Highly Acclaimed

Right off the bat I want to write a disclaimer: What follows is in no way a criticism or negative commentary on our Washington State History Museum experience yesterday. Period. It is, instead, an endorsement of our own Columbia Pacific History Museum, our Pacific County Community Historian program and, in particular, of the local people involved with it.

Sometimes it takes leaving your own back yard to help you see the glories of your own garden. That’s the way I felt yesterday when Nyel and I went to Tacoma to hear Claire Gebben talk at the History Museum there. The Last of the Blacksmiths was her subject and we went because of Nyel’s interest in blacksmithing. Her talk, however, was about her research process – the steps she took along the way from her participation in a creative writing class to the book’s publication by Coffeetown Press last February – less than a year ago!

The book, classified as historical fiction, is Gebben’s first and has rocketed to the attention of historians and genealogists, alike, to say nothing of the book’s reviewers who give it five stars. Gebben, who lives in Seattle, has worked as a newspaper columnist, newsletter editor, and ghostwriter, all the while raising a family, but it wasn’t until she took a creative writing class in 2011 and subsequently ran across an old family letter that her idea for The Last of the Blacksmiths began to coalesce.

“Claire At Anvil”from Claire Gebben’s Blogsite

The story concerns Michael Harm, a 19^th Century blacksmith from the Bavarian Rhineland who dares to follow his dreams of freedom and prosperity and travels from Germany to Cleveland, Ohio, to pursue an artisan way of life. It is based on the real-life story of Gebben’s great-great grandfather and, in the process of developing her idea, she delved deeply into the world of genealogy, took a class in blacksmithing, visited ‘long lost’ relatives in Germany and actually walked in the vineyards where her ancestor had worked more than a hundred years ago. She even visited the Carriage Museum in Raymond (and sang its praises!).

On Display at WSHM

As I listened to her power point presentation, I couldn’t help but think that Claire Gebben’s process was no different from Community Historian Ellen Wallace’s Bear River School quest or Mike Lemesko’s research about John Briscoe. It was even eerily similar, in some ways, to my own process in writing Dear Medora, Child of Oysterville’s Forgotten Years. And, probably being a tad mean-spirited, I couldn’t help but wonder why the spotlight falls on some people’s efforts and not on others.

I had similar thoughts afterwards when we took a quick look at “Pomp and Circumstance, the Clothing of Transformation,” a special exhibit that turned out to be far grander sounding that it was in reality. Again, a bit uncharitably, I thought that our own Heritage Museum has had far more informative and interesting exhibits with far less (ahem!) pomp and circumstance attached. I think it’s the usual – we don’t half appreciate what’s in our own backyard.