Eleanor's Rhyme of History

"The more things change, the more they stay the same," French journalist Alphonse Karr wrote in an 1849 column. 

Change is a constant of life, usually by increments in culture and politics, occasionally accelerated. This is one of those times. Like most Americans, this past week my inamorata, the noted artist Eleanor Spiess-Ferris, and I watched seemingly earthshaking events unfold daily. July 2024 shifted . 

It feels like 1968, a year of assassinations and upheaval that shaped our personal lives along with politics. Inspired by Don Delillo's masterful novel Underworld mingling characters' inner lives with the Cold War, I made the first six months of 1968 a protagonist in my memoirist novella, "Our Own Kind," featured in my 2018 collection: "Sometimes Ridiculous."   

Eleanor and I are old enough to remember moments when we experienced political change as personal, not just as a spectator sport in Washington. 

Karr's cynical quote missed the mark. Things did not stay the same. Mark Twain came closer to reality when he said: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

Eleanor recalls July of 1952, during another U.S. Presidential election year, as such a personal moment in history. That was when she attended the Democratic Party's National Convention with her father. Like this year, it was in Chicago. She was only nine, but it changed her life.

Fortunately, she kept mementos in a still extant scrapbook. She tells the story in a report that follows:

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A Journey Into American Political History

By Eleanor Spiess-Ferris:

Eleanor Spiess-Ferris with work

It was 2 a.m., in July, 1952, some seven decades years ago. I was 11 years old, sleepy but excited as we piled into our blue, family sedan, my father at the wheel, my mother riding shotgun and my brother and I in back.

We were set for the nearly 1,400 miles and many hours it would take to reach the Windy City from our 50-acre farm in Northern New Mexico. I had my pillow and favorite blanket. My brother wore one of his summer shirts with the Mexican coins as buttons, Mother was prim in a new housekeeping dress and Daddy, as usual was wearing a good dark blue suit.

Harry S Truman was President of the United States, successor to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1945 (a hard act to follow). Historians rate Harry Truman as one of America's greatest chief executives. But he was sold short throughout his Presidency, much like Joe Biden today. By 1952, Truman's approval rating had dipped to an all-time low largely due to a stalemated Korean War. 

Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in 1952 as well. Practically everyone on both sides of the Atlantic - including my young self - watched her coronation on black-and-white TV. This was a network television first the same as was national television coverage of the Democratic party convention that I attended.

Truman opted out of the of his party's running and announced that he would not run for another term that November's Presidential election. Unlike Biden, who gave the nod to Vice President Kamala Harris, however, Truman didn't endorse a successor. This opened the July '52 Democratic National Convention wide open. 

My father, a stout, balding country lawyer, was the New Mexico State Chairman for the Democratic Party. We four were on our way to that historic convention. held in Chicago, same as this year's Democratic convention.  

My father chaired New Mexico's small delegation. He took this position very seriously. Personally, he was for the then governor of Illinois, Adlai Stevenson, the most progressive among the front-runners. Stevenson was a favorite of FDR's feminist, human-rights championing First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who was much hated by the right, same as today's progressive women leaders. 

The Democrats eventually chose Stevenson as the Party's nominee. Those were the days of "smoke-filled rooms" long before nominees had to win primary elections. This meant judicious horse-trading in which my father's small New Mexico delegation spread its votes - and favors - among various candidates during successive rounds of voting on the convention floor, including a southern segregationist and favorite centrist TV personality Estes ("coonskin cap") Kefauver of Kentucky. 

 Eleanor's 1952 Scrapbook

"I want you to collect everything you can about the convention. When we get home, I would like you to make a scrapbook that you could show your sisters and take to school in the fall. I think many people will be interested in what you collect.” said mother in her “you will” voice.

I thought this was a great idea!

Creating that scrapbook fixed the experience in my consciousness, much the same as writing a journal or otherwise recording history as it happens. Although I never went into politics myself, I became a lifelong follower of current events. I see the participants as people like myself.  I know what it is like to cheer and march and celebrate in a convention hall filled with that special energy generated by belief in a common cause.

Now another convention is on the horizon. This one should prove to be exciting and certainly very different than the one I witnessed. While I watch it, I will return to the memory of that long ago road trip on the old Route 66 - America's storied transcontinental roadway largely defunct since the Interstate Highway system was built in the 1950s and '60s.

My brother had not been totally happy about this trip as his filly, Honey, had just given birth to a handsome colt. My father had insisted that he come, because my brother was old enough to drive and my father needed a back up driver.

Brother talked non stop about his colt. He worried about the colt despite being assured that Mr. Martinez - who tended our dairy cows - would take good care of the horses.

"Have you decided on a name for the colt?” inquired my father as he clutched the steering wheel, bracing himself for the long trip along Route 66.

“No. I can’t think of a good one.” replied my brother.

My father suggested that he name the colt "after whoever becomes the next president” 

"Do you really think Adlai would be a good name for a horse?” interjected Mother, hoping that our favorite candidate Adlai Stevenson would make it all the way..

I thought "Adlai" would be an odd name.

"Maybe Steven or Stevie would be better, ”my brother said.

Beyond the convention, the whole journey expanded my horizons. I saw parts of this big country I had never even imagined.

In Oklahoma we drove through a mud rain storm.

In Kansas I saw fields and fields of corn.

In Missouri I discovered the green lushness of that part of the Ozarks.

My eyes were glued to the back seat window as we drove that highway. 

Illinois' Adlai Stevenson poster

It was years before I fully appreciated the significance of this journey along what JohnSteinbeck called "the Mother Road" in his epic, 1939 novel “The Grapes of Wrath” This highway allowed folks to escape the Dust Bowl of the Midwest and was used by desperate people traveling toward a better life during the great Depression.

We drove through innumerable small towns. We ate lunch at many small town cafes. Each cafe was equipped with a table Wurlitzer Top Jukebox and my brother would drop a quarter at every restaurant to listen to the popular tunes of the day. I never tired of hearing “How Much is That Doggie in the Window.”

While in Chicago, we were to stay at my father’s brothers home in Hyde park – on the Southside not far from The University of Chicago.

My father lost his way enroute to Uncle Carlos’s home, detouring us through some of the roughest parts of Chicago. For the first time in my life I understood the depth of poverty as we drove lost through the worst of the Chicago tenements. 

Poverty wasn't new to me, only in urban form. We were far from wealthy ourselves. And I was aware of far less fortunate folks back home, I knew that many people struggled to put food on the table.

Nevertheless, the up-close sights of Chicago poverty opened my eyes further. I began to truly understand what poverty really was and how racism played into that condition. 

I had grown up in a world of mixture from native Americans, to those, like my mother and father of mixed hispanic heritage, where different religions were always welcome. I had been unaware of rampant racism and segregation of the kind we encountered in 1952 Chicago.

The convention was held at the International Amphitheater adjacent to the Union Stock Yards. When the wind shifted, all knew exactly where the Amphitheater was situated.

I was able to attend the convention two different nights with my father.  On the first night I was able to march down and around the aisles proudly carrying the banner reading NEW MEXICO as the band played loudly. I collected campaign buttons, campaign leaflets and booklets from the Presidential hopefuls of Estes Kefauver, Richard Russell, Averell Harriman and Adlai Stevenson and others. All things from men now gone and mostly forgotten.

During the day, I imagine my father was in many a smoke-filled room lighting up his Cavalier cigarettes and working on how to leverage New Mexico's votes to political advantage.

The Bedroom, Van Gogh, Chicago Art Institute 

During the day, I discovered Chicago with my brother. We went to many museums. I learned how to use a dial telephone at the Museum of Science and Industry. (We had a party line back home). 

At the Field Museum of Natural History I saw dinosaur bones and Egyptian mummies. The Aquarium was a cool refuge from Chicago's summer heat, but it was the Art Institute of Chicago that won my heart.

I was familiar with famous paintings and famous artists as my mother had gifted me a comprehensive Readers Digest book on great paintings at Christmas last. The tome had rapidly become dogeared and worn from my constant studying.

There, in the dim light of one of the many galleries at the Art Institute, was a painting by Vincent Van Gough. It called to me from across the room. It took my breath away. I think it was on that day that I decided that even though I had thought about becoming a lawyer, I would become an artist.

On the last night of the convention Eleanor Rosevelt spoke. We all went to hear her. I have no idea what she said but I do remember her iconic voice. I recall the silence in the auditorium when she spoke. I felt the gratitude and the respect the audience had for her. I, even thought not named after her, was proud to be an “Eleanor.”

Upon my return home, I gathered all the material I collected at the Democratic Convention. I created, as mother had instructed, a scrapbook about my experience.

By the end of the convention, Adlai Stevenson was nominated to be the Democratic Parties nominee for president.

Sadly for my father, Mr. Stevenson lost the general election the following November to General Dwight David ("Ike") Eisenhower.

In 1956 President Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid to Highway Act thereby creating the Interstate highway system we have today. Route 66 no longer functions as a highway across the United States.

The stock yards were demolished in 1971 and the International Amphitheater met the same fate in 1999.

 Estes (Coonskin Cap) Kefauver 

My Scrapbook is now mildewed and the pages are yellowed and brittle but I remain proud it after all these years.

Attending the 1952 Democratic Convention changed my life. It broadened my world experience. As a pigtailed country girl, I discovered that the world was full of the glorious along side the terrible.

I now live in the great city of Chicago and await this next convention with joy and anxiety as usual. Television coverage - the life-blood of today's politics - was new when we attended the 1952 convention. Attendees had to be coached. Delegates found an instruction sheet on each seat: “YOU WILL BE ON TELEVISION” leaflets announced in bold letters, with instructions on how we should act on camera.

All that televised political pomp and circumstance soon faded from public memory. Adlai Stevenson won the 1952 Democratic nomination but lost the Presidential race to Dwight David Eisenhower that November. American's chose the war hero over the "egghead," as the erudite Stevenson was labeled. Stevenson ran again and failed in 1956, but John F. Kennedy appointed him ambassador to the United Nations in 1960s. 

My brother, by the way, named his colt "Ike."

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Eleanor Spiess-Ferris 

Inspired by Hispanic religious icons, folk art and the wild orchard behind her Northern New Mexico childhood home, ELEANOR SPIESS-FERRIS is an internationally exhibited visual artist.  

She has received numerous awards and grants, including an Arts Midwest Fellowship grant and several grants from the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago where she now resides. 

Her  artwork is in the permanent collections of several museums:  these include the Art Institute of Chicago, the Montana Museum of Arts and Culture in Missoula, the Racine Art Museum in Racine, Wisconsin, the Illinois State Museum in Springfield, Illinois, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art in Minnesota.

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Cover by Eleanor Spiesss-Ferris

Umberto Tosi's recently published books include the highly praised, Frank Ritz, Hollywood noir detective mystery The Phantom Eye, plus his story collection, Sometimes Ridiculous, plus Ophelia Rising, High Treason, Sports Psyching and Our Own Kind. His short stories have been published most recently in Catamaran Literary Reader and Chicago Quarterly Review where he is a contributing editor.

 His nonfiction essays and articles have been published widely in print and online. He began his career at the Los Angeles Times as a staff writer and managing editor for its prize-winning, Sunday magazine, West. 

He went on to become editor of San Francisco Magazine. and managing editor of Francis Coppola's City of San Francisco. He joined Authors Electric in May 2015 and has contributed to Another Flash in the Pen and One More Flash in the Pen. He has four adult daughters. He resides in Chicago.

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Enjoy my Hollywood noir detective thriller: The Phantom Eye (a Frank Ritz Mystery)  - soon to be followed by Oddly Dead and Death and the Droid.
 "Tosi writes with tremendous style and a pitch perfect ear for everything that makes the classic noir detective story irresistible. Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer, make room for Frank Ritz!" - Elizabeth McKenzie, best-selling author of The Portable Veblen.

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