Category Archives: Biography

Doubting My Doubts

Its been a tough couple of days for this writer.  I am on my third editor and living on tender hooks if she is going to follow through with the job.  My history with editors has been a rough one.

The first one I paid, only to be told that I was beyond hopeless as an author.  She fired me and I was horrified and despondent.  Editor number 2 was a friend of a friend.  She didn’t charge me, because she enjoyed the process, but became quite ill and stopped responding to my calls or emails.  Now I’m on editor number 3, and readers, I hope she’s the charm.

Not all is gloom and doom, however.  The first editor was right about my writing style.  I stunk.  My style was notable for lacking style.  But did I give up?  Did I hide under the bed?  Well, yeah I did, for a couple a weeks.  It was the shame that someone saw through my facade, my pretentiousness, calling me out as a fraud.  I felt a fraud, too.  I ended up lolling around in a deep pool of pity and humiliation.  Geez, this writing business can be brutal on self worth.

Saturday I emailed #3 asking her how the edit was going.  I hadn’t heard much from her, understanding she had other projects that had to be finished.  Still, I watched my email attentively looking for any new messages.  And one day later it came.  Such a long email.  Just the sheer length of the reply kicked my nerves into overdrive, and my stomach into knots.

But I took a breath and a drink of water, then focused on her words.  She actually likes my work!  She even complimented my dialog and details.  The first editor, if she knew of that new assessment would certainly roll her eyes in disbelief.  But I’ve thought a lot about #3’s remarks and need to give myself a break.  After #1’s rejection, I dug in and rewrote, rewrote and rewrote.  #2 editor generously monitored my work, line by line, and I have nothing but warm gratitude toward her for such kind tutelage.  She revealed to me my writing voice.

#3’s concerns surround the plot line, and the sudden starts and stops with the overall book.  It appears I’ve graduated from weak sentences, now to the larger shape of the overall work.  Of course I had to beg her not to drop me, and felt a little silly and dramatic after revealing my vulnerability.  But I need a solid editor who believes in my manuscript.  I’ll do anything I need to do to get River of January to publication.

This has been nothing less than an ordeal.  Yet, I am persuaded that the story must come to life, the adventures of the central characters deserve attention.  I can’t let my doubts overwhelm me.

I need to learn to doubt my doubts.

American Bliss

Ryan sat in the back corner of my classroom, right in front of the doorway.  He may not have been fully engaged in the lesson of the day, but he never disrupted class either.  In fact the subject was race hate, the rise of Fascism, and the emergence of Adolf Hitler as fuhrer by 1933.  This particular discussion concerned, antisemitism and Hitler’s diatribe, Mein Kampf.

The young junior raptly examined a scab on his hand while his right heel bobbed up and down in nervous boredom.  “Ryan,” I directed toward him.  His hands froze, his foot paused, still.

“Yeah,” the boy replied in his perfect central London English.

“Can you tell these kids about the Irish question in England?” I flatly inquired.

“I don’t know anything about that,” Ryan answered dismissively, returning to his blood trickling fist.

I didn’t let him off easily.  “You know Ry–the Irish Republican Army, Sinn Fein?  They have targeted the British forever, because of the British occupation of their land.”

Now Ryan is clearly becoming annoyed with me, as all the kids are looking his way.  His lax teenage cover was in the process of being blown.  “Yeah.  Like, I know about it, but it doesn’t effect me here in the states.”

“Sinn Fein actually killed Prince Phillip’s brother, Louis Mountbatten with a bomb,” I add for effect.  “Londonderry is very dangerous between Protestants and Catholics.  They commit reprisals all the time over the British presence, and have forever,” I repeat.  “Right, Ryan?”

This English-American teenager has jumped to his feet, pumping his file finger accusingly at me.  “You shut up!” he yells.  “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

At his reaction, I look at the horror-stricken faces of the other 35 kids and calmly explain, “That’s nationalism . . .blood and belonging.  Sorry Ryan, I didn’t mean to rile you up.  But, these kids have no notion of how distinct cultural groups see themselves and other outside groups.  They know nothing of the burning hatred and venom one group holds for another.”

He stood silently for a moment, then slumped back into his desk, shaking his head doubtfully.  Now I felt kind of bad for making use of his English background to make a point.  “It’s okay, Ryan thinly smiled.”

Later that year, for Christmas, he gave me a beautifully wrapped gift.  “Open it,” the boy insisted.  So I did.  Inside was a GI Joe, George Washington doll.  Complete with uniform, a pistol and, a saber.  I still laugh when I think about it.

Helen actually toured Europe during those years of upheaval between the wars.  The chill of fascism touched her life particularly in Rome and Milan.  Her friends from the dance company attempted to work in Germany, only to find their presence unwelcome, and their stay cut short.

Hitler jokes bounced from stage to stage, cast party to cast party.

A Jewish boyfriend of Helen’s worked night and day to build a photography business, driving the length and breadth of the continent to establish satellite offices.  He was first stymied in Berlin when investors “suddenly” bowed out, and unable to travel to Madrid due to the Spanish Civil War raging by 1936.

In so many modern respects, despite enormous international changes since World War Two, we Americans still manage to lack an understanding of our world neighbors.  Americans still choose to be willfully isolated–an isolation that deprives us an accurate understanding of other people and cultures.

An Anchor in a Whirlwind

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Helen seated below flag in stripped tank and blond hair-Monte Carlo 1932

Chum once told me that he never suffered from jet lag.  And he later flew jets.  The early flights didn’t reach ten thousand feet in altitude and the duration was relatively short.  Time zone hopping took a lot longer from the east to the west, and back again.  Flights landed before the body or even the mind was too zapped.  I asked him how he sustained himself waking up in a different place nearly every day.  He looked at me with a perplexed expression, as though he couldn’t fathom the question.  “I never had any problems,” he’d repeat.  “I never struggled to sleep, and my appetite was always good.”

Those few, still living when I began River of January told me, amused, that Chum made a habit of standing on his hands, heels against the hotel wall every morning on turnaround flights.  The man maintained his vitality with rigorous exercise, and few vices.  He knew himself well, and held his life together with discipline and purpose.

In a bit of a contrast, Helen, who also traveled a great deal, found her center in a circle of friends.  It seems her friendships melded easily and had staying power.  Despite waking up in Milan one day and Vienna the next, her fellow dancers provided a niche where she securely fit.  On the voyage to Rio, Helen made a friend of her cabin-mate and the two remained close during, and after the engagement.  Her place among others provided Helen a context in which she functioned well.

And in all her travels, she always knew her mother waited back in New York, expectant for the girl’s return.

As the scenery from the rail cars constantly shifted, the theaters and hotels changed, and managers varied, Helen never appeared to suffer from insecurity or alienation.  She didn’t waste time agonizing about her talent or if the company had a place to perform.  The girls had each other.

Despite the chaos inherent in their chosen careers, (flying and show business) plus living in the fall-out of the Great Depression and the ominous rise of fascism–the two appeared to cope with continuous change gracefully.  Young and excited, they both seemed to revel in the novelty of each new day.  The pilot found strength in the fullness of himself, and Helen among her fellow entertainers.  In a world torn by strife at home and abroad, they had little time for indecision, or hesitation.  Chum and Helen cultivated their own strong sense of certainty.  That inner strength lead to purposeful and consequential lives.

The Art of Conversation

Dinner ended and post meal-conversations bloomed.  Fueled with Chardonnay and various reds, the noise level ratchets as each diner shares new and old stories.  Beneath the warm exchanges and laughter at the adult table, small children dart about in pursuits below the tabletop, beyond the focus of their parents and grandparents.

One little girl stands out from the chaos.  Her hair is dark brown, cut pixie short, delicate little freckles scatter across her tiny nose, and lovely dark eyes, one lighter than the other, blended in with small pools of olive green.  Her monolog never stops.  “I don’t really like red licorice,” she tells me.  “My daddy used to bring us M&M’s and gum from his work.  But he was gone to meetings for months and months.”  All the while she speaks, her little hands deftly handle a small video game that detonates hens into minute, cracked eggs at the bottom of the screen.

“Do you remember how you came back after sneaking out with your friends that night, and I was waiting for you?” laughs one grandmother to the little girl’s father.  Everyone seated at the table chuckles.  But the delicate child pays no attention to the merriment above her.

Her voice–a timbre of little tinkling bells, shows me her journal.  It’s a rectangular tome, and I can see that she has written on the empty pages since I sent it to her for her birthday in June.  Producing a pencil the size of a bread stick, the seven-year-old opens to a new page.  “My Papa in Idaho gave this to me for my birthday,” she explains.  I can see her spiky printing where she has carefully kept the dates for each entry.  I point out to her where I dedicated the book to her, inside the front cover.  At that little disclosure, she looks up curiously into my face, pulled momentarily from her private world.  This little Ramona-look-alike appraises me thoughtfully for the first time, and I can sense the girl may have found a spot in her life where I just might possibly fit.

More amiable laughter spills over the long plate and platter strewn table.  Little O turns quickly back to her journal and scribbles a secret message about her day.

I hope she mentioned me.

Sharing Our Truth

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I retired from teaching last May after more years in the classroom than I care to admit.  No longer constrained by rules, rules, and more rules, I began friend-ing my former students on Facebook.  What once was ethically frowned upon, is now my link to my past career.  That being established, I have enjoyed viewing the posts the kids have put up since graduating high school.  In something akin to an educational diaspora, these 18 year- old’s are encountering their first experiences away from home.  Of course that includes washing one’s own laundry, filling up on starchy food, and getting out of bed for class without mom.

The pictures are charming.  Girls, arm in arm, who only a month ago were strangers, now glow, linked together in this new adventure as best friends.  The boys seem less inclined to pose.  Instead they splay across the floor of a dorm room, stuffing pizza and chips into their smiling mouths.

Still the experiences behind those photos may be the most profound in life.  Whether the setting is a dorm, or an apartment, or a cave, the ritual remains the same.

I remember best, parked on the bathroom floor in my dorm room, talking earnestly and laughing many late nights.  In my new family of girls, we revealed our essence to one another, creating a link that I cannot replicate today with new acquaintances.  Established when I was naively open, without those worldly defenses I have perfected over time, those friendships have endured.  Fertilized only with an occasional Christmas card, or a stray email–when we get together, we pick right up where we left off.

Helen, with no opportunity for college, shared a similar bonding experience with her “new” friends touring Europe.  As discussed in my book, River of January, she danced in a ballet company called, “The American Beauties,” who together performed first in Paris, and traveled as far as Algiers from 1932 to 1933.  In fact, the girl and her fellow dancers patched together their own version of a Christmas celebration at a hotel in Islamic North Africa.  She too, relished the late night yakking sessions, the joy of carrying out pranks, such as the night a group of them short-sheeted the bed of two other, unsuspecting dancers.  The picture above is a charming example of Helen purely celebrating life.

Later, these women remained some of the best friends Helen ever had.  Traveling to her home in Miami from Los Angeles or New York, the old girls sat around Helen’s little kitchen table, enjoying drinks, reminiscing and laughing.  For a short moment, seated at that tiny white table, they again were the same young dancers who had reveled in an extraordinary and memorable learning experience of their own.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

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She is bent over a small Mercury outboard, hoisting the little motor in and out of the water. Her hair is wrapped in a kerchief, much as it had been when she wired mine sweepers at the Bremerton shipyards during the war. Ailene has a cigarette in her pressed lips, Humphrey Bogart style. Her black and white knit shirt has a small pocket on the left sleeve, over her bicep, and tucked inside is a pack of cigarettes–her brand, Kent. At the end of her day on the lake, my grandmother regularly downed a couple of high balls of Canadian Club, on the rocks.

My life with my grandmother has aided tremendously with the writing of River of January.  and the sequel, The Figure Eight. She, like Helen and Chum held lifetime memberships in the “Greatest Generation,” so her attitudes, word choices, and music preferences shape my thinking while I write.  Sadly she died in January, 1990, of lung cancer no less, taking a piece of me with her.

As for smoking and drinking, Chum appears as one of the few alum from that era who tended to nurse a beer, rather than chug, and chewed his cigar more than drawing a lung full. Helen, however, much like my grandmother, relished her bourbon every evening, garnished by a lit Chesterfield, and proceeded to enjoy a whale of a good evening.

Smoking and drinking blended into American culture in the 20th Century, unlike the prior or later era’s that demonized the practices. As I researched River, sifting through voluminous piles of documents, I encountered alcohol and tobacco ads placed next to those for baby formula and Ivory Soap, among other consumer goods. Liquor ads filled theater playbills on both sides of the Atlantic, nearly always featuring a shiny, sleek bottle bearing some stylish label. The message rang clear, drinking and smoking represented the height of sophistication, glamor, and sex appeal. Both my grandmother and Helen’s mementos, verified the truth that the party never stopped.

Casablanca, the celebrated 1942 film has struck me as the epitome of romantic culture in the late 30’s on into the war years. The gowns, the cosmopolitan style of understated and clipped dialog, and a perennial sense of righteous duty embraces that era. Americans lived hard and played hard, performing extraordinary feats while hungover at the least, or still intoxicated. These remarkable Americans handled drill presses, explosives, welding equipment, and other heavy industrial machinery, not to forget the operating end of an M1 rifle in a fox hole.

Out dancing, working a graveyard shift, partying, or fighting–all done with a cigarette resting, smoldering on virtuous, patriotic lips.

Gail Chumbley is the author of River of January, a memoir. Also available on Kindle.

Making Something of Nothing

I began teaching in 1979.  And if memory serves, Paul Volker headed the battered Federal Reserve, and Carter was in the White House turning off lights.  The economy had slumped badly from a combination of Vietnam deficits and the oil embargo, compliments of OPEC.  That was the year I finished college and began teaching, taking a job where I could find one.  While urban school district’s were letting folks go, I was forced to beat the bushes for a rural position.

Eventually I found a district hiring.  The town was quite remote, housing more raccoons than people.  There I taught and coached every sport available.  I didn’t have a choice, the economy was that bad.

Then came 2008–we all remember that disastrous economic mess when the whole financial sector was heading off a cliff.  That was the same time I started to consider retirement, and the prospects were certainly dim.  Due to the dire conditions of the financial sector I decided to hang in a few more years until circumstances improved.  And they did.

Persevering through through hard times is something I understand.  None of us can pause our lives and wait for better days.

It was 1933 when Chum decided to part ways with the US Navy.  The back story to his decision is drawn out fully in my book, River of January.  The short answer is ambition.  Based in Panama, where poverty ran rampant, Chum was insulated from a similar economic disaster that had befallen America.  Arriving in Depression-era New York proved a sobering and challenging experience.  Honestly, the young man’s only assets were his driving ambition, and he could fly airplanes.  As I described in the book, the country was broke.

The same could be said for Miss Helen Thompson.  In a sense the girl was luckier than Chum, (they hadn’t crossed paths yet).  Show business was and is a tough career to scratch out, and very few are lucky enough to arrive.  So she defied the odds of employment every time she auditioned.  In her letters and papers Helen is quite conscious of money and spending.  There are numerous makeshift ledgers of her expenditures throughout her papers.  But it is notable that she never mentioned the general economic disaster.  Helen accepted the terms of her time and place, and soldiered on.  Clearly her assets were drive and talent, the income came along as she persevered.

Neither Chum nor Helen, (or any of us for that matter) have control over the years we breath air.  Tapping into their personal reservoir of  inner drive, the two of them cobbled together incredible lives.  He won an air race, and met famous people, while she danced across Europe and met famous people.  I bet that was fun.  Fun in the time of scarcity.

Tell Us About Yourself

There is a living Hell known as the first teacher work day of a school year.  Teachers all gather in the cafeteria, drink coffee, chatter, have some laughs, that is, until the principal calls us to order.  I scan down the agenda, and invariably about three items in, it reads, Introduction of new staff members.  Each new, poor soul, who only knows the administrator that hired them, hears the words, “Stand up and tell us something about yourself.”  The responses can be pretty routine.  “Just got married, I’m new to the area, I’m a graduate of _________ University, (fill in), and so on . . .  I feel confident that this ritual is fairly standard across the business world, and any other kind of office setting, and is just as mortifying.

I, myself have endured that terrifying moment, having to publicly sum up my existence before a crowd of strangers.  The people around actually do look friendly, and try to make the humiliation a little lighter.  But the trick of the exercise is grappling for the words that provide some plausible description of my identity.  Without exception I blurt out some lame particulars, turn red, and sit down.  There I relive the trauma, echoing the dumb things I said over and over in my head.

The core substance of what makes up an identity is far more nebulous.  Describing characters in my book, River of January, has challenged me to present these people with more than a limited, predictable persona.  For example, Helen, the main protagonist is deceptively easy to classify as a blond beauty.  However, limiting her traits to one or two superficial qualities misleads the reader in underestimating her strengths.

If Miss Thompson stood up and introduced herself she would have much to tell.

In 1932 Helen auditioned in New York for a classical ballet troupe scheduled to travel Europe for three months.  The ballet mistress who conducted the audition was a notable Italian/American dancer by the name of Maria Gambarelli.  Miss Gambarelli had studied under legendary ballerina, Anna Pavlova, and became a famous artistic figure in her own right. 

As fun, lighthearted, adventurous, and easy going as Helen was, she was also a disciplined, inspired, and talented ballerina, too.  Gambarelli noted Helen’s professional skill and serious work ethic, adding the girl quickly to the company.  Incidentally the final twelve dancers selected  became known as, “The American Beauties,” who demonstrated to Europeans, in the following months, the grace and excellence of classical dance in America. 

Helen could have shared that little story about herself.

 

Amelia Earhart?

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Piecing this story together didn’t come easily.  Though I have had the benefit of volumes of letters, telegrams, and pictures, among other sources, I still have struggled to get the story right.  The picture posted today provides an example of the most exciting finds I’ve made, but still shrouded with some doubt.

The girl in the center, in front of the Waco airplane, is Francis Marsalis Harrell.  From Chum’s thick scrapbook and an interview I conducted with him, I know her to have been his girlfriend.  They dated for a about a year after he left the Navy, and I believe he cared deeply for this young lady.  What brought me to that conclusion was piecework and conjecture.  First, during my interview sessions with Chum he lightly mentioned that his girlfriend used to time his trips into Manhattan from Long Island, but only when he drove female flight students into the city.  Second, when he looked through his ancient scrapbook, coming across her picture, he had to get up and walk around on his old legs, getting water from the kitchen and using the bathroom, before we could begin taping again.  I remember that clearly.

While researching my book, River of January, I gained a brief education in early aviation history.  I learned that there was a group of women who closely gathered in a league known as the “Ninety-Nines.”  This association of female aviators was a tight-knit assemblage, drawn together to survive in the male dominated world of flight.  These women resolutely broke ground for future generations of women to find their place in the cockpit.   These girls were enthusiastic and fearless pioneers.

Returning to the picture again, I found that three of these women pilots, all horsing around on roller-skates signed the photo.  Francis signed it “To Navy,” her pet name for Chum. The girl on her belly and the other one on her rear end are Betty Gilles and Elvy Kalep, other Ninety-Niners.  So the question for me has been, who is the fourth girl wearing her mechanic’s togs?

One morning, staring at this picture for the millionth time, the scales fell from my eyes and I saw Amelia Earhart.  You might see her clearly too and wonder how I missed the obvious, or think I’m nuts for believing it’s her.  So I ask myself, “Is the time right?  Is the place right? Are there other pictures from this publicity shot?”

The answers are all yeses.

This picture came from a google search of Elvy Kalep.

In the effort to reconstruct the past there exists uncertainty and conjecture.  However, thank goodness, also there exists logic and probability.

Boy, this has been fun.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the memoir, River of January. Also available on Kindle

Horizons

I was waiting for a flight to Portland yesterday, at the airport.  Watching my surroundings at the gate, I began to muse about the flight aspect of my book, River of January.  In the narrative, Chum left the Navy in 1933 finding there were only a handful of disparate companies that handled air cargo.  These businesses had  tried their hand at passenger travel in the 20’s, but costly overhead expenses put an end to that option.

Then Congress stepped in, underwriting airmail flights, and consolidating routes, that ended in the creation of the Federal Aviation Administration by the late 1950’s.  Travel after that boost, was best characterized by glamor and style.  People enjoyed spacious seating, formal dining on small white tablecloths, glass plates and silverware.  The food was fresh and hot–served by attentive stewardesses.

Now, I watch an over sized middle aged biker, sporting a wormy little ponytail pounding a pinball machine in an alcove.  He is clad in a loose, black t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and his jeans riding on his butt crack.  Another woman is chattering loudly on her cell phone with great enthusiasm.  She’s clearly an open, affable lady.  Most of the other few folks booked on this flight are eating cold food, purchased from overpriced vendors dotted beyond the security gate.  The area feels more like a bus depot.

Then abruptly, out of the floor to ceiling windows, a small canary yellow biplane soars across the glass, piloted by a loan aviator.

It’s nice to know that for some, like Mont Chumbley, the wonder of flight has remained timeless.