The Wagner Inheritance

 

Last week I talked about the travel bug that my family got from my father, so its only fair that I give my mother equal time. She passed down her love for music and some of her musical ability. I don’t say all of it, because she was a better musician than I am.

My daughter Caroline also benefited from Mama’s musical inheritance. Caroline sings in her church choir and in other choirs whenever she has the chance, and she directs the chime choir at her church.

I grew up with music. Both my parents loved classical music, and Daddy picked the hymns we sang at church, but he couldn’t carry a tune. It was my mother who provided the real inspiration for my own love of music.

Mama also grew up in a musical family, although she didn’t realize it at the time. Apparently Grandpa Wagner had learned to play the French horn at one time but gave it up before he got married. He didn’t give up the bones and the mandolin, however. He wasn’t a performer but often played them at home.

Most of the Wagner siblings learned to play an instrument, and they all enjoyed singing. Mama’s secondary instrument was the piano, but her primary one was her voice.

As an elementary school teacher, Mama taught music in her own classroom. Eventually she found herself learning to conduct and leading choirs. She was the choir director at most of Daddy’s churches although she never replaced a willing volunteer who was already there when they came.

When my brothers and I were children, Mama gave us two kinds of music lessons. I called one of them “alto lessons” because she had us read and sing the alto on hymns while she played the entire harmony. I enjoyed the alto lessons, which were really her way of teaching us to read music.

She also gave us piano lessons, and that was a mistake. Not the piano lessons themselves, but that she was the one who gave them. The church organist gave piano lessons, and I would have learned better from her.

Although Mama was a decent piano teacher, there were two problems with taking piano lessons from her. One was that she didn’t have much time to teach us during the school year. Most of our lessons took place during the summer, and in the meantime I forgot much of what I had learned.

The other problem is that I was taking lessons from my mother. If I had taken lessons from Mrs. Stevenson, I would probably have practiced more in an attempt to impress her. But Mama was Mama. She was going to love me regardless, and I felt no need to impress her.

One of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t spend more time learning to play the piano. I can pick out a melody and play simple pieces, but I wish I had learned to do more. Maybe I should try learning more now, but I don’t seem to have the time.

I did put a little more effort into learning violin (with a teacher who wasn’t Mama), although I didn’t practice that as much as I should have, either. Unfortunately, although I loved the instrument, it didn’t love me. Dexterity is important for a violinist, and my fingers just wouldn’t cooperate.

Mama continued with her music after my parents retired. She even picked up a new instrument by joining the handbell choir at their local retirement center. And she always sang in choirs even when she wasn’t directing them. That’s her on the far right in the picture at the top of this post, singing in the choir at the church my parents attended in Holland, Michigan after Daddy’s retirement.

And I followed in those footsteps, as I will discuss in next week’s blog post.

The Page Travel Bug

 

My father had the travel bug, and he passed it down to his children and grandchildren. Or to most of his grandchildren, anyway. My son, John, was a disappointment.

After John left home, he took very few trips, and all of them were within the U.S. So I was pleasantly surprised in 2023 when he decided to go to Greece with my brother Gordon and my niece and nephew.

But let me go back and explain where the bug came from.

It started with my father, Oliver Page. Before Daddy was married, he traveled to the Middle East and taught at a private school in Amman, Jordan. He returned on sabbatical when he was a family man, and we lived there when I was six and seven (with my birthday occurring in the middle of the eight-month trip). When we reached England, and on our way back home, we worked our way across Europe seeing the sites until we reached (and after we left) Amman. While living there, we took advantage of weekends and holidays to travel around the area by foot (hitchhiking) or bus.

We had been back in the states for three years when Daddy decided to take another sabbatical with his family, this time to Edinburgh, Scotland. We sightsaw through England on our way there and in Europe during our spring break.

Other years, we traveled around the continental United States or to Mexico or Canada. Daddy got a month of vacation each year, and he made the most of it.

Daddy and Mama continued traveling after my brothers and I left home, but I wasn’t usually with them.

Roland didn’t travel much while growing up, but I soon infected him with the travel bug, too. While Caroline and John were young, we took international vacations to Germany, Mexico, Great Britain (England and Scotland), Canada, and the Middle East (Jordan, Egypt, and Israel), as well as traveling around the continental U.S. The photo at the top of this page is from our 1998 trip to the Middle East with my mother, my brothers, and my niece and nephew. (Daddy was 88 and too infirm to go with us.) Roland isn’t in the photo because someone had to take it.

During our time as empty nesters, Roland and I have continued to travel extensively. At first we traveled mostly in the U.S. (often to states where Roland had never been, but also to Alaska and Hawaii where I hadn’t been either), but we have done 14 international trips since the children left home, with two more booked and others under consideration.

Caroline and Pete are also experienced international travelers, but, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I despaired of John.

Then he went to Greece. Still, that could have been a one and done.

Fortunately, it wasn’t. John and Christina just returned from a delayed honeymoon trip to Italy. (Delayed only in the sense that they were married in September.) I don’t know if she urged him into it or if he was as interested in going as she was.

In any event, I hope that my entire family now has the travel bug.

How the Old Masters Saw Easter

 

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

The picture at the beginning of this post was painted by Carl Heinrich Bloch in 1881. It is a very typical Easter image, showing Jesus emerging from the tomb and being worshiped by angels. This is a logical depiction since Revelation makes it clear that angels worship the risen Christ.

There were many witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection after the fact, meaning that they saw the living Christ in the flesh. There is no record of human witnesses to the actual resurrection, however. The closest we come to that is in Matthew 28:1-6, but even there it appears that the soldiers guarding the tomb and women who came to give Him a proper burial saw an angel of the Lord rather than THE angel of the Lord (which is the term used to refer to Christ himself).

Here is the Matthew passage, quoted from the ESV.

Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come see the place where he lay.”

This painting (circa 1700) by Noël Coypel is probably meant to depict the Matthew account. As mentioned above, there is no evidence that human eyes actually witnessed Jesus rise from the dead, but I like the way the painting shows the power of Jesus’ resurrection.

I’ll end this series with “Three Marys at the Tomb,” painted by Peter von Cornelius sometime in the early 1800s.

Both Mark and Luke mention that three women came to the tomb, but only two of them were named Mary. Regardless of their names, however, women were the first to hear the good news, and they hurried off to tell the others.

I want to be that kind of witness.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

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These works of art are all in the public domain because of their age.

 

How the Old Masters Saw Maundy Thursday and Good Friday

 

Da Vinci’s painting “The Last Supper” is well known. He painted it on the wall of a church in the 1490s, and it has deteriorated and been restored several times since. It’s possible that nobody has a full knowledge of the original details, especially around the edges. If you don’t know what I mean, compare the one above with this one.

Regardless of its accuracy, the painting shows Jesus celebrating the Passover with His disciples on the day we now call Maundy Thursday. If you want to be a fly on the wall and listen in to what Jesus said during the meal, read John Chapters 13–17. He clearly knew what was to come even if his disciples didn’t get it at the time.

Jesus’ heart was heavy, and after the meal He went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. Matthew 26:36-46, Mark 14:32-42, and Luke 22:39-46 all tell us that He asked His Father to take away the cup (the painful crucifixion) that God had planned for Him. Yet every time He prayed He ended with, “Yet not my will but thine be done.” In spite of His agony, He was willing to sacrifice Himself for us.

The next image is a 1465 painting by Giovanni Bellini titled “The Agony in the Garden.”

That agony didn’t last forever. The final piece of art showcased this week is by an apparently unknown painter from the Antwerp School in the early 17^th Century. I like this depiction of the crucifixion because the two thieves appear to be writhing in pain while Jesus is at peace. When He died, the battle was over and Satan had been defeated.

The evidence of that would come three days later, at Easter. That’s the subject of next week’s post to end this series.

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These works of art are all in the public domain because of their age.

How the Old Masters Saw Palm Sunday

 

With Holy Week coming up, I decided to do a series on how the Old Masters saw those events. I’m starting this week with Palm Sunday.

The image at the top of this post is how we usually picture what we refer to as the triumphal entry, with Jesus surrounded by people spreading cloaks and palm branches before Him. The 1860 woodcut for Des Bibel in Bildern (The Bible in Pictures) is by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld.

The next photo shows a 1305 fresco by Giotto and is a typical Medieval portrayal of those events. Notice that Jesus is richly dressed and looks much more like a nobleman than a humble rabbi.

This final image shows the Spanish influence. It is attributed to Master of San Baudelio de Berlanga, circa 1125.

No matter how Jesus is portrayed in visual art, the best pictures are in words and come from the Bible. Here is the account of his entry into Jerusalem taken from Mark 11:8-10 (ESV):

And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”

Although He came as a king, He rode on a donkey because He came in peace. The battle for salvation was still to come. We’ll see images about that battle next week.

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These works of art are all in the public domain because of their age.

 

Being Too Quick to Judge

 

Some of my main characters spend a lot of time reading. Since I write historical novels for children, I believe that it’s important to have them reading books that were actually around then. I have a long list of children’s classics and always check the initial publication dates.

Unfortunately, I recently read a book that reminded me that not all authors do that. I didn’t consider it one of the most egregious instances that I have seen, but it still bothered me.

Then I read it again.

The book I was reading is A Girl’s Guide to Winning the War by Annie Lyons, which takes place during World War II. The story is written for adults and has an adult protagonist, but her young niece is a prominent character. At one point the main character is reading Little House on the Prairie to her niece while a friend listens. That part is fine since Little House on the Prairie was published in 1935 and may well have made its way across the ocean by the beginning of the war. But the book is new to the friend, and the protagonist asks, “Didn’t you read these books with your mother when you were little?” Since the friend would have been a teenager by the time Little House on the Prairie came out, I was disappointed that the author would think it had been around that long.

That was going to be the theme of this blog: emphasizing the importance of researching publication dates before mentioning a book in historical fiction. When I looked for the quote to include in this post, however, I discovered a very big mistake on my part. It wasn’t the protagonist who asked the question but her young niece, who obviously wouldn’t have had any clue that the series hadn’t been around that long.

So even though Annie Lyons isn’t likely to read this blog, I’m apologizing to her now.

More importantly, it goes to show how important it is to read or listen carefully before criticizing someone for what they say. Otherwise, it’s way too easy to get the meaning wrong. That’s how misunderstandings—and even wars—begin.

So don’t be too quick to judge.

Even the Kitchen Sink

 

Last week I mentioned that spelling was the only subject I ever got Ds in, “At least not until law school, and that’s another story.” Rather than leaving you hanging, this post tells that other story.

I attended law school at Chicago-Kent College of Law, which is a division of the Illinois Institute of Technology. Two of the reasons I decided to go there were 1) they had evening classes (and I needed to work during the day to afford it), and 2) they allowed students to start with the January semester. With a few exceptions, including the one I’m going to mention in this post, it was a great place to go and I got a good legal education there.

So when my first summer session rolled around, I had just one semester behind me. I wanted to take the only two classes that would fit into my schedule and didn’t have prerequisites I couldn’t meet. Actually, the Evidence professor tried to talk me out of taking his class because I didn’t have enough substantive background yet, but those classes weren’t actual prerequisites and I signed up anyway.

The other class was Criminal Procedure, which was supposed to be an easy A.

I should have known better. I had the same professor for Legal Ethics my first semester and ended up with a C. People who know me have a hard time believing I got a C in an ethics class, and I had a hard time believing it myself. Still, I was just finding my way in law school and didn’t ask the professor why he gave me that grade.

That was probably a mistake.

Law school classes weren’t like my undergraduate ones. Midterms were rare, as were quizzes. So in most cases I had no idea how I was doing until I took the final exam and got my semester grade. Still, I was fairly comfortable about how I was doing in Criminal Procedure.

When I received my final grades, I had one A and one D, and they weren't in the classes I expected.

This time I did make an appointment to talk to my Criminal Procedure professor. When I asked what I could have done differently, he literally told me that I should have given him “the kitchen sink.” And yes, he did use those three words. I don’t remember how I responded, but I’m sure I walked out of his office in shock.

In case any of you aren’t familiar with the phrase “everything but the kitchen sink,” it usually means someone has provided a lot more information (usually irrelevant) than necessary.

I believe in being efficient and providing only those arguments that a judge isn’t going to laugh at. So, although I probably didn’t say it at the time, I refuse to learn how to include the kitchen sink.

In the long run, that D in Criminal Procedure didn’t mean much. It wasn’t a failing grade, and a D was good enough to keep me from repeating the class. I did need a C average to graduate, but the D in Criminal Procedure was more than offset by the A in Evidence, and the rest of my law school grades were As and Bs with a sprinkling of Cs, so my GPA was never in danger.

It did teach me a valuable lesson, though. A good writer knows his or her audience, which I obviously didn’t. Still, it isn’t enough to satisfy the audience.

I also need to satisfy myself.