After attending a two-day workshop last week called “Illuminating the Path: Finding Theme and Structure in Your Memoir” with Allyson Latta, I try to sort out my notes, my thoughts and wonder how it all applies to my story.
“Life goes on but your memoir mustn’t”, a quote from Adair Lara in Writer’s Digest, became our mantra and challenge. Where do I start and finish my story? How do I construct the narrative arc of my story?
Should I begin chronologically with my early life on Charles Street then move on to the suburbs and what develops there? Or should I start with the move, flash back to longing for my early life in the rooming house, then move on to the crisis, climax and resolution? Another possibility is to start with moving back to the city for university (in the neighbourhood of Charles Street), then reflect on memories of my early years. I wasn’t planning to write about this period in university but my writing group tend to favour this approach. I had another idea about my life on Charles Street but I think this would work better as a short story, so I will set that option aside.
According to Adair Lara and Tristine Rainer, to figure out the narrative arc, the emotional framework of your memoir, you must figure out ‘the desire line’. What is it that you want? This is what drives the narrative and moves the character to the conclusion. In “Elements of Effective Arc” (Writer's Digest July/August 2010)Adair Lara suggests jotting down a list of actions and obstacles:
I wanted _______________ (the desire line).
To get it I______________ (action).
To get it, I then____________ (action)
But ______________ (obstacle) got in my way.
So, I _____________________ (action).
(And so on.)
When I look at this framework, I think that my over arching desire line was to go home again, ie. to go back to the place where I felt confident and secure. What I need to do now is to examine each scene of my memoir and identify my desire line, actions and obstacles for each step of my journey.
Have you identified your ‘desire line’?
Copyright © 2010, Ruth Zaryski Jackson
The Power of a Family Secret
My personal essay The Power of A Family Secret has now been posted on Allyson Latta's new website. This essay appeared in an earlier version in several blog posts on this site. Please click on the title of my essay or Allyson's name, have a look and let me know what you think.
Copyright © 2010, Ruth Zaryski Jackson
Copyright © 2010, Ruth Zaryski Jackson
Letter to My Dead Great-Aunt Part Three
My mother told me Uncle John didn’t like to spend money but as your next of kin, he would have been the one responsible for your burial. I wondered if he had done nothing to commemorate your life. Maybe your body was never recovered. Maybe he was too overcome with grief. I wished I had asked Auntie Huckan, his wife but I hadn’t known about you then. I wished my mother had asked her but she didn’t think to ask. I found the details of your burial by chance and more details on your Death Certificate.
Armed with the name of the hotel where you died and the exact date of the fire, I pressed on and tried to find a photograph of the building. The Riverview Hotel had been built in 1906 or earlier (Henderson Directory 1906) and a large 1-storey addition of wood construction had been added in 1914. The Winnipeg architect, Charles S. Bridgeman designed it for the owner, J.J. O'Connell in 1913. No photograph was found but an interesting discovery showed up in the city records.
Negligence
I discovered on the Building Permit for the addition, the owner J.J. O'Connell had on June 11, 1914 been “convicted and reprimanded for not complying with Notice issued January 7, 1914 re Exit doors”. A Building Inspector had deemed the building dangerous four years before the fire! Maybe even before you were hired.
The Historical Buildings Officer for Winnipeg sent me several newspaper clippings about the fire on the night of February 5, 1918 when the Riverview Hotel burned to the ground. Three perished in the fire: a nurse employed by the owner, a veteran of WWI and you, my dear Great-Aunt Michalena, described as “Lena Wuchan, kitchen girl” and “Lena Guchan, kitchen maid”. They couldn’t even spell your name right.
Here’s what happened as I can piece it together from the clippings. Early in the morning on the 5th of February about 3:30 a.m. a fire broke out, possibly in the kitchen of the Riverview Hotel. Fanned by 30 mile an hour gale force winds, the fire quickly spread to nearby buildings. Five fire brigades responded promptly though there were 6-8 other fires in Winnipeg at that night. The Riverview Hotel was leveled within an hour. Total damage was estimated to be $180,000.
A neighbor called the fire department. Everyone was asleep when the alarm bells in each room went off. You were last seen in your room on the second floor. Smoke poured into the rooms and the stairs were blocked by dense smoke. The hotel owner, his wife and six children were sleeping on the first floor and all escaped unharmed except for smoke inhalation. Mr. O’Connell later told the press of the frantic attempts to escape by those who died. I can only try to imagine the terror you felt when you realized there was no way out.
Your body was found in the ashes two days later near the centre of the basement buried several feet beneath the debris. They believed these were your remains because they were found in the location of your room in the building. But you were found in the basement, because all three stories collapsed. Identification of the three victims was based on location of the bodies when found. A fourth victim died later in hospital.
The inquest a week later found no fault lay on the shoulders of the hotel owner or the fire department for the deaths, despite the fact that the building hadn’t been inspected for a year.
And so dear Auntie, this is your story, the evidence that you lived and died in Winnipeg in a tragic hotel fire that cold February night in 1918. There are still some gaps and incomplete knowledge of your short life. I promise you I will continue to search for more details, such as your immigration records and whatever vital records exist in Winnipeg or your ancestral village of Repuzhintsy. My cousins and I will be replacing the numbered stone on your grave with a personal memorial stone. I will honour your life by telling your story to all who will listen. I will never forget you and other immigrants who lost their lives in accidents and unsafe working conditions, trying to build a better life and a brighter future in Canada.
May your soul rest in peace. Vichnaya Pamiat.
love from your Grandniece,
Ruth
Copyright © 2010, Ruth Zaryski Jackson
Armed with the name of the hotel where you died and the exact date of the fire, I pressed on and tried to find a photograph of the building. The Riverview Hotel had been built in 1906 or earlier (Henderson Directory 1906) and a large 1-storey addition of wood construction had been added in 1914. The Winnipeg architect, Charles S. Bridgeman designed it for the owner, J.J. O'Connell in 1913. No photograph was found but an interesting discovery showed up in the city records.
Negligence
I discovered on the Building Permit for the addition, the owner J.J. O'Connell had on June 11, 1914 been “convicted and reprimanded for not complying with Notice issued January 7, 1914 re Exit doors”. A Building Inspector had deemed the building dangerous four years before the fire! Maybe even before you were hired.
The Historical Buildings Officer for Winnipeg sent me several newspaper clippings about the fire on the night of February 5, 1918 when the Riverview Hotel burned to the ground. Three perished in the fire: a nurse employed by the owner, a veteran of WWI and you, my dear Great-Aunt Michalena, described as “Lena Wuchan, kitchen girl” and “Lena Guchan, kitchen maid”. They couldn’t even spell your name right.
 |
| Riverview Hotel 322 Nairn Avenue Elmwood, Manitoba |
A neighbor called the fire department. Everyone was asleep when the alarm bells in each room went off. You were last seen in your room on the second floor. Smoke poured into the rooms and the stairs were blocked by dense smoke. The hotel owner, his wife and six children were sleeping on the first floor and all escaped unharmed except for smoke inhalation. Mr. O’Connell later told the press of the frantic attempts to escape by those who died. I can only try to imagine the terror you felt when you realized there was no way out.
Your body was found in the ashes two days later near the centre of the basement buried several feet beneath the debris. They believed these were your remains because they were found in the location of your room in the building. But you were found in the basement, because all three stories collapsed. Identification of the three victims was based on location of the bodies when found. A fourth victim died later in hospital.
The inquest a week later found no fault lay on the shoulders of the hotel owner or the fire department for the deaths, despite the fact that the building hadn’t been inspected for a year.
 |
| Newspaper Clippings from Winnipeg Firefighters Museum 1918 |
And so dear Auntie, this is your story, the evidence that you lived and died in Winnipeg in a tragic hotel fire that cold February night in 1918. There are still some gaps and incomplete knowledge of your short life. I promise you I will continue to search for more details, such as your immigration records and whatever vital records exist in Winnipeg or your ancestral village of Repuzhintsy. My cousins and I will be replacing the numbered stone on your grave with a personal memorial stone. I will honour your life by telling your story to all who will listen. I will never forget you and other immigrants who lost their lives in accidents and unsafe working conditions, trying to build a better life and a brighter future in Canada.
May your soul rest in peace. Vichnaya Pamiat.
love from your Grandniece,
Ruth
Copyright © 2010, Ruth Zaryski Jackson
Letter to My Dead Great-Aunt Part Two
The family story I heard from Mother and her sister Anne is that you were working at a hotel in Winnipeg saving your money to be married to your unnamed fiancé in the photograph. When fire broke out, you escaped somehow but ran back in to retrieve your $800 hidden under your mattress. You never came out. Were you overcome by smoke in that firetrap? Did the fire spread much faster than you anticipated? Or were you just a naïve girl who didn’t understand the danger and could only think of your hard-earned savings and your future going up in smoke? Eight hundred dollars in today’s dollars would be a lot of money. Brave or foolish, you lost your life in that fire.
I searched for a long time for your death and burial records. I searched newspapers for reports of a hotel fire but there were many hotel fires in Winnipeg in those days especially in the long cold winters. Photos are legend.
My cousin Ellen and I searched through countless cemetery lists until one day I found an on-line listing of Winnipeg City cemeteries and was able to find a listing for a “Lena Huekow” who died 2/5/1918. Confident this must be you, I contacted the City of Winnipeg who told me that they had no record of a “Michalena Huckan” but did have a “Lena Huckow” buried in Brookside Cemetery. My cousin Edith later confirmed that at last we had found your final resting place right next to the casualties of WW I. Further research revealed the name of the hotel, Riverview, (on the Red River) and the address, 322 Nairn Avenue in Elmwood. Finally I was able to obtain your Death Certificate. I requested the Coroner’s report but the records had been destroyed.
What would it have meant to me if you had lived, Michalena? You might have been like a Baba to me. I never knew my Baba, your sister. She died when I was 2 ½ . I saw her only once when I was 1 ½ and have no memory of the visit or her. You were 13 years younger so I might have known you. Maybe you would have moved to Oshawa where your older brother John lived for many years. He also died before I was born but his wife lived for many years. I knew her well and in fact was named, Frances, after her.
The only photos I have of Baba are taken when she was older, aged and toothless before her time. When I look at photos of my grandmother, your older sister Marya and you, Michalena, I see what she must have looked like as a young girl. I think she must have been as pretty as you when she was a young woman. I feel closer to her somehow. Closer to her youth.
To be continued...
Copyright © 2010, Ruth Zaryski Jackson
I searched for a long time for your death and burial records. I searched newspapers for reports of a hotel fire but there were many hotel fires in Winnipeg in those days especially in the long cold winters. Photos are legend.
 |
| Scott Bathgate - February 15, 1917 K. Elder Collection The Firefighters Museum of Winnipeg |
What would it have meant to me if you had lived, Michalena? You might have been like a Baba to me. I never knew my Baba, your sister. She died when I was 2 ½ . I saw her only once when I was 1 ½ and have no memory of the visit or her. You were 13 years younger so I might have known you. Maybe you would have moved to Oshawa where your older brother John lived for many years. He also died before I was born but his wife lived for many years. I knew her well and in fact was named, Frances, after her.
 |
| John Huckan and Frances Ross Huckan Winnipeg, Manitoba c. 1914 |
The only photos I have of Baba are taken when she was older, aged and toothless before her time. When I look at photos of my grandmother, your older sister Marya and you, Michalena, I see what she must have looked like as a young girl. I think she must have been as pretty as you when she was a young woman. I feel closer to her somehow. Closer to her youth.
 |
| Marya Huckan Zarecka Sclater, Manitoba c.1940 |
Copyright © 2010, Ruth Zaryski Jackson
Letter to My Dead Great-Aunt
About two years ago I was inspired by Sheila Nevins to write a letter to my dead Great-Aunt who died tragically in a hotel fire in Winnipeg in 1918. Michalena Huckan, my maternal Baba's much younger sister, immigrated to Canada in @ 1910-11 and was engaged to be married. The family story is that the upper storey of the building collapsed on her when she ran back to retrieve her savings hidden under the mattress. My nearly 97 year old mother still remembers her mother crying for days when she heard the news. Where Michalena was buried became a mystery. She had become a ghost haunting our family.
___________________________________________
Dear Great-Aunt Michelena or maybe I should call you Вуйна,
Ever since I saw your photograph and heard your heart-rending story, I have been obsessed with finding traces of your short life. The journey has been frustrating as women are much harder to track. Invisible threads in our past history. My history.
Michalena, you were about 13 years younger than your older sister, my grandmother Marya Zarecka. Before I knew the exact age difference, I wondered if you might be her illegitimate daughter and the reason behind my grandfather's relentless anger towards his wife. One day I asked my mother timidly if that could be possible. "No!" she stated, "they were sisters." I believe you were.
You were born in 1893 in the village of Repuzhintsy, province of Bukovina when it was part of Roumania, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. You were 18 when Marya left for Canada to join my grandfather in 1911 with her two children Helena and Anton. Maybe you came with her or followed later. I have not found your immigration records yet.
Your brother Iwan (John) immigrated to Winnipeg with his family in 1914. You went to Winnipeg and, according to the Henderson Directory, by 1916 you were living in Ben Nevis House, a rooming house at 42 Dagmar Street. Like so many hundreds of other young single immigrant women, you were working in one of the many downtown Winnipeg hotels.
I have two studio photographs of Michalena, likely taken after her brother arrived in 1914. In one she is looking very proper, with her fiancé, her brothers Nikolaj, Iwan, his wife and daughter.
Your fiancé is standing beside you in the group photograph. You must have been looking forward to marrying him. You risked your life for the sake of $800 you saved and kept hidden under your mattress. Who was he? We don't even know his name, though most likely he was from your village, Repuzhintsy. Was he heart-broken when he heard the news of your death? Did he ever recover from the loss? Perhaps he married and had children. Where are his descendents now? Would they recognize him in this photograph?
In the other photograph, you stand beside a table, hair flowing , looking very beautiful. I can see that you were a pretty woman, short in stature with long curly brown hair. Your eyes are lighter than brown, blue or hazel perhaps. You are wearing a long sleeved white blouse and a long dark skirt, proper formal female attire for the time. You are wearing no visible jewelry except a pin at the neck of your blouse. Your hands appear to be strong but graceful, holding a small bouquet of flowers.
To be continued...
Copyright © 2010, Ruth Zaryski Jackson
___________________________________________
Dear Great-Aunt Michelena or maybe I should call you Вуйна,
Ever since I saw your photograph and heard your heart-rending story, I have been obsessed with finding traces of your short life. The journey has been frustrating as women are much harder to track. Invisible threads in our past history. My history.
Michalena, you were about 13 years younger than your older sister, my grandmother Marya Zarecka. Before I knew the exact age difference, I wondered if you might be her illegitimate daughter and the reason behind my grandfather's relentless anger towards his wife. One day I asked my mother timidly if that could be possible. "No!" she stated, "they were sisters." I believe you were.
You were born in 1893 in the village of Repuzhintsy, province of Bukovina when it was part of Roumania, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. You were 18 when Marya left for Canada to join my grandfather in 1911 with her two children Helena and Anton. Maybe you came with her or followed later. I have not found your immigration records yet.
Your brother Iwan (John) immigrated to Winnipeg with his family in 1914. You went to Winnipeg and, according to the Henderson Directory, by 1916 you were living in Ben Nevis House, a rooming house at 42 Dagmar Street. Like so many hundreds of other young single immigrant women, you were working in one of the many downtown Winnipeg hotels.
I have two studio photographs of Michalena, likely taken after her brother arrived in 1914. In one she is looking very proper, with her fiancé, her brothers Nikolaj, Iwan, his wife and daughter.
Your fiancé is standing beside you in the group photograph. You must have been looking forward to marrying him. You risked your life for the sake of $800 you saved and kept hidden under your mattress. Who was he? We don't even know his name, though most likely he was from your village, Repuzhintsy. Was he heart-broken when he heard the news of your death? Did he ever recover from the loss? Perhaps he married and had children. Where are his descendents now? Would they recognize him in this photograph?
 |
| Michalena Huckan, her fiancé, Nikolaj Huckan Franciszka Ross Huckan, Wladzia (Frances), Iwan (John) Huckan Winnipeg, Manitoba c. 1914 |
In the other photograph, you stand beside a table, hair flowing , looking very beautiful. I can see that you were a pretty woman, short in stature with long curly brown hair. Your eyes are lighter than brown, blue or hazel perhaps. You are wearing a long sleeved white blouse and a long dark skirt, proper formal female attire for the time. You are wearing no visible jewelry except a pin at the neck of your blouse. Your hands appear to be strong but graceful, holding a small bouquet of flowers.
 |
| Michalena Huckan Winnipeg, Manitoba c. 1914 |
Copyright © 2010, Ruth Zaryski Jackson
BOTH WAYS IS THE ONLY WAY I WANT IT by Maile Meloy
Maile Meloy is a young American writer I’d never heard of before my son gave me a book of her short stories for Christmas last year. I only got down to it recently in my beside pile. I was sorry I’d delayed reading it.
The title of the book “Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It”, taken from a short poem by A. R. Ammons, is the theme of her eleven short stories set mostly in Montana where she grew up. All the characters want it both ways in tricky emotional or sexual circumstances. All are caught in a dilemma of sorts. What is the socially or morally right thing to do versus what does the character want to do?
In “Travis B.”, a young ranch hand with a gimpy leg falls in love with a young lawyer who commutes 9 ½ hours to town to teach a class he chanced to wander into. In “Two-Step” female friends discuss one’s husband’s infidelity while the reader squirms realizing that the ‘other woman’ is one of them. The author doesn’t shy away from unsavory, slightly creepy motivations and feelings that are part of her characters' lives. The stories are layered and rich with details.
All the stories have a tension that makes the reader uneasy. The dialogue carries the story and makes the reader feel like a fly stuck to flypaper, wanting to leave, but compelled to stay. Having first observed particular details, the author paints her characters with a few deft strokes leaving an indelible impression on the reader. Her spare and fast-paced prose takes the reader along for a thrilling ride to a surprise conclusion.
Maile enjoys writing short stories where the way out leads to an ending that opens possibilities. She is the author of two story collections and two novels.
NPR Interview with Maile Meloy
The Writers Circle of Durham Blog: Reading As Writers
Copyright © 2010, Ruth Zaryski Jackson
The title of the book “Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It”, taken from a short poem by A. R. Ammons, is the theme of her eleven short stories set mostly in Montana where she grew up. All the characters want it both ways in tricky emotional or sexual circumstances. All are caught in a dilemma of sorts. What is the socially or morally right thing to do versus what does the character want to do? In “Travis B.”, a young ranch hand with a gimpy leg falls in love with a young lawyer who commutes 9 ½ hours to town to teach a class he chanced to wander into. In “Two-Step” female friends discuss one’s husband’s infidelity while the reader squirms realizing that the ‘other woman’ is one of them. The author doesn’t shy away from unsavory, slightly creepy motivations and feelings that are part of her characters' lives. The stories are layered and rich with details.
All the stories have a tension that makes the reader uneasy. The dialogue carries the story and makes the reader feel like a fly stuck to flypaper, wanting to leave, but compelled to stay. Having first observed particular details, the author paints her characters with a few deft strokes leaving an indelible impression on the reader. Her spare and fast-paced prose takes the reader along for a thrilling ride to a surprise conclusion.
Maile enjoys writing short stories where the way out leads to an ending that opens possibilities. She is the author of two story collections and two novels.
NPR Interview with Maile Meloy
The Writers Circle of Durham Blog: Reading As Writers
Copyright © 2010, Ruth Zaryski Jackson
In Honour of Father's Day: A Story About My Dad
Dad Cooks“Jimmy, come quick, Dad’s cooking!”
“Dad’s cooking?” My brother knew something was up. Mom always did the cooking at our house.
“Yeah, come on, let’s watch him. He’s making french fries!”
We dashed into the house and sank down on the vinyl chairs around the arborite table. Dad stood in the middle of the kitchen, a tea towel tucked around his pants, like a chef. Holding a few potatoes in one hand, a paring knife in the other, he dropped them into the enamel sink and ran the cold water. After peeling them, he moved to a cutting board on the table and stood over the pile. Without saying a word, he began to slice the potatoes into layers and sliver them into long squared pieces, carefully dropping them into cold water as he worked. His rough fingers, plump like sausages, were more used to manual labour than food preparation. In the days before frozen supermarket fries, he amazed us by replicating what we’d only seen in restaurants.
In fact, Dad had worked as a short-order cook. In the 1930s, after riding the rails to New Brunswick and back to Manitoba, a sawmill foreman told him to “get a trade”, to make something of himself. When he first arrived in Toronto, he waitered occasionally at the Savarin Hotel while taking welding courses at night. One night, the owner of Hunt’s Restaurant offered him a training course and steady job at $7.00 a week. Dad accepted because welding jobs were still scarce. He worked for Hunt’s for 5 years, moving from a kitchen on Mount Pleasant Road, to another at St. Clair and Oakwood, and finally, to College and Dovercourt, increasing his pay by $1.00 a week with each move and advancing to manager. In those days, you could get Today’s Special, a complete meal, for 35 cents! In 1939, when wartime created industrial jobs, Dad moved on to welding and never looked back. Except for these odd moments of culinary inspiration.
Sometimes when preparing french fries Dad used the sunken burner and deep pot in the back left corner of the electric range. This time, he bent over the pot cupboard, pulled the deep-fryer from the back and poured in the oil. After bringing it to a boil, he carefully lowered the basket of raw potatoes into the yellow bubbles, his eyes fixed on the pot. Sometimes he would par-boil them and set the potatoes aside to be finished off to a golden brown at the last moment before eating. All four of us sat entranced with the entire process, nostrils filled with the heady smell of frying oil, our mouths open and watering, impatient to taste his masterpiece.
Mom remained in the background while Dad cooked, only emerging at the end to hand us the malt vinegar, salt and ketchup and slip in a vegetable and a few slices of meat to complete the meal.
Copyright © 2010, Ruth Zaryski Jackson
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