WAR BABY
I wrote War Baby for my children, grandchildren, and for anyone else curious about a time not to be forgotten. I wrote it to give them some sense of what it was like growing up in a particular place at a particular time, and how those events shaped me as a person. But, the past is a moving target. Someone with firsthand experience of an event who tells a second person about it no longer controls the narrative. That second person may, then, retell the story adding to it her own information based on reflection, opinion or hearsay. Even two people present at the very same event will often view it differently. So, how do you tease out the truth, which can mean different things to different people?” —Leah Napolin
NOTE: Leah’s original print version of War Baby was a series of brief narratives or descriptions arranged alone on a single page and accompanied, at times, with related drawings she created during this time period, family photos, or WWII propaganda posters. Quiddity space doesn’t really allow for the images to be presented in a large format, but if you wish to enlarge an image, click on it, and an enhanced image will appear on the screen. Also, the language/idiom in this text is what this young girl would hear and use 1935-1950.
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DOGGEREL
While sitting in the waiting room of the doctor who gives me weekly hay fever shots—no phone books to help pass the time—I’m idly thumbing through his outdated magazines when I find one from the VA featuring photographs of the beach on the coast of France after the World War II allied invasion, strewn with wrecked landing craft. This inspires me to write a Kipling-esque poem:
Ghost ships of Normandy,/ sea horses of hell,/ What terrible sights have your blind eyes seen,/ What tales can your dead tongues tell?
There were more lines and stanzas but I don’t remember them and any copies I might once have had are long since gone. Even though I’ve been rhyming since I learned to talk I don’t think of myself as a poet, really—what I do is not much more than doggerel— but I am proud of this grown-up effort. I even dream of sending it to a magazine in the hope they’ll print it.
Days later my freshman English teacher gives us an assignment to write an original poem. Filled with confidence I submit this one. I’m called into the teacher’s office. She is not smiling. Instead of praise what I hear is the most shocking of accusations: “You stole this!” she says with cold anger, and lectures me on the seriousness of what I’ve done. Her blistering critique is not of the poem itself but of my bad character and nerve in trying to pass it off as my own. Feeling cut off at the knees like the hapless frog, I mount a feeble protest but have no way of proving her wrong. The word plagiarism is bandied about and with it a black mark, an “F” grade, that goes into my school record. Even unearned, that “F” feels far more shameful than any other “f” word I happen to know.
This event, plus the requirement that you have to swim the length of the pool before they’ll allow you to graduate, leaves me despondent. Do I go into a closet to weep this time? Probably.
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W!cked Schoo!marms takes ownership of this outdated opprobrium and turns it into a lens that focuses on women who are current or former teachers, instructors, professors -- Women with extraordinary talents that they have employed to teach skills, art, ethics, science, math, history, problem solving. Creative, talented women who have also encouraged and nourished the development of curiosity, empathy, creativity, commitment. **********
Mare Samuella Cromer (1882-1964)
Mare Samuella Cromer (Seigler) was born on November 9, 1882, in rural Abbeville County, SC, the daughter of William Cromer and Ella Cox. Her doting father, who called her “Beaut,” instilled in her confidence and ambition beyond the norm for girls of that era. She attended college in North Carolina. In 1907 she moved to Aiken County, SC, to teach in a one-teacher school.
In late 1909, when Cromer heard a representative of the U.S. Department of Agriculture extol the virtues of the Boys’ Corn Clubs of America at a state teachers’ meeting, her hopes of doing something to broaden the vision and self-confidence of rural girls was propelled.
“I was born in the country, and I know something of its lonesomeness and sleepy-spiritedness. It is because I love the country and its people that I want to do something for the young girls–to help them keep the thinking up when school is over.”
By 1910, she had successfully organized a girls’ tomato club so that the girls would “not learn simply how to grow better and more perfect tomatoes, but how to grow better and more perfect women.” The Aiken County Girls’ Tomato Club, the first such group in the nation, attracted favorable attention from government and philanthropic groups.
Cromer-Seigler began recruiting members with the promise of a scholarship to Winthrop College for the girl whose one-tenth-acre garden was the most productive, taking on the task of raising the $140 cost of the scholarship as well. By 1910 she had forty-seven girls from several Aiken County schools enrolled. The Columbia office of the U.S. Farm Demonstration Service took note and awarded the project $5,000, which provided canning equipment and experienced operators to teach canning to the girls. A demonstration of the machinery took place in front of the Aiken County Court House. Each can was labeled “Put up by the Girls’ Tomato Club of Aiken County” and bore the autograph of the grower. During the first summer, in 1910, Katie Gunter put up 512 cans of tomatoes and netted $40 from her tenth of an acre, thus gaining the Winthrop scholarship, for which funds were still being raised. Thomas Hitchcock, a wealthy New Yorker and leader of Aiken’s winter colony, responded to Seigler’s plea and funded the scholarship. On August 16, 1910, Mare was made a special agent of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Married in 1912 to Cecil Seigler, the Superintendent of Aiken County Schools, Mare was soon raising children and furthering the growth of her projects which evolved into the 4-H Clubs.
By 1913 some twenty thousand girls in the southern states were participating. The General Education Board of New York City awarded the clubs $25,000 for equipment, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture took over the publicity and distribution of instructional literature. The federal Smith-Lever Act of 1914 consolidated all such efforts and funded them through land-grant colleges, including Clemson College.
The girls' tomato clubs also played a critical role in the broader context of social and educational reforms of the early 20th century. By engaging girls in meaningful, productive activities, these clubs challenged traditional gender roles and expectations. They provided a platform for young women to showcase their abilities and potential, contributing to a gradual shift in societal perceptions about women's capabilities and roles in both the family and the economy.
Mare Samuella Cromer was honored by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953 for her role as a founder of 4-H Clubs.
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Thank you to the following for their research, articles, and posts that piqued my curiosity and provided the foundation for this recognition of Mare Samuella Cromer (Seigler).
American Black History’s Post: https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1189159366545861&id=100063554268409&mibextid=WC7FNe&rdid=c9wh4rLF5TW1a9uM#
Martin, Oscar Baker. The Demonstration Work: Dr. Seaman A. Knapp’s Contribution to Civilization. 3d ed. San Antonio, Tex.: Naylor, 1941.
Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt: https://www.southerncultures.org/article/canning-tomatoes-growing-better-and-more-perfect-women-the-girls-tomato-club-movement/
James O. Farmer, Jr., https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/seigler-marie-samuella-cromer/Educator, girls’ club founder.
Bodie, Idella. South Carolina Women. Orangeburg, S.C.: Sandlapper, 1991.
I'm surprised that Leah didn't say anything to defend herself on that poem!!!
And I wonder who they thought wrote the poem? I don't like that they thought she plagiarized!