Chautauqua

By G.N. Huyser

Chautauqua traces the history of the traveling Chautauqua movement through the lives of several fictional performers. The main protagonist, Marcie Grover, is a Nebraska farm girl, who, at age fifteen, wants to leave the farm and travel with the Redpath Chautauqua. Her father finds no objection, since her farm labors are negligible, and so, she is hired as a childcare girl to keep the children of the Chautauqua audience busy so they can enjoy the performances.

The book covers the lives of its fictional characters, Marcie Grover, Sally Conn, Jos Cruz, and Helen Kinleft, among others, from the close of the 19th Century until the end of the 20th Century. We experience the struggles, successes, fears, excitement and pride of their lives.

When Jos Cruz and his horse, Sovereign, perform slight of hand magic on the Chautauqua stage we are there in the audience and when William Jennings Bryan makes a fiery speech, we hear it with Marcie.

As Helen Kinleft performs her bareback riding act learned at the Barnum and Bailey Circus, we are able to enjoy it also. And we triumph with Sally Conn in later years, as a successful New York fashion designer who meets the right man.

These are only some of the interesting characters whose lives we find woven through and about Chautauqua, the movement that changed America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 10, 2008
• ISBN: 9781465316288

G.N. Huyser

G. N. Huyser resides in Roseville, Michigan, where she enjoys community activities as well as her writing, after retiring from a career in sales management and education.

Book preview

Prologue

Chautauqua—The Movement That

Changed America

Shortly before 1985, I had the great privilege of attending a Chautaqua program re-enactment at the Henry Ford Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. For me, it was a delightful journey into the oft-recalled past of my father who, in his youth, had spent summers as a Chautauqua advance man, or promoter, of the Redpath tent circuit. I remembered seeing his personal scrapbook containing signed photographs of some Chautauqua performers (often referred to as the talent). But I had no real appreciation of the significance of the wide range of cultural presentations offered to scattered American audiences until, at the re-enactment, I was able to more or less put myself in their position.

We (the audience) sat beneath bare, flickering, light bulbs, which illuminated a canvas tent. Our chairs were the wooden folding variety.

On a simple platform at one end of the tent was a piano being played by the accompanist to a skilled violinist who had been introduced as a member of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. He played the lovely meditation, which I am told is an operatic favorite from Thais.

Played in the open air, the music seemed to waft about us, transforming our surroundings to a great symphony hall. This sweetly played rendition would have been the same at Chautauqua had it been performed in a tent on the central prairie. In our minds, we were not in any tent, but transformed to well dressed, concert aficionados of about 1904.

The Chautauqua Movement was to cover as many facets of cultural education as its ambition allowed.

As soon as the violin solo ended, the platform announcer introduced a little fellow with a flip chart, who amused us with a chalk talk involving clever cartoons. Then when his performance was finished, the serious speaker of the day took the platform.

She was a tall woman, simply dressed in business clothing, which would have been popular in 1899. It consisted of a long skirt, long sleeved blouse, and vest style jacket. Her hair was pinned back into a large bun and was topped with a dark straw hat, bounded with a taffeta bow. Pinc-nez glasses were held on a long black ribbon.

This 1899-style lady was introduced. The audience was told we would be hearing Jane Addams of Hull House, Chicago, and we were then treated to a rousing speech on the trials of poor, homeless girls, in the need for slum clearance and clean cities – as well as a plea for votes for women.

The energy of her speech brought to mind the brave suffragettes of that era. Some of the men, carried away by the moment (and going along with the show) shouted out angry remarks at our speaker.

Now that we were in the spirit of the thing, my eyes were opened to the formidable task Chautauqua had undertaken. Nobody could follow this path without pain.

Here was the movement that hosted both William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow. Susan B. Anthony had spoken from a Chautauqua platform. Famous opera stars had sung on a Chautauqua program.

At the original Chautauqua campsite at Chautauqua Lake, New York (dating from 1874), John Philip Sousa’s band, conducted by the composer, played for a large audience in the amphitheatre, a building open to the wafting breeze on all sides. It was at a Chautauqua platform that thousands of people assembled to hear Booker T. Washington, a college president, and Carrie Chapman Catt, a suffragette, speak.

By 1933, the tent circuit Chautauqua had disappeared. Even so, it had brought cultural education and changes to America, which helped to civilize a continent.

The Redpath Bureau covered all of North America, which it divided into districts from New England to rural Canada. The division was as follows:

A. New England

B. Eastern Seaboard

C. Mid Continent

D. South

E. Southwest

F. Pacific Coast

G. Rural Canada

The tents used in the circuit Chautauqua usually covered acres of ground and were transported by railway. Local students, some between college terms often volunteered as tent construction crews. Town councils guaranteed public support for the programs by hawking tickets in advance. Often, farmers drove miles in wagons to get to the Chautauqua site – sometimes walking through mud on planks to enter the tent.

During the winter, many would read educational books provided by Chautauqua, and report to organized reading circles. Completing a Chautauqua course, the student was awarded a certificate.

Schooling was difficult in rural America, but, eager to learn, Americans devoured their Chautauqua books. The Country was coming of age and burst into the twentieth century with a vigor and energy new to the world. Chautauqua! It was all about growing up rich and happy in the new world. As such, it was a romance like no other!

PART I

Early Days Remembered

Chapter One

Mrs. Vance stood in the dark, but this dark was studded not only with the spectral lamps of a thousand distant stars, but with the glow of electric light bulbs from the motion picture marquee down the street and the lamps in a thousand windows.

It was 1933 and America was well lit with Mr. Edison’s invention, black Ford cars were parked in driveways and from the open doorways radios blared. The Sunday night programs from Chicago were being aired and Marcie Vance could hear the broadcast of one of the most popular shows, just renamed Amos and Andy.

This scene was so unlike the nights she remembered as a girl. Iowa, her home state, although still agricultural, had changed. Due to the Great Depression, many farms had been foreclosed; there were people out of work in the cities, too. Like them all, she hated the hard times. But she remembered harder times and wondered why others had forgotten them. The times before farmers looked forward to electricity, before gasoline engines – before, before.

Mrs. Vance sat down on her front porch swing, she removed her shoes. It might be nice to sneak up to the city park and just lie down in the cold grass. Even in October the air was still warm. Her mind took its own journey. Back – back – lights – Mr. T.A. Edison himself had written a congratulatory note on the opening of the Chautauqua Institution. Well, after all, it was his wife’s father, Lewis Miller, who, along with Bishop Vincent, founded the original Chautauqua on the Chautauqua Lake, in New York State.

In the beginning, it was a summer camp for Sunday school teacher training. Gradually it included music, art and other educational instruction, attracting students from miles around.

Guest lecturers conducted workshops and the popularity of Chautauqua grew.

Marcie Vance’s mother told her of great steamers coming up the Lake bearing huge Chautauqua banners. Two steamboats had once carried former President Ulysses Grant and his entourage. He was an extremely popular man. People must have come just to set eyes on him, because, as a speaker he was not verbose. His son, as a toddler, imitated his father’s perfunctory style as Hello, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming. Good night!.

Once again Marcie wiggled her toes and thought of the park. Why, before 1915, before Chautauqua there wasn’t even a park to walk in. And no sidewalks of brick and cement. No paved streets at all, and when it rained in the spring everything was a sea of mud. Talk about hard times! There was never so much dirt!

Chautauqua meant reform. Whereas, it sought to educate and indoctrinate the world (which it did) what it accomplished more than anything was to change American culture.

Clean up the dirt!, make clean, green areas for children to play on, eat healthful foods!, give equal status to women! these were Chautauqua clarion calls.

Marcie had traveled as a Junior Girl on the Redpath Special out of Chicago and remembered flags and pennants; wide streamers emblazoned with the words, Rah, Rah, Redpath!, shouting crowds, and bouncing band music.

It was different before the Redpath Lyceum Bureau, headed by Keith Vawter, merged into the traveling tent Chautauqua. Before, before.

Mother, holding her hand. We’re going to Chautauqua camp next week. So we’ll pack some things in the wagon. We can make our beds and have dinner there. Oh, Marcie, we’ll have a wonderful time. We have a tent to sleep in and we’ll hear Mr. Bryan.

Marcie was nine years old. As soon as the wagon was filled with water cans, blankets, and baskets of food mother expected to use for their meals that week, they set out. The Chautauqua camp was thirty miles away and was one of the permanent Chatauqua campsites which had been established to try to duplicate the original.

The horse drawn wagon, bumped its occupants, father, mother, and three children, over the paths and roads until any part of their anatomy which did not hurt was numb.

They arrived at the camp at nightfall and were shown to a small white tent; one that had previously been reserved by Mr. Grover. The tent had a dirt floor, three cots for sleeping, and a small stove in the center for cooking. Little comfort it was, but it seemed heaven on earth to the weary Grover family.

It was too late for cooking tonight, so they shared bread and cheese sandwiches and went to bed. Tomorrow was the big day. Bryan day. By its end they certainly had heard William Jenning Bryan’s golden voice in a mesmerizing sermon, but they also heard a colorful ladies’ quartet singing hymns and well known secular favorites.

Marcie Grover was amazed that those ladies liked to sing as well as she did. Before long she started to sing when they did and Mrs. Grover had to shush her: still, it was wonderful.

Next on the platform was a man who told silly jokes and drew pictures on a large pad of paper. Then he turned his picture upside down and there was Mr. Abraham Lincoln. Everyone laughed! Marcie chuckled once more to herself. Even though they had to walk over a board path to the big open auditorium where they handed in their tickets and then sat on hard benches, the program was exciting. Every day of the five day session was different. Marcie wanted to stay when on the last day Pa said they had to pack up and leave. Goodbye, Chautauqua, for this summer. Would we come again?

Winter would be long and boring. Blowing snow. Chores. Some school, maybe. Church. Nothing more. Mother said, The Chautauqua books will come and we’ll have readings. At least, that, and after winter, spring, after spring, summer, Chautauqua again! Hooray! Early days. Chautaqua summers. They saved up for their tickets. A dollar and fifty cents each. It had seemed a gigantic sum.

Now whirling, whirling, a young girl in a long sleeved, spring checked gingham dress wearing a straw hat bedecked with ribbons. Twelve years old and pretending to be a Chautauqua girl. Trying those old songs and sounding pretty good. Marcie’s high, floating voice giving air to memorized verses. One day, she thought, I will be Chautauqua talent too. Some of those girls aren’t much older than me. Mama, she asked, Do you think I sound as good as a Chautauqua singer? Would you let me sing at Chautauqua?

Her mother raised a weary hand from examining a pair of soiled britches she had been scrubbing over a washboard in a tub of hot water, and mopped her perspiring forehead. Why not? she answered. It sure must be an easier life than this. Her hair straggled down her check, accompanied by more beads of perspiration.

Oh, Mama, Marcie gasped, I’d better help you some. I’m so ashamed of play acting Chautauqua and leaving the work to you.

Her mother had smiled, you could only be a child once. But children on the farm worked dawn to dusk, except when in school or church. Marcie was a dreamer. What future employment could dreamers be good at? Maybe Chautauqua wasn’t a bad idea, for, despite her willingness, Marcie lagged at farm work. She dawdled when feeding the chickens and gathering eggs. She dreamed while filling the water bucket at the pump and on and on. Yes, maybe she wasn’t cut out to be a farm wife. Mrs. Grover looked at her daughter, preening with her hat ribbons as she examined her appearance in a dresser mirror. She shook her head, What on earth will become of this child? she questioned herself.

Whirling, whirling. Fifteen. Marcie Grover borrowed the farm wagon in June that year. Chautauqua was coming. She had seen girls her age rounding up youngsters at Chautauqua. They read to them, dressed them up in funny costumes, and coached them in presentations. They taught them paper and woodcraft.

The whole five days of Chautauqua the junior girl worked with the moppets. At the end of the session they put on a program for the adults. Sometimes it would have a Biblical theme, sometimes Indian lore and the like or even a musical treat. If I get the job, she thought, I can stay with Chautauqua and learn all about it. But, she reminded herself, driving thirty miles by myself to Chautauqua might be too much for me. I can do it, but what if the wagon broke an axle or the horse threw a shoe?

Mr. Gover came out of the barn. Marcie, what are you doin’ in the wagon? he wanted to know.

Pop, I was just thinking about Chautauqua, she announced. You know those girls who look after the kiddies? I think I could do that, and somebody said they get paid too. Can I go and ask?

Marcie’s father, John Grover, senior, knew about his daughters’ dream of Chautauqua. He had thought at first it was a child’s longing for excitement and bright, fantastic entertainment; the lure of a carefree, fun life. But while all that might be true, there was something else. Marcie had a spark, a really good, pretty voice, and she could not be kept at home much longer, anyway.

What he said was, Honey, if you want to go that badly, hitch up Billy Boy and you and I will ride out there together, and they did.

Chapter Two

Little ripples of excitement thrilled through Marcie Grover’s mind as she anticipated the idea of going to work as a Junior Girl at the Chautauqua. But it might happen that the director would not allow her to do this job because she was only fifteen. She would argue that she was reliable because she had taken care of young children during worship services at the community church and surely the Chautauqua children would be about the same age, wouldn’t they?

Oh, she thought, I’ll just die if he turns me down. Her big chance to be with the Chautauqua for the week would be over, along with her plan to wheedle the rest of the summer behind the scenes with the Chautauqua talent.

Visions of musicians and singers in bright costumes covered with sparkling sequins (lovingly hand sewn) floated invitingly around in her thoughts. She just could not be denied her dream. She must be with the Chautauqua! She must!

The farm wagon rattled along the rutted country road until they could see the general store on Main Street in Sullivan, Iowa. Then the livery