Loving the Rose City: A year in Richmond, Indiana 2013

If 2013 had a theme it would be learning to grow optimism, even in rocky soil. We needn't be insouciant about the future, but we cannot cave to despair. Our community is not blithe. We are all aware of the challenges we face in Richmond. We can plan for the future, no matter how uncertain, and invest in what is best for this city. Events unfolded infusing the downtown with hope. Entrepreneurs and small businesses are building up our local economy, our real estate. Historic preservationists are fighting to save our unique architectural assets. Friends and neighbors have rallied in times of crisis in ways that are great and small. Sometimes, it's as simple as eating a donut and saying a prayer. Sometimes it's relaying a message for someone searching for family on-line. Sometimes it's just being in the right place at a bad time and lending a hand. Richmond is good at that.

If I learned anything in a year of being the Local-Lady, I learned this:

Cultivate your own garden. Explore your backyard. Appreciate what is close. Love your hometown. Fight the worst faults. Champion its best features. Don't ignore either. Safeguard the future. Remember the past, but look forward. Don't hesitate to serve where and when you can. Pick up litter, even if it's not yours. Look out for your neighbors. Don't look at development in terms of "sides". Cheer on progress whether it comes to the North or South, East or West. Attend public meetings or at least, watch on-line. They might just discuss that pothole that rankles you, and you'll smile when they name the date it will be filled in (this really happened).Vote. Support the doers. Encourage the thinkers. Say thank you. Shop Local. If you must, be cautious, but remain friendly.

You can't save it all, and sometimes you have to let go, but there's almost always something to salvage, even if it's only a lesson to carry with you in the future.

Avoid Adapting Other People's Negative Views

Local Lady Snapshot: Richmond's Rose Garden

by Sharon Dolin

after Epictetus

"To gaze upon the fatal
without commiserating gloom:
what every friend should be--
not one who rends her coat of doom
nor one who lets her ankle rankle
nor her dogged love to the hounds.

Be the cat in catastrophe
who survives eight more dives.
Though in the clutch of damage
a dame must age,
in the crazy-quilt of guilt
it was never your fault.

In the company of morose

always pull out the rose."

From Poets.

So many people shared expressions of bitterness & disappointment in our community in the past. We dwelt there. Naysayers still do, and sometimes they have a point to make so we shouldn't even try to shush them completely. Committees met to ask, "How can we foster community attachment?" I believe it was already there. We just need to express it, and this past year and in the future, we are and we will. Why else would we still be here?

What people are saying about Richmond, Indiana:

Local Lady Snapshot: Madonna of the Trail

"People from Richmond are tough and resilient like the Madonna Of The Trail. It's no mistake that she is here. People from the Midwest are the toughest people you will ever meet. They always have a story to tell and will lend you the shirt off their back. Richmond people rock." 
Sean Butler

"When there is a family in need I have never seen a more giving community than Richmond. We moved here from South Florida almost 5 years ago and have never been happier."
Shelli Erwin

May 2014 bring new roots and further growth.

<3 the Local Gal


A Local-Lady in Review:

Speaking to Strangers
Sunflowers and Moths
Landscape and Thoughts
Roots and New Growth

Richmond Indiana's "Local Ladies"

A Local Lady Picture: Madonna of the Trail 

In my first reflective post on living in Richmond, Indiana, I included a photo of the Madonna of the Trail. The Madonna is a larger than life sculpture located at the entrance to Glen Miller Park. She is one of twelve "madonnas" in the United States. According to wikipedia, the sculpture was designed by August Leimbach and founded by the Daughters of the American Revolution in order to honor and remember the strength and courage of the women who traveled along the National Trails Old Road to establish their homes in the unfamilar terrain of the western United States.

Arlene B. Nichols Moss, chairwoman of the DAR committee in the 1920's was inspired to commission the Madonna of the Trail after seeing a sculpture in Portland, Oregon of Sacagawea, a Shoshone guide who aided Lewis and Clark in their famed expedition.

That inspirational sculpture (which you should click here to see (because it's beautiful!)) was designed by American sculptor Alice Cooper. She still stands in Washington Park, Portland. 

Leimbach wrote about his inspiration in designing the Madonna sculptures:

"When I was a schoolboy in the old country, the American History of the pioneer days made a deep impression on me. I thought often of those who had left the old home and all that was dear to them and had come to this country to find a field for their ambition...

When I came to America, I often saw these people of the pioneer type, strong and brave and always ready to protect themselves against any danger. Asked to make a sketch model for a monument of a woman of pioneer days, I was inspired by my own impression of these people I had met, and the Madonna of the Trail is the result."  (Source:Wikipedia)

Perhaps because Richmond's Madonna is part of a National series of sculptures and because of her location visible to Main Street traffic, she is the most well known sculptural representation of a woman in our city. Although women are often under represented in monuments on a large scale, there are more such sculptures right here in Richmond, Indiana. 

A Local Lady Picture: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

 St. Elizabeth Ann Seton is considered the patron saint of all American catholic schools. Elizabeth is  memorialized in front of Seton Catholic School on the west side of town.  Elizabeth was also a pioneer of sorts. She established the first free catholic school and the first congregation of religious sisters in the United States. At least six existing congregations in the United States trace their root's to Elizabeth's  Sister's of Charity. St. Elizabeth was also the first native born American to be canonized.

A Local Lady: Mary Dyer

Another of Richmond's Local Ladies is located on Earlham College Campus. Nestled in the cool shade of trees at the entrance to Stout Meetinghouse is a monument designed by Sylvia Shaw Judson. Mary Dyer lived in the early 1600's, before Elizabeth Seton (1774-1821), and well before pioneer women made their journey west. Mary Dyer was one of the Boston Martyrs to die for her belief in religious freedom, in particular for her belief that God could communicate with any individual not only the appointed clergy. This faith ran against what was accepted by the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony as religious truth and law. Mary could have lived her life and chosen to remain silent, or at least to remain banished from her home in Massachusetts...

"but her conscience led her to return to Massachusetts in April 1660 to "desire the repeal of that wicked law against God's people and offer up her life there." 

Despite the pleas of her husband and family, she refused to repent, and was again convicted and sentenced to death" 

(Source:Wikipedia)

Mary Dyer's hanging marked the end of Puritan theocracy. Her brave death and refusal to recant was not in vain. 

The Dyer Sculpture is also a part of a series. Two others exist one in front of the Massachusetts States House and the other at the Friends Center in Philly. It is appropriate that Mary Dyer and Anne Hutchinson, her spiritual mentor are remembered by the existence of an herbal garden in Portsmouth, Rhode Island created by their shared descendant Michael Steven Ford.

I am happy to call Richmond, Indiana home, and I'm happy to share my home with three very model "local ladies". 

<3 Your Local Gal