(cheerful music) - Will you consider this?

I am sitting with somebody who does it all.

She's known as the Music Lady and she writes different kind of productions.

She directs, she plays music, she sings, she does it all.

This is Edith Barnard, and you're an author and you're a performer.

Just all around performer.

Welcome, again.

- [Edith] I love being here.

- Good.

- You are such fun to talk with.

- Well, thank you.

Thanks so much.

So let's go back in case somebody missed the interview from I think four years ago.

Tell us a little bit about Edith Barnard.

- I was born in Decatur.

My father was a Methodist minister, so we moved around every four years, although when I was a young lass, we lived in Boston 'cause my dad taught theology at Boston University.

- Okay.

- I loved Boston.

Loved, love, love Boston.

- And the history.

- And the history of Boston.

Very much, yes.

- So that's what got you into studying historical figures or what?

- Yes, my studying Harriet Beecher Stowe happened because I lived in Brunswick, Maine next to the house she lived in when she wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

- Mm-hm, yep.

And so that's why I have you here because you have done a lot of reenactments and you have portrayed Harriet Beecher Stowe.

- Yes.

- And so, she's also the daughter of a minister, of a preacher.

- [Edith] Yes, as am I.

- Okay.

All right, so tell me about this fascination that you had with her and that you still have with her.

- In 1986, I received a phone call asking me to portray Harriet on a cold December morning at a church in Brunswick where she went to church.

And she had a vision of a big Black man being killed viciously by two white men.

And that was so stark an image for her that she ran home and started writing her book.

- [Christine] Really?

How old was she at that time?

- She was in her late 30s at that time.

Yeah.

- Interesting.

- But she had been told by many family members, because all the Beechers were abolitionists.

They told her, because she was always so talented a writer, to write a book about her passion, about abolitionism.

- Well, and she did write several books.

- She did, she did.

- Yeah.

But the only one we mostly know is "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

- Right, right.

- All right.

So you got interested because she had lived next door at one time.

- Right, she was my neighbor.

- And you were asked to go to that church and portray her, and from then it was a deep dive into her history and her background.

- Right.

- Okay.

Tell me about that.

- Well, I feel that Harriet was such a brilliant woman, and she did, she was a great cook, she was a great wife.

She enjoyed traveling, and, but most of all, she loved writing.

When she was a little girl, she discovered she needed only six hours of sleep.

And the other two, 'cause everyone was supposed to sleep for eight hours in their house.

- [Christine] Mkay.

- The other two hours she would write.

So she wrote from when she was a little girl, and she began to discover in her teens that she would get paid for writing.

So she definitely kept writing.

- So she got paid by newspapers or magazines?

- By religious magazines.

- Okay.

All right.

- Yeah, about her faith.

- All right.

Well that's interesting.

Something that we didn't know.

- I know.

- And what else have you learned about her that we don't, I mean, I think, we know the name, but what else do we need to know about Harriet Beecher Stowe?

- Well, I'm glad you know the name because, but you're very learned.

I'm shocked by the number of people who don't know about Harriet Beecher Stowe.

It's just amazing.

So, other things we don't know, or people who haven't become enamored of her as I have.

She and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and another one of her neighbors co-founded "The Atlantic" magazine.

- Interesting.

- In 1857.

- Hm.

I didn't know that, either.

- Isn't that great?

- Yeah.

And Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a poet.

- Yes.

- And writer.

Yeah.

Okay.

- And Ralph Waldo Emerson was another one.

- And how did she get together with them?

Or do you have any- - They were friends.

- All right.

- The writers during that time hung out together and they wrote to each other, sort of like we email now.

And they were, the abolitionist passion of all of them was very strong.

And Henry had gone to Bowdoin College where her husband taught.

Where I taught, which was great.

So I have, I feel so many connections to Harriet.

- Okay, and that was in?

- It's in Brunswick, Maine.

- Okay.

- It's a small liberal arts school.

- Mm-hm.

And you taught music there?

- No, I taught reader's theater.

- Okay.

All right.

I told you she was a performer.

Yeah.

So reader's theater, and you've done some reader's theater presentations here in the Peoria area as well.

- And you came to one.

- I did.

- "Inherit the Wind."

- I did, yes.

- Starring Jim Shadid, now President Shadid.

- Of, yeah, Bradley University, wearing your Bradley red.

- I am wearing my... - And Mitch Gilfillan, and I believe Judge McCuskey was there also, so it was very good.

- Thanks.

- But so now, recently, most recently, you and your husband Wes have been making special appearances.

And you are Harriet Beecher Stowe.

And then who does he represent?

- He represents Calvin Stowe, Harriet's husband.

And in real life, my husband Wes has a Master's of Divinity, even though he was never a proper pastor, he didn't really want to be.

But he loves studying philosophy, theology, all that.

So he plays many instruments and in our shows he plays guitar, banjo, sometimes mandolin, that I really enjoy that kind of help with the music.

- And you also, you also have church services that you accompany that you are, are you the music director for those services or?

- I'm not doing that right now, because I find doing Harriet and my private singing and speaking teaching takes up about enough of my time.

- So, okay.

We'll talk about the Music Lady.

- Okay.

- And that is your website.

You also have an EdithBarnard.com.

- [Edith] I do.

- You know what, you're pretty busy, and you're getting that technology thing down.

- Am I?

- I'm ashamed.

I can't do it.

- No, but you have.

- But my grandkids know more about it than I do.

- So do mine.

If I need help, I call my niece who's at ISU to help.

- Yeah, and they can talk you through it.

- Yes.

- But when my 1-year-old granddaughter gets ahold of the remote, I'm in big trouble, 'cause I don't know how to undo that.

- [Edith] Oh, I understand.

- So tell me about the Music Lady.

- The Music Lady.

I have a bachelor's from good old University of Illinois in music education and a master's in theater, State University of New York at Binghamton.

And I operated my own theater in Maine, for 15 years, and have spent my whole life writing musicals and producing them.

In Maine, I was known for writing historical musicals.

So Bath Iron Works, which is a ship building company in Maine, commissioned me to write a musical celebrating their hundred years.

- Oh, fun.

- Yeah.

And I called it "Hot Ice" about the ice trade between Maine and Barbados.

And that was really fun.

- I bet, I bet.

So, and you had to study that.

You had to figure that all out.

Did they help you out with any of that history?

- I always, whenever I wrote a historical musical, I would apply for a humanities grant, and I would get them.

Yay.

So I had the money to hire historians to help.

For example, the Maine State Bar Association, as in lawyer, not booze.

Let's be clear on that.

They commissioned me to write a musical about Maine's response to the new Constitution.

So I got a big humanities grant to write that.

- I bet.

- So I was able to hire Neal Allen, who was a Colonial Constitution specialist.

Harvard man.

- [Christine] All right.

- And I learned so much from him.

And then I hired a woman who taught at Bowdoin, who taught about food of the Colonial era.

So I got to work all that together.

- So in your research, and you didn't really have the internet to do that kind of thing.

- No.

- Back in the day, you had to go to the library and learn how to get through the, you know, the card file and look up whatever you needed to do.

So you must be a good grant writer then too, in order to qualify and get all those.

- I had a friend.

(Edith chuckling) - [Christine] A good grant writer.

- A good friend who helped.

Yeah.

So now, I wish I were, wouldn't that be great?

But I'm not, but... - Okay.

So back to Harriet Beecher Stowe, HBS, we'll call her.

- Oh, I love that.

- Well, you performed her then that first time, up in Maine.

- [Edith] In the church.

- In her church.

And did you also portray her at other times in the Northeast?

- Oh, yes.

Once people found out I was portraying HBS, I love that, I got all kinds of invitations for museums, like I do her museums, libraries, schools, and people in Maine know a lot about Harriet because she lived there.

- [Christine] Right.

- So I feel I'm on a mission in Illinois.

A lot of people know about her because of her Lincoln connection.

- Correct.

Yes, and tell me about that.

That's an interesting quote.

- Isn't that interesting?

Allegedly Lincoln said, when he met Harriet, he said, "So this is a little woman who wrote the book that started the big war."

- Very interesting.

- Isn't that a great quote?

- It truly is.

Truly is.

And "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was in the Ohio area, you know, right by the Ohio River.

Cincinnati, yeah.

- So there's a Midwest connection also to her that we need to know about.

And then the Underground Railroad was so big here.

- Absolutely.

Harriet moved from Connecticut where they were living to Cincinnati for 18 years.

They moved there.

Her father was asked to become president of Lane Theological Seminary in 1833.

So they all moved there.

And that's where she met Calvin, her husband to be.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

And that's a juicy story.

But do we tell juicy stories here?

- [Christine] Within reason.

Go ahead, tell me.

- Well, it's a sweet story.

She and, Calvin and HBS were in a literary club called the Semicolon.

- Okay.

- And at that time- - [Christine] Okay, got it.

- Calvin was married to a lovely gal named Eliza, that was Harriet's best friend.

So Eliza sadly died of tuberculosis.

- [Christine] Back in those days.

- Yes, yes.

And so Harriet and Calvin started consoling each other about her death, and that's how they got close and eventually married.

- So then in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," it's poor Eliza.

So did she pull that name because that was her friend?

- Yes.

- All right.

- Yes.

- Okay.

And you found that out.

What other interesting things did you find out that we need to know, that you had no idea?

- Well, she was a fabulous painter.

I had no idea of that.

And also, I really loved that she loves singing.

So I love singing, you love singing.

That, to me, means a lot.

And when I teach Harriet in schools or libraries, and I have a discussion right now with an area district, a school district, about possibly having Harriet in residence.

Would that be fun?

Through the whole district?

But I find it's important for me.

(Edith coughing) Excuse me.

- [Christine] It's a rainy day, we need to tell you, and it's a rainy day, so, yeah.

- Thank you.

You're so kind.

- In the spring, in the spring.

- Anyway, so Harriet I think is an important person to know that she was one person who made a big difference.

So when I'm in schools, I love to talk with the children about how each one of them can make a big difference.

- [Christine] Right.

Mother Teresa.

Yeah, same thing.

- Oh, that's good.

- So now when you go and do these performances, and you've performed, I know you performed at Bradley and- - [Edith] Two weeks ago.

- Okay.

And then you have another one coming up, but this will probably air after that performance.

But your husband, Wes, also joins you.

- Yes.

- And, you brought your dulcimer here.

- [Edith] I did.

- And, the Negro spirituals had hidden messages.

- Yes.

- So tell me about that.

- Well, the Negroes were so brilliant in many ways.

And by the way, my great great great great grandmother, Sarah Pigman Barnard, who lived in Kentucky, freed her slaves before the Civil War.

- Oh.

- And then hired them.

- [Christine] Oh, when they were freed.

- Yes.

- Wow.

- I know.

- What a great gift.

- I must write a book about her, or a musical.

Anyway, back to this.

- Yes.

- So the clever Negroes had a code.

I'll sing a song for you.

- Okay.

- And it's "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," which means, the chariot represents the Underground Railroad.

- [Christine] Moving, okay.

- And "I looked over Jordan" is the Mason-Dixon line.

- [Christine] All right.

- And "Angels coming after me," people to help on the Underground Railroad.

And there's some more, you'll pick it up.

- [Christine] Let's hear it.

(mandolin strumming) (mandolin continues strumming) ♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪ ♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪ ♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪ ♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪ ♪ I looked over Jordan, and what did I see ♪ ♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪ ♪ A band of angels, coming after me ♪ ♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪ ♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪ ♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪ ♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪ ♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪ - It's lovely.

- It's lovely to have you sing.

- Well, thank you.

- Thank you.

- So they knew, and this was part of their messaging from plantation to plantation.

Also how to escape, where to go, and that they should be okay.

- Following the drinking court, of course meant go north.

- Oh, okay.

- Yeah.

And then wade in the water.

That's a good way to escape because your footprints won't be followed.

- Okay.

All right.

- Yeah.

- And did you have any idea of that before you started your research into HBS?

- I learned it by doing my research.

- All right.

- Yeah.

No, I didn't.

- Okay.

Fascinating.

It makes total sense.

- It does.

- And they say that so many nursery rhymes, same thing, like, you know, yeah.

Ring Around the Rosie, that kind of thing.

- Yeah.

- Right.

Okay, so you plan to do some more reenactments, I guess, is that what we call them?

- Yes.

- All right.

- Yes.

- And will you do it throughout the year?

- Yes, yes, yes, yes.

- Okay.

And who else are you studying up on to portray?

- Well, I'm just staying with Harriet.

- Okay.

- But, I'm learning about her friends.

- All right.

- And I just finished a book about Joshua Chamberlain.

- All right.

- Do you know who he was?

- I do not.

- People don't usually.

He was the fellow who helped win Gettysburg.

- Oh.

- Oh.

Jeff Daniels played him in the movie "Gettysburg."

- [Christine] Okay.

- And Joshua Chamberlain was at Bowdoin as a student in 1850 to 52 when Harriet wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

- Okay.

- Every Saturday night, Harriet would have a gathering and read her next novel because the book was written in chapters and then sent to a magazine called "The National Era."

And it was an abolitionist magazine.

So every Saturday night, all the six or seven lucky people from Bowdoin came and gave her feedback, including Joshua Chamberlain.

So- - So she had his perspective of Gettysburg.

- She had his perspective of her writing.

'Cause Gettysburg hadn't happened yet.

- All right.

I got it.

- Yeah.

- All right.

Wow.

And it, just because he'd gone to school, it was just one of those serendipitous things that happened.

- Yes.

And Harriet was good friends with Charles Dickens.

In 1853, she went to England with her husband and met Charles because Harriet had not yet begun to get royalties from her book.

Even though it sold brilliantly throughout England.

- [Christine] "Uncle Tom's Cabin" did?

- Yes.

- All right.

Okay.

I didn't realize that.

- So, Charles Dickens and Harriet worked together to figure out how she could get royalties for it.

And he was a huge fan of hers.

And she was also a great friend of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and George Sand, Chopin's special lady friend.

She had really interesting friends.

I enjoy studying that.

- And then, she spent some time in Florida, or she moved to Florida.

- Florida.

Yes.

- Okay.

- The year after the Civil War, she moved outside Jacksonville to a place called Mandarin.

And she wrote a book called "Palmetto Leaves," which it is said, helped start the Floridian tourist trade.

- Hmm.

- Apparently people in the north didn't know much about Florida.

And this is a great book.

I recommend it.

"Palmetto Leaves."

- "Palmetto Leaves," all right.

- Yes.

- And it's probably in its 15th or 16th printing.

- Probably.

- Might be, anyway.

- Yeah.

But it's a great book about Florida.

And she loved being there in the summer.

Or the winter, excuse me.

And in the winter, then, they ended up living in Hartford, Connecticut.

- [Christine] All right.

- And Mark Twain was their neighbor.

- I was gonna ask if, yeah, if she had a friendship with him as well.

- Yeah.

- Samuel Clemons.

- Samuel Clemons.

She would walk into his house and sit down at his piano and play.

Uninvited.

- So she was musically inclined, but you know what, but they were artists, and I guess maybe they just sort of expected and accepted that.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

Good.

Okay, so future, immediate future, you're hoping for this school district thing.

- [Edith] Oh, I'm excited.

I think it's going to happen.

- Okay, good.

And, any performances?

Now you've done some help at the 4th of July celebration on (indistinct) before.

- I have, I have.

- Will you be able to do that again or do you know?

- No, but, President Shadid and I have a project.

- Okay.

- He wants to be Abraham Lincoln.

And I'm gonna play, of course, Harriet.

- Okay.

- And I'm in the process of writing a reader's theater.

- For that.

- For that.

- All right, good.

- And the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

- We will stay tuned for that.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- All right.

Thanks so much, Edie, for being here.

- Oh, what a joy to be here.

- I know.

- Thank you.

- All right, and thank you for being with us.

Anyway, yeah.

- Yeah.

- Until next time, be well.

(cheerful music) It was delightful.

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