this week, i visited the lost chapters at the hamburg public library for the second time as a guest author. the group focuses on writing, learning from regional authors, and encouraging each other across creative literary endeavors.
betty kunkel who lives not far from the library and is from my second book of poetry from this project acted as a special guest for the evening, and her niece, sherry fuhrmann who owns pure wild tea in bernville, a mint tea business, also attended. fuhrmann is the one who introduced me to her aunt.
those who joined our meeting for the evening had an opportunity to ask me questions about my process, but they also asked betty about her experiences and memories, too. as a very enthusiastic person, betty was delighted to be a part of this group and to be honored by strangers who appreciated hearing about her life and past jobs.
dan larue, the library's director, offered to contribute some of the photography below.
and one new visitor with the lost chapters brought along a poem which she wrote about her best friend who passed away. mary jane wijtyk, who runs the group, offered to read the poem out loud so everyone could hear it, and below is a photograph of it with its original author.
and here is an excerpt of betty's poem. she was born in 1939.
*
my parents took me out of school once i turned 16—helping
to bring in money for our family. at our farm in jalappa,
we raised corn, potatoes, apples, turkeys, chickens, horses.
berries upon berries grew in juicy clusters, and i milked cows.
we did our own butchering. i went back to school to finish
my high school degree in 1983. but in 1955, i grew my talents
as a belt sewer. i made sure men’s and boys’ underwear would
fit their waists snugly once they, their wives, moms, or aunts
bought the pairs and ripped open the packaging. the hardest
part involved the curve of scissors. see, i am left-handed. they
gave you scissors meant for the majority, at hamburg knitting
mills, all its brick at 239 pine street. the label, the tag, sewed
right into the underwear. you had quite a mess if you dropped
the box of tags. women brought bundles of the materials we
needed, so we didn’t hop out of our seats to grab any fabric
or elastic. they played music from speakers above, maybe
“walkin’ after midnight” by patsy cline once in a while. i ate
summer bologna or cold chicken by lunchtime. i carried
coffee in a stainless steel thermos. we drank mugs of it back
when we were kids, but i don’t drink it now—i drink tea
instead. i worked at dutch knitting mills for four hours,
into night, so i had 12-hour days. those in charge at this
other mill were fairly strict, and they had older machines
which gave you trouble more often. two sisters and the son
of one of them ran it—they did the repairs themselves. i
stopped to eat chili at rip trexler’s at fourth and state streets
between these two jobs. by 1968, i worked at the burkey
underwear company. elsie fox told the bosses she knew me...
*
