From the Living to the Telling: Seeds Bloom
By Katie Doyle Donovan
My grandmother lived her early years in Carlin, Nevada. In the 1920s, winters were cold enough to freeze the Humboldt River, and ice was harvested and loaded onto trains in the railyards of the Central Pacific Railroad, where her father (my great-grandfather) worked. She slept with a brick warmed from the fire to keep warm—“bricks the size of two books” wrapped in a cloth. As a young teen, her family relocated to Sparks for railroad work. She lived out the rest of her life in Reno and witnessed the American strides and trials of the next seven decades. She lived a simple life with rich experiences of family, community, and place. Through it all, she stayed warm with her beloved books the size of bricks, and she sought enrichment through the written word. She read the Nevada State Journal each morning, and the Reno Evening Gazette in the evening as she listened to the San Francisco Giants’ games on KOH radio. She was touched deeply by people’s experiences and paid attention to the world through the telling of stories shared by others. Although my grandmother would not have used the word “humanities” she was deeply influenced by them, and she would have loved the work that the Nevada Humanities organization does today.
Nevada Humanities shares and celebrates the diverse experiences and stories of Nevadans. Many lives throughout our state have been personally enriched and inspired over the past few disorienting years by Nevada Humanities’ programming and project grants, including mine. I’ve written sego lily poems in the margins of the humanities nature guide/poem book Sagebrush to Sandstone, soaked in stories and compelling ideas at the Nevada Humanities Literary Crawl, and discovered many exceptional writers and books in their Nevada Reads program. Bearing witness to the human experience of others offers us orientation and meaning—such is the medicine of the humanities.
I have spent most of my life living in another Nevada railroad town, Winnemucca, half-way between Carlin and Sparks. Here I have worked watering the seeds of more than a thousand 6th graders over the years, encouraging them to tell their Nevada story. This past year, they exchanged Nevada P.S. I Love You Postcards with students in Las Vegas and wrote letter poems to Nevadans with encouragement from the Poet Laureate of Nevada, Gailmarie Pahmeier. With invitations to tell stories, seeds bloom, and connections are made.
On a bookshelf back in Sparks sit some of my grandmother’s favorite books from the 1930s-1960s. I have used these beloved artifacts in my songwriting, making poems from the book titles that connect me back to my grandmother and to the greater world that helped her find joy in story and observation. I am grateful to her and to Nevada Humanities for sharing seeds. Bloom with Nevada Humanities will raise funds to ensure that the humanities grow and continue to blossom in our state. When I donated this week, I used the name of my grandmother, Virginia Doyle, and donated in her memory to ensure our stories can help to understand ourselves and each other.
Katie Doyle Donovan is a member of the Nevada Humanities Board of Trustees. She lives in Winnemucca where she teaches 6th grade at French Ford Middle School, promotes music and literary events with the local non-profit Great Basin Arts and Entertainment, and writes songs that almost always mention birds and the moon.
Photos courtesy of Katie Doyle Donovan.