Celia Hayes – The Accidental Texan

So, I had one of those author event things, this last weekend  which I should note first and foremost – I thoroughly enjoy, welcome such opportunities as come my way, and am perfectly willing to do more, any time, any day, any sized group – as long as said group is located at an easily commutable distance from where I live. I’m not famous enough to become totally blase by this kind of thing. For not-quite-famous authors, it’s also one of those neccessary things to do in order to build your base of fans. Besides, I like talking about my books. Being that this is Texas, the definition of easily commutable can cover a drive of up to four hours on the highway. I’ve gone as far as Richmond and Abilene in the last couple of years; those distances usually incorporate an overnight stay, so bliss it was that this event was in New Braunfels, a mere hop-skip-jump up the IH-35 from home. This one did involve a bit pre-planning, as it had been formally set up nearly six months ago: to be the guest speaker at the scholarship fund-raising brunch for the Ferdinand Lindheimer chapter of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas in New Braunfels, and the ladies who had invited me were also part of the management team at the Sophienburg Museum . . .  which had done me the honor of stocking the Adelsverein Trilogy for the last couple of years. New Braunfels actually features in the Trilogy, being one of the German settlements in Texas, and founded by Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels, who also appears as a character.

This quilt is being raffled to raise funds – the final drawing will be some months hence. It doesn’t show in the picture, but it is quilted with the names of all of the Alamo defenders, in alphabetical order. It took the quilter a year to do this, and she said she will probably never do it again!)

So  . . .  polish up and make some additions to my usual remarks, since they wanted to hear a bit about how I came to write about those events to do with the German settlements in Texas, and make a special effort vis-à-vis hair and makeup, and to wear something tastefully coordinated. Heck, I even dug out the peridot and gold stud earrings, since they would match my sage-green top (worn with a black long skirt) and Blondie came up with a green, cream and black Perry Ellis scarf, and chose a string of pearls and an ivory bangle to accessorize it all. Really, it’s nice to have an assistant; she even did my hair and makeup, although I don’t know how much good it did to tie the scarf around my head, since it kept slipping off. (I’ve decided to let my hair finally grow long again, and do it up in a plain bun or French roll, but it’s not anywhere near that point, yet.)

Anyway, up at what Blondie called the ass-crack of dawn, walk the dog, get dressed and put together and hit the road for New Braunfels, and the venue for the brunch – the Family Life Center, or I guess what used to be called the parish hall of the First Protestant Church. I thought we would be very early, and we were, but even early, there were a lot of people already there. It was beautifully set up in the hall, too – round tables ornamented with pots of blooming red geraniums, and each place setting adorned with an iced gingerbread cookie and a little card painted by Myra Lee Goff,  one of the members. The brunch was going to be a buffet, so I had time to circulate – so did Blondie, athough we were a bit stymied when people asked us what chapter of the DRT that we belonged to. We actually don’t; it’s just not possible for either of us to join the DRT in any way, shape or form, being that three of my grandparents arrived early in the 20th century from Great Britain. Granny Jessie’s folks arrived emigrated from Wales in the late 1600s  . . .  but as near as I can tell, they stayedput  in Chester County, Pennsylvania from that moment on. (The DAR is a solid possibility for us though, and I may look into it. With all these historical talks I am doing, it might help to be a member of some serious ancestor-worshipping organization.)

Myra Lee Goff did this painting, reproduced as a note card at every place-setting – a scene of the first settlers arriving, and Prince Solms-Braunfels on a beer stein. Myra also does a historical blog at the Sophienburg’s website.

So, circulated and talked to a fair number of people; laughed with some of the ladies who are teachers about the perils of public speaking. For a long time, I would be freaked about getting up and addressing a large group, even though I knew that when I was on the radio, I would be talking to all that many more. Seeing them all look back at you – that was mildly unsettling. All those eyes! The teachers confessed that they had no problem with talking to a large crowd, as long as they were all children  . . .  but adults? Major anxiety issues. Anyway, I think I have gotten over that particular hurdle in my talk; I did add some other new bits about how important it was to connect with history, and that it wasn’t really all just stiff people in funny clothes; it was everything to do with real life, and we would gain a lot by knowing about it.

As soon as the program was over, I had to hustle over to the Author’s Table – adorned with stacks of all three volumes of the Trilogy, and several ladies had everything organized. All that I had to do was sign and sign and sign again – in a case like this, writers’ cramp is an excellent thing to have. I wish I could have talked a little longer with each of the people who came up to buy a book, but  . . .  umm, there was a line. The very nicest bit was that a lot of them were people who had read the Trilogy, and loved it – and were buying sets as gifts. There were a couple of people whose family names we recognized, and a gentleman whose family had also originally come from Chester County, Pennsylvania, and who actually recognized Granny Jessie’s family name   – honestly, this whole part of Texas is just one large small town. A few had read Book One and were coming back for the rest of it – including one lady who was purely heartbroken to find out that tragedy would befall a character she had become quite fond of. Well, better you find out now, said another reader consolingly, in daylight and with friends, than late at night and alone. Yes, there a quite a number of readers who have told me that they had to lay down Book Two for a quiet weep.  In any case, and by way of further comfort, that particular character does appear again in the new book, which will be out next month.

Finally – the ladies did the most lovely presentation basket for me, remembering how we had told them about our moveable feast, when we drove up to Abilene; a basket with some books written by some of their members, but also of locally made foods: a box of pastries from Naegelin’s Bakery, some jams and salsas and pickles by local companies and a bottle of artisan olive oil from the Texas Olive Ranch, and some other lovely little things – all as appreciated as they were unlooked for.

Yeah, I like doing this kind of thing – and even if I do get famous for writing books like the Trilogy and the others – I’ll go on doing it. I don’t think I have the genetic material in me to be a real prima donna.

As part of the required head-games involved in being interviewed for a new job a number of years ago, I was once asked which historical figure that I identified most with. The person who of course popped into my mind was the great Queen Eliza, Elizabeth I, of England, Wales and Ireland. There is probably some wish-fulfillment there, what with identifying with a tall, willowy and commanding red-head, an accomplished scholar and incomparable statesman, especially since I physically rather more resemble Victoria—short, plump, prim and domestic, with light-brown hair.

But the two of them, Elizabeth and Victoria are an interesting contrast, in the feminine exercise of power and authority, even allowing for how mores and politics changed over the three centuries separating their glorious reigns. Both came to power and the throne as young women, both died of old age, in their beds (or in Elizabeth’s case, in her bed-chamber) after decades of political and diplomatic success, wielding power in their various ways, earning glory and honor both personally and for the nation, so much that each of their reigns was in turn looked back upon as a golden age.

Elizabeth took a poor, fractious and schism-ridden nation, on the fringe of Europe in every sense, and saw it emerge as a major political power, a naval power, and a Protestant counter-balance to the land-power of Spain and militant Catholicism. Victoria ruled at the high-water mark of an empire that covered a quarter of the globe, saw her grandchildren married into the royal families of Europe, and technology move from that powered by horses, to that powered by great steam-powered engines, on land and sea, and even begin flirting with the idea of powered flight. Both of them distrusted their presumed successor: Elizabeth, childless, held off officially designating her heir, and jealously held power to herself and herself alone, and Victoria thought her son, Edward was an irresponsible wastrel and only allowed his participation in matters of state in the last years of her reign, when he was himself in late middle age.

Both of them, in their prime, displayed immense self-assurance, what an old Scots friend of my mothers’ called “a guid conceit of themselves”. That is, they appeared perfectly at ease with who and what they were, assured of the respect they were due as monarch of a unique people, and cognizant of the duties and responsibilities expected of them. They moved confidently among the trappings and obligations of their respective ages, although the circumstances of their lives differed in as many ways as they were similar.
Victoria, although she lived an almost suffocatingly sheltered life as a child, was clearly marked early on as the heir to her uncle and her succession was uncontested, a straight paved road to the pinnacle of the monarchy.

Elizabeth, the younger daughter of that much married Henry VIII, survived the reign of her Protestant little brother, (and the short-lived interregnum of her cousin, Lady Jane Grey) the almost equally disastrous reign of her older sister, the rigidly Catholic Mary, a couple of insurrections, a really nasty sexual scandal centered around a supposed affair between herself and the husband of her last stepmother, Catherine Parr, a stint in the Tower of London, and the abiding and deadly suspicions of a whole range of political enemies. The fashions of the age played in Elizabeth’s favor, though: she had the education worthy of a Renaissance prince, supple and subtle, whereas Victoria had only that which was thought suitable to a lady of good family in the early 19th century. But what education they were given, served them well: Elizabeth survived, and ruled. Victoria inherited and ruled. Both were respected,  worshipped by some, and feared by others.

Victoria, I surmise, was much more immediately trusting of others; the penalties for political miscalculation during her reign being immediately much less unpleasant; a matter of being “Not Received At Court and By Respectable People”, rather than “A Short Stint In the Tower Followed by An Appointment With A Man With a Really Sharp Ax”. Victoria was also fortunate in her marriage, to a competent and politically astute man whom she (to judge by her deep and demonstrated grief on his death, and the fact that she produced nine children with him) deeply loved and trusted unswervingly. But Elizabeth was known as “The Virgin Queen”, and I think it altogether likely that was more than just a politic bit of court flattery. One can hardly think otherwise, considering how many women close to her as a child and teenager came to grief and an untimely grave through unwise affairs, ill-considered marriages, and perilous childbirth. Her own mother, a stepmother and a cousin died on the block, another two stepmothers died agonizingly in childbirth, the marriages of both her sister Mary and cousin Mary diluted the political authority of both those Maries, and allowed factions to form around a royal spouse or court favorite. No, I believe it would have been absolutely clear to Elizabeth that sex=death, actually and politically. But flirtation, and a rotating stable of political suitors, all played off against each other for England’s gain?  Her personal inclination was perfectly matched to political expediency, and allowed her to keep the reins of power firmly in her own capable hands. She survived, by keeping it that way, and becoming an icon.

Victoria also became an icon, a bourgeois icon, surrounded by her children, very much in contrast to Elizabeth, solitary in jeweled and glittering splendor, but there was one more likeness; their imperishable sense of duty. Both of them had a job to do, a lifelong job, and they did it appropriately and suitably to their time, but in two vastly different and interesting ways. It amuses me, sometimes, to wonder if the two of them could have a conversation together, what would they have said?

Possibly something about seeing to good marriages for their ladies-in-waiting. And then they would have talked about politics and management.