Fountain Pens and Other New-fangled Writing Tools

by Lorna Kerin Beall 

My daughter, Jana, had to drag me kicking and fighting like a roped calf into doing this blog. I also bellowed when my girls first suggested I use the computer instead of my typewriter. They said something like, "Mom you need to enter the 20th century. Using the computer makes writing so much easier." (Of course now I’m saving a ton of money on Wite-Out.)

In my defense, I remember being forced to use a fountain pen in penmanship class. As a fourth grader at Riverview Grade school in Prosser, Washington in l951 (or was it 1952?) having to use that fountain pen made me feel like I was a forced to use quill and ink. (Now I’d love that old-timey feeling, but back then it wasn’t a positive thing.) In fact, because of the inkwells, I was sure we students were still sitting at in the same ancient, dilapidated desks once used by pioneer children!

I had to dip and hold the tip of my pen in the ink bottle (which did not fit in the manufactured hole in th e desk) and pull a little gadget on the pen which filled it. Then I was free, not to create, but to practice my cursive over and over. This resulted in drips and mess and much blotting. I was assured this was the most modern way to write. (Now where have I heard that before?) 
                                                            

Fortunately, the next year my fifth grade teacher, whose birthday was the same day as mine, drove out a whole six miles to our little stucco farm house for a fried chicken dinner and homemade birthday cake. Besides a big dose of confidence, he gave me - marvel of all marvels - my very first ball point pen! Did he guess that this shy, freckled-faced ten-year-girl would one day be a writer?

So here I am blogging once again. Actually, I have to admit it is fun. And it’s especially rewarding because of those of you who read and/or respond to our blog so graciously.

Rag Dolls and Kewpies

by Lorna Kerin Beall


I recently attended an OWAIC Writing for Children conference in Springfield with two of my good friends. Though it wasn’t the main theme of the conference, the focus that I came home with was to "write from the heart."

I hadn’t planned to buy a book but keynote speaker Paula Morrow, the editor and publisher of Boxing Tree Books, put out copies of the book, Rose O’Neil, The Girl Who Loved to Draw, by Linda Brewster. (Rose O’Neil was the creator of the Kewpie Doll.) It’s a beautiful book with innumerable pictures illustrating Rose’s life as an artist by both Ms. O’Neil and author Ms. Brewster. It’s a feast for eyes and heart. And I loved how, in the early chapters, the author captured the child like wonder of little Rosie. 

But one reason I wanted this book was because it reminded me of the Kewpie doll that I got when I was four-years-old and living with my Finnish Mumu in the tiny town of Buffalo, South Dakota.

When I was six, my Mama married my Step-Daddy and we were about to head out West to find a new home. I wrapped Kewpie in tissue paper, and after a final kiss, put her in a Buster Brown shoe box and packed her with the rest of our things in the back seat. She traveled with us to an apple picking camp in Hood River, Oregon. I felt bad that Kewpie was missing the sights like the huge Hood River and Mount Hood. The mountain looked like my Grandpa with its white head and beard of snow. But I was happy that Kewpie was with us. At least I got to cuddle the Raggedy-Ann my Mumu had made. We’d tell Kewpie everything when we got to our brand new own home. (Our oma tupa.)

We loved our new stucco-covered home in Prosser, Washington even though Mama said it looked like a chicken coop and we had to use the outhouse at first. Snug in our oma tupa,  I gave both Kewpie and Raggedy Ann a goodnight kiss every single night. 

I still have my porcellin Kewpie though her “skin” is cracked and wrinkled much like my own. Sometimes it's good to unpack childhood toys and family heirlooms to see what precious memories they conjure up and what stories they inspire. I appreciate the sweet reminder I got to "write from the heart"  from the conference, Linda Brewster’s book, and memories of my beloved Kewpie Doll.

Piecing Patchwork Memories for Wormy Bean Winter

 by Lorna Kerin Beall

    When Jana and I accepted our screenplay award for Model T Biscuits at Santa Clarita, and she’d given her articulate acceptance speech, I stammered a few nervous sentences. I managed to end by saying that it was my Finnish mom and her sisu, (the Finnish word for guts and determination) that inspired me to write Model T.
   
    Later, as I pondered my mother’s courage, I began to remember what I heard about her childhood as her family homesteaded on the South Dakota prairie. I didn’t have much to go on at first. I recalled that she’d told me that her younger sisters, Irene and Leona had slept in the same bed with her which kept them warmer in the bitter winter weather and caused them to roast like sticky marshmallows in the summer. We had a black and white snapshot of Mom, her brother Gus, and Irene and Leona playing with bits of broken crockery using snake holes in the side of a Butte for a cupboard! (Scary.)
                                                                                                                              
      Mom, Dad and I had a small farm in Prosser, Washington. Mom loved to work outside with cows, calves chicken and such. All of our cows and calves had names. I had a steer named Cocoa that I rode all over the farm. I only fell off one time, when he jumped over a little ditch.

    Mom told me several times that when she was a child she’d been stuck in their homestead shack doing inside chores while her sister, Irene, who would’ve loved changing places with her, got to work outside. There was enough outdoor work to go around since they had to haul water from way out by the barn, carry wood in and ashes out, and chop out a multitude of wounding cacti.  I know they all had to pitch hay from dawn to dusk at haying time.

Fred Hultstrand History in Pictures Collection, NDIRS-NDSU, Fargo 

My grandmother ( Finnish Mumu) also inspired me. My Omaha cousin had written several inspirational articles about our mumu’s sisu. If I remember correctly these were published in some senior citizen magazines. As a child our mumu was once surrounded by a wolf pack and survived. And as an adult she’d encountered a different type of predator - the two legged kind - whom she met head-on with a pitchfork.  
                                                                                                                           
Hearing about these incidents and talking to my cousin, inspired me to begin writing a middle-grade, multi-cultural novel, Wormy Bean Winter. It would be loosely based on our family’s homesteading adventures on the prairie. Since it was to be a children’s novel, I made my mom the 12-years-old protagonist, always keeping in mind that all of her family members had a lot of faith and sisu.

  But where to start? I formulated a long list of questions, ranging from “How far did the family have to carry water?” to “Did you have a Christmas tree?” I even asked, “Were you hugged and kissed a lot by your parents?” I sent my questions to my cousin, Willo Boe, who lovingly and eagerly began to help and contacted other family members. In fact, she was inspired to write three wonderful non-fiction books of her own with amazing photos about our family. (These have been invaluable help in my writing.) In the first, she wrote in the acknowledgments, “Without my cousin, Lorna Beall’s curiosity regarding our grandparents’ lives, none of us would have considered the project.”

Our family heritage is a beautiful patchwork quilt pieced with both soft and more durable rag pieces.