July 15, 2024 • 30 mins
“Excavating Memories, archaeology and home, touches on how we construct identity through things we keep by choice and by accident”, says Elizabeth Mosier. Crucially it spotlights how we construct identity and express what we value through the things we keep by choice or by accident. True treasure isn't the object It’s the stories the object tells, the information about people and the relationships. Often the stories sitting in the margins speak about the people who don't have a voice, who don't own property and who are not in the public records.
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Episode Transcript
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Paula (00:00):
Welcome to "TesseLeads" with your host, Tesse Akpeki, and
your co host, me, Paula Okonneh.
"TesseLeads" is a safe, sensitive,and supportive place and space
to share, to hear, and to tellyour stories and experiences.
(00:21):
Tesse and I get super curious aboutthe dilemmas that we all face.
And we love to find out and hearfrom you how they shape the future
and the journeys that we are all on.
Today, we have an amazing guestand very inspirational guest.
(00:43):
Her name is Elizabeth Mosier.
Let me tell you about her.
She's a novelist and she's also anessayist and she has logged 1000
volunteer hours processing artifactsat the Philadelphia's Independence
National Historical Park ArchaeologyLab for her latest book which is called
(01:08):
"Excavating Memory Archaeology and Home".
That book was published in 2019.
So this experience trained her to seehow we construct identity and express
what we value through the thingswe keep by choice or by accident.
She's a graduate of Brian MarsCollege and the MFA program for
(01:35):
writers at Warren Wilson College,where she explores the complex ways
our lives are entangled with objects.
She writes about that.
And she also teaches workshops onthe role artifacts play in family,
in community, or in history.
And she also leads sessions withphysicians on everyday objects
(01:59):
as tools in the practice oflistening, witnessing, and healing.
You can get more information onher and her work at her website,
which is "elizabethmosier.com".
Thank you for saying yes tobeing a guest on "TesseLeads".
Elizabeth (02:18):
Oh, thank you so much for having me.
What a pleasure to spend themorning, or my morning, your
afternoon, Tesse, with both of you.
Tesse (02:26):
Yeah, Elizabeth, I am so overjoyed that you said yes to coming on the show.
And I had the privilege to read your book,"Excavating Memory, Archaeology and Home".
I totally loved it from the first page.
Maybe because I love history, maybebecause I love archaeology, maybe because
I love people, and maybe because I lovebeing curious and finding out new things.
(02:51):
A combination of all.
Your book had it all.
But you know what?
I left looking at your book and readingyour book with a deeper question
and that's a curiosity about you.
What brought you on thispathway of support, of inquiry?
Because it's not easy, it'snot the easiest of things.
Tell all, hold backnothing, say everything.
Elizabeth (03:17):
How much time do we have?
That's a good question.
Because I'm not an archaeologist.
I have so much respect and admirationfor archaeology and archaeologists.
But this project that I got involvedwith was something, I think, because
of my love for Philadelphia and myinterest in Philadelphia's history.
(03:39):
I volunteered as a technician atthe lab just after the National
Park Service in Philadelphia.
Archaeologists had uncovered thefoundation wall of George Washington's
house, which when I was in college, wasa women's bathroom for the national park.
Like people had forgottenthat it had been there.
(03:59):
You know how things, once youtear them down, you just, people
forget that they were there.
So I had no past experience withthis building and the dig was a
very exciting event in Philadelphia.
And when I took my daughters who wereyoung, they were in middle school at
the time, downtown to see the dig.
It was this big hole in IndependenceNational Park and Jed Levin, who was the
(04:24):
head archaeologist, stood in the pit for45 minutes in the hot sun and talked to me
and my daughters about their dig and toldus all kinds of interesting anecdotes.
He said that they'd been digging for fiveweeks and they had found nothing and they
were afraid that when they renovated thepark, they'd scooped all the artifacts out
(04:45):
and they, you know, never to be recovered.
And then they'd found a penny from, Ithink he said it was 1830, which was what
masons would lay a penny in the groundwhen they were putting a new floor in.
So that's how he knew that thatfloor was preserved, they were
getting into the colonial part.
He also made the space real for me.
(05:05):
He told us that the bow window, whichyou could see the remnants of in the
ground, was something that Washingtonhad added to the house, so that
he could meet people, citizens, atan equal level on, you know, equal
footing, not on the throne like a king.
And then he told us that that bow windowwhere Washington stood meeting the public
(05:28):
was what architectural art historians citeas the precedent to the Oval Office in
the White House, that they'd taken thatidea and brought it to the White House.
What was striking to me about itas a writer and as a human being
is that it was five feet from wherethe enslaved African named Hercules
was cooking Washington's meals.
So the juxtaposition of that symbol ofliberty and the symbol of enslavement
(05:52):
is irresistible to a writer.
I wanted to get to the bottom of that andto have some part in telling the story of
those lives that were lost without goinginto it wanting to write about it per se.
I wanted to be part ofthe recovery process.
Looking at the objects, what myjob as a technician, as I said,
(06:13):
I'm not an archaeologist, theytrained me, everything I know.
I learned from these people, to wash,label, catalog, organize, document
the lives of nine enslaved Africans,whose, I always feel like I need to
say their names, Oni Judge, Moll,Austin, Richmond, Giles, Paris,
(06:33):
Christopher Shields, and Joe Richardson.
In some cases, the only evidence that theylived in Philadelphia is from that dig.
So I commended the archaeologistsfor the work they were doing.
I wanted to be part of it.
And because I am a writer, I thinkmy supervisor might have been a
little suspicious of me that Iwould just come in and just write
(06:55):
about it, I had to make very clearthat I was in it for the long haul.
I wasn't there as a writer I was therebecause I was going to put my hands
in dirty broken greasy water that Iwas, you know washing and mending,
we also mended things and I ended upstaying for seven years and during
that period as we were documentingthese objects, building a memorial,
(07:16):
which you can see in Philadelphia.
It's on the corner of6th and Market Streets.
And it tells attempts to tell thestories of these Africans who lived in
the house, using artifacts and documentsand letters even if there was only one
fact, that's included in the memorial.
It's just called thePresident's House Memorial.
While I was there, I had thebenefits of just listening to
(07:37):
archaeologists talk and learningfrom them why they do what they do.
And as I said, I wasn'tintending to write about it.
But when Jed Levin, the headarchaeologist, told my daughters, you
know, gesturing to the ground, he said,"this foundation isn't just bricks and
mortar, it's a tangible link to thepeople who lived in this house and a
(08:00):
link between the enslaved and the free".
That made the hair on my arms stand upand just elevated the project for me.
Made me feel kind of zealousabout it and about what they
do to recover these stories.
It's very similar to what a writer does.
And so even though I wasn'ttechnically writing about it, I
(08:22):
was sitting there engaged in aprocess that is very familiar to me.
Tedious work of attaching things topeople, thinking about meaning, all
while my own mother In Arizona, so 3,000 miles away, was descending into
Alzheimer's, and I was coping with theloss of her memory, and therefore, you
(08:47):
know, some of the shared memories that,from my childhood, and also the loss
of her, because there was a point, ofcourse, as anyone who's had a loved
one with Alzheimer's knows, there was apoint where she forgot who I was which
immediately just unsettled my senseof identity because I am her daughter.
Who am I if she doesn't remember who I am?
(09:08):
So none of this was spoken really.
I was sitting at the lab, as I said,for seven years, washing broken pieces
of glass and writing little numbersand thinking, thinking about what
memory has to do with archeology,what the purpose of writing is and
recovering stories and telling themor writing them and passing them down.
(09:29):
Why we keep what we keep and whywe throw away what we throw away.
And some of the things that I startedto see as connections with my own work
were, the archaeologists explained tome, especially in urban archaeology,
they said the true treasure isn't theobject at all it's the stories it tells.
So they're looking at these objectsas information about people, not about
(09:55):
just a pretty thing to put in a case.
So that became sort of a, thatwas a paradigm shift for me.
I always thought it was sort ofIndiana Jones and like finding
whatever the, you know, the relic.
And they're like, no, this is just people.
We want to know about people.
So the, whatever canhelp us tell the story.
So that resonated with me as a writer,we construct identity through things
(10:15):
we keep by choice and by accident.
So if you look in a person'sdesk drawer, you look at the
way they decorate their home.
A lot of it is choice about identity andthe way we put that together, sometimes
deliberately, sometimes accidentally.
And I started thinking about how whenyou spend your entire day washing and
(10:36):
labeling things from the pretty pit, thisis where all of this stuff comes from.
You realize that the things that aremost important to people are the things
that they used and broke and threw away.
Not the things that were carefullypreserved in a display cabinet.
So the things that we put in displaycabinets might speak to our status,
(10:58):
or people like to have thingsthat show that they've arrived.
That's a different kind ofidentity, but if something's
broken, because it's been used everyday, that was actually important.
And so I, it sort of flipped my sense of,in my own home one consequence of that
is I went home and took my wedding china,out of, you know, it's very plain China.
Like, I don't know why I was notlike using it, but, you know, you
(11:20):
bring it out on special occasionsand I said to my daughters, how will
you know that this was important tome unless we use it and break it?
Like, so it actually had aconsequence that was, I started
using these plates that I had beengiven when I was in my twenties.
And there's been kind of brought outat Christmas and Easter every day.
And if they break, they breakthat shows what's important to me.
(11:43):
If they're scratched upthat's evidence of use.
And then the other thing that theylet me see is that the archaeological
record is often created in a crisiswhen we're, you know, moving to
another country or we're divorced andsplitting our things or we lose someone
and we have to clean out their place.
So because it's a crisis situation,there is necessarily emotion involved.
(12:06):
This is not a sort of cold,scientific process of deciding
what to keep and what not to keep.
It's both pragmatic and forensic,and often that's how writing is.
I never, for example know what,and I've written novels and essays
and, you know, interviews, and Inever really know what I'm writing
(12:30):
about until I've done the research.
I go in with a vague idea of somethingi'm curious about, and while I'm in
there digging around, I discover thatthere's something that, some truth that
I'm avoiding that is really the subject,or something that I think is true but
that actually isn't true, and I findthat out, you know, through research.
So that is what sitting there for sevenyears processing archaeological artifacts
(12:56):
helped me to see, and it allowed me,and it was a gift really, to write about
the painful process of losing my motherin a way that I had been avoiding.
Why would you want to writeabout something painful that
you're actually going through?
Then you sort of suffer twice, right?
But archaeology gave me a lens in,so that I could start thinking about
(13:20):
objects as revealing something,about digging and processing
artifacts as a process of recoveryand repair that is similar to grief.
And once I had that method and thatlens, it wasn't easier to deal with
my mother's altheimer's, but it gaveme a way in that I am so grateful for.
(13:45):
My book, "Excavating Memory", has oneessay that's very specifically about that.
It's called "The Pit and the Page",and that's the first one I ever wrote.
And I showed it to the archaeologistsand I said, I want you to read
this and make sure I haven't,you know, misused the terminology
or the intention of archaeology.
Does this feel to you like I'mmisappropriating your field for my grief?
(14:10):
And because they're kind, theysaid, you know, it was important to
me that I got their approval, thatthey didn't think I was using what
they do in some inappropriate way.
I think they were moved by it, becauseas I said, their work is very much about
people and about relationships, andthat is not what I had thought before.
Obviously, Jed Levin, whoinspired, the head archaeologist
(14:32):
who inspired me to volunteer, wastelling me about the tangible link.
That's what makes him get down inthe ground and dig and brush things
off and literally, you know, our job,my job was like separating pieces
of brick from pieces of burnt bone.
Like, it's very tedious.
And these people are stewards ofour cultural artifacts, as well as,
(14:54):
you know, these personal storiesthat mean something to us as humans.
So they did understand, andthey did somewhat approve.
And then I started writing the otheressays in the book, which were really
just my using an archaeologist lens tolook at the objects in my life, everything
from a date book that I, this sort ofwas a record of my life to a friend of
(15:17):
mine who had to bless her had like onsuper eight film had filmed her nine
year old birthday party, which is I hadremembered like it was yesterday, and
then to find out that she actually hadthe film and I could see it and compare
my memory with what was actually on film.
So it was a way of looking atmy own life as though I were
(15:37):
in a, in an archaeologicaldig and my life was a feature.
And so it did help me, you know,writing, not all writing is therapeutic.
Often when I'm writing it is hardand sad, but finding that lens helped
me to do what I needed to do, whichwas process my grief about my mother
and really about myself, right?
You know, I'm human too.
(15:58):
I'm mortal.
I will someday not be here anymore.
What do I want to what's my legacy?
How do I want to be remembered?
What is important to me thatI can pass on to my children?
All of those things are things thatyou cannot avoid thinking about when
you're in archaeology lab diggingthrough 250 year old broken stuff and
(16:18):
contemplating what's important in life.
And then as a writer, too, to rememberthat the stories in the margins,
the people who often don't have avoice, or who don't own property, or
who aren't in the public record, youhave to work to get those stories.
You have to go find them.
You know, I think writersare, that's why I am a writer.
I'm interested in those stories.
(16:39):
But it's a good reminder that there,sometimes those stories can be found,
and can be told, and that it's worththe enterprise of doing it for lots of
reasons, including cultural memory, youknow, and so we're inclusive, but also
so we don't make mistakes we've madein the past for a variety of reasons.
So does that, does thatanswer your question in a
(17:01):
long writerly roundabout way?
Tesse (17:03):
It's a beautiful narrative, you know, as you're speaking, I usually
think in pictures and as you'respeaking, I see a river meandering
and sometimes hitting the stones.
Sometimes flowing downhill, sometimesgoing over, and it's hitting the rocks
and it is, that's how you're telling this.
(17:26):
That's how it's touching me.
Paula.
Paula (17:29):
You know, she's the poetic one.
And so I sat there listening to you andsaying, you know, because "TesseLeads"
is a personal story, which you're doingsuch a great job excellent job at.
If you don't mind, would you sharewith us at least one or two things
that you are planning, and let me knowif this is too personal, that you're
(17:52):
planning to leave for your children.
So, you know, through grief cleaning,as you said, it's the objects that
mean something to those who areleft behind or those who are still
present while remembering the past.
Do you have one or two thingsthat you can share with us?
Elizabeth (18:10):
Big question.
And yeah, of course I do.
You know, I have a whole box of mywriting, that's a big part of my identity.
But this process hasforced me to come home.
You know, I've cleaned out fivehouses in the last ten years.
And dealing with those, all thoseobjects has made me a little
zealous about my own things.
(18:30):
I'm not going to leavethat to my daughters to do.
They're tired of me saying when I die,but you know, I think it's useful to
talk about death because we will alldie, and I have put together a box
of artifacts and I've said to them,everything in this box is important to
me, but it might not be important to you.
(18:51):
So you might want toget rid of these things.
Give them away.
But I want you to know that it'sall in the box so that you don't
have to go through the house huntingfor what was important to me.
Your task will be to huntfor what's important to you.
And then my part is done.
I've done it for you.
And I will try to get rid of asmany things as I can, you know, so
(19:12):
it's not a huge organizational task.
And some of the things in those boxes,the writing is everything from, you
know, I have things I wrote in firstgrade up to like books I've published,
you know, so it shows a journey.
You know, it shows somebody who waswriting from the time she was a kid
who thought of herself as a writeras a kid, to pictures to certain
(19:33):
artifacts that are important to me.
And one example is, you know, one ofthe last times my father visited before
he died, I took him to a Philliesgame and we sat in two seats that one
of my students, I don't have seasontickets, but one of my students did
and she let me sit in her seats withmy dad and it was a great memory.
And now whenever I go to the Phillies,I usually go once a year before they're
(19:56):
winning when I can still get a seat.
I sit in those same seats because I'mvery much about rituals like that.
So those tickets are in there.
So I know exactly what seats, whatdate, and that's something that my
daughters may not be important at all,except that I've told them the story.
So they've got the story whetheror not the thing is something
(20:18):
they need to hold on to.
Objects, to me, are a wayto access people I love.
In my drawer, I have my father'swatch and my mother in law's
watch, so I can remember them.
They still, my mother in law's,the leather of her wristwatch still
smells like her Charlie perfume.
And that, you know, I canconjure her up immediately.
But those, my daughters may choose toremember their grandparents in other
(20:41):
ways and it seems to me importantto have that conversation while I'm
living to say, I have done this.
But you may need, you know, youmay for whatever reason, make sure
you give my writing to BrynmoreCollege, or keep it if you want.
But the other stuff, it's,you know, it's up to you.
Tesse (20:59):
Wow.
What a beautiful response to areally elegantly crafted question.
I mean, or of both of you really.
Cause we are kind of in this trajectory,and I'm smiling right now because
it's not often you are in a place oftalking about grief and having a smile.
This is actually a very newplace for me to be, you know.
(21:21):
But it's what you've created Elizabethwith the kind of way you're expressing
objects, the way you're expressingwhat could happen, what is possible.
So in the spirit of knowing what could bepossible, I'm thinking of you, objects,
reimagining the future and next steps.
You know, what lies ahead for you?
(21:42):
What are the objects telling youabout you and your journey ahead?
Elizabeth (21:47):
That's a great question.
I often when I think about my life,it often is a writing project.
I think I'm a writer because itgives me an excuse to talk to people
and they will answer my questions.
And it gives me a sort of project.
So sometimes like as with the archeology,I didn't know it was a writing project.
(22:10):
I just wanted to be partof the memorial project.
And then it became a writingproject because I found a way in to
something that was personal to me.
Another project that I had to put onhold during the pandemic shutdown that
I've returned to, is telling the storyof the demise of my father's hometown.
It's this tiny little farming townacross the border of Ohio and Indiana.
(22:34):
I scattered his ashes there afterhe died with my daughter, my eldest
daughter, and I was so upset bywhat had become of this town.
You know, it's one of those, youknow, towns that just existed for
a while because it was on a trainline, and there was industry.
In fact, the biggest industry iscoffin making there, which is sort of
ironic from a writer's point of view.
(22:54):
I was doing a fellowship in Indianapoliscalled Religion, Spirituality, and
the Art, where we were creatinga writing or art project based on
reading Genesis together with a Rabbi.
It was people from all differentreligions gathering to do this project.
And it gave me proximity to myfather's hometown and the upset,
it's sort of symbolic of a lot ofsmall towns in the United States.
(23:17):
But really, I see it as a grief project.
You know, it is very obvious to meevery time I go back there and I
interview people, I'm really justtrying to access my father, who I loved.
And the ethics of doing a projectlike this as a writer have to do
with my proximity to the material.
You're sort of like aparticipating anthropologist.
(23:38):
People tell me things that sometimesthey shouldn't, simply because
that's my father's hometown, andI have a map that he drew for me.
So, the main project, this is whatI was doing when I was visiting
our mutual friend, Marta Moretik.
I was resurrecting interviews that I'ddone, and trying to think about how to
do this work in a way that's responsible,that tells a story of a town that
(24:04):
where my father grew up, but never wentback to, so he's part of the exodus
from these small towns that sometimesfail because the work was elsewhere.
We have to tell this story with loveand respect and without exposing
things that people told me because Ihave proximity to the material that
they would rather not see in print.
(24:24):
So, that's what I'm working through now.
This is a personal story,is what a friend told me.
When you're writing memoir you're alwaysfollowing yourself through the story.
So it might be about my dad andabout my dad's hometown, but it's
really about me and my grief.
And the demise of this town is really, youknow, obviously the demise of my father,
(24:47):
but it's also an interesting story.
So that is my current project.
And as I said, just a wayof working through it.
At this point, you know, when I was inmy 20s, this is not what I wrote about.
I joke, like, if you want totalk about death, come sit by me.
Like, this is like where I am,you know, now that I'm 60 a lot of
water under the bridge, you know?
(25:08):
So people who've seen my earlierwork think, what happened to
the, you know, that writer?
But this is the subject matter that Ihave now, you know, is a lot of, it is
grief and hope and love and the culturalcontext of the world we live in now.
My sense of social justice andtrying to be responsible as a writer,
(25:31):
but also, you know, work through myfeelings, which I always do on the page.
This is just how I do it.
I don't think I would know howto grieve if I weren't a writer.
This is just what I do.
Tesse (25:45):
I love it.
Oh, I love it.
I wouldn't know how togrieve if I wasn't a writer.
You know, I love classical musicand one of my musicians, my favorite
musician is Mozart, and Mozart'sRequiem, when his father died, and
the change in gears and everything.
Now you're speaking to me, I'mremembering Mozart that had that really
(26:09):
jolly, fast moving, you know, musicand then his dad, the love of his
life dies and everything gets dark.
But you know, what you've done differentlyfrom what Mozart did is that you brought
a shade of light and hope and optimism.
And I love the way you're talkingabout this, it's absolutely beautiful.
Paula.
Paula (26:29):
I echo you, because when Elizabeth speaks, there's hope.
You know, looking at death as inevitable,but also looking at it as ways that
we should cherish what has gone onin the past and put stories to it.
I love that so much that, you know.
One thing that you suggested, I don'tknow whether it was here in an earlier
(26:52):
conversation with you, is that when wehave holidays, because sometimes those are
the hardest times if you've lost someone.
We can spend some time rememberingthem through an object or objects
and how much that object meant tothat person when they were alive.
You know, I think that is so helpful.
Elizabeth (27:14):
Absolutely.
And though it's not a national holiday,my going to the Phillies every year
to watch the Phillies versus theMets and sitting in those seats.
I have invented a holiday.
Paula (27:25):
Yeah.
Elizabeth (27:25):
And it's what I can remember my father and sit in those same seats.
And, you know, as we talked about griefbeing kind of a spiral, I keep returning
to that moment and experiencing it alittle differently as I journey through
the spiral of grief rather than theline that we, you know, wish it were.
And it is just a, you know, it's a wayof laying pleasure over pain or joy
(27:50):
over sadness and having them all mixedtogether instead of it being one thing.
The both and as opposed to the either or.
Paula (27:58):
Yes, yes.
Elizabeth (27:59):
So you're welcome to celebrate the Philly's, Philly's versus
Met Day yourselves if you'd like to.
But I think it's important thatwe have these personal rituals
that, you know, are commemorative,you know and in a joyful way.
Paula (28:15):
Absolutely.
And so that's why we do "TesseLeads".
And to our listeners, we want tothank you so much for listening.
And as you can see from talking herewith Elizabeth Mosier, your precious
stories and your lives matter.
We ask you to continue to share themwith us, and we also ask that you know
(28:38):
or hope that you realize that you'resupported and encouraged and nurtured
when we hear each other's stories,because none of us is without a story.
And so we ask you to head overto "Google Podcasts", "Spotify",
or "Apple Podcasts", orwherever you listen to podcasts.
And if you haven't subscribedyet, please subscribe.
(28:58):
And If you have found whatElizabeth has said or any of the
other stories helpful, we ask thatyou write a raving review for us.
And if you have any topics orquestions that you'd like us to
cover, please send us a note.
And last but not least, if you'dlike to be a guest on our show,
(29:18):
"TesseLeads", that's this show, pleasehead over to our newly developed site,
which is "TesseLeads.com" to apply.
Elizabeth, this has been awesome.
Elizabeth (29:30):
Thank you.
Tesse (29:31):
Yeah.
Thank you, Elizabeth,for giving me back Tony.
You know, I can reimaginehim in a different way.
Thank you.
Love what you're saying.
Thank you.
Paula (29:40):
Absolutely.
Elizabeth (29:41):
And the gift was the chance to spend time with you in
this weird little Zoom room, whichfeels somehow, because we've spent
some time together, now it actuallydoes feel like you're right there.
Paula (29:53):
Yes.
Elizabeth (29:53):
I know you're a ways away.
Paula (29:55):
Yes, this has been really good.
Welcome to "TesseLeads" with your host, Tesse Akpeki, and
your co host, me, Paula Okonneh.
"TesseLeads" is a safe, sensitive,and supportive place and space
to share, to hear, and to tellyour stories and experiences.
(00:21):
Tesse and I get super curious aboutthe dilemmas that we all face.
And we love to find out and hearfrom you how they shape the future
and the journeys that we are all on.
Today, we have an amazing guestand very inspirational guest.
(00:43):
Her name is Elizabeth Mosier.
Let me tell you about her.
She's a novelist and she's also anessayist and she has logged 1000
volunteer hours processing artifactsat the Philadelphia's Independence
National Historical Park ArchaeologyLab for her latest book which is called
(01:08):
"Excavating Memory Archaeology and Home".
That book was published in 2019.
So this experience trained her to seehow we construct identity and express
what we value through the thingswe keep by choice or by accident.
She's a graduate of Brian MarsCollege and the MFA program for
(01:35):
writers at Warren Wilson College,where she explores the complex ways
our lives are entangled with objects.
She writes about that.
And she also teaches workshops onthe role artifacts play in family,
in community, or in history.
And she also leads sessions withphysicians on everyday objects
(01:59):
as tools in the practice oflistening, witnessing, and healing.
You can get more information onher and her work at her website,
which is "elizabethmosier.com".
Thank you for saying yes tobeing a guest on "TesseLeads".
Elizabeth (02:18):
Oh, thank you so much for having me.
What a pleasure to spend themorning, or my morning, your
afternoon, Tesse, with both of you.
Tesse (02:26):
Yeah, Elizabeth, I am so overjoyed that you said yes to coming on the show.
And I had the privilege to read your book,"Excavating Memory, Archaeology and Home".
I totally loved it from the first page.
Maybe because I love history, maybebecause I love archaeology, maybe because
I love people, and maybe because I lovebeing curious and finding out new things.
(02:51):
A combination of all.
Your book had it all.
But you know what?
I left looking at your book and readingyour book with a deeper question
and that's a curiosity about you.
What brought you on thispathway of support, of inquiry?
Because it's not easy, it'snot the easiest of things.
Tell all, hold backnothing, say everything.
Elizabeth (03:17):
How much time do we have?
That's a good question.
Because I'm not an archaeologist.
I have so much respect and admirationfor archaeology and archaeologists.
But this project that I got involvedwith was something, I think, because
of my love for Philadelphia and myinterest in Philadelphia's history.
(03:39):
I volunteered as a technician atthe lab just after the National
Park Service in Philadelphia.
Archaeologists had uncovered thefoundation wall of George Washington's
house, which when I was in college, wasa women's bathroom for the national park.
Like people had forgottenthat it had been there.
(03:59):
You know how things, once youtear them down, you just, people
forget that they were there.
So I had no past experience withthis building and the dig was a
very exciting event in Philadelphia.
And when I took my daughters who wereyoung, they were in middle school at
the time, downtown to see the dig.
It was this big hole in IndependenceNational Park and Jed Levin, who was the
(04:24):
head archaeologist, stood in the pit for45 minutes in the hot sun and talked to me
and my daughters about their dig and toldus all kinds of interesting anecdotes.
He said that they'd been digging for fiveweeks and they had found nothing and they
were afraid that when they renovated thepark, they'd scooped all the artifacts out
(04:45):
and they, you know, never to be recovered.
And then they'd found a penny from, Ithink he said it was 1830, which was what
masons would lay a penny in the groundwhen they were putting a new floor in.
So that's how he knew that thatfloor was preserved, they were
getting into the colonial part.
He also made the space real for me.
(05:05):
He told us that the bow window, whichyou could see the remnants of in the
ground, was something that Washingtonhad added to the house, so that
he could meet people, citizens, atan equal level on, you know, equal
footing, not on the throne like a king.
And then he told us that that bow windowwhere Washington stood meeting the public
(05:28):
was what architectural art historians citeas the precedent to the Oval Office in
the White House, that they'd taken thatidea and brought it to the White House.
What was striking to me about itas a writer and as a human being
is that it was five feet from wherethe enslaved African named Hercules
was cooking Washington's meals.
So the juxtaposition of that symbol ofliberty and the symbol of enslavement
(05:52):
is irresistible to a writer.
I wanted to get to the bottom of that andto have some part in telling the story of
those lives that were lost without goinginto it wanting to write about it per se.
I wanted to be part ofthe recovery process.
Looking at the objects, what myjob as a technician, as I said,
(06:13):
I'm not an archaeologist, theytrained me, everything I know.
I learned from these people, to wash,label, catalog, organize, document
the lives of nine enslaved Africans,whose, I always feel like I need to
say their names, Oni Judge, Moll,Austin, Richmond, Giles, Paris,
(06:33):
Christopher Shields, and Joe Richardson.
In some cases, the only evidence that theylived in Philadelphia is from that dig.
So I commended the archaeologistsfor the work they were doing.
I wanted to be part of it.
And because I am a writer, I thinkmy supervisor might have been a
little suspicious of me that Iwould just come in and just write
(06:55):
about it, I had to make very clearthat I was in it for the long haul.
I wasn't there as a writer I was therebecause I was going to put my hands
in dirty broken greasy water that Iwas, you know washing and mending,
we also mended things and I ended upstaying for seven years and during
that period as we were documentingthese objects, building a memorial,
(07:16):
which you can see in Philadelphia.
It's on the corner of6th and Market Streets.
And it tells attempts to tell thestories of these Africans who lived in
the house, using artifacts and documentsand letters even if there was only one
fact, that's included in the memorial.
It's just called thePresident's House Memorial.
While I was there, I had thebenefits of just listening to
(07:37):
archaeologists talk and learningfrom them why they do what they do.
And as I said, I wasn'tintending to write about it.
But when Jed Levin, the headarchaeologist, told my daughters, you
know, gesturing to the ground, he said,"this foundation isn't just bricks and
mortar, it's a tangible link to thepeople who lived in this house and a
(08:00):
link between the enslaved and the free".
That made the hair on my arms stand upand just elevated the project for me.
Made me feel kind of zealousabout it and about what they
do to recover these stories.
It's very similar to what a writer does.
And so even though I wasn'ttechnically writing about it, I
(08:22):
was sitting there engaged in aprocess that is very familiar to me.
Tedious work of attaching things topeople, thinking about meaning, all
while my own mother In Arizona, so 3,000 miles away, was descending into
Alzheimer's, and I was coping with theloss of her memory, and therefore, you
(08:47):
know, some of the shared memories that,from my childhood, and also the loss
of her, because there was a point, ofcourse, as anyone who's had a loved
one with Alzheimer's knows, there was apoint where she forgot who I was which
immediately just unsettled my senseof identity because I am her daughter.
Who am I if she doesn't remember who I am?
(09:08):
So none of this was spoken really.
I was sitting at the lab, as I said,for seven years, washing broken pieces
of glass and writing little numbersand thinking, thinking about what
memory has to do with archeology,what the purpose of writing is and
recovering stories and telling themor writing them and passing them down.
(09:29):
Why we keep what we keep and whywe throw away what we throw away.
And some of the things that I startedto see as connections with my own work
were, the archaeologists explained tome, especially in urban archaeology,
they said the true treasure isn't theobject at all it's the stories it tells.
So they're looking at these objectsas information about people, not about
(09:55):
just a pretty thing to put in a case.
So that became sort of a, thatwas a paradigm shift for me.
I always thought it was sort ofIndiana Jones and like finding
whatever the, you know, the relic.
And they're like, no, this is just people.
We want to know about people.
So the, whatever canhelp us tell the story.
So that resonated with me as a writer,we construct identity through things
(10:15):
we keep by choice and by accident.
So if you look in a person'sdesk drawer, you look at the
way they decorate their home.
A lot of it is choice about identity andthe way we put that together, sometimes
deliberately, sometimes accidentally.
And I started thinking about how whenyou spend your entire day washing and
(10:36):
labeling things from the pretty pit, thisis where all of this stuff comes from.
You realize that the things that aremost important to people are the things
that they used and broke and threw away.
Not the things that were carefullypreserved in a display cabinet.
So the things that we put in displaycabinets might speak to our status,
(10:58):
or people like to have thingsthat show that they've arrived.
That's a different kind ofidentity, but if something's
broken, because it's been used everyday, that was actually important.
And so I, it sort of flipped my sense of,in my own home one consequence of that
is I went home and took my wedding china,out of, you know, it's very plain China.
Like, I don't know why I was notlike using it, but, you know, you
(11:20):
bring it out on special occasionsand I said to my daughters, how will
you know that this was important tome unless we use it and break it?
Like, so it actually had aconsequence that was, I started
using these plates that I had beengiven when I was in my twenties.
And there's been kind of brought outat Christmas and Easter every day.
And if they break, they breakthat shows what's important to me.
(11:43):
If they're scratched upthat's evidence of use.
And then the other thing that theylet me see is that the archaeological
record is often created in a crisiswhen we're, you know, moving to
another country or we're divorced andsplitting our things or we lose someone
and we have to clean out their place.
So because it's a crisis situation,there is necessarily emotion involved.
(12:06):
This is not a sort of cold,scientific process of deciding
what to keep and what not to keep.
It's both pragmatic and forensic,and often that's how writing is.
I never, for example know what,and I've written novels and essays
and, you know, interviews, and Inever really know what I'm writing
(12:30):
about until I've done the research.
I go in with a vague idea of somethingi'm curious about, and while I'm in
there digging around, I discover thatthere's something that, some truth that
I'm avoiding that is really the subject,or something that I think is true but
that actually isn't true, and I findthat out, you know, through research.
So that is what sitting there for sevenyears processing archaeological artifacts
(12:56):
helped me to see, and it allowed me,and it was a gift really, to write about
the painful process of losing my motherin a way that I had been avoiding.
Why would you want to writeabout something painful that
you're actually going through?
Then you sort of suffer twice, right?
But archaeology gave me a lens in,so that I could start thinking about
(13:20):
objects as revealing something,about digging and processing
artifacts as a process of recoveryand repair that is similar to grief.
And once I had that method and thatlens, it wasn't easier to deal with
my mother's altheimer's, but it gaveme a way in that I am so grateful for.
(13:45):
My book, "Excavating Memory", has oneessay that's very specifically about that.
It's called "The Pit and the Page",and that's the first one I ever wrote.
And I showed it to the archaeologistsand I said, I want you to read
this and make sure I haven't,you know, misused the terminology
or the intention of archaeology.
Does this feel to you like I'mmisappropriating your field for my grief?
(14:10):
And because they're kind, theysaid, you know, it was important to
me that I got their approval, thatthey didn't think I was using what
they do in some inappropriate way.
I think they were moved by it, becauseas I said, their work is very much about
people and about relationships, andthat is not what I had thought before.
Obviously, Jed Levin, whoinspired, the head archaeologist
(14:32):
who inspired me to volunteer, wastelling me about the tangible link.
That's what makes him get down inthe ground and dig and brush things
off and literally, you know, our job,my job was like separating pieces
of brick from pieces of burnt bone.
Like, it's very tedious.
And these people are stewards ofour cultural artifacts, as well as,
(14:54):
you know, these personal storiesthat mean something to us as humans.
So they did understand, andthey did somewhat approve.
And then I started writing the otheressays in the book, which were really
just my using an archaeologist lens tolook at the objects in my life, everything
from a date book that I, this sort ofwas a record of my life to a friend of
(15:17):
mine who had to bless her had like onsuper eight film had filmed her nine
year old birthday party, which is I hadremembered like it was yesterday, and
then to find out that she actually hadthe film and I could see it and compare
my memory with what was actually on film.
So it was a way of looking atmy own life as though I were
(15:37):
in a, in an archaeologicaldig and my life was a feature.
And so it did help me, you know,writing, not all writing is therapeutic.
Often when I'm writing it is hardand sad, but finding that lens helped
me to do what I needed to do, whichwas process my grief about my mother
and really about myself, right?
You know, I'm human too.
(15:58):
I'm mortal.
I will someday not be here anymore.
What do I want to what's my legacy?
How do I want to be remembered?
What is important to me thatI can pass on to my children?
All of those things are things thatyou cannot avoid thinking about when
you're in archaeology lab diggingthrough 250 year old broken stuff and
(16:18):
contemplating what's important in life.
And then as a writer, too, to rememberthat the stories in the margins,
the people who often don't have avoice, or who don't own property, or
who aren't in the public record, youhave to work to get those stories.
You have to go find them.
You know, I think writersare, that's why I am a writer.
I'm interested in those stories.
(16:39):
But it's a good reminder that there,sometimes those stories can be found,
and can be told, and that it's worththe enterprise of doing it for lots of
reasons, including cultural memory, youknow, and so we're inclusive, but also
so we don't make mistakes we've madein the past for a variety of reasons.
So does that, does thatanswer your question in a
(17:01):
long writerly roundabout way?
Tesse (17:03):
It's a beautiful narrative, you know, as you're speaking, I usually
think in pictures and as you'respeaking, I see a river meandering
and sometimes hitting the stones.
Sometimes flowing downhill, sometimesgoing over, and it's hitting the rocks
and it is, that's how you're telling this.
(17:26):
That's how it's touching me.
Paula.
Paula (17:29):
You know, she's the poetic one.
And so I sat there listening to you andsaying, you know, because "TesseLeads"
is a personal story, which you're doingsuch a great job excellent job at.
If you don't mind, would you sharewith us at least one or two things
that you are planning, and let me knowif this is too personal, that you're
(17:52):
planning to leave for your children.
So, you know, through grief cleaning,as you said, it's the objects that
mean something to those who areleft behind or those who are still
present while remembering the past.
Do you have one or two thingsthat you can share with us?
Elizabeth (18:10):
Big question.
And yeah, of course I do.
You know, I have a whole box of mywriting, that's a big part of my identity.
But this process hasforced me to come home.
You know, I've cleaned out fivehouses in the last ten years.
And dealing with those, all thoseobjects has made me a little
zealous about my own things.
(18:30):
I'm not going to leavethat to my daughters to do.
They're tired of me saying when I die,but you know, I think it's useful to
talk about death because we will alldie, and I have put together a box
of artifacts and I've said to them,everything in this box is important to
me, but it might not be important to you.
(18:51):
So you might want toget rid of these things.
Give them away.
But I want you to know that it'sall in the box so that you don't
have to go through the house huntingfor what was important to me.
Your task will be to huntfor what's important to you.
And then my part is done.
I've done it for you.
And I will try to get rid of asmany things as I can, you know, so
(19:12):
it's not a huge organizational task.
And some of the things in those boxes,the writing is everything from, you
know, I have things I wrote in firstgrade up to like books I've published,
you know, so it shows a journey.
You know, it shows somebody who waswriting from the time she was a kid
who thought of herself as a writeras a kid, to pictures to certain
(19:33):
artifacts that are important to me.
And one example is, you know, one ofthe last times my father visited before
he died, I took him to a Philliesgame and we sat in two seats that one
of my students, I don't have seasontickets, but one of my students did
and she let me sit in her seats withmy dad and it was a great memory.
And now whenever I go to the Phillies,I usually go once a year before they're
(19:56):
winning when I can still get a seat.
I sit in those same seats because I'mvery much about rituals like that.
So those tickets are in there.
So I know exactly what seats, whatdate, and that's something that my
daughters may not be important at all,except that I've told them the story.
So they've got the story whetheror not the thing is something
(20:18):
they need to hold on to.
Objects, to me, are a wayto access people I love.
In my drawer, I have my father'swatch and my mother in law's
watch, so I can remember them.
They still, my mother in law's,the leather of her wristwatch still
smells like her Charlie perfume.
And that, you know, I canconjure her up immediately.
But those, my daughters may choose toremember their grandparents in other
(20:41):
ways and it seems to me importantto have that conversation while I'm
living to say, I have done this.
But you may need, you know, youmay for whatever reason, make sure
you give my writing to BrynmoreCollege, or keep it if you want.
But the other stuff, it's,you know, it's up to you.
Tesse (20:59):
Wow.
What a beautiful response to areally elegantly crafted question.
I mean, or of both of you really.
Cause we are kind of in this trajectory,and I'm smiling right now because
it's not often you are in a place oftalking about grief and having a smile.
This is actually a very newplace for me to be, you know.
(21:21):
But it's what you've created Elizabethwith the kind of way you're expressing
objects, the way you're expressingwhat could happen, what is possible.
So in the spirit of knowing what could bepossible, I'm thinking of you, objects,
reimagining the future and next steps.
You know, what lies ahead for you?
(21:42):
What are the objects telling youabout you and your journey ahead?
Elizabeth (21:47):
That's a great question.
I often when I think about my life,it often is a writing project.
I think I'm a writer because itgives me an excuse to talk to people
and they will answer my questions.
And it gives me a sort of project.
So sometimes like as with the archeology,I didn't know it was a writing project.
(22:10):
I just wanted to be partof the memorial project.
And then it became a writingproject because I found a way in to
something that was personal to me.
Another project that I had to put onhold during the pandemic shutdown that
I've returned to, is telling the storyof the demise of my father's hometown.
It's this tiny little farming townacross the border of Ohio and Indiana.
(22:34):
I scattered his ashes there afterhe died with my daughter, my eldest
daughter, and I was so upset bywhat had become of this town.
You know, it's one of those, youknow, towns that just existed for
a while because it was on a trainline, and there was industry.
In fact, the biggest industry iscoffin making there, which is sort of
ironic from a writer's point of view.
(22:54):
I was doing a fellowship in Indianapoliscalled Religion, Spirituality, and
the Art, where we were creatinga writing or art project based on
reading Genesis together with a Rabbi.
It was people from all differentreligions gathering to do this project.
And it gave me proximity to myfather's hometown and the upset,
it's sort of symbolic of a lot ofsmall towns in the United States.
(23:17):
But really, I see it as a grief project.
You know, it is very obvious to meevery time I go back there and I
interview people, I'm really justtrying to access my father, who I loved.
And the ethics of doing a projectlike this as a writer have to do
with my proximity to the material.
You're sort of like aparticipating anthropologist.
(23:38):
People tell me things that sometimesthey shouldn't, simply because
that's my father's hometown, andI have a map that he drew for me.
So, the main project, this is whatI was doing when I was visiting
our mutual friend, Marta Moretik.
I was resurrecting interviews that I'ddone, and trying to think about how to
do this work in a way that's responsible,that tells a story of a town that
(24:04):
where my father grew up, but never wentback to, so he's part of the exodus
from these small towns that sometimesfail because the work was elsewhere.
We have to tell this story with loveand respect and without exposing
things that people told me because Ihave proximity to the material that
they would rather not see in print.
(24:24):
So, that's what I'm working through now.
This is a personal story,is what a friend told me.
When you're writing memoir you're alwaysfollowing yourself through the story.
So it might be about my dad andabout my dad's hometown, but it's
really about me and my grief.
And the demise of this town is really, youknow, obviously the demise of my father,
(24:47):
but it's also an interesting story.
So that is my current project.
And as I said, just a wayof working through it.
At this point, you know, when I was inmy 20s, this is not what I wrote about.
I joke, like, if you want totalk about death, come sit by me.
Like, this is like where I am,you know, now that I'm 60 a lot of
water under the bridge, you know?
(25:08):
So people who've seen my earlierwork think, what happened to
the, you know, that writer?
But this is the subject matter that Ihave now, you know, is a lot of, it is
grief and hope and love and the culturalcontext of the world we live in now.
My sense of social justice andtrying to be responsible as a writer,
(25:31):
but also, you know, work through myfeelings, which I always do on the page.
This is just how I do it.
I don't think I would know howto grieve if I weren't a writer.
This is just what I do.
Tesse (25:45):
I love it.
Oh, I love it.
I wouldn't know how togrieve if I wasn't a writer.
You know, I love classical musicand one of my musicians, my favorite
musician is Mozart, and Mozart'sRequiem, when his father died, and
the change in gears and everything.
Now you're speaking to me, I'mremembering Mozart that had that really
(26:09):
jolly, fast moving, you know, musicand then his dad, the love of his
life dies and everything gets dark.
But you know, what you've done differentlyfrom what Mozart did is that you brought
a shade of light and hope and optimism.
And I love the way you're talkingabout this, it's absolutely beautiful.
Paula.
Paula (26:29):
I echo you, because when Elizabeth speaks, there's hope.
You know, looking at death as inevitable,but also looking at it as ways that
we should cherish what has gone onin the past and put stories to it.
I love that so much that, you know.
One thing that you suggested, I don'tknow whether it was here in an earlier
(26:52):
conversation with you, is that when wehave holidays, because sometimes those are
the hardest times if you've lost someone.
We can spend some time rememberingthem through an object or objects
and how much that object meant tothat person when they were alive.
You know, I think that is so helpful.
Elizabeth (27:14):
Absolutely.
And though it's not a national holiday,my going to the Phillies every year
to watch the Phillies versus theMets and sitting in those seats.
I have invented a holiday.
Paula (27:25):
Yeah.
Elizabeth (27:25):
And it's what I can remember my father and sit in those same seats.
And, you know, as we talked about griefbeing kind of a spiral, I keep returning
to that moment and experiencing it alittle differently as I journey through
the spiral of grief rather than theline that we, you know, wish it were.
And it is just a, you know, it's a wayof laying pleasure over pain or joy
(27:50):
over sadness and having them all mixedtogether instead of it being one thing.
The both and as opposed to the either or.
Paula (27:58):
Yes, yes.
Elizabeth (27:59):
So you're welcome to celebrate the Philly's, Philly's versus
Met Day yourselves if you'd like to.
But I think it's important thatwe have these personal rituals
that, you know, are commemorative,you know and in a joyful way.
Paula (28:15):
Absolutely.
And so that's why we do "TesseLeads".
And to our listeners, we want tothank you so much for listening.
And as you can see from talking herewith Elizabeth Mosier, your precious
stories and your lives matter.
We ask you to continue to share themwith us, and we also ask that you know
(28:38):
or hope that you realize that you'resupported and encouraged and nurtured
when we hear each other's stories,because none of us is without a story.
And so we ask you to head overto "Google Podcasts", "Spotify",
or "Apple Podcasts", orwherever you listen to podcasts.
And if you haven't subscribedyet, please subscribe.
(28:58):
And If you have found whatElizabeth has said or any of the
other stories helpful, we ask thatyou write a raving review for us.
And if you have any topics orquestions that you'd like us to
cover, please send us a note.
And last but not least, if you'dlike to be a guest on our show,
(29:18):
"TesseLeads", that's this show, pleasehead over to our newly developed site,
which is "TesseLeads.com" to apply.
Elizabeth, this has been awesome.
Elizabeth (29:30):
Thank you.
Tesse (29:31):
Yeah.
Thank you, Elizabeth,for giving me back Tony.
You know, I can reimaginehim in a different way.
Thank you.
Love what you're saying.
Thank you.
Paula (29:40):
Absolutely.
Elizabeth (29:41):
And the gift was the chance to spend time with you in
this weird little Zoom room, whichfeels somehow, because we've spent
some time together, now it actuallydoes feel like you're right there.
Paula (29:53):
Yes.
Elizabeth (29:53):
I know you're a ways away.
Paula (29:55):
Yes, this has been really good.
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