The interview after editing was 43 minutes long, so I decided to split it up into three different parts. The links from top to bottom are Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 respectively. The interview took the form of a conversation rather than purely question-answer.
IC Red Week
December 1st was World AIDS day and marked the beginning of IC Red Week, a week dedicated to promoting HIV/AIDS awareness and remembering those who lost their lives to the disease. Each day of the week was filled with several events including The Reading of the Names, AIDS quilt displays, a studio talk, local restaurant fundraisers, free HIV testing, a silent auction and dinner called The Red Affair, and a drag show. For more details and a full list of events that occurred, visit the group’s Facebook page.
We participated in a few of the events including The Reading of the Names, which occurred on December 1st. Readers from the community, including students and faculty, read the names of over 20,000 people who lost their lives to HIV/AIDS. We agreed that the experience was a unique and extremely well organized one. Because the list of names we read from was provided from the AIDS Memorial Quilt, we read full proper names, nicknames, as well as initials which served as a powerful reminder that these people’s lives were unnecessarily taken by a disease that could affect anyone and highlighted the stigma of the disease. The UI Digital Studio for Public Arts and Humanities posted pictures of the Reading and live tweeted the December 4th studio talk.
The events received lots of press coverage throughout the week.
Daily Iowan-IC Red Week promotes AIDS awareness
Daily Iowan-World famous quilt and AIDS memorial on display
Little Village-Benefit dinner, silent auction set for tonight at the IMU as part of IC Red Week
KCRG-TV9-University of Iowa Students read 20,000 names to remember AIDS victims
For more coverage on IC Red Week events that have occurred in past years:
(2012) Daily Iowan-“UI organizations shed light on HIV/AIDS epidemic”
(2008) UI Global Health Club website
Additionally, we interviewed two of the students involved with organizing IC Red Week, Jissele Verdinez and Mackenzie Leonard.
Student organizer, Jissele Verdinez wrote a guest opinion column for the Press Citizen-“World AIDS Day chance to connect local efforts to larger global efforts”.
Another column was written by Brianne Richson for the Daily Iowan-“Stigma, what AIDS and Ebola have in common”.
The Creation of the Historic Novel
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland on August 15, 1771, Walter Scott became the ninth child of his father Walter Scott and mother Anne Rutherford. Unfortunately, most of Scott’s childhood was spent traveling to and from different relatives in order to see different doctors and attend other hospitals. At eighteen months old, Scott contracted Polio or Poliomyelitis, a disease that can affect nerves and cause paralysis.
As the first fully authenticated case of child paralysis in medical history, Scott’s family took precautions by sending him to stay with other family members in order for him to receive proper medical attention. They hunted for help finding a cure to Scott’s lameness in his right leg. Although his health experienced little progression, speaking with family members such as his grandfather and aunt aided Scott in creating his future historical novels. His situation also gave him time to develop his love for literature and poetry.
Something I found interesting was the relation of Walter Scott to Alison Bechdel, the author of Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Scott used his poor health experience to his benefit by listening to his family’s stories to develop ideas for his future works. Bechdel used her tragic family history to discover lessons and make connections about her father’s death throughout her adolescence. In a way, both of the authors used their family histories to their own aid, creating something beautiful out of their less than ideal situations.
It’s safe to say that without Scott, American culture and literature would not operate the way they do today. As mentioned in our Walter Scott and America post, Mark Twain made an exasperated comment on the themes of class differentiation and chivalry in Scott’s novels. The southern part of the United States gained influence from these ideas, and people began to live their lives the way Scott’s characters lived in the novels. Twain claims Scott should take some fault in the cause of the American Civil War.
Scott’s writing also took a tole on American literature in several ways. Many professors, such as Anne Stapleton, use his novels as a part of their class work today. Other scholars study the ideas portrayed through his works such as race and class discrimination.
Scott’s major publications include Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, The Lady in the Lake, The Lord of the Isles, and Waverley. The Lay of the Last Minstrel, a long narrative poem about old manners and customs of the England and Scotland border, made him the most popular author of his time. Scott created six editions within three years, and sales reached 27,000 copies. In our interview with Professor Florence Boos, she mentions how Scott gave Scotland a presence in America, England, and Scotland itself. The way he spoke of the historical sites of Scotland such as the Melrose Abbey brought many tourists to the country. The poem reads, “If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright, Go visit it by the pale moon-light.”
Scott became one of the most prominent writers in Scotland and one of the most influential romance-style writers of the 19th century who created the genre of historical fiction.
Maddie Clough
Themed Dances
When looking for other Civil War projects, I stumbled across this video of a Civil War era dance. The Civil War Grand Ball is an organized Civil War era dance. They require era style clothing but you don’t need to know the dances before attending. There is a class to teach you the moves and etiquette of the time. Organized dances are held by many different groups and all will be unique experiences. Some dances are only for an evening while other last for several days.
Reenactments and Artifacts
This is a video diary that deals with Civil War reenactments and finding artifacts.
The first video attached is a person documenting their experience as a soldier in Civil War reenactments. He does several different videos all in his point of view. They’re pretty cool to watch and see what is involved in Civil War reenactments. The next video I found was people “hunting” for Civil War artifacts. The previous video gives you an idea of what hunting for artifacts is like. This video is one man’s collection of the artifacts he’s found over the years.
Civil War Commemoration Interviews
These are the audio recordings of my interviews with Allison Wells, a Graduate student at the University of Iowa, and undergraduates who wished to stay anonymous. To help with the diversity in interviews, we wanted to find people who knew about the Civil War and those who didn’t. The undergraduates’ majors are English/Creative Writing, Psychology with a Pre-Med track, and Linguistics.
The Story of the Victims Less Remembered
While researching the tragic event of the school shooting in 1991, a common trend jumped out at me. The majority of the articles and blogs that I read went into great detail about the shooter, Gang Lu, explaining his past thoroughly and his accomplishments at the University of Iowa. The articles that did focus on commemorating victims only went into detail about T. Anne Cleary, most likely because she has a walkway dedicated to her, and Miya Rodolfo-Sioson, who had a documentary made telling her story. These are important to commemorate, but what about the victims who don’t have a walkway dedicated to them or a documentary telling their story? It is important to remember them as people, and as more than just a statistic. Most of the information I could find was from a short dedication to the victims on the university of Iowa website, but I thought that it would be nice to commemorate their histories on our Life After page as well.
Linhua Shon was born in Jiaxing, People’s Republic of China. He received his B.S. degree in China and later transferred to the University of Iowa where he earned his Ph.D. He was the winner of the Spriestersbach award which recognizes excellence in doctoral research. Shan was a member of the theoretical space physics team at the University and wrote his dissertation on the structure of Saturn’s ring system. He was only 26 years old when he was killed.
Dwight R. Nicholson was born in Racine, Wisconsin. He became a faculty member at the University of Iowa in 1978 after earning his bachelor’s degree in physics at the University of Wisconsin and his doctorate in plasma physics at the University of California-Berkeley. While working at Iowa he also conducted research in plasma physics, was a member of the U.S. Department of Energy Transport Review Panel, and a member of the University’s Strategic Planning Committee for Interdisciplinary Programs. He was 44 years old when he was killed.
Robert Alan Smith, born in Boston Massachusetts, came to the University of Iowa in 1989 as an associate professor. Before coming to Iowa he received his B.S. degree in science engineering from the Northwestern and his doctorate in physics from the University of Maryland. He was also involved in postdoctoral research at Goddard Space Flight Center and was a visiting scientist in France and the Netherlands. He was 45 years old when he was killed.
Christoph K. Goertz was born in Danzig, Germany. He came to the University of Iowa in 1973 as a research associate and became a full professor in 1981. Before coming to Iowa he earned a bachelor’s degree from the Technische University in Berlin and his doctorate in South Africa. He was very involved in research, publishing over 150 scientific articles. Some of his research interests were the northern lights and the interaction between Jupiter and its moons.
All of the above names are commemorated on a wreath outside of Van Allen Hall every November. Until doing research for this assignment, I personally had never noticed the wre
ath or heard anything about it, and by asking around it seems as though a lot of other students here don’t know anything about it either. By telling just a small amount of information about the lives of these victims I hope to help more people remember the lives who were lost on the tragic day 23 years ago.
Maravetz, Steve. “Fyi – Article Title.” Fyi – Article Title. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2014.
Scott and Hollywood
Sir Walter Scott had a profound effect on English Literature. For his Waverley novels he was credited as the inventor of the historical fiction. The representations of Robin Hood as a witty Anglo-Saxon fighting Norman lords was first presented in the novel Ivanhoe by Walter Scott. In the 19th century America fell in love with Walter Scott’s romanticism in novels and then in the 20th century the masses flocked to see Walter Scott’s work on the big screen multiple times. As presented in this article between 1909 and 1914, fourteen movies from Sir Walter Scott novels were made. As the years progressed many of Scott’s novels were turned into movies. The Heart of Midlothian was made twice in 1914. In 1952 Walter Scott’s novel Ivanhoe was adapted to a film which starred Robert Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Fontaine. The film itself was nominated for 3 Oscars and 2 golden globes. In the movie of Ivanhoe, Ivanhoe and Robin Hood team up to free King Richard and put him back on the throne from Prince John, King Richard’s treacherous brother who has taken over the Kingdom. Robert Taylor went onto star in two more movies from Sir Walter Scott’s work. He stared in Knights of the Round Table (1953) which was nominated for 2 Oscars and also The Adventures of Quentin Durward (1955). Most recently Rob Roy one of Sir Walter Scott’s novels was turned into a movie and starred none other than the man who trained Batman, Obi Wan, Darth Vader and who has a particular set of skills, Liam Neeson. Rob Roy was nominated for both an Oscar and a Golden Globe. Rob Roy is a story of a Scottish Highlander who borrows money from a local lord to invest in his village. When the money is stolen all hell breaks loose in an epic battle between the highlanders and lowlanders.Not only did Sir Walter Scott fill bookshelves across America, he also filled movie theaters . Sir Walter Scott had a privilege to be a bestselling author and have his novels turned into movies even after hundreds of years after his death which speaks volumes of his legacy in America.
Anas Ahmed
DIY Translation Project
The University of Iowa’s DIY Translation Project is a project that is separated into eight different categories with one dedicated to Civil War diaries and letters. I had written this in an earlier blog post, but wanted to go over it again. It’s a great resource at the University of Iowa created by the library and Special Collections Department. Special Collections also has a facebook and tumblr account if you want to learn more about the department.
Interview with Author Timothy Parrott
DO YOU KNOW HOW THE SUPERSTITIONS STARTED? WAS THERE A PARTICULAR STORY THAT STARTED IT ALL?
As far as I know, the first published legend about the Black Angel appeared in the Nov. 5, 1922, issue of The Daily Iowan:
“One story related concerns an Italian soldier who requested in his will that an angel be sculpted in Italy of Italian marble and erected above his grave. Accordingly, a famous sculptor was secured to do the work. All went well, the story says, until the statue, after being placed on board ship, came in contact with the sea air. Almost immediately, we are told, a chemical change took place and the white marble turned black.”
Note that these early legends began circulating before Theresa Dolezal Feldwert (the woman buried beneath it) was even dead. Of course, this story bears no resemblance to historical fact. There is no Italian soldier buried beneath the Black Angel, the statue was not created in Italy, and it is not made of marble. I actually heard this same story as a child in the 1960s, but in that version, the “marble” angel fell into the sea on its way to the U.S. (No one seemed to notice the inscription on the back of the bronze statue, which indicates that it was actually cast by the Florentine Brotherhood Foundry in Chicago, Illinois!)
In my opinion, the dark legends were the direct result of Mrs. Feldwert’s occupation. She completed her training as a midwife at the Univ. of Vienna in 1869, after which she delivered nearly 100 infants in her native village of Strmilov, Bohemia. After settling in Iowa City in late 1877 or early 1878, Mrs. Feldwert continued her work as a midwife. To quote from the Epilogue of my book:
“Sinister tales about the Black Angel began to circulate even prior to Theresa Dolezal Feldwert’s death in 1924, and it is quite possible that her chosen profession may have contributed to the emergence of such stories. Midwives of the Victorian era enjoyed an oddly dichotomous reputation as bringers of life and purveyors of death. They were routinely eyed with suspicion, especially by members of the medical community, who portrayed them as ‘dangerous abortion quacks.’ … Even in a town the size of Iowa City, the stigma attached to this profession would have been clearly felt by Theresa Dolezal. Is it mere coincidence that so many of the nefarious legends of the Black Angel involve a dead infant? Not in the view of this author. The Black Angel has also been linked with witchcraft and Satanism on several occasions during its 100 years of existence. Once again, this can–at least in part–be attributed to Mrs. Feldwert’s choice of occupation. There is a longstanding historical association between midwifery and witchcraft, which would not have escaped the minds of early Iowa City residents.”
HOW MANY DIFFERENT SUPERSTITIONS HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THE BLACK ANGEL?
In addition to the aforementioned story from 1922, involving an Italian soldier, I’ve heard many other (equally fantastic) stories. For example, some claim that the statue turned black due to Mrs. Feldwert’s marital infidelity (although she was already a widow at the time she commissioned the statue!). Others claim it turned black because Mrs. Feldwert had actually murdered her infant son (even though her son died of natural causes at the age of 17…hardly an infant!). It’s been said that the statue turned black when it was struck by lightning, or perhaps due to “the sins of one of the errant daughters in the family.” (Note: Mrs. Feldwert had no daughters!) Perhaps the most outlandish story involves a preacher who murdered his son. He is said to have placed the white angel over his son’s grave, but the angel immediately turned black due to the “foulness of the misdeed.” In addition to all these fanciful tales about the causes of the statue’s dark color, there are also many superstitions about the horrific results of touching the statue, kissing the statue, etc. Generally, one dies within a prescribed span of time following such an action. (Of course, if one really died from touching the Black Angel, I would have died some 50 years ago!)
HAVE YOU EVER PARTAKEN IN ANY BLACK ANGEL SUPERSTITIONS?
Short answer: No. I’ve never seen the Black Angel as anything more than a very large grave marker (of questionable artistic merit).
WHAT WERE SOME OF THE WAYS IN WHICH YOU GATHERED INFORMATION ABOUT THE MEMORIAL FOR YOUR BOOK? BESIDES THE INTERNET, DID YOU MEET WITH PEOPLE CONNECTED TO ITS CONSTRUCTION? IF SO, WHAT CONNECTION DID THEY HAVE?
My research actually started by going (page by page) through the Slovan Americký, a Czech-language newspaper published here in Iowa City from 1873-1891, and later published in Cedar Rapids. I also went through back issues of other Iowa City newspapers, beginning with the installation of the statue in 1913. In addition, I contacted several archives in the Czech Republic, the archives of the Univ. of Vienna in Austria, the mayor of the town of Strmilov, Czech Republic (who provided a photo of Mrs. Feldwert, as well as some of her poetry), as well as the director of the nursery school in Strmilov, who is a distant relative of Mrs. Feldwert and works at the nursery school, which was built and funded by Mrs. Feldwert around 1914 as a poorhouse for the elderly of her native village. Of course, I also interviewed local residents (primarily my uncle, who worked at the cemetery with my grandfather for many years, and who was acquainted with the cemetery superintendent who oversaw the erection of the Black Angel in Oakland Cemetery in 1913).
BEING THE GRANDSON OF A CEMETERY SUPERINTENDENT CLEARLY HAD AN IMPACT ON YOU. DO YOU EVER LOOK FOR STORIES TO TELL ABOUT THE LIVING? WHAT FASCINATION DRIVES YOU TO WRITE ABOUT THE DECEASED AND THEIR MYSTERIES?
Yes, I’m sure I have a much different perception of Oakland Cemetery than most. In fact, that is also the case with younger generations of my family. (I have a great-nephew, who–as a 5-year-old–begged me to take him to play in the “park with all the signs.” 🙂 ) Since my grandfather was superintendent of the cemetery as far back as I can remember, I grew up hearing fascinating stories about various individuals buried there. As a young adult, I remember reading Iowa City historian Irving Weber‘s weekly columns, but was always mystified by the fact that he never included any of the stories I had always found so interesting and–in fact–didn’t mention any of the people I wanted to read more about. In 2006, I finally decided to rectify that situation and began publishing small booklets concerning interesting/colorful individuals buried in Oakland Cemetery, e.g. Theresa Dolezal Feldwert (of Black Angel fame), Harriet Z. Deuell (perhaps the first victim of physician-assisted suicide in the U.S.), Wesley Monroe Sauer (Iowa City’s “mad poet” of the 1930s), and even my own grandfather, Charles F. “Polly” Parrott, who played many roles before becoming superintendent of the cemetery (i.e. teenage runaway, grocery store clerk, army deserter, bricklayer, gardener, carnival “barker,” liveryman, steeplejack, member of Egans Rats in St. Louis and later the Capone Syndicate in Chicago, bootlegger, cattle rustler, rodeo cook, laundry foreman, communist, truck driver, night watchman, etc.)
NSM
Life After 