Two Women with Apples

When I was growing up

people told me - 

all the time

eating an apple a day -  
keeps the doctor away - -

???????????????????

 WHAT  HAPPENED!!!!!!! 

Castro Convertible circa 1958

Introducing my aunt Koki

 

An African folk tale, The Cow Tail Switch is a golden nugget for me. In the story five sons find their father’s bones in the jungle where he was killed by a wild animal when he was hunting. They conjure him back to life. The story ends with the wisdom, “no one is truly dead as long as people tell his story.”  Ellouise Schoettler

11/02/2007 

First version written in 2007.

My aunt, Catherine Diggle Brown is very much on my mind these days. Koki is gone, buried in Wilmington, NC, next to her husband Jim Brown but she is not forgotten.

In 2007 Koki's son George walked into my Halloween program smiling and holding up a gift for me. He was carrying one of Koki's quilts, the one she had given to me just before she died. When she offered it to me the last time I saw her I just could not take it - it was too much a final good-bye.

"Is this the right one?" he asked. "Oh, yes. That's it." I had snuggled down under it several times when I spent the night in the cozy guest room in her apartment in Charlotte.

The quilt is made with a simple design. Nine rectangles across, 12 rectangles down - 108 rectangles - sewed together at random. I remember when she made it. Someone gave her a box of drapery fabric samples, pre-cut into rectangles.

Koki believed in recycling. She studied about those pieces for awhile and then decided to piece them together for quilt. Vivid colors, flower prints, stripes, patterns, solid colors, paisleys - colors of the late 70s - pinks, turquoise, blues, yellows and golds. Full of life and joy - just as she was.After she organized and stitched them together she added black stitching  
The scalloped black lines make those colors work together. Its machine stitched except for the hemming. I love seeing Koki's hand in her tiny, neat stitches around the edging. Those hand stitches keep me in touch with her.

Later, at home, I spread it on the bed - mostly on my side. And slipped in under it. 

My Jim does not mind. He loved her too.

We are both glad that she is with us.

********************************************************
This piece added November 2019

Koki died in 2001. I wrote this blog in 2007. Jim died in 2012. 
I still sleep in the warmth of Koki's quilt.

About Catherine Diggle Brown  - from Find a Grave

Catherine Diggle Brown, 84, of Charlotte, died peacefully March 4, 2001, at Greenville Memorial Medical Center, following a period of declining health. She was attended by her children. 

Mrs. Brown was born April 24,1916, in Charlotte, daughter of Samuel Lewis and Mary Louise Cobb Diggle of Central Avenue. She attended Central High School in Charlotte, and graduated from Sacred Heart College in Belmont, N.C. 

In 1942, she was accepted into the Women's Army Auxiliary Forces. She was the 42nd woman from North Carolina to be allowed to enlist in the Army in World War II. She was promoted twice, and was commanding a training company in Ft. Des Moines, Iowa, where she was honorably discharged following a service related disability, at the rank of Captain. She was a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Disabled American Veterans. After World War II, Miss Diggle married James A. Brown Jr., who served from 1950 to 1962 as Assistant Administrator of Greenville General Hospital, and from 1962 to 1970 as Administrator of Gaston Memorial Hospital. 

Mrs. Brown is survived by their three children, James Arthur Brown III of Cary, N.C., George Conril Brown of Washington, D.C., and Catherine Elizabeth Holmgreen of Greenville; three grandchildren, Amanda Leigh, David Joseph and Elizabeth Styron Gault; a brother, Samuel Lewis Diggle Jr. of Charlotte; and sisters, Mrs. Carl Lowery of Charlotte, and Mrs. Carl Duncan of Indian Rocks Beach, Fla. 

Mrs. Brown was a member of St. Vincent dePaul Catholic Church in Charlotte. 

A visitation from 6 to 7 p.m. followed by a Rosary will be held Thursday, March 8, 2001, at Harry and Bryant in Charlotte. Mrs. Brown will be buried with her late husband in Oakdale Cemetery in Wilmington, N.C.

Anniversaries

 

Another Anniversary

Since I posted I have been through another anniversary - one year on March 24th for Jim's Funeral Mass. It was hard. That was Palm Sunday. I chose to go to Mass alone and afterwards I went to our Prayer Group. That was a right decision - to be with folks who were at the Mass last year and who also knew and cared about Jim - and to pray with them. A year - what does that mean when you are grieving? For me it means that the shock has worn off and the fog has lifted and I really feel the loss even more deeply - but others are looking for signs and reassurances that I am "better", that I am getting over it. I can think back to doing that myself - to not understanding that the loss of someone you love is not something you get over. But I am better - better at getting up and going on. I have taken to writing a few sort-of poems especially when I am sitting in the car. 5:10 PM I am sitting in the car outside my house. It is 5:10 PM. Traffic on Brierly Road is picking up as people start coming home from work. This is the time of day the very core of my body most misses Jim. I expect him to come home - even though I know he won't be coming today. or any day. DAMN!

Trip to the Holy Land

 

In June I began collecting bits of memory to remind me of days of my life so I will have plenty of material for my memoirs.
Memories for Memoirs is a way to add smaller bits which I may use as "further flesh" later.
As I remember more I will add it.  Either added to this piece or on its own as another numbered post. 

About A Pilgrimage in Image and Word -






Meditating on the Mount of Olives.

My husband, Jim Schoettler,  took this picture of me on the Mount of Olives early in the morning when we were on a trip to Israel with a group led by Reverend Larry Boadt, a Biblical Scholar and a Paulist priest. I knew Fr. Boadt because at that time I was working as Secretary to the Dean at Washington Theologial Union where he was on Faculty.  When
he asked me if we were going to make the trip with his tour.  I hesitated and then told him I scared of going to the area - "its dangerous". Larry laughed and assured me "I will pray you back, Ellouise, and then you can do a book about the trip." Obviously Jim and I went and it was a fabulous pilgrimage. I used Jim's photo for the cover of the book.  Larry invited Fr. Jim Wallace, C. Ss. R. and me to create a book based on our experiences on the trip for Paulist Press.  I was thrilled for the opportunity. The texts Father Jim wrote for the book are wonderful. I used photos I took as the basis for the drawings. 
I guess that means I can call myself a published artist. 1995

More about the trip to the Holy Land

In Facebook posts the last few days someone is sending pictures from Israel while they are on a trip to the Holy Land. Today they posted a picture on the Sea of Galilee.

Seeing the pictures brought on a flood of memories of the trip Jim and I made more than a dozen years ago. The images are still so vivid. I felt very fortunate to find this post about the trip. It brought back many memories.

We arrived in Jerusalem, and then in the next two to three weeks of our tour we moved on to the Galilee, to Mt. Nebo, by way of Petra in Jordan, and then we crossed into Egypt for a trip up Mt. Sinai ending with another few days in Jerusalem. It was wonderful!

Our tour leader was the incomparable Biblical scholar and Paulist Priest, Fr. Larry Boadt who could be counted on for inspiring sermons and enlightening teaching of the archeology and holy sites. And, lots of laughter.

I am so grateful to have shared the trip with Jim.  There are many sweet and touching memories and a few that are completely hilarious.

When we were at the foot of Mt. Sinai the plan was to climb at 2 am so that we would arrive at the top for sunrise. I knew I could not walk up so Jim hired a camel for me. I was game because I really wanted to climb to the top and share the early morning Mass with the group. It turned out to be quite an experience. The camel driver left the path and in the intense darkness I have no idea whether we were on a well-trodden way or not. I could see our group - including Jim -some distance away with their flashlights bobbing as they walked. The camel stepped carefully and the driver cooed to reassure him he was doing a good job. Initially I was nervous - no - I was scared - and then I began to really see the stars - so bright in the inky sky. It was as though we were on that mountain side completely alone. It was glorious.

Jim reached the concrete dismount at the same moment the camel knelt beside it and the driver said, "Madam, throw your leg over the side." Was he crazy? After two hours on the back of the beast I could not move my leg. Fortunately for my modesty it was Jim's hands Jim reached up and lifted me down.

We were on the top of Mount Sinai at sunrise which is an indelible memory. On the way down the group stopped at an outcropping clearing where Father Boadt said Mass and we had Communion. A blessing.

For the years afterwards when Jim and I heard or read certain Gospel passages we would look at each other, smile and nod. Nothing else was needed.

My heart aches for that closeness with each other's memories. 

Looking Back at My Experience in Women's History

 

Written by Ellouise Schoettler

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

 

My new story - The Second Wave Album, a new blog and the Second Wave Album Facebook Page. Posting pictures and captions that tell a bit of the story. Experimenting with Social Media to let the word out and build an audience.

Bringing out boxes of day-books to go through. Its overwhelming. Where to start?

When I went back to college as a Freshman in 1968 I thought I was going for an education. I had no idea that I had stepped onto a new road - to change my life.

The catalyst - the first- ever Women's Studies course at Dunbarton College, a small Catholic women's school, the last place one would have expected such a life-changer. The instructor was a founder of the first Rape Crisis Center in DC and a member of NOW, (The National Organization for Women).

My art history professor, artist Nancy Cusick invited me to accompany her to the 1972 Corcoran Conference of Women Artists, the first-ever national gathering of women artists. They came from across the country, sharing ideas and images and changing the way I looked at art and thought of myself as an artist.

Timing is always everything. I was a graduate student at American University in Graduate School during the organizing of the Women's Caucus for Art when AU Art History professor Mary Garrard was the second president. I volunteered to be membership secretary and processed a growing membership.

The Washington Women's Art Center was founded in 1972 and by 1974 I had joined it. Through WWAC I became part of the network in DC and nationally. In 1975-76 I was a founder of the Coalition of Women's Arts Organizations and, based in Washington, DC, found myself the lobbyist for the group - testifying before Congressional Committees and advocating for equal rights for women artists to federal agencies.

Talking has always been my strong suit - once I was told I should list talking on my resume - but I think my work lobbying on Capitol Hill was the true start of my career as a storyteller.

The CWAO experience as a lobbyist and grassroots organizer led to my job on the staff of the National League of Women Voters as ERA Campaign Director,1979 - 1982, the last three years of the campaign to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. They hired me to represent the League with the other women's organizations, tend to the State Leagues and raise money for ERA.

Artists have ideas - we see things in new ways. It turned out that I came up with a new idea for the ERA campaign and for the League. I proposed and organized the National Business Council for ERA which brought the campaign support from Fortune 500 CEOs. Raised money and provided a professional umbrella under which The Ad Women of New York, could work with the ERA campaign.

It was a perfect combination - the League of Women Voters and Business. Our organizing co-chair, actress and business woman Polly Bergen was not just a name on the letter-head she was hands-on. We developed stategies around her being present and she came. I happily held her purse so she could wow them. ERA Board Chair Madeleine Appel and Lois Harrison were wonderful team members. And BPW ERA legend Mariwyn Heath was my mentor and supporter in the business effort. She told me at the end of the campaign - " I consider you one of my successes. I thought it was a dumb idea and did not believe that you could pull it off - - but I never said a word to discourage you." It was a good management lesson and I have never forgotten it.

Women did amazing things during that campaign. It was a dynamic volunteer grass roots effort, and inexperienced women learned their jobs by doing them.
Women cared about the issues and taught themselves the skills they needed to lobby effectively.

The loss of the ERA was heart-breaking for the supporters.

That's an outline. There are a lot of stories there. What to tell?

Cousins Connect

 

Cousins Connect

One morning my phone rang early and I heard my cousin Jim's voice.

"Hey"

"Jimmy - how great to hear from you." The phone is a blessing.

A conversation with Jimmy was just what I needed on another self- isolated day - where I was hoping that I would never catch the virus that was loose in the world. 

I told him I was writing a bit about our Nanny - Marie Louise Cobb Diggle. 

We were the first cousins born born before the "daddies" went away to WW11. So we are the kids that have stories the later younger cousins don't know although they have heard about them.

I had always thought Nanny, my grandmother was a fascinating woman.  This call from Jimmy was pure luck because I could ask him about his memories about her and they would water mine. 

"Jimmy what's your best memory of Nanny's house on Central Avenue?" 

The quiet fell between us as he thought where to start -
 "I always think of the fire first."
"You do? 

Why? 

That fire under the breakfast room wasn't exciting."
"No. I am talking about the day Tommy and I were making bombs in the big garage on the back of the yard and it caught fire. 
Nanny had a fit and called the firemen and the police came too."

We started laughing and laughing and it was as though we were children together again.

When he stopped laughing he asked me, 
" Do you remember that refrigerator? 

It was specially made to fit the whole wall on one side in the breakfast room. The funniest part was that there wasn't just one door - there were nine small doors.  Getting something to eat was a search."

 

Ofcourse I remembered. 
"You remember how Nanny kept her vegetable leavings in a jar in the refrigerator until there was enough to make her delicious soup."

"So good." 
Jimmy and I talked and talked and talked.

I told him about my night with Nanny at the Visualite Theater.
" I was surprised when Nanny invited me to come with her to the Visualite Movie on Elizabeth Avenue to see a British movie, The Lavender Hill Mob, starring Alec Guiness. 
I had never seen a British movie. I was a Junior at Central High School and considered myself reasonably sophisticated for an evening with Nanny. 

I walked through her front door in time. She was wearing her usual slim grey wool slacks and a matching sweater with her long string of white pearls knotted around her neck. She slipped behind the wheel of her new sleek green Studebaker. We started out early to get there early. This was 1951and she wanted to have time to smoke one of her red beauty tip Marlboro cigarettes before we settled in the theater. 

Lights down, previews played and then the Feature Movie. Her daughters, my aunts, called her an anglophile. "Mama loves to read British mysteries and magazines." Within five minutes after the movie started Nanny  began laughing out loud- - and so did I. It was a different kind of comedy for me.  I was caught by it as we sat in uncomfortable seats for 88 minutes. 

As the lights came back on Nanny picked up her bag. She leaned over to me, "well, what do you think?" 

" I loved it - so funny. Thank you for bringing me." 

We giggled as we walked down the crowded aisle leading to the lobby.

Outside Nanny pointed to her car in the parking lot - laughing she said " ah there she is --

Mrs. Bufforpington - just where I left her."

That was her name for the new car and she loved saying it.

Sixty-nine years later I still remember Mrs. Bufforpington -  

These days I often wear Nanny's long string of cosmetic pearls when I tell stories - especially about.

I wish I could have told her what I saw when my husband Jim and I went to London. I could have told her that now I know that her grandparents came to the United States in 1849- - from London - - 
well - no wonder she was an anglofile - - and I am grateful she shared it with me.

RIPPLES ON THE WATER

Ripples on the Water – by Ellouise Schoettler

Written July 2 , 2019    Published August 14, 2020

When I was 7 years old on summer days I walked with Granny on the beach and filled buckets with sea shells and rocks. Granny warned me to stay away from the pilings of near-by piers which were crusted with barnacle shells. Good advice but I learned the hard way how sharp they can be. 

In evenings I sat with Granny on the top of the bulkhead ladder as the light faded and we listened to the rythmic slap of the water against the bottom of the steps as the tide came in. It felt good to be there with her - like everything was right with the world

Sixty-five year later Jim and I went with our daughter and her young sons to at that same North Carolina beach.

One morning Jim spotted a jelly fish floating in close to shore and scooped it up in a red bucket before it could hurt anyone. Holding the bucket young Scotty ran down the pier to show it off to his mother, our daughter Robin, me and other pier sitters. The translucent mushroom shaped mass pulsing in the bucket did not look like it could deliver such a painful blow. But it could. Finally we convinced Scotty to throw it back into the water. We watched as it pulsed itself away.

The summer when I was seven, just Danny’s age, I saw early morning light dancing on water.  It was magic.

The summer of 1942 was during World War II. At the beach  I saw men wearing Army and Navy uniforms everywhere we went at the beach. On Saturday mornings Granny did her "war effort." She drove into Wilmington to the USO building and gathered up a car load of friendly, laughing young soldiers and sailors. She brought them home for a swim, some supper and then she and Dad Jack took them to the week-end dance at the Lumina Pier. 

For the dance I put on my best cotton sundress and white strappy sandals. The music came from a band on the stage. Once one of our young men asked me to dance. I stepped onto the top of his feet and we moved around the floor. It was just about the best thing that had ever happened to me.

When the house was full for the week-ends I slept on a black leather chaise in the living room next to the porch windows. Because of the war we had to keep the blackout at night to protect the shoreline against any enemy submarines that might be on patrol off the coast. Granny said that was another part of our war effort just like using food stamps and saving gasoline.

At dark we had to turn off all the lights - or if we needed a few  lights we had to put up extra heavy shades which would not let the light out. The chaise for me was next to the porch windows. Granny put a radio out there so they could listen to programs, music, news and goodness they talked and laughed. It felt special to lay on the chaise next to the open windows and listen to Fibber McKee and Molly, Jack Benny, or the music of Glenn Miller, The Andrews Sisters or even that crazy Spike Jones. 

One very early morning I was laying on the chaise looking at a comic book. Granny had opened the black out shutters when she went to bed. The sun was just coming up and the faint early rays were lightly playing across the surface of the water.  I must have turned to the window just at that magic moment when the daylight goes on like someone is turning up a dimmer switch. The light became brighter and brighter until the water disappeared and I saw only the dancing surface. 

One day we walked over to the beach to go swimming in the waves. We stopped on the top of the high wooden pedestrian bridge to watch several water skiers being towed behind a speed boat. The  skiers were laughing as they crisscrossed over the waves behind the boat.  

 

After the boat passed I could see the glimmer of a school of fish just beneath the surface of the water; then they dove and disappeared from sight.  I wondered what it was like in the deep water.

Then I watched my hand reach out over the railing. My fingers opened up and I dropped my white cotton hat. It sailed on a breeze until it’s weight pulled it onto the water below. I watched it sink deeper and deeper until it disappeared. 

I told stories for the boys and others at the Wrightsville Beach Museum. The boys listened and laughed and later I heard them tell the stories again to each other. I felt satisfied. This was what I had hoped for.

The morning we were leaving I woke early. I stepped onto the balcony in our room just in time to see the sunlight turning the surface of the water to dancing diamonds just as it had when I was seven and saw it for the first time. Tears ran down my cheeks.

As we drove down the causeway toward the drawbridge I looked back even though I knew that I could not see Granny’s house, but it did not matter. I knew now had that I had her house with me anytime at I wanted to go there. 

AN OLD LETTER FROM NANNY

Working with memories is like weaving or making collages - especially when I try to connect my memories with stories I possibly heard when I was a child.





A 1917 letter my aunt Catherine gave to me always reminds me of a day I was visiting my father's mother, at her home. We were sitting in the "music room". At first she was quiet until something sparked her to remember a trip with her husband to New York long ago. The most vivid memory I have of that conversation is her description of going to a Broadway theater to see "The Merry Widow." She talked of the beautiful theaterAs she talked about her dress and a new fashionable hat her eyes were sparkling and she was smiling as she remembered the evening.  I never forgot that afternoon.

In 1975 my friend Marie and I went to Vienna, Austria. We wandered the cobbled streets, ate delicious pastries with coffee, visited art museum, and an impressive castle. One evening we went to the ornate Vienna Opera House to see "The Merry Widow".  and the memories of the conversation with my grandmother flowed over me and I felt very connected to her although in real life I was not warmly close to her. It was a good feeling.

Finding this letter my aunt had given me was quite a"gift".  So glad I wrote about it -so that I did not lose the memories of her again - - and that I connected to those days of WWI - - knowing more now about that time gives her letter more life for me.

Lonergan/Cobb/Diggle Information

St. Peter's - Charlotte, NC

ADD PICTURES - - -

When ever I go to Charlotte, NC I stop by St. Peter’s Catholic Church. It is the church of my childhood and connects me to my Lonergan ancestors. 

I did not learn anything about the North Carolina Lonergan family until I was 55 years beyond my Baptism at St. Peters. They were Irish immigrants, Catholics and stone cutters. They gave their tithe to build St. Peter’s on land James Lonergran sold to the Church. 

Four Lonergan men from Tipperary raised the original brick walls with their own hands. One of the men, Edward Lonergan, was my four great grandfather. In 1850 most of the small band of Catholics in Charlotte lived in the shadow of the modest spire of this small red brick church. 

I step off the sidewalk of South Tryon Street, up the few brick steps and into the vestibule. I feel at home in the colored light which fills the santuary. I recognize the warm earthy hues cast by the stained glass windows as the light shines through them. The centered figures of saints on the glass still stand serenely in arched niches surrounded by geometric patterned panels. 

These windows fascinated me when, as a child, I lay on the hard oak pew next to Daddy and waited impatiently for Mass to end. I absorbed the glowing colors and simple shapes and they formed the aesthetic that guides my eyes and hands today when I compose bits of colored paper and fabric into abstract compositions that suggest backlit stained glass windows. 

These comfortable mysterious spaces speak to me of the sacred -- the sweet fragrance of beeswax candles -- pungent incense -- the echoes of Latin chants. 

Back on the sidewalk the sight of the near-by new pride of Charlotte, a behemoth sports arena and tall buildings which loom over the city like menacing towers, yanks me back to the present - into the presence of progress. 

First Posted on 11.8.2003 at 12:59 AM

Easter Sunday 1945 - After Mass at St. Pater's Catholic Church on Tryon Street where it was built in 1851 by our Irish ancestors who were brick builders, everyone gathered at the Diggle home on Central Avenue for a scrumptious Southern feast and to be with the family for Easter. The dining room round table was so crowded the kids ate at a long table in the breakfast room. The cousins picture was taken in the "side yard" probably by our Aunt Catherine who always had her camera in hand and collected the photos. I think my two piece outfit was deep rose pink and I was wearing my first straw hat.
It was a noisy gathering. The rooms were filled with laughter and talking, fun and games for all - and no television distractions.
Cousins: L - R. Sandra, 3 sisters -Kathy, Linda, and Ellouise, and Sandra's brother Tommy.
A dear memory.
Trip Barber Tina Barber @KarenLSchoettler Dena Diggle Ayers

20Robin S. Fox, Judi Tarowsky and 18 others

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Memorial for one of my Lonergan relatives who died on a journey home to Tipperary.. mid 1800's. He died on the sea and they slid his body into the Atlantic. The top on this concrete was made by a family member who carved the story of his death into the stone. Another grave in the yard around St. Joseph's Catholic Church, NC. Now I am reviewing information I have on them.

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A Special Momento
Bought this cup in a small shop in Newton, NC when Jim and I went there hoping to find information about Doctor Benjamin Morris Cobb. Well we found him, that is true but I became more involved with things like storytelling etc. so I slipped up on the family history. Once I began the genealogy class this February I realized I had to finish up my lines and get their stories together for my family. Today I made surprise calls to Newton....and magically ... magically connected with agenealogical librarian at the City Library!!! The Cobb family was recognized to him and I think the Lonergans will be known to him too. He jumped forward ready to help me reconnect with my 3rd great grandfather and put me on the same long line with WW1 dough boy, John Walter Cobb jr. I love researching family history. I am so grateful to people like Librarian Evelyn Rhodes at the Newton Library who helped me start long ago...she was so enthusiastic about finding family members and stories.  Robin S. Fox Jim SchoettlerKathy Diggle McGill Robert Lowry Robert Diggle Sandra Hutchins DixonTrip Barber Louise Lowry Barr Lynn Palermo
the Cobb group in 1989.
On the cup I wrote:
August 28, 1989
Bought this in Newton, NC to celebrate “finding” B. M. Cobb with the help of genealogy librarian Evelyn Rhodes.”

9Jane Ogburn Dorfman, Robert Lowry and 7 others

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