The article claims the growing trend of women in agriculture is a movement that could save the future of farming and tackle food insecurity issues throughout the world:

In a feminine approach to farming—and you don’t necessarily have to be a female to do it—Costa says growers favor relationships, community, and thinking long-term about how decisions will impact future generations. It’s about nurturing, she says, not domination, and working with your community.

It’s a quick read and a great article. I would highly recommend taking a few minutes to read it, especially if you have an interest in local economies, sustainable living, and organic produce.

Provided within the article is information on how we can all support small scale community farming in our region and beyond. Among the list is localharvest.org, a great link that can help you find local produce and meats in your area.

But there was one link that was new to me: Farmlink.org

Here is how they describe themselves: “a social and economic networking tool to help communities and farmers build local food connections.” Based in Florida, it’s kind of like facebook for farmers.  The site serves to connect people selling farm land with those wish to buy. It also provides support to those new to farming, including assistance in connecting with current small scale farmers who can provide real-world information and support. There is also information for restaurants who wish to work with and support local farmers as well as detailed information and how the average consumer can help support local farms. For those who sign up and become members of farmlink.org there is a section to post job listings related to small scale farming as well as want and for-sale ads.

There is not a whole lot of information on the webpage as of yet, but it’s an interesting and useful concept. In thinking about how we can support local economies and a land-based ethic (sustainable food production and the like), a site like farmlink.org has many possibilities for encouraging and supporting small scale farming and local economies.

What do you think?

I grew up watching my family participate in Decoration Days. When my father was young, decoration days served as  a home coming of sorts. There was dinner on the ground, sometimes even a sermon, and a great  deal of visiting. By the time I was a child dinner on the ground had largely disappeared in the  Yell County area, but the visiting still went on, especially at the Harkey’s Valley cemetery in Yell  County.

My mother was the tradition bearer (a phrase we folklorists use for someone who keeps a tradition or craft alive) of decoration days in our family. She  purchased the flowers, knew which graves to decorate (some were unmarked), and kept up with  which weekend we were supposed to decorate which cemetery. My mother passed away in  2008, and last year when decoration day came around I, along with the help of my father, found myself taking on the role of the  tradition bearer, decorating the graves she tended to while also decorating her own. Although I had always been interested in the tradition, it took on a new meaning to me as I decorated my own mother’s grave. I also realized that not too many people in their thirties or younger are carrying on this tradition.

Therefore I decided to start documenting the tradition in our area. I’ll be doing the same thing this year, and I hope to interview more folks who participate in this tradition. I don’t have any specific plans for this research as of yet. My goal at the present time is just to document as much as I can.

Below are a few photos from last year.

If you or someone you know takes part in this tradition or has memories of taking part in this tradition I would love to hear from you! Email me at Meredithmartin_moats at yahoo dot com or leave a comment below.

Brearley Cemetery, Dardanelle, Arkansas

This cemetery is quite old, and one of the fascinating things about decoration day is the visual difference between the newer and older portions of the cemetery. The newer section of the cemetery is so vibrant and colorful after decoration. Here is the newer portion of the cemetery two days after decoration day last year.

Brearley Cemetery, Dardanelle, Arkansas May 11, 2009

And here is a photo from the older portion.

Brearley Cemetery Dardanelle, Arkansas May 11, 2009

Chickalah Methodist Cemetery, Chickalah, Arkansas

Unlike Brearley Cemetery, this cemetery is quite small and very few people still decorate graves. My father has a few relatives buried here.

Broken headstone at Chickalah Methodist Cemetery

Harris Cemetery, Cotton Town, Yell County Arkansas

Cotton town is one of many now defunct communities in the Cardon Bottoms area, which was once a thriving cotton picking community. Very few people still decorate. My mother’s family lived in this area before moving to Dardanelle in the 1940s. I visited the cemetery last year with my cousins.

Headstone for my great grandparents, Rostus and Ivy McElroy. Most people knew her as Mama Mac.

Gravestone for my mother's stillborn sister. My mother and her brother had this stone made years after the baby's death.

My mother’s sister is one of many infant graves located in the cemetery. The area was swampy and filled with illness during the cotton picking years. Many children did not survive. Here is another headstone to mark infant deaths. This family is not related to me, but if you know something about them I would be very interested to learn more.

Milligan Children

Harkey’s Valley Cemetery, Harkey’s Valley, Arkansas

Although this cemetery is quite old, people still make yearly trips from as far as California to decorate graves. These photos were taken last year at decoration day, May 17, 2010. This is the only cemetery my family visits where people still congregate before and after decorating the graves. When I was a young girl there was a large crowd. Now there are only about fifteen people who come.

My father speaking with fellow grave decorators.

These women came from California to decorate their relatives' graves. Photo by Bryan Moats.

Decorating the graves.

View from the road. Photo by Bryan Moats.

A very pregnant me recording people talking about decoration days and growing up in Harkey's Valley. Photo by Bryan Moats.

Graves after decoration.

Once again, if you participate in decoration day, know someone who does, or know any related information you would be willing to share, please contact me.  As of right now I do not have any specific plans for this research other than to record the tradition while it is still alive. I am very interested in hearing from anyone who participates in any decoration day.

Thanks for reading.

I also plan on giving the updated information on the McElroy House very soon, which I am happy to say was unanimously approved by the City Planning Commission. More details on that to come!!

I am a bit behind on just about everything because just two days after I presented before the City Planning Commission and the plans for the McElroy House were approved, my husband and I had twin boys!! They were born a tiny bit early, but are healthy and happy and are sitting in their bouncy seats on the kitchen table as I write this post.

Needless to say, I have been a bit busy!

I am currently a full time mom, and plan on staying that way for quite a while…BUT that does not mean I am giving up plans for the McElroy House or that I am exiting the world of oral history and folklore. It just means I will be moving at a much slower pace for now.

More details on the plans for the Center and more are on the way, but before I go I want to mention the Center’s first donation. A good friend and distant relative named Floy came by our house the other day with something she thought I would enjoy. Inside the large trash bag was a Friendship Quilt made in the 1930s in an area of Yell County, Arkansas known as River Side. The community no longer exists today, but was once part of the cotton farming communities which is often collectively called Cardon Bottoms. Floy, and many of my mother’s relatives grew up in that area. The quilt was part of a fundraising event for the local schools, and when she was a young girl she was the one who drew the name of the winner of the quilt. She just so happened to draw the name of her teacher.

Years later after the teacher had died she ran into his wife and asked if they still had that quilt. His wife found it in storage, still in great shape, and passed it on to Floy. Floy kept it in storage for years. Recently she came across it, and decided to give it me. The quilt contains over twenty squares with names of women whose relatives still live in the area. Among the names are my two great grandmothers (women I never had the chance to meet), my great aunt, and my own maternal grandmother, Golda McElroy, who owned the McElroy House. I can think of no better place to hang it then in the living room of the Center.

We are far, far away from having the Center up and running. We need grant funding, lots of elbow grease, extra hours in the day to write the grants, and so much more.

But you have to start somewhere. So that’s what we are doing.

SO—

I am beginning some research on the folkways of Mother’s Day and Decoration Day here in Yell County. I am going to possibly put together a radio piece about traditions in this area. I hope the research will continue past the radio project as a part of my general research here in Yell County. In general terms, I am curious who celebrates these holidays, how they celebrate them, and why.

Do you or anyone in your family celebrate Decoration Day? You may not do it yourself but perhaps know that your grandmas do. Or maybe you have some far off memory of Decoration Days past. Basically it’s when members of the community go and decorate all the family graves within cemetery. Each cemetery has a different Decoration Day and many families attend different Decoration Days throughout the month of May. Back when I was a kid many people used to spend the whole afternoon at the cemetery visiting with one another after decorating the graves. A few cemeteries still do that.

Meshed in with this tradition of decorating the graves is the wearing of corsages on Mother’s Day.Do you or anyone you know take part in the tradition of wearing corsages on Mother’s Day?

If you participate in any of these folkways or know someone in your family who does (regardless of where you live, but especially if you live in the Yell County area), I would really, really love to hear more about it.

Email me at meredithmartin underscore moats at yahoo.

In the closing essay to Cultural Conservation: A New Discourse on Heritage, Green notes that in much of academe the “term advocate has become a slur, implying departure from value-free norms.” But he questioned the moral nature of this assumption, suggesting such implications purposefully turn a blind eye to the daily life of the people who are creating the folklore we folklorists aim to collect: “Cultural conservationists cannot escape political action, whether testifying on local zoning laws or articulating outrage at the sight of oil-drenched otters in the Prince William Sound or oil-drenched cormorants in the Persian Gulf (249).” Rather than try and ignore the social and political implications of his work, Green jumped right in, taking a stance alongside the people with whom he worked.

This past week many people have written about Green’s life and work much more eloquently than I ever could. I have included a few links to recent articles below.

*NPR published a great, albeit short, piece about folklorist and activist Archie Green.
To listen go here.

*Mother Jones Magazine also published a piece with eulogy here.

An excellent post at the Daily Yonder blog. Read it here.

* Another great tribute published by Politico can be found here.

*You can find the New York Times obit here.

*And even CMT published a piece on their webpage here.

Do you know of more links? Please let me know and I will post them!

And a question for you:
How has Archie Green’s work had an impact on your life?

I just finished reading Horton’s autobiography The Long Haul. I’ve been reading it on and off now for probably seven months. It’s so full of great stuff that it will probably take me the rest of my life to really digest it all. I have countless notes in the margins and the first few blank pages are covered in scribbled ruminations. It’s one of those kinds of books. So, as I say, I will probably be coming back tot his work over and over.

But for now I wanted to share Horton’s definition of “participatory research” found near the end of the book. We public folklorists, as a group, don’t tend actively embrace this concept. But I think our work would be better served if we did. Sure we might have to give up our “expert” title, but one could argue we never had it anyway. Or at least we didn’t have it to claim only for ourselves. After all, what good are our skills if we can’t pass on these skills to others? Instead of experts we would see ourselves as partners in research, possibly in a facilitator-type role, standing alongside and helping the communities of which we are also a part. In this way we would recognize we are all always learners, especially when it comes to cultural studies. This is not to say that some public folklorists are not already doing this kind of research in their varied forms of work. But as profession we don’t hold participatory research as the standard. Perhaps we should.

Here is what Horton had to say in 1998 when The Long Haul: An Autobiography was published:

“Participatory Research is defined by different people in different ways, but there are some universal characteristics. It is an in investigation and an analysis of a problem by a group of people whose lives are directly affected by that problem. Ideally, their investigation will lead to action. Participatory research differs from the more conventional kind done by experts, usually identified with universities, in that it doesn’t take decision making away from the people. Instead of becoming dependent on experts, the people become experts themselves.”

See original statement post on the Human Rights Watch webpage here.
Or visit Human Rights Watch.org

Israel: Allow Media and Rights Monitors Access to Gaza
(Jerusalem, January 5, 2009) – Israel should immediately allow journalists and human rights monitors access to Gaza, Human Rights Watch said today. Their presence can discourage abuse by warring parties and help save lives.

Human Rights Watch urged the Israeli government to abide by an Israeli high court ruling on December 31, 2008 and allow foreign media into Gaza. The presence of journalists and human rights monitors in conflict areas provides an essential check on human rights abuses and laws-of-war violations, Human Rights Watch said.

Since early November 2008, when the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began to deteriorate, the Israeli government has sharply restricted access to Gaza for foreign journalists and human rights monitors, and none has been permitted entry since the current military campaign began on December 27. Israeli journalists have been denied access to Gaza for the past two years because of an Israeli government policy prohibiting Israeli citizens from entering Gaza on security grounds.

“Journalists and rights monitors should be allowed into Gaza to investigate and report on the conduct of both sides,” said Fred Abrahams, senior emergencies researcher for Human Rights Watch. “Israel’s excessive restrictions on access to Gaza only end up impeding this deterrent effect and placing civilians at greater risk.”

According to the United Nations, Israeli attacks had killed more than 430 Palestinians in Gaza, about one-quarter of them civilians, prior to the onset of Israeli ground operations on January 3. Palestinian rockets launched into Israel have killed three Israeli civilians in this period.

The Israeli High Court ruled on December 31, 2008, that the Israeli government should allow 12 foreign journalists into Gaza. The government said it will allow eight journalists into Gaza every time it opens the border at the Erez crossing, but so far the crossing has remained closed to entry. The decision by the High Court came in response to a petition by the Israeli Foreign Press Association, which represents more than 400 members from the world’s leading international print and electronic media. The association called the ban “an unprecedented restriction of press freedom” on Israel’s part.

On November 21, 22 executives from the world’s major news organizations, including the Associated Press, BBC, CNN, and Reuters, sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, complaining about the “prolonged and unprecedented denial of access to the Gaza Strip for the international media.”

The restrictions create a very different reporting atmosphere than that during Israel’s last major war, the conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon in July-August 2006. At that time, the media and human rights organizations were able to report on the conflict from both sides.

International human rights law, applicable during armed conflict, upholds the right to freedom of expression of journalists and human rights monitors. States may restrict freedom of expression to protect national security, but only as permitted by law and as necessary for genuine and specific security reasons. This principle is elucidated in the 1995 Johannesburg Principles on National Security, Freedom of Expression and Access to Information:

“Any restriction on the free flow of information may not be of such a nature as to thwart the purposes of human rights and humanitarian law. In particular, governments may not prevent journalists or representatives of intergovernmental or non-governmental organizations, which monitor adherence to human rights or humanitarian standards, from entering areas where there are reasonable grounds to believe that violations of human rights or humanitarian law are being, or have been, committed. Governments may not exclude journalists or representatives of such organizations from areas that are experiencing violence or armed conflict except where their presence would pose a clear risk to the safety of others.”

“The presence of journalists and human rights researchers is not just about the right to information,” Abrahams said. “Independent monitoring during an armed conflict can discourage misconduct and save lives.”
Human Rights Watch Press release

–
HREA – www.hrea.org

To listen go here.

Let me explain why I am so curious about this.

Due to the illness and recent loss of my dear and wonderful mother, it’s been over two months since I have really posted any new writing to this blog. Since my mother’s death over a month ago I continue to spend a lot of time thinking about who she was and the legacy of perseverance, hope, courage and love she left for all of those who knew her. My mother was a woman who gave everything to what she believed in, namely that people are sacred and deserving of love and hope. I feel so honored I was able to care for her and spend the last few months of her life listening to and learning from her. As I try to figure out how to move forward, I wonder how I can incorporate her memory and spirit into my daily life.

You may be wondering why I am posting this personal information here on my ‘work’ related site. At first I thought it might not be appropriate to do so.
After all, most of our popular narratives about mixing ‘work’ and ‘personal life’ are cautionary tales outlining the dangers present and disasters that ensue when these two arenas overlap. Sure, there are some times when it’s best not to merge the two. But I think one of our most hopeful qualities as humans is that our lives continually intersect, and we influence each other in profound and mysterious ways. If we try and impose some kind of distinct boundary between the various sections of our lives, we may end up missing the whole point of what our work is all about. In the case of folklorists and others who work in cultural fields or activist work, a forced separation is especially detrimental because one of our major goals is to document, understand, and protect the very essence of our daily lives and expression. I know I am probably preaching to the choir here, but I say all these things because sometimes I have to remind myself of what I believe.

I know that everything I do from here on out, whether as a folklorist, family member, or friend will be influenced in some way by mother’s life and death. I know this is true for everyone else she was close to. She had such a presence.
She spent her entire life in Dardanelle, Arkansas; she loved this place. She was a dedicated member of the Dardanelle Church of Christ where she knew everyone by name and will always be known there for her generosity, spirit of thankfulness and her gentle spirit. She was considered a spiritual leader for the church. She took care of family cemeteries where distant and not-so distant relatives were buried; she bought an engraved Bible for every baby that was born; she knew everyone’s birthdays and always remembered to send a card. She took care of kids when people had to work late and needed a babysitter; she made food for the sick and grieving, and sat in hospitals with the ill and dying, comforting them and their families. When a family was grieving she would visit and offer to do things like take out the trash or clean the kitchen, knowing that sometimes it’s the smallest things that make the biggest difference. She prayed for and encouraged everyone. People are always telling me about the gift she had of a truly kind and gentle spirit. But perhaps what is even more amazing is that she was very humbly aware of her gifts and always used them to build others up and give back to her community.

Since her passing the whole community is in mourning. Three poems have been written about her by three different people (none of whom typically write poems), hundred of memorials made to Children’s Home, churches, and Hospice, and millions of beautiful stories told and shared. I feel so honored and humbled that this amazing woman was my mom.

Most days I still struggle to figure out how to put one foot in front of the other. Without her life seems bleak and lonely. Losing someone and then reincorporating that loss into our personal lives is something the grieving have to do. After all, it is one of the major ways that the dead live on in this realm and become our ancestors. To help with my grief, my good friend Tonya, like any Folk Studies grad student would do, recently picked me up a copy of Steve Zeitlin and Ilana Harlow’s Giving Voice to Sorrow: Personal Responses to Death and Mourning while at this year’s American Folklore Society meeting. Published in 2001, the book aims to explore “how we use storytelling, ritual, and commemorative art to cope with death and to celebrate life. It both documents and encourages outward expressions of inner struggles. I am greatly enjoying this book and will probably post more on it in the future. It’s strangely comforting to read about others’ need to give shape to human memory.

The book explores our outward expressions, or our folklore, as manifestations of those difficult grieving processes that take place in the wordless part of our brains. I can certainly relate. I know I feel a strong need to arrange silk flowers to place on my mom’s grave because in those flowers there is a whole narrative of loss and time spent together in the real garden. Even the color of the flowers holds a story about why my mother loves deep red and purples hues. These outward expressions help me get through the day, and they also help me mark time. Yet as I try to figure out how to re-enter my life as a folklorist, I want to be sure and always carry my mother’s spirit and memory with me in my work. One way I hope to do this is to work on cancer narrative research and see how folklore research can help in the realm of cancer patient advocacy (post about this to come in the near future).

But as I sit here and think about her and think about my work as a folklorist, I am curious about the countless less tangible ways we all honor our loved one’s memory, and our own sorrow, by allowing their lives to influence the way we live ours.

The word that comes to mind most when I think about the spirit of my mom is perseverance. As I watched her face the ups and downs of cancer, I saw that, for her, hope and perseverance were unquestioned partners in a well-lived life and a peaceful death. I think a lot about those words—hope and perseverance— and their applications, and sometimes it’s hard to see where the concept ends and my mother’s spirit begins. I turn the words over in my mind as I try to figure out the kind of person I want to be.

I imagine I will spend the rest of my life trying to figure out how to live out the daily shape of these words. But this got me to thinking—probably all of us carry someone else’s spirit with us in our work. We probably carry lots of spirits. As folklorists we are highly conscious of others’ narratives, but what about our own?

So, I am curious, whose memory do you carry in your life? Whose life and attributes do you think about when you contemplate the folklorist, activist, person you want to be?
I think it would be fun and healing to share this kind of stuff. If you feel like writing a post about a memory you carry, please either post a comment or send me the writing in an email and I’ll post it here. Even just a few sentences would be great. Thanks so much.

~Meredith Martin-Moats
November 23, 2008