In his fun short stories, John Hayden Howard used creative wordplay and unique characterization in 1940s to 1960s historical settings.
The Oxford Language Dictionary defines wordplay as “the witty exploitation of the meanings and ambiguities of words.” My own definition might be “describing settings and characters in an unusually creative way that make me laugh, or say a-hah!”
When I see words like speed graphics and box brownies, I get the gist of them while knowing I’ve a bit to learn about old-timey camera equipment. Since Hayden wrote this story between 1951-’52 (based on the address on his original manuscript, written in St. Augustine FL) and set the story in the 1940s, there was no need for him to explain what kind of equipment this was to his readers back then.
But for the curious 2020s crowd, this is what those historic cameras looked like:
Graflex Speed Graphic camera (Creative Commons)Kodak Brownie camera
Also note the way Hayden describes the appearance of the reporters: “Country, with bowl-head haircuts, pants don’t break on their shoe-tops, one still with a price tag on his coat.” So much imagery there! Those words also reveal the opinions and personality of the main character, The Champ, telling his story in first person.
Also in this same story, Hayden drops breadcrumbs about time travelers. Pay close attention to those breadcrumbs, as they greatly impact what happens at the end of the story. Who, exactly, is the champ fighting?
Some strong yet subtle clues come in near the end of the story, for example: “You were my hero when I was a kid.” Don’t miss those clues! The last few lines of the story are especially subtle reveals. If you aren’t already familiar with Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey, and Jack Johnson, see their biographies.
Here are hints though: these were the time periods in which these 3 boxers were champions—Joe Lewis (1934-1951), Jack Dempsey (1919-1926), and Jack Johnson (1908-1915). Galento fought Joe Lewis in 1931. There’s a fun Wikipedia article on Galento, who was said to have boxed a kangaroo and then a bear, as publicity stunts. And as you keep all these dates in mind, remember that the boxing match in Ten Rounds for the All-Time Champ was set in the late 1940s. I wish I’d known all this before I read this story, as it makes it twice the fun.
I must be honest though that Hayden fooled me. When I realized all the previously mentioned boxers were real, I assumed Redhead must be too. I spent an hour searching the internet for a famous boxer named Taylor in 1951. I felt like a dummy later, realizing it was impossible, because Hayden wrote this story when he was only 26 years old. Meaning–all boxers he knew of had to be alive then or before that. Any future boxers would still be babies or not born yet. If this still puzzles you, or if you get it, tweet me @LaurieSargent. I’m just hoping not to introduce a story spoiler here if you intend to readReawakened Worlds.
The story is especially fun to read in the print editions, as the ten rounds are laid out neatly, and the collectable hardcover is a delight to hold. Can you tell that I’m one of Hayden Howard’s greatest fans? Volume Two will be out in 2024 and hopefully a boxed set. Also, the audiobook is now in production, and I already like what the narrator is doing to make The Champ’s boxing match exciting.
I admit that I’m biased, but I never would have compiled and edited his works had I not loved his stories and creative characters. I must add too that I’m not the kind of person who likes to watch boxing, so this story drew me in specifically by the characters, historical references, and surprise ending.
For her Heart of the Matter podcast, Cynthia L. Simmons and I discussed parent-child personality differences and homeschooling. We also looked back through history at one 1930s mom’s parenting style.
Interview with Cynthia L. Simmons and Laurie Winslow Sargent: Heart of the Matter Radio
For the Oct 2, 2020 podcast, How to Delight in Your Child as You Homeschool, Cynthia asked me great questions related to the book Delight in Your Child’s Design. We talked about ways to inject more fun into parenting that allow children to learn more organically. In other words, when they’re having fun, they don’t always realize they’re also learning. We also talked about leaving a legacy of playful parenting, and about how in some ways parenting has changed little in a century. In this blog post I share a bit of what we discussed, plus a time capsule tip:
In 1920s British Raj India, independent, hardworking American Gladys was expected to have servants — whether she wanted them or not.
As I write Gladys’s biography of her years in 1920s to 1930s India, I strive to put in context her role at that time as a memsahib. This was a century ago. She and Ken (Americans) had been thrust into the British Raj system, which they didn’t entirely embrace.
Yet they didn’t entirely reject it, either. As master-servant relationships in general (especially between races and economic statuses) make me uncomfortable, here’s my attempt to look at Ken and Gladys’s roles as objectively as I can.
Definitions of memsahib vary. Merriam-Webster defines it as “a white foreign woman of high social status living in India especially: the wife of a British official”. (The word “white” is rather telling about attitudes in the time of the Raj. Ugh.)
The Collins Dictionary has a simpler definition: “title for a woman in a position of authority and/or the wife of a Sahib”. That, I think, more accurately applied to Gladys, being American.
Eventually the term encompassed Indian upper class women as well. In Economic and Political Weekly, Memsahib: Who Are You?, Swastika Hore points out: “A time would come when the upper classes of Indians would be addressed as sahibs and their wives memsahibs by people lower down the social scale–evidently a colonial hangover.”
As I include diary entries in blog posts that include references to Ken and Gladys managing servants, readers incorrectly may assume that where there are servants, there must be masters who feel entitled. Conversely, Ken and Gladys were genuinely hard working people who had not grown up with servants nor expected to have them.
A Forester and a Teacher as Sahib and Memsahib
Ken, at age sixteen (in 1915) graduated from high school and worked in logging camps. He studied forestry in college, then worked as an assistant professor before being hired by the British Indian government in 1923 at 25 years old.
In my post Ken in the Raj, he describes his arrival in India, when he obviously enjoyed getting elevated attention and honor. Yet during his following ten years in India, Ken worked tirelessly, often from sunup to sundown, in Indian logging camps and mills. He never expected more work from others than he did himself. His clothes grew so sweaty he sometimes changed his work clothes three times in a day.
As for Gladys, she’d been a working woman before moving to India: a self-supporting junior high school teacher. She also was her own cook and housekeeper. However, in India as memsahib of Ken (an important government appointee) Gladys was suddenly expected to have servants do all her household chores. She was often annoyed at not being able to simply do them herself and her own way.
Once, when expecting guests, Gladys wanted to sweep cigar ashes off her veranda. However, her butler (main servant) Freddy was horrified at the thought of Gladys doing it herself, so refused to find her a broom. He also refused to do it himself, considering it below his caste and dignity to sweep. He insisted he must instead fetch a “sweeper” from another village.
How a vintage suitcase, overflowing with 1920s-1930s jungle honeymoon adventures, birthed a book.
This photo includes invitations from the Maharaja of Jaipur and The Governor & Viscountess Goschen; a love letter from Ken; and letters home to Walla Walla from Gladys in Port Blair, Andaman Islands.
UPDATE! This blog post led to a Mid Day News story on May 31, 2020, by Prutha Bhosle:American Author Traces Her Ancestors Love Story Through Letters ~ A North Carolina-based author relies on a trunk full of letters from 1920s India and Google Earth to reconstruct a love story of her ancestors for an upcoming book~ Mid Day is called “India’s most engaging newspaper” with a reported 25 million page views per month. How exciting is that?!
A Discovery of near-100-year-old Letters
My eyes adjusted to the dim walk-up attic, sun spilling through cracks between beams. I was surrounded by yet more to purge or make agonizing decisions about. But this time I was on a hunt for one battered, square, beige suitcase — about 1930s vintage. I spied it and dragged it into better light. Heavy.
I smiled at the name Winslow, scrawled in fancy letters in black marker. I’d written that myself, back when as a teen in the 70’s I thought that old suitcase “cool”. I’d claimed it to store my stuff, including an old peace-sign necklace and a mood ring. It had since been emptied, then refilled, several times.
A stuck-on yellow note had Pearce Papers scribbled on it. I knew the suitcase was stuffed to the gills with musty documents given to Mom when her parents (Gladys Gose Pearce and J. Kenneth Pearce) passed away. However, I’d never looked at the papers closely.
A belt was wrapped tightly around the suitcase, which was fit to burst with a weak old lock. Sure enough, when I pulled hard to uncinch the belt, the lid popped open.
Poof. Dust flew out; I sneezed. My curiosity would have to duke it out with my allergies.
I pulled out handfuls of sepia-toned photos, faded newspaper articles, and certificates. I sneezed again.
Then I found a bundle of letters, tied with a string. The top one was postmarked 1926, from India. My heart beat a little faster.
It was addressed to Thomas and Mrs. Gose, Walla Walla, Wash, USA. It struck me that that letter had traveled across the world to a small town where everyone seemed to know Thomas – no street address was needed, and no zip code.
It’s a little miraculous that the letters are in my attic. They had been moved from at least five different homes in three states before finally landing in my house, nearly a hundred years later. It’s a testament to the Pearce hoarding instincts, often criticized but in this moment appreciated.
I gently untied the string and pulled out that first letter. “Dear Mother and Father….” And after reading a few paragraphs, I shouted, “There you are!”
By “you” I meant Gladys — her zip, her personality, her wit and humor. Although she had graduated from high school way back in 1915, then college in 1919, I was instantly whisked back in time as I read her words.
I could now see her, hear her, as a young woman.
Jungle Honeymoon
Prior to finding the letters, I’d wrestled with something our family called ‘the book’: typed pages bound together with a black cover, which Gladys had titled Jungle Honeymoon. Gladys, an aspiring writer, had written it in midlife in the 1960s among other stories and poems. (In the 1990s she’d asked me to help her get published and be her co-author, but at that time I was still a budding writer myself.)
The settings in Jungle Honeymoon were fascinating. Gladys described the aristocracy of the British Raj era in the 1920s and 1930s, elephant-powered logging camps, and the convict colony in the Andaman Islands.
And oh, the stories! One described how local villagers begged Grandpa Ken to shoot a tiger that had eaten their family members. I also read about that and other exciting tales in newspaper articles about the couple after they returned to America. (There are also archived documents at the University of Washington about Grandpa’s work in India.)
While growing up, I recall Grandma Gladys telling me stories over English Breakfast tea, poured from a flowered turquoise Chinese tea set, served British-style with sugar and cream. She and the teenage me wore silk Japanese kimonos she’d bought during her steamship travels. I remember trying to avoid dipping the giant square sleeves in my tea.
Later in life, armed with an enormous VHS camera, I videotaped Grandpa Ken describing how that tiger could have done him in: he’d only had one shot in his rifle. I’m glad he won — not the tiger, or I wouldn’t be here, nor my kids nor grand-babies.
Missing Pieces
One problem I found with Jungle Honeymoon is that the funny Gladys I knew was missing. In her attempt to write as she thought an author should, her words hadn’t revealed her personality adequately. Or perhaps her words were a bit stiff because too much time had passed since her immersion in her experiences. (She came home from India in 1933 and worked on Jungle Honeymoon in the 1960s.) Since her essays needed heavy editing, I considered turning them into a work of fiction based on real life, to get more personal voice back into the stories.
Hence, my discovery of her letters was monumental. There she was: real, raw, right in the midst of those experiences! Conversational, using contractions the way people actually talk. And not wasting an ounce of precious paper space on letters that would take weeks by steamship to get home to Mother. And I found more than just letters: wedding invitations from royalty and photos that now make the words in Gladys’ letters truly come alive.
The Birth of a New Book
At long last, I found a way for Gladys and me to coauthor a book about her her experiences. In our final book (to be published soon) you will travel vicariously along with us, alternating between her perspective in the 1920s and ’30s and my own in 2020. Now nearly a century has passed since Gladys was a young woman in India, and in the meantime new technology allows us to dig deep and richly see what she experienced in a far more advanced way than we could have, had she and I partnered in this in the 1990s.
For example, with tools like Google Earth and YouTube, together we can all pretend we are in 1920s India. Research is literally at my fingertips. While reading about a royal wedding Gladys and Ken attended, within seconds I pulled up photos from that wedding via Google. I could visualize my grandparents there, in that very room in the photos. On YouTube I can listen to music they listened to, or watch a silent film seconds after reading a 1930s letter about a “new film” Gladys recommended her mother see.
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