That being said, I love small-town living

We ran to the mall and strolled through two stores.  I believe that was all that was available, but it was all we wanted to take time for too – the milk was in the trunk!  One thing that struck me was how much styles haven’t changed since I was a little girl.  I said a dozen times, ‘I had this same dress when I was little.’  The styles were the same – even the colors.  One shop [the nicer of the two] had racks upon racks of red, white, and blue clothes.  Even as a 7 year old in 1976, I wasn’t loving that…  This is me in 1972 [I'm in the blue dress] with my parents and younger sister.

It gave me hope though. I mean the styles running around in my head are the ones I’m seeing on the racks – and clearly they don’t change that much or that fast that I’ll lose the window before I complete the project.  I’m on track!!

Look for more soon.

]]> http://batsmeow.com/blog/index.php/2010/04/we-went-to-the-mall/feed/ 5 http://batsmeow.com/blog/index.php/2010/04/sitting-at-the-feet-of-genius-2/ http://batsmeow.com/blog/index.php/2010/04/sitting-at-the-feet-of-genius-2/#comments Sun, 18 Apr 2010 16:35:58 +0000 Bats! meow... http://batsmeow.com/blog/?p=182 The other night, Neil Gaiman spoke at the McFadden Memorial Lecture at North Central High School in Indianapolis. He was charming and entertaining. More than that, he was inspiring.  He read stories he’d written [one only a few weeks ago that I MUST own if it's ever in print] and shared bits of his life with his father and his daughter.

We sat at almost the back of the auditorium, but on the aisle closest to where the podium was set up, so we got some amazing photos. I was surprised that although an animated speaker, the photos just don’t show it – and I took A LOT of them.

I did learn, even though I’ve heard the same advice a thousand times, that the best way to write is just to write. To get it down on paper and to edit it later. Honestly, I know that about writing, but something about the way he said it, made it relevant to the other areas of my life – design and parenting and being Sheila, among other things.  So I left with a new motivation to sew.  Yeah!

At one point, I had the distinct feeling that I was watching Peter Pan, after he learned those incredible storytelling techniques from Wendy.  Fascinated by the shadow he cast, I snapped this photo.

I think it’s my favorite

The Statues — Their Story

Children’s graves are the saddest in any cemetery, but especially on twilight days like these when cold keeps visitors away.

Maybe it is their small size, tombstones only half grown, or the small spans of their dates, speaking of life unlived.

Most often they are smaller and more simple than the markers around them, small and simple like those they remember.

But more than 100 years ago, when George Hilligoss’ only two children died within six years of each other, small and simple was not enough. He required a monument as elaborate as his grief.

That monument still stands today looking out of West Maplewood Cemetery in Anderson toward the traffic of Grand Avenue, two statues of white Italian marble on a shared pedestal. Life-sized replicas of Hilligoss’ children.

Charlie Ingersoll Hilligoss is portrayed as the 16-year-old he was when he died. He stands with his elbow leaning against a stone pillar and wears a suit, coat buttoned as if against the cold. He holds his hat in his hand.

His sister, 6-year-old Gertrude Pauline Hilligoss is seated close enough for him to touch with a book and a bundle of stone roses in her lap.  Water drips from the edge of her stone skirt.

The passage of 100 [years] has antiquated their clothing.  A hundred winters of snow and rain has worn the carving of their names and the message underneath: “We know that life is all the sweeter that they lived. And death is all the brighter that they died.”

But 100 [years] has yet to dull that universal pang, that grief for lost children. Maybe it is that, besides their lovely white faces among the anonymous tombstones and obelisks, that interests passersby.

Maybe that is why, though they are not known to have any living relatives, brightly colored bouquets of flowers appear in heir hands with each change of the seasons.

The late RE Hensley, once president of the Madison County Historical Society, was one person who found his curiosity piqued by the melancholy likenesses of the two children.

In 1975, while cataloging the names on the cemetery tombstones, he took it upon himself to find out who they were. What he uncovered fit on one side of a typed sheet of paper.

George Hilligoss, Charlie and Gertrude’s father, was a doctor who practiced in the Madison County are for 30 years, for some time owning an office on Anderson’s Main Street. An Indiana native, he was one of the county’s original settlers and a veteran of the Civil War before becoming a prominent Anderson resident.

He and his Prussia-born wife Caroline had a son, Charlie, in 1871, and a daughter, Gertrude, in 1875. An article published much later in an 1892 edition of the Anderson Democrat, detailing the arrival of the children’s monuments from Italy, call the two the pride of their parents. “The children were exceptionally precocious and possessed mental strength that was far beyond their years,” it said.

Gertrude died first in 1881, then Charlie in 1887. Their causes of death are unknown.

“I think the children had died of some kind of disease,” says Donna Nicely, a secretary at the Maplewood Cemetery office, but no one knows for sure. Cemetery records which would have held that information were lost in a fire more than 50 years ago.

Whatever the causes of their deathes, it can be assumed they were blows to the two parents, suddenly childless.  In his short account, Hensley writes, “It has been said that the deaths of Charles and Gertrude weighed very heavily on both Dr. and Mrs. Hilligoss and that she could never reconcile herself to the fact that they were dead.”

Hensley goes on to say that George Hilligoss was the first president of Camp Chesterfield, the spiritualist camp founded in 1886, a year that falls between the deaths of Gertrude and Charlie.

Whether or not the loss of his children stirred his interest in a spirit world can only be guessed. Probably no one know sif a bereaved George and Caroline tried to reach their children beyond the grave.

What is known is that they were desperate to have their children remembered on earth. The Anderson Democrat article says that the couple conceived the idea of having the statues made shortly after the deaths. They found a sculptor in Florence, Italy, and sent him two life-size photographs of Charlie and Gertrude to work from.

It took three or four years for the work to be completed. For several months, the Italian sculptor refused to finish the statues, in protest of a highly publicized incident in New Orleans in which some Italians were lynched.  But friends intervened and he did eventually ship the completed works, in 1892, to Indianapolis.

More than a century later, local history buffs have not been the only ones to be curious about the cemetery monuments.  “Every once in a while we get calls on the Hilligoss children,” says Phyllis Leedon, a librarian at the public library in Anderson. “As far as I know, there’s no family.”

Nicely says the cemetery office also receives calls periodically from people curious about the identities of the two children. She has felt a twinge of it herself, driving by them everyday on her way to work.

“Oh, I think they’re beautiful,” she says. “For many years, they’ve had some kind of significance.”

Especially to children, it seems. Nicely has heard the spook stories some tell about the two statues changing positions. Sometimes, it is said, Charlie’s hand rests on Gertrude’s shoulder, sometimes at his side.

There is something strange about their ghostly forms, luminous in the long shadows of ware winter trees, and something sad about the melting snow lying on Gertrude’s lap, on Charlie’s shoulders. Only the latest in a century of snows.

“But fate had ordained that they should live only in memory,” the newspaper article says. The statues demand at least that much, causing strangers to pause and pity, to wonder about the two lost children just as their father must have after they were gone.

Perhaps it would please him, even though, he is gone now too, buried next to them.

–Steffen, Colleen. “The Statues — Their Story.” Anderson Herald Bulletin 31 Dec. 1996: A1+. Print.

The Indiana Memory Collection website states, “An iron fence once surrounded them, but it was taken during WWII for scrap metal.”

Don’t we all hope to be loved so much?  And if we do love someone else so much, shouldn’t we tell them?

Now, back to my regularly scheduled research.

~sheila

]]> http://batsmeow.com/blog/index.php/2010/04/as-elaborate-as-his-grief/feed/ 3 http://batsmeow.com/blog/index.php/2010/04/behold-my-soapbox/ http://batsmeow.com/blog/index.php/2010/04/behold-my-soapbox/#comments Sat, 10 Apr 2010 01:59:41 +0000 Bats! meow... http://batsmeow.com/blog/?p=169 Every so often, people bug me.  Really really bug me.

Earlier this week, my family was contacted to appear in a commercial for the Indianapolis affiliate of  FOX Broadcasting.  We were happy to accept as Fox 59 runs our favorite morning news show and time in front of the camera is good publicity for Bats! meow…, even if the link isn’t always immediately clear.

I commented to them that our family is goth and has been promoting a business and that we’ve got a story coming up in the local paper because of our style.  At this point, I asked him what were the rules for clothing while working with a green screen and, keeping our look in mind, did he want ‘dressed to the nines’ or ‘everyday’ wear.  I had anticipated a ‘to the nines’ request because it would show diversity and we’d be more recognizable.  At the same time, I could understand if he wanted a more everyday look because you don’t honestly see a lot of people in Indy who look like us.

His response shocked and annoyed me:

No greens or near-greens (we will be shooting against the greenscreen).

I’d say steer clear of the Goth look.  We’re going for middle-of-the-road appeal.  If this is a problem, let me know.

Thanks!

-A

Steer clear? Really??

I responded:

Thanks for the offer to have us in the commercial, but we’ll have to withdraw.  We ARE a goth family and don’t wish to represent ourselves as “characters” for the commercial. I know we told you we’ll be appearing in the Anderson paper and were contacted for that because of our goth lifestyle and to promote the goth clothing company we own.  Showing up looking ‘middle of the road’ would likely discredit us.

If we had been cast as actors in the commercial, fine. But they wanted real viewers to say the real things they like about the station.  We love them; we were ready. But this really turned me off.  The suggestion that all of their viewers look ‘normal’ or that anything off the beaten path won’t have the impact that they’re looking for confused me.

I’m really disappointed.

~sheila

Circumstances in my life indicate I’ll be spending a lot of time in the near future explaining exactly what it does and does not mean to be goth.  I want to know what folks are saying

For now, enjoy the rainbows   We ran into these on the drive to the grocery after the Egg Hunt on Saturday.  Luckily Eric was driving and I could aim the camera out  the window!

~ sheila

Good news is that the website update is progressing nicely and may just more into a more indepth change.  We’ll see.  Orders are picking up  – even before the big splash in the press AND before the new version of the site is live.  I have a stack of boxes to go to the post office tomorrow as well as some sewing and crocheting to complete.  Yeah!  I have some book orders and tarot readings to take care of as well.

Life is good.

Also good, yet totally unrelated, Donovan McNabb was traded to the Redskins.  Uncle Buster and Daddy are cheering right along with me

~ sheila

We’d never worked with brown eggs before, so we were unsure what dropping them in dye would do. To be safe, we added the suggested 2T of vinegar to keep the colors vibrant.  And let them soak extra long.

It worked

Now, we want to eat them, but the rules clearly state, we cannot until Easter.

Tonight, Eric and I are heading down to Indianapolis to do a little PR, but we’re staying home long enough to watch the season premiere of Wife Swap.  Maybe I can get a nap first.

~ sheila

So, as she sat on my lap last night crying and trying to curl up into as tiny a ball as possible, I asked what would make her happiest.  The kids are on spring break through the weekend, so today could be used to spoil them just a bit.  Her request was simple enough – a picnic at the cemetery and a trip to the park.  Yes, the cemetery.  It’s quiet with big trees for shade and no noise or fear of someones child stepping on your food. Truth be told, mama needed a little pick me up too

When I got up, I feared I heard rain.  But no, they promised a bright and sunny day – with record-breaking temps.  I’m no big fan of the high temperature, but a promise is a promise.  So, right after breakfast we started packing.  “Peanut butter &” sandwiches: two requests for plain PB, two for PB&J, and one for PB & Miracle Whip.  We packed blankets, “fancy” cups, plates, and then headed to the store for the extras – oatmeal date cookies, strawberries, whipped cream, and a couple kinds of chips – oh! and flowers. Then straight to Maplewood West and our favorite picnic spot under the big tree and a bit away from the headstones.  Of course, we’re still surrounded by them, but we’re not ‘on’ anyone.

Ravynn and Whisper perked right up after we got settled.  It was so good to see Whisper smile   The fact that she got to pick her own chips and strawberries was a key factor, I’m sure.

The boys had a good time too.  Doritos with Cool Whip [eww!] and good sandwiches kept them happy and in a chatty mood.  It’s nice when the teen-aged sons still like to hang out with the family.

Ravynn and I shared a special moment toasting “weirdos and freaks.”  We caught the first one on camera, but there were many many similar moments – trust me

We all enjoyed the fresh strawberries, although some of us [ahem... Jordan] made a much bigger mess than the rest.

And the picnic ended with delivering flowers to a very special girl.

After that we ran over to Shadyside Park where I sat and read Practical Magic while the kids played. Together.

It was a lovely day and a nice part of our spring break.

~ sheila

]]> http://batsmeow.com/blog/index.php/2010/04/nice-day-for-a-picnic/feed/ 6 http://batsmeow.com/blog/index.php/2010/03/babies-the-movie-trailer/ http://batsmeow.com/blog/index.php/2010/03/babies-the-movie-trailer/#comments Fri, 26 Mar 2010 22:37:03 +0000 Bats! meow... http://batsmeow.com/blog/?p=150 I cannot tell you how excited I am for this movie.

Watch the trailer; it will touch your heart.  I’ll certainly post about it again with more information.

I find a ton of really cool offers and information at BzzAgent; I’m registered there as ‘monstermommy’.

~sheila

In Beverly Lane, Eric plays a redneck zombie killer who shows up to help a small office full of people deal with the Zombie Apocalypse.

Goofing off between scenes.

Alek and I were labeled as Featured Zombies and spent an extra few days on the set causing mayhem. Oh, and goofing off between scenes.

We’re coming to get your braiiiiiiiiiiiiiins!

The movie was also covered in the local paper this morning. The article “Zombies Take Over Local Scrap Yard,” features photos of Eric and of Ravynn and Whisper.  Sadly, I can’t figure out how to copy them out from the website [because they want us to buy them]…

Now that filming is done, I’m back to website re-creation.  Writing product description copy makes my head hurt.  More on that later

~sheila