American sharpshooter and exhibition shooter. Her "amazing talent" first came to light when the then 15-year-old won a shooting match with traveling show marksman Frank E. Butler (whom she married). The couple joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West show a few years later. Oakley became a renowned international star, performing before royalty and heads of state.
Oakley's most famous trick was her ability to repeatedly split a playing card, edge-on, and put several more holes in it before it could touch the ground, while using a .22 caliber rifle, at 90 feet
Annie continued to set records into her sixties, and she also engaged in extensive, albeit quiet, philanthropy for women's rights and other causes, including the support of specific young women she knew. She embarked on a comeback and intended to star in a feature-length silent movie. In a 1922 shooting contest in Pinehurst, North Carolina, 62-year-old Oakley hit 100 clay targets in a row from 16 yards
In late 1922, Oakley and Butler suffered a debilitating car accident that forced her to wear a steel brace on her right leg. Yet after a year and a half of recovery, she again performed and set records in 1924.
Her health declined in 1925 and she died of pernicious anemia in Greenville, Ohio, at the age of 66 on November 3, 1926. Her body was cremated in Cincinnati two days later and the ashes buried at Brock Cemetery near Greenville, Ohio. Assuming their marriage had been in 1876, Oakley and Butler had been married just over 50 years
Butler was so grieved by her death, according that he stopped eating and died 18 days later in Michigan. Biographer Shirl Kasper reported the death certificate said Butler died of "Senility". His body was buried next to Oakley's ashes, or, according to rumor, Oakley's ashes, placed in one of her prized trophies, were laid next to Butler's body in his coffin prior to burial. Both body and ashes were interred in the cemetery on Thanksgiving Day (November 25, 1926)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Oakley 

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The changes in transportation in the 19th-20th Centuries

 Time for some history of our land -

Squire John Stepp’s Stagecoach Stop on Blue Ridge Road near the corner of current old US 70. Photo circa 1910 by Gertrude Sprague

"Valley Rewind: This month, the Swannanoa Valley Museum and History Center is exploring early travel and transportation through its weekly Valley Rewinds. By the mid-20th century, commercial stagecoach lines became a common way for travelers of means to traverse western North Carolina. To reach the Swannanoa Gap from the east, stagecoaches would take a route starting at Henry’s Station on Mill Creek, travel uphill following the Swannanoa Creek. Several stagecoach lines took travelers to and through the Swannanoa Valley. This included Dowling's Stage (1872 - 1880) which transported passengers from Old Fort to Asheville, and the Morganton to Asheville Stage Line (founded 1831), operated by J. H. & R. W. Tate. U.S. Mail lines also transported mail by stagecoach through the valley. Though stagecoach travel was one of the more luxurious forms of transportation in the early 20th century, it could still be an arduous, expensive and crowded undertaking. A list of rules for passengers on the Edwin T. Clemmons Stage Line (which also ran through the valley) included this: “Don’t snore loudly while sleeping or use your fellow passenger’s shoulder for a pillow; he (or she) may not understand and friction may result.” Many stagecoach stops developed in the valley, including a station at Swannanoa Gap, Kerlee’s Station on Flat Creek Road and Squire John Stepp’s on Blue Ridge Road- pictured above.

Source:

Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center

NOTE: the railroad didn't come through Mills Gap (Old Fort/Swannanoa Gap) until tunnels were completed in 1879 (see below)

____________________

 May 10, 1869,

After six years of work, the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad were finally ready to be connected, with Chinese workers laying the last rails from the west and Irish workers laying the last rails from the east. The two lines met at Promontory Summit in Utah. In what was the world’s first live mass media event, telegraph wires were connected to the final spike that would join the lines and to the sledgehammer that would drive it in. In New York and San Francisco ceremonial cannons were loaded and pointed out to sea. When the sound of the last spike being driven came over the wires the cannons fired, putting the world on notice. The American halves were now joined. The Transcontinental Railroad was a reality.

It is nearly impossible to overstate the significance of the Transcontinental Railroad and the changes it brought to American society. In 1868 a cross-country stagecoach trip took over six dangerous months to complete and cost the equivalent of $20,000 in today’s money. One year later the trip took a week and was 85% cheaper. Within a few years freight worth tens of millions of dollars was crisscrossing the country every year, opening new markets, and giving Americans affordable access to items never before available to them. The very first shipment from west to east was a carload of Japanese tea, illustrating the commercial and social revolution that was unfolding. At least 7,000 new cities and towns sprang up along the railroad route as the railroad opened up not only commercial traffic, but also made it easier for Americans to move to new areas of the country. Of course, not all of the immediate consequences of the new mobility were positive, but the railroad boom that accompanied the connection of the two American coasts created an economic and social transformation that would be unequaled until the invention of the internet.

On May 10, 1869, one hundred fifty-five years ago today, Leland Stanford hammered in the “Golden Spike,” completing the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad.

__________________________

Then

The Swannanoa Tunnel, in this photograph from the Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center's extensive collection, was the longest of seven tunnels (1,832 feet) constructed up the mountain between Old Fort and Ridgecrest to complete the railroad across North Carolina in the late 1800s. The tunnels were hand dug primarily by African-American convicts. Convicts were used ostensibly to save money, but also because the work was dangerous and prisoners were viewed by many as expendable and easily replaceable. Over 300 lives were lost during construction.

Western North Carolina Railroad’s Swannanoa Tunnel opened on March 11, 1879. At a length of 1,800 feet, it was the longest of the seven tunnels on the railroad between Old Fort and Asheville.

Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center

Now Photo By Joe Standaert 2011

_____________________________

THEN: Black Mountain Depot

Black Mountain's Southern Railway Train Depot, located on the southeast corner of Sutton and Black Mountain Avenues, was once considered one of the busiest train stops in North Carolina. Southern Railway completed the structure in 1909 but was forced to rebuild the building after a fire ravaged Black Mountain in 1912. In the early 1900s, Black Mountain saw the arrival of up to 10 passenger trains a day. These passengers came to the Swannanoa Valley as tourists exploring the scenic vistas of the mountains, tradespeople seeking their fortune and ailing visitors looking for cures for respiratory ailments such as tuberculosis. The Southern Railway promoted the Land of Sky as the Pleasure Park of America and the World's Greatest Playground. The last regularly scheduled Southern Railway Passenger Train ran from Asheville through Black Mountain to Salisbury on Aug. 8, 1975. Since passenger service ended, the depot has served as a shop for local artists. It is currently owned by The Old Depot Gallery and Association. The depot has maintained much of its historic facade, making it a wonderful example of early 20th-century design. It is a one-story rectangular building of decorative novelty wood siding and pebbledash in the craftsman style. Hipped roof and flared eaves are supported by massive triangular, carved, heavy-timbered brackets. The interior is in original condition with narrow headboard walls and ceiling. All interior woodwork is intact including the office and ticket window.

Courtesy Of Swannanoa Valley Museum & History 

NOW. Photo by Fred McCormick 2020

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Today's quote:

There is a price to pay for speaking the truth. There is a bigger price for living a lie.

 -Cornel West, author and philosopher and sometime presidential candidate (b. 2 Jun 1953)

Wagon Trail

 In 1841, the First wagon train arrives in California after a five and a half month and 1,730 mile journey.

A group of 70 men, women and children in 15 wagons sets out on May 15, 1841 from near Independence, Missouri for points west. In Idaho, the group divides and 32 persons and nine wagons follow John Bartleson and John Bidwell southwest from the Oregon Trail into uncharted territory that the group hopes leads to California.

Bidwell, 22, keeps a detailed journal, which becomes a guide to future emigrants. The group logs 10 to 15 miles each day. The farther west they go, the more their hardships mount.

Water becomes scarce. Bidwell recounts shooting rabbits and killing oxen teams for food. Eventually, the wagons are abandoned and the group goes forward on foot and horseback.

They labor up into the Sierra Nevada and come down through the Sonora Pass, arriving November 4 at their destination, the ranch of Dr. John Marsh, near Mt. Diablo in present day Contra Costa County. Marsh had written letters east urging settlers to journey to California.

The 32 new Californians have traveled more than 1,730 miles over five and a half months. Prior to their arrival, the white population of California is estimated at 100. Buoyed by the Bidwell-Bartleson party’s success, wagon trains grow in size and number each subsequent year.

Bidwell is a major figure in early California statehood. He’s employed for a time by John Sutter and brings news of the discovery of gold to San Francisco. An amateur botanist who introduces casaba melons to the state, Bidwell also serves a term as California’s representative to Congress in 1865.

A candidate for governor in 1875 for the Anti-Monopoly Party and the presidential candidate of the Prohibition Party in 1892, he dies in 1900 at age 81 in the city of Chico, which he founds in 1860.

Bidwell donated eight acres of his cherry orchard in the 1880s to a teacher’s college called Chico State Normal School — now California State University, Chico."

* Published by Greg Lucas

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