To Enter the Gates of Peace

Headstones in Hebrew..transcribed and accessible at this site.

When the sun rose that day, the body of a badly beaten man lay sprawled on the banks of the Mississippi near the small town of Ritfield, Missouri.  Although the only thing of value that remained was his suit and that his face had been battered beyond recognition, every Ritfield resident knew this man and liked him.

Since the site was by the barge landing, most assumed that some rough men crept in and took Levi, expecting a great fortune. That was enough effort given for finding the guilty.

Levi Rosenfeld (this name was chosen randomly and does not relate to anyone, living or dead)  was an upstanding member of the community, dedicated to helping others, and supporting and caring for any who needed help.  “A good man, God Bless ‘em!”

Levi Rosenfeld was a Jewish man in a small Christian town, and presumed to be wealthy, since he was a jeweler who traveled the River to St. Louis to trade.  His wife, Ruth, was the opposite of her Levi; she was vicious and flaunted her own wealth.  When people spoke her name, they crossed themselves.

The rest of the Jewish community continued quietly to work, pay bills, worship in a distant synagogue some sixty miles away.  That they were Jewish was known by all and accepted.  “Stay in their own place, I’ll give ‘em that."

Levi Rosenfeld was buried in a Jewish Cemetery some distance from town, in a partially hidden copse of oak trees.

It was a quiet closing for a good man.

Is this a true story?  Yes and no.

Please go to this site.

This is a Jewish Cemetery in Missouri, across the Mississippi River from our farm land in Illinois.  We had driven by it for years before realizing what it was.  

Our Town

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Town

One year the High School Drama Club staged “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder.  In previous years they had performed ambitious edgy projects (The Crucible and Inherit the Wind).  Those may have been too edgy for a rural town where the local movie theater showed one movie on weekends only and at only one show time.

Thornton Wilder

This play, however, requires minimal staging and props.  It does require serious thought, about serious subjects.  Wilder once said that it is a small play about big ideas. 

 “Our Town”:  it could actually have been a story about our own town.  Small town, church picnics, choir practice, sweethearts, gossip and town secrets, etc.  This was the grist and gristle of small town life.  The performances at my school were well received and praised.  

The main character is Emily Webb, whose life we follow through each act.  In Act III, she dies in childbirth.  She is granted her desire to review one day of her life, and she chose her twelfth birthday.  In her memory, that day was the best day of her life.

At the age of 16, I watched and wondered why-the-heck-did-she-choose-that-day?  Now, I wonder what day I would choose.  For that matter, if I could go back in time and spend time with someone, talking and asking questions, whom would I choose?  What day?  

What about you?  What day would you choose?  Who is important enough in your life that you would want to see?  Would this person be one from history, or your experiences?

Note:  If you would like to view the movie, visit this archive site.

E is for Edgar Lee Masters

All photos courtesy of Bing. com

Growing up in Illinois, I had studied about some of our state heroes:  Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Edgar Lee Masters.  A diverse group to be sure, each one had an impact on my thinking and writing.

A performance of the play based on Spoon River Anthology

In my university years, a literature class focused on short stories, which included Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology.  Each of the 213 poems gave voice to the long dead occupants of the cemetery on The Hill.  These mouths expressed Masters’ own grudges, beliefs, insights, anger at injustice, and perspectives on life. 

Masters' headstone, 1868 - 1950

Coming from a very small town, I recognized the social structure of the small town, the struggles of its occupants, and how death was the great equalizer. 

In the writing of my book, In Preacher’s Creek, I incorporated the cemetery as an active part of town life.  Ancestry before, during, and after death were part of each person. 

Edgar Lee Masters was born in 1868, lived a long productive life, was a contemporary of poets Carl Sandberg and Vachel Linsday, and died in 1950.  There is so much that could be said of him and how he interpreted a life that spanned post-Civil War to post-World War II-- too much, really.

"Good friends, let's to the fields--I have a fever.  After a little walk, and by your pardon, I think I'll sleep.  There is no sweeter thing, Nor fate more blessed than to sleep.  Here, world, I pass you like an orange to a child.  I can no more with you.  Do what you will..."

One of his best-loved poems is "Silence", published in The New Poetry, H. Monroe and Henderson, eds., The Macmillan Company, New York, 1946.  The opening lines:

I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea,
And the silence of the city when it pauses,
And the silence of a man and a maid,
And the silence of the sick
When their eyes roam about the room.
Of what use is language?
A beast of the field moans a few times
When death takes its young.
And we are voiceless in the presence of realities--
We cannot speak....

Of the 213 characters in Spoon River Anthology, my favorite character is  Lucinda Matlock, who says, “Degenerate sons and daughters, Life is too strong for you—It take life to love Life.”

Have you ever read this book?  If so, which headstone would be yours?