Episode 13. Hidden History, Facebook Photos Group, and River-Inspired Poetry

If there’s one thing we love to debate, it’s history and what history we should teach and idolize. In this episode, I share a few thoughts about the history we know and why we should dig deeper into stories from the past. I also interview the founder of the Mississippi River Photos group on Facebook, Norman Schafer, and share a Mississippi River-inspired poem from New Orleanian Jorge Abadin.

Read more about the lives of Dred and Harriet Scot

Books about Dred and Harriet Scot

Hager, Ruth Ann (Abels): Dred & Harriet Scott: Their Family Story. St. Louis County Library. 2010.

VanderVelde, Lea S.: Mrs. Dred Scott: A Life on Slavery’s Frontier. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

If you are enjoying the podcast, please consider showing your support by making a one-time contribution or by supporting as a regular contributor through Patreon. Every dollar you contribute makes it possible for me to continue sharing stories about America’s Greatest River.

Episode 13. Hidden History with Norm and Jorge

Thu, Feb 23, 2023 3:13PM • 28:15

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

mississippi river, river, people, stories, mississippi valley, history, called, burlington, lived, island, life, hear, pictures, mississippi, posts, podcast, ancestors, books, forgotten, write

SPEAKERS

Dean Klinkenberg, Norman Schafer, Jorge Abadin

Norman Schafer 00:00

I think it’s just sharing with people and that’s what it’s about. I think I enjoy that people actually enjoy the group and just have fun

Dean Klinkenberg 00:30

Welcome to the Mississippi Valley Traveler Podcast. I’m Dean Klinkenberg, and I’ve been exploring the deep history and rich culture of the people in places along America’s greatest river in Mississippi since 2007. Join me on this podcast as I go deep into the characters and places along the river, and occasionally wander into other stories from the Midwest and other rivers. Subscribe to the series on your favorite podcast app, so you don’t miss out on future episodes. To find the show notes go to Mississippi Valley traveler.com/podcast. And while you’re there, take some time to explore the rest of the website. You’ll find a lot of stuff about the Mississippi River and you can even download some free content. And now on to the show.

Welcome to Episode 13 of the Mississippi Valley Traveler Podcast, lucky number 13. We’re going to do things a little different today. I’m going to start things off with a few thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head about the idea of history and the stories we tell and the stories we don’t tell. And then I’m going to introduce you to a couple of folks I had a chance to meet this past year and get to know a little bit better, a couple of people who who have a special connection to Mississippi River. And one of them had such a strong connection he founded a Facebook group to showcase pictures of the river. The other was inspired to write poetry. So we’ll meet them and just a couple of minutes after the introductory thoughts. A shout out as usual to all of you who continue to show love through Patreon. I greatly appreciate your support. This podcast exists and keeps going because of it. And now let’s get on with the show.

In 2015, on an especially beautiful January day, we drove from Charleston, South Carolina, to nearby Sullivan’s Island. Our interest in the island was very specific: Edgar Allen Poe wrote the Gold Bug while living on the island in the 1820s. My husband is a Poe fanatic, so we had to make the pilgrimage and pay homage to the Poe legacy. I noticed that the island had a fort on it, Fort Moultrie, where Poe was stationed while in the Army, so that sounded like a good way to pass some time, too.

The fort had a new exhibit tucked into a corner of the visitor’s center that gave a thumbnail explanation of the slave trade. The reason this exhibit just happened to be in this particular fort is that nearly half of the Africans who were kidnapped and shipped across the Atlantic were quarantined and “processed” on Sullivan’s Island before they were sold in the slave markets of the South. Hundreds of thousands of Africans, after surviving capture and a horrendous cross-ocean trip, first stepped off the boat and onto North American soil at this place, Sullivan’s Island. If you’re Black, this is the Ellis Island for many of your ancestors, except that none of them came to this place voluntarily and none got the chance to start a new life pursuing the American dream.

This was news to me, and I think of myself as pretty well-informed. I’m guessing it would be news to many other Americans, too. There’s very little on the island to mark its dark history. Aside from the exhibit at Fort Moultrie, Toni Morrison paid for a bench on the island. That’s about it. At least back in 2015. Maybe they’ve added more markers since then.

This got me thinking about the hidden history around us, all the people and events that we’ve forgotten about or whose lives were never recorded, or who maybe had their experiences erased. The ancient civilization that we call Cahokia today was nearly forgotten, is, in fact, still poorly understood, in spite of their remarkable achievements: a city of perhaps 20,000 residents, complete with suburbs and an immigrant community near the river, as well as advanced science and agriculture.

They were nearly completely forgotten in part because they built with materials that were readily available to them to impermanent: dirt, mostly. If their city had been built with stone instead, they’d have been a lot harder to forget. In the last few years, we’ve identified the footprint of another big city (known as Etnazoa to the Spanish) that is near today’s Arkansas City, Kansas. It was also home to thousands of people, probably for centuries, before its history disappeared.

There were many other civilizations along the Mississippi River and in the Americas that came and went with little left behind. The invention of a ground-penetrating laser technology known as LIDAR has opened our eyes a bit to how much we’ve missed. Dozens of new Mayan village sites have been identified in Central America, for example, as well as long-forgotten villages in places all over the world.

Along the Mississippi, many of other people who lived along the river in the past 10,000 years have long ago been forgotten, save for the occasional piece of ancient spear point or mound that turns up. Still, even with those objects, we know little about the kind of lives they lived.

Sometimes cities and civilizations simply fade away and there’s no one left to tell their stories. Sometimes, though, their history was actively suppressed or destroyed. Diego de Landa, a Franciscan priest based in Mexico with the invading Spanish army is known for his descriptive accounts of Mayan culture. He is also responsible for destroying many of the Mayan’s records of their own history. In 1562, he ordered the destruction of thousands of Mayan statues. When presented with books that the Mayans had written about their lives and culture, he ordered them burned. He considered the statues and books sacrilegious to his Christian faith. Jesuits in Canada destroyed thousands of birch bark scrolls for a similar reason, erasing centuries of knowledge documented in them by the Ojibwe people.

Some history is lost to us because the lives of many people just weren’t documented. After Europeans arrived in North America, the vast majority of people left little of note about themselves. Genealogy is one of my hobbies (which shouldn’t be a surprise, given my interest in history generally), and I have many ancestors for whom I know a name and maybe when they were born, married, and died but little else. I know little about their daily experiences, what they thought or felt about the world around them, what they wanted for themselves.

But at least I can find a name and some dates for many of my ancestors, though. For African Americans today, the search to find an ancestor often ends with the person who was freed after the Civil War. Few can go any further back than that, because the lives of enslaved people weren’t worth documenting, except maybe in a bill of sale or a will.

I know the names of the countries most of my ancestors emigrated from, and many times, I’ve identified the specific town where they had last lived. I traced one branch of my family to a small town near Stuttgart, Germany called Kohlberg and was able to follow several lines of ancestors back to the 1600s. Few African Americans in this country will ever know what contemporary country their ancestors came from, much less the town or village.

One of the reasons I like learning about history is that it helps me get out of my “present perspective.” I see the world as it is today, and it’s too easy to assume that that the way things are today are the way things have always been. It’s way too easy—maybe just part of our nature—to accept the way things are today without understanding why they are. Did you know, for example, that the ideas that “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day” doesn’t come from science but a marketing campaign? I love breakfast and breakfast foods, but you’ll be perfectly fine if you skip it, like I do now.

History can be hidden for many reasons: neglect, ignorance, or perhaps out of shame. After traveling around the Southeast and hearing very few stories about the history of African Americans in a region where a large percentage of the population is Black, it’s hard to believe that that state of affairs is anything but intentional.

After all, stories and markers about Black history before the Civil War would most often tell of incomprehensible acts of cruelty. And the descendants of many of those people who committed those heinous acts live near the descendants of the people who were victimized. That’s an uncomfortable history to reckon with, which makes it that much easier to ignore, especially when the people who write the books and erect the markers don’t want to confront the reality of their ancestor’s choices.

The monuments and markers that we choose to erect, are usually just the ones we want to hear, or believe. And even when we all agree that a certain person or event is worthy of being commemorated (a unanimity that rarely happens, of course), we want to present a neat, inspiring story. It’s hard to explain the nuances of a person’s life and the context they lived in on a 100-word plaque. And when those sanitized versions of a human being’s life are around long enough, attempts to round out that history are often met with fierce resistance. It took us quite a while, for example, to talk about the fact many of our founding fathers owned human beings. And it took even longer to acknowledge the fact that one of the most famous of them—Thomas Jefferson—had a sexual (and maybe emotional) relationship with an enslaved woman at his plantation.

I think about these issues a lot, because I want to tell stories, too. But I keep noticing how, when it comes to the Mississippi River, we tend to pass around the same tales. Many of them are good stories, of course, but I’m surprised at how often many of the important details are wrong in these stories or that they probably didn’t happen at all.

Of course, we need to talk about Mark Twain and the steamboat era, but that’s just scratching the surface. We do ourselves and the river a disservice by not going deeper and broader. There were a lot more people connected to the steamboat trade than pilots and gamblers, and we need to hear more of their stories if we want a better understanding of the era. But we also need to get the stories right and quit passing along bogus stories.

If you’ve read my books, you know that I try to do that. I don’t do as well as I’d like, but I keep pushing myself to do better, to dig deeper and wider.

A few years ago, I wondered how much we knew about Dred and Harriet Scott. Sure, we know a lot their fight for freedom—as property fighting for self-determination—but what do we know about them as human beings? While in many ways, they are the best-known Black people of their generation, it turns out we really don’t know much about their humanity.

A couple of books (Ruth Ann Hager’s Dred & Harriet Scott: Their Family Story and Lea VanderVelde’s Mrs. Dred Scott: A Life on Slavery’s Frontier) added some depth to what we know about the kinds of lives they led. If you want to know what I learned about them, check the show notes for a link to a post I wrote a few years ago that stitched together what I learned about them. In short, the books shed some light into their families and where they lived, but it’s a history heavy with dates and names but with few quotes or insights into what they thought and felt. Much of their lives—two of the most famous people of the 19th century—remains a mystery to us.

I keep hearing folks say that the Mississippi is full of stories, so let’s prove ‘em right. Let’s get beyond the usual stories told in the typical way about the same people. Let’s go deeper and wider.

In this episode and others coming this year, I’m going to take a couple of small steps in that direction. To tell stories that go beyond the usual, to go deeper and wider and see what we can learn from hearing from people whose voices we don’t often hear. I’m going to start by introducing you to a man who created the extremely popular Mississippi River Photos Facebook group and let him tell you why that group and the river matters to him.

And I’m going to introduce you a guy who grew in New Orleans whose time along the Mississippi inspired poetry and deep thoughts.

I’m looking forward to sharing their stories with you.

And if you’ve had an experience where you bumped into some hidden history, maybe in your town or region or even in your own family, drop a comment in the episode notes or go to MississippiValleyTraveler.com/contact and send me a note describing what happened. I’d love to hear about it.

And now on to the interviews.

Dean Klinkenberg 14:01

Norman Schaefer founded a popular Facebook group that features pictures of the Mississippi River from Minnesota to Louisiana. Close to 150,000 people follow the page and many of them regularly contribute photos. It’s easily one of my favorite Facebook groups, not just for the great pictures from along the river, but also for the lack of drama. Welcome to the podcast, Norman.

Norman Schafer 14:25

Hello.

Dean Klinkenberg 14:28

So it’s a pleasure to have you on the podcast today. And I just wanted to have a few minutes to get a little background learn a little bit more about this amazing Facebook group. Tell me how you started doing this.

Norman Schafer 14:42

Well, it goes back to 2014, I think in July. It was my very first Facebook group. I started it on the Mississippi River and during that time there was flooding. So it was initially called Mississippi River Flood Photos And then after the flood a few months later and went away, and so the group kinda didn’t do much because the flood was over. So I changed the name and took out flood. So Mississippi River photos was created. And it slowly grew over the years. And, and it’s, and it’s doing very well. It’s a very a lot of people like that group. So that’s fine. So really, you’re you when you started this, you were just kind of interested in sharing some pictures of the flood in 2014. Yeah, that’s how it all started. Yeah.

Dean Klinkenberg 15:34

Wow. We’ve had just a couple of floods since then, too. But I’m sure, it’s amazing to me the range of pictures that people will post. You, you’ve been doing this for several years now. Do you have any, like, any impressions you’ve gathered from the river or learned about the river from all the posts that people have put out there?

Norman Schafer 15:57

Yeah, I suppose you know, me living in southeast Iowa, I just kind of see this neck of the woods. And now when I wouldn’t see stuff clear up north, or in clear down south, you know, so I would see the whole river. Just from a lot of people sharing photos and discussions and stuff. It was very interesting. I guess. So I learned a lot, just from from that, I guess.

Dean Klinkenberg 16:21

Yeah, I think that’s one of the things that’s so fun about this, as I, you know, I’ve been traveling along the river for quite a few years. And there are a lot of beautiful spots. It seems like a lot of us know our little section of the river very well. But something like this Facebook group really helps us see the whole river. Is that kind of your impression, too.

Norman Schafer 16:40

Yep, it is. And that’s why it was created. I think it’s why a lot of people like it, because a lot of people love the river. And they want to see everything up and down the river that they would, you know, you would have to drive to see something, where you won’t have to drive anywhere. He could just log on and see everything. So it’s kind of neat. Kind of a neat idea. Yeah.

Dean Klinkenberg 17:01

Do you notice certain types of posts that show up more frequently at certain times of year?

Norman Schafer 17:08

There’s some. There’s times like it goes through different phases, especially now coming up. During the winter months, you’ll see the eagles pictures and stuff start popping up. And then, and then sometimes the spring, summer, you’ll see the American Queen, different type of river boats up and down. And yeah, just everything people do post, like wildlife everywhere. And sometimes a few fishermen might get in there and show off their cast with the fish they found. So yeah, it just isn’t multitude of stuff. I guess it is interesting.

Dean Klinkenberg 17:45

It seems like I’ve noticed pictures from some barge pilots too.

Norman Schafer 17:51

Right? Yep. And they’ll, and that’s kind of neat, too, because you get their, kind of like their life story and what they see because they see a lot. So it’s interesting to get those people on and this, everybody, it’s just a, it’s a really good group because not to say everybody’s a river rat, but everybody just gets along, for the most part. It’s very quiet. It’s one of the quietest groups I got, which is good.

Dean Klinkenberg 18:16

What is what does it take to manage a group of that size? What are some of the behind the scenes things that you have to do to keep this going?

Norman Schafer 18:26

I don’t really do a lot. I just add a lot of members. And I have a couple guys that help me moderate. So they’ll add members or some kind of a flag will come up, you know, somebody says something wrong. Or I have members that will message me, there’s… you need to look at this comment or something. Or sometimes you’ll see spam that gets on there. And you got to kind of go and delete those people. It’s not too bad. It’s kind of an ongoing process that pays nothing, but it’s kind of out of fun.

Dean Klinkenberg 18:58

Right? So there are two or three of you that just kind of have to keep an eye on on some of the posts and

Norman Schafer 19:04

Yeah, there’s three people.

Dean Klinkenberg 19:05

All right. And I know you’ve got rules posted about you know what’s okay, what’s not okay. It seems like for the most part, people follow the rules. Is that really been the case?

Norman Schafer 19:16

Yeah, there’s very, there’s hardly any rules that just you know. The biggest one is just be kind, you know? And I don’t, I don’t like people that troll, you know, upset people. That’s kind of the biggest thing. And no political posts, right? I don’t know. Nothing political. No F bombs. So pretty straightforward.

Dean Klinkenberg 19:36

Right? So has looking at all these pictures changed at all the way you think about the Mississippi are you see the Mississippi?

Norman Schafer 19:45

Oh, I suppose so. It gives me a better understanding, I suppose. You know, yeah, it’s just you see a lot of bridge pictures and sometimes bridges are coming down. And so it’s a lot of history there. or sometimes the bridges will be down and that history is gone. You know, so you can always go back into the group.

Dean Klinkenberg 20:05

And are there any kinds of pictures you’d like to see more of that people aren’t posting much of at this point?

Norman Schafer 20:12

Probably people fishing. I don’t see a lot of people, you know, casting out and just I don’t see too much of that. And that river is full of fish, you know? But right, everything’s good. I mean, it just, I like it all. I don’t–yeah, it’s all good. I completely agree. So blend of all kinds of different stuff.

Dean Klinkenberg 20:34

So you grew up in southeast Iowa, close to the river. Did you spend much time on the river or along the river when you were growing up?

Norman Schafer 20:43

Not so much. I have some friends that would go on the river. And I would tag along sometimes not a lot, but a little bit, but my current job is on the Mississippi River. So I see it every day when I work, I suppose for the past 30 plus years. So I just I see it and think about it. And I’m always looking.

Dean Klinkenberg 21:08

Right? Probably you see something a little different every day, I would imagine

Norman Schafer 21:12

Yeah, you do, you really do. There’s always something.

Dean Klinkenberg 21:16

Do you… so I’ve been to, so you’re in Burlington. I’ve been there a few times. If somebody wanted to come and hang out in Burlington, do you have a couple of tips for things that they ought to do while they’re in there in the area?

Norman Schafer 21:29

Oh, there’s a there’s a, well, the crookedest street in the world is in Burlington. So that’d be a good place to start. At least see that. The street is called an alley, they call it Snake Alley, kind of a street alley type. But that’d be the first place I would go. They got some good restaurants here. They got historic downtown’s really nice. And it’s this nice old river town.

Dean Klinkenberg 21:52

And yes, it’s a beautiful river town. And it’s easy to get to the river, as well. Some places have made it a little hard. Like I live in St. Louis. We’ve made it pretty hard to get to the river and a lot of other places have, too. But that’s not the case at all in Burlington.

Norman Schafer 22:07

No, you can just pretty much drive right to it. They’re doing a bunch of improvements, right now. It’s looking really good. It’s actually all nice, new and as a great place to stop. There’s also some overlooks on the bluff, different parts of town you can go to that are kind of cool. One place called Mosquito Park. Andit’s got a nice view of the Mississippi River. Really nice.

Dean Klinkenberg 22:30

Do you have your favorite spots? Where you’d like to go spend a little time along the river?

Norman Schafer 22:36

Not really. No, I just, well, I did buy, I did buy a cabin with the wife last year. So we did buy a cabin so it must be must mean something. So it’s kind of our getaway place and we actually really enjoy it.

Dean Klinkenberg 22:52

Yeah, it must be nice and quiet.

Norman Schafer 22:55

It is a nice quiet place to go. So we love it.

Dean Klinkenberg 22:58

I remember there was an island, I think, just a little up river from Burlington where there are quite a few cabins. It seems like there that’s in that part of the the Mississippi there’s still some cabin life.

Norman Schafer 23:11

Oh, yeah. There’s a lot of cabin life. There’s up north, north of, north and south, yeah, up the river and down the river in Illinois side. There’s a bunch of cabins. Yeah. A lot of people live there. They like the river life, their cabins. It has challenges, I suppose, you know, what the flooding is probably the biggest thing, but, but you always go back, you know.

Dean Klinkenberg 23:33

So that’s it. We always go back. Well, is there anything else you’d like folks to know about the Mississippi River photos Facebook group?

Norman Schafer 23:44

Oh, not really, I guess just enjoy it. The group was created–I get nothing from it. I get $0. I get nothing but it’s just, I think, it’s this sharing with people. And that’s what it’s about. I think I enjoy that people actually enjoy the group. And just have fun with it.

Dean Klinkenberg 24:05

Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for your time. I know it was a little bit of work to get this set up and I really appreciate the chance to talk with you about this.

Norman Schafer 24:14

Well thank you for the invite.

Dean Klinkenberg 24:17

If you want to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guide books for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also write the Frank Dodge mystery series that is set in places along the Mississippi. My newest book, Mississippi River Mayhem, details some of the disasters and tragedies that have happened along Old Man River. Find any of them wherever books are sold.

Dean Klinkenberg 24:39

And now it’s time for the Mississippi Minute. For native New Orleanian Jorge Abadin inspiration is just a bench in Crescent Park away. He’d sit on a bench and let his mind wander as he watched the Mississippi flow. Sometimes thinking was enough. Other times he translated his thoughts into poems. A couple of years ago, one of the poems he wrote won first prize in a writing contest sponsored by the Historic New Orleans Collection. He wrote to me that his love of the river and the music on its shores was the inspiration for this poem. So in this episode, I’m pleased to share with you the poem that he won that prize for. It’s called “The Rresponse to Bertha’s D’s Love or Rriver Life Session. And this poem will be read by the poet himself. So here’s Jorge Abadin.

Jorge Abadin 25:39

What’s love?

Love is doing whatcha wanna, tuba on the loose brass pass,

Warm air of southern nights, whispers bayou to grass.

The Champ longhair doctor, slow me down with their keys,

That lightnin’ red stick blues, lonesome slim king of bees.

Love is

A crystal reed shining, a closer walk with thee,

A Domino effect, brought rock across the sea.

Sounds of the one-eyed prince, Maharajah soul,

Smells of jasmine perfume, creole jazz that did Roll.

Love is

Ragtime bones Congo Square, fresh and hot Rose Nicaud,

The myths of one Coupee, cissy struttin’ mosquito.

Abrazo cubano, ak yon bèl dans dife,

When they call us wild, that’s just Choctaw filé.

Love is

Strictly no capicia, the jungle book did tell,

A Puppeteer’s art show, an organ raises hell.

Pa’lante when you’re down, muddy waters won’t hurt,

Time that is on our side, a soul that will convert.

Love is

Sky so blue cloud so white, believe the cornet dream,

Red beans and ricely yours, a smile now mainstream.

A French Quarter trombone, flying away with blues,

A dancing resting place, for a ramblin’ man’s booze.

Love is

A moon that outshines sun, Maple drips Rebirth band,

God’s celestial shore, living in gloryland.

Feeling my lovely home, watch a steamboat joyride,

Hearing all of these sounds, down by the riverside.

Dean Klinkenberg 27:29

Thanks for listening. I offer the podcast for free but when you support the show with a few bucks through Patreon, you help keep the program going. Just go to patreon.com/DeanKlinkenberg. I’d be grateful if you’d leave a review on iTunes or your preferred podcast app. Each review makes a difference and helps other fans of the Mississippi River and Midwest find this show. The Mississippi Valley Traveler Podcast is written and produced by me, Dean Klinkenberg. Original Music by Noah Fence. See you next time.