February 21, 2024 • 13 mins
In the last episode, Rebeca promised to tell you about a very special woman born way back in 1894. Now her story plays into the one unfolding on this podcast 130 years later.
Rebeca's formative years were spent on the family's long-held farm in Northwest Tennessee, often under the care and tutelage of her grand-aunt Retta. It's from Aunt Retta that Rebeca learned her love of stories and how they can change people and society for the better, and a lot about how to care for the living beings around her, whether plants, animals, or people.
How does Aunt Retta, born in 1894, play into today's story? Listen and find out.
To learn more about Rebeca Books and how to submit your work for consideration, please visit us at https://www.rebecabooks.com.
Rebeca's formative years were spent on the family's long-held farm in Northwest Tennessee, often under the care and tutelage of her grand-aunt Retta. It's from Aunt Retta that Rebeca learned her love of stories and how they can change people and society for the better, and a lot about how to care for the living beings around her, whether plants, animals, or people.
How does Aunt Retta, born in 1894, play into today's story? Listen and find out.
To learn more about Rebeca Books and how to submit your work for consideration, please visit us at https://www.rebecabooks.com.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
[music]
(00:10):
Welcome to the seventh chapter of Raising Rebeca Books, the birth of a publishing house.
This is the audio story of me, Rebeca Seitz, building a traditional, royalty-paying publishing house from the ground up,
told to you as it unfolds.
In the last episode, I promised to tell you about a very special woman born way back in 1894.
(00:33):
Now hang with me because her story plays into the one unfolding now on this podcast, 130 years later.
I've told you before that these days I avoid writing out a hard plan and then pushing it into existence.
Since turning 40, I've tried to keep open hands, open eyes, and an open mind, enjoying the process of letting the dream come together in its own way, rather than how I might dictate.
(01:02):
In some ways, it's hard getting back to how I lived as a child on the old family farm.
Back then, I did not chart my course and then go find people to be a part of that journey.
No, I woke up and I went through each day, enjoying it as it happened, bringing an air of curiosity to my experience.
(01:24):
There were vague directions in which I was headed, of course, finishing school, having a career, getting married, building a family,
but those were visions and dreams, unaccompanied by detailed to-do lists.
When did I start thinking I needed to foresee and oversee every single step toward a goal?
It's probably a question best contemplated in the pages of my journal.
(01:48):
What I've found in returning to this curious, open way of being is that it makes space for truly incredible people to enter the chat.
Sometimes, there are even people who have already passed on.
You're listening to "Raising Rebeca Books," the birth of a publishing house on the 1C Story Network. 1C is made possible in part by the support of the following sponsor.
(02:17):
On June 28, 1894, a precious little girl was born into the Moultrie family on their farm in Northwest Tennessee.
The youngest of nine children, six of whom made it to adulthood, Retta Harris would live the next 100 years on that property.
(02:44):
For most of that century, she kept house, while her older brother Charles ran the farm until his death in 1961.
Like Retta, her brother Charles never married. They did, however, raise their sister Myrtle's boy.
He, Charles Homer, came to live with them as a boy in the 1930s and help out on the farm.
(03:08):
Upon Charles's death, that nephew, a 35-year-old strapping man at the time of his uncle's death, a looker by all accounts, took over the day-to-day farm operations.
That nephew was my granddaddy, Charles Homer Cloar, and that farm is where I spent my childhood.
I did not spend the majority of my time with Charles Homer. He was very busy out in the fields.
(03:35):
770 acres is a lot to manage, even when he was able to purchase a shiny new combine that he pretended to let his young granddaughter drive once.
No, my days were mostly spent in a single-wide white trailer with Aunt Retta.
The trailer sat in front of the ruins of what must have been a beautiful, big white house.
(03:57):
I played in it sometimes when the adults weren't looking and I could sneak in, crawl over the towering stacks of old life magazines and newspapers, and marvel at the still-hanging, brass chandelier in the dining room.
I then picked my way through the debris and into the kitchen, where appliances from yesteryear sat, rusting away.
(04:19):
I never did get the story of what caused the big house's demise.
Was it when the Union soldiers came through during the Civil War?
The only story I got of that experience was about them making Aunt Retta's mom, who was a young girl at the time, stand on her head in the corner of the dining room, so that her dress fell down around her head, and they could see underneath.
(04:41):
You know, as an adult, I've wondered if that story concealed a truth that involved more than just looking.
What men do to women during times of war is the absolute worst of humanity.
I know this to be true of fighters, no matter how righteous the cause for which they fight is.
It's as if unleashing the man of war within them sets free a barbarian that takes by force whatever it personally wants as well.
(05:08):
But that too is an idea to contemplate on a different day.
I was telling you about those altogether blissful days that I spent with Aunt Retta on the farm.
She's the one who birthed the love of story in me.
We read old copies of Reader's Digest together, laughing out loud at the All in a Days Work and Humor in Uniform anecdotes, then reading the true stories of survival and inspiration.
(05:33):
She'd tell me tales about the first car, the first airplane.
She was nine years old when that happened.
The first telephone in town, story after rich stories she recounted as we sat on her floral velour sofa.
Sometimes we went outside and we walked amongst the flowers that she had planted.
(05:57):
She'd come and tell me about them, their names, what they meant symbolically.
On the small bank at the side of her yard she planted bulbs in the shape of an M, and each spring the sight of golden daffodils waving in the breeze would herald that for another year a Moultrie enjoyed life on this land.
(06:19):
When she got tired of my little girl chatter and questions, Aunt Retta often put a Nancy Drew or Tom Sawyer story in my hand, an RC Cola in the other, and urged me to find a good spot outside.
I'd crawl up into the top of the barn and nestle in with my cat, Princess, or flop down beneath a pecan tree and quickly be swept far away by those pages.
(06:44):
Back inside, Aunt Retta took me to her bedroom at the far end of the trailer.
A corner of the room was dedicated to a built-in dresser that afforded her a few feet of countertop.
There, resting in the dappled sunshine from the massive oak tree outside, were Aunt Retta's prized African violets.
(07:07):
She hummed to them the same hymns that she and I sometimes sang together.
I can close my eyes right now and still see her finger, gnarled with arthritis, but tipped with nails shining beneath clear polish,
sneak underneath the velvet green leaves to test the soil for moisture.
(07:28):
"Be careful you don't touch them", she'd advise me in a quiet voice, "or the leaves will turn in on themselves and shrivel away."
I learned right away that to show a living thing love, you first have to learn how it wants to be loved.
That how is unique to every living creature.
(07:52):
African violets, for instance, don't want to be stroked and petted. They only want to be fed and sung to.
Aunt Retta passed away the summer after my high school graduation.
40 years after those days on the farm find me still growing in my love of story and my stewardship of its power to heal, enlighten and elevate.
(08:17):
Now, why am I telling you about Aunt Retta?
Well, let's see if I can explain it in the Reader's Digest condensed version.
In the two years that I spent exploring the idea of beginning Rebeca Books, several wise, well-meaning friends asked if I would be establishing it as a nonprofit.
Their question made sense because I did spend six years at the helm of a nonprofit film and television development studio here in Naples.
(08:43):
But that experience left me with the sure knowledge that I am more suited to running a for-profit company than a nonprofit.
My instincts just tend toward that framework. So no, I would tell my friends, I will not be setting Rebeca Books up as a nonprofit.
But the question kept coming up.
And not always in the form of a question, it sometimes came as a suggestion and sometimes a very strong suggestion.
(09:12):
And then I got a text one day from Danielle.
Yes, that one.
The original acquisitions editor here. I told her about the nonprofit suggestions that kept coming in and she happened across a newspaper article regarding a major filmmaker and her nonprofit.
It seems the filmmaker, despite the fact that she is a massive success, had run into rejections of her next film project from the major studios.
(09:38):
They struggled to see its path to profitability.
And she kept telling them, well, her primary motivation for making that film was to spark a needed societal discussion.
That's a nonprofit motivation, not profit.
Which is why ultimately she raised the budget for that film with grants made to her nonprofit company.
(10:00):
Now, we're in the weeds a bit here. So let me just say it plainly.
This major filmmaker used a nonprofit she founded to get a film into the world in order to make the world better.
She had done what so many kept suggesting to me.
Think about the path to media creation from multiple avenues.
(10:25):
At that point, my answer to my friends changed.
No longer did I reject outright the notion of founding a nonprofit. Instead, I responded with, well, when the right person comes along to lead such a thing, then I'll know it needs done.
I guess you could say, I adopted that childlike air of curiosity.
(10:47):
On January 2, I received a note from a stranger, via LinkedIn.
She had a question about a publishing house at which I had done some work. Would I be willing to hop on the phone with her for a quick chat?
On January 19, she came to Naples for what would become a three hour lunch, gab fest at one of my favorite restaurants, which is Ridgeway's downtown.
(11:11):
I left there that day with a certainty that the woman meant to lead the nonprofit organization dedicated to elevating women, minority and rural community voices in the story landscape had arrived.
And with that certain knowledge, the name for the organization landed gently in my mind.
(11:34):
The Retta Collective.
A group that approaches living beings first to listen and learn, and then without stretched hands to help.
An organization dedicated to enhancing their voices in the multimedia landscape as stakeholders, as witnesses, as agents of change.
(11:55):
A place where cultural equality and justice are addressed through the powerful lens of storytelling.
I anticipate that the projects within Rebeca Books and the greater 1C Story Network itself will often be in alignment with Retta Collective's mission.
Each an avenue toward the path of storytelling.
(12:18):
But we'll talk more about that on episode eight when you'll get to meet its executive director, the woman who messaged me that day.
Crystal Canney.
Thank you for giving your attention to this unfolding story. It's a gift I do not take lightly.
And if you wish to get in touch, please feel free to.
Might I suggest a note … via LinkedIn?
(12:39):
You've been listening to Raising Rebeca Books, the birth of a publishing house from the 1C Story Network.
Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more at RebecaBooks.com.
That's R-E-B-E-C-A Books.com.
(13:00):
[Music]
The 1C Story Network, for the love of stories.
[music]
(00:10):
Welcome to the seventh chapter of Raising Rebeca Books, the birth of a publishing house.
This is the audio story of me, Rebeca Seitz, building a traditional, royalty-paying publishing house from the ground up,
told to you as it unfolds.
In the last episode, I promised to tell you about a very special woman born way back in 1894.
(00:33):
Now hang with me because her story plays into the one unfolding now on this podcast, 130 years later.
I've told you before that these days I avoid writing out a hard plan and then pushing it into existence.
Since turning 40, I've tried to keep open hands, open eyes, and an open mind, enjoying the process of letting the dream come together in its own way, rather than how I might dictate.
(01:02):
In some ways, it's hard getting back to how I lived as a child on the old family farm.
Back then, I did not chart my course and then go find people to be a part of that journey.
No, I woke up and I went through each day, enjoying it as it happened, bringing an air of curiosity to my experience.
(01:24):
There were vague directions in which I was headed, of course, finishing school, having a career, getting married, building a family,
but those were visions and dreams, unaccompanied by detailed to-do lists.
When did I start thinking I needed to foresee and oversee every single step toward a goal?
It's probably a question best contemplated in the pages of my journal.
(01:48):
What I've found in returning to this curious, open way of being is that it makes space for truly incredible people to enter the chat.
Sometimes, there are even people who have already passed on.
You're listening to "Raising Rebeca Books," the birth of a publishing house on the 1C Story Network. 1C is made possible in part by the support of the following sponsor.
(02:17):
On June 28, 1894, a precious little girl was born into the Moultrie family on their farm in Northwest Tennessee.
The youngest of nine children, six of whom made it to adulthood, Retta Harris would live the next 100 years on that property.
(02:44):
For most of that century, she kept house, while her older brother Charles ran the farm until his death in 1961.
Like Retta, her brother Charles never married. They did, however, raise their sister Myrtle's boy.
He, Charles Homer, came to live with them as a boy in the 1930s and help out on the farm.
(03:08):
Upon Charles's death, that nephew, a 35-year-old strapping man at the time of his uncle's death, a looker by all accounts, took over the day-to-day farm operations.
That nephew was my granddaddy, Charles Homer Cloar, and that farm is where I spent my childhood.
I did not spend the majority of my time with Charles Homer. He was very busy out in the fields.
(03:35):
770 acres is a lot to manage, even when he was able to purchase a shiny new combine that he pretended to let his young granddaughter drive once.
No, my days were mostly spent in a single-wide white trailer with Aunt Retta.
The trailer sat in front of the ruins of what must have been a beautiful, big white house.
(03:57):
I played in it sometimes when the adults weren't looking and I could sneak in, crawl over the towering stacks of old life magazines and newspapers, and marvel at the still-hanging, brass chandelier in the dining room.
I then picked my way through the debris and into the kitchen, where appliances from yesteryear sat, rusting away.
(04:19):
I never did get the story of what caused the big house's demise.
Was it when the Union soldiers came through during the Civil War?
The only story I got of that experience was about them making Aunt Retta's mom, who was a young girl at the time, stand on her head in the corner of the dining room, so that her dress fell down around her head, and they could see underneath.
(04:41):
You know, as an adult, I've wondered if that story concealed a truth that involved more than just looking.
What men do to women during times of war is the absolute worst of humanity.
I know this to be true of fighters, no matter how righteous the cause for which they fight is.
It's as if unleashing the man of war within them sets free a barbarian that takes by force whatever it personally wants as well.
(05:08):
But that too is an idea to contemplate on a different day.
I was telling you about those altogether blissful days that I spent with Aunt Retta on the farm.
She's the one who birthed the love of story in me.
We read old copies of Reader's Digest together, laughing out loud at the All in a Days Work and Humor in Uniform anecdotes, then reading the true stories of survival and inspiration.
(05:33):
She'd tell me tales about the first car, the first airplane.
She was nine years old when that happened.
The first telephone in town, story after rich stories she recounted as we sat on her floral velour sofa.
Sometimes we went outside and we walked amongst the flowers that she had planted.
(05:57):
She'd come and tell me about them, their names, what they meant symbolically.
On the small bank at the side of her yard she planted bulbs in the shape of an M, and each spring the sight of golden daffodils waving in the breeze would herald that for another year a Moultrie enjoyed life on this land.
(06:19):
When she got tired of my little girl chatter and questions, Aunt Retta often put a Nancy Drew or Tom Sawyer story in my hand, an RC Cola in the other, and urged me to find a good spot outside.
I'd crawl up into the top of the barn and nestle in with my cat, Princess, or flop down beneath a pecan tree and quickly be swept far away by those pages.
(06:44):
Back inside, Aunt Retta took me to her bedroom at the far end of the trailer.
A corner of the room was dedicated to a built-in dresser that afforded her a few feet of countertop.
There, resting in the dappled sunshine from the massive oak tree outside, were Aunt Retta's prized African violets.
(07:07):
She hummed to them the same hymns that she and I sometimes sang together.
I can close my eyes right now and still see her finger, gnarled with arthritis, but tipped with nails shining beneath clear polish,
sneak underneath the velvet green leaves to test the soil for moisture.
(07:28):
"Be careful you don't touch them", she'd advise me in a quiet voice, "or the leaves will turn in on themselves and shrivel away."
I learned right away that to show a living thing love, you first have to learn how it wants to be loved.
That how is unique to every living creature.
(07:52):
African violets, for instance, don't want to be stroked and petted. They only want to be fed and sung to.
Aunt Retta passed away the summer after my high school graduation.
40 years after those days on the farm find me still growing in my love of story and my stewardship of its power to heal, enlighten and elevate.
(08:17):
Now, why am I telling you about Aunt Retta?
Well, let's see if I can explain it in the Reader's Digest condensed version.
In the two years that I spent exploring the idea of beginning Rebeca Books, several wise, well-meaning friends asked if I would be establishing it as a nonprofit.
Their question made sense because I did spend six years at the helm of a nonprofit film and television development studio here in Naples.
(08:43):
But that experience left me with the sure knowledge that I am more suited to running a for-profit company than a nonprofit.
My instincts just tend toward that framework. So no, I would tell my friends, I will not be setting Rebeca Books up as a nonprofit.
But the question kept coming up.
And not always in the form of a question, it sometimes came as a suggestion and sometimes a very strong suggestion.
(09:12):
And then I got a text one day from Danielle.
Yes, that one.
The original acquisitions editor here. I told her about the nonprofit suggestions that kept coming in and she happened across a newspaper article regarding a major filmmaker and her nonprofit.
It seems the filmmaker, despite the fact that she is a massive success, had run into rejections of her next film project from the major studios.
(09:38):
They struggled to see its path to profitability.
And she kept telling them, well, her primary motivation for making that film was to spark a needed societal discussion.
That's a nonprofit motivation, not profit.
Which is why ultimately she raised the budget for that film with grants made to her nonprofit company.
(10:00):
Now, we're in the weeds a bit here. So let me just say it plainly.
This major filmmaker used a nonprofit she founded to get a film into the world in order to make the world better.
She had done what so many kept suggesting to me.
Think about the path to media creation from multiple avenues.
(10:25):
At that point, my answer to my friends changed.
No longer did I reject outright the notion of founding a nonprofit. Instead, I responded with, well, when the right person comes along to lead such a thing, then I'll know it needs done.
I guess you could say, I adopted that childlike air of curiosity.
(10:47):
On January 2, I received a note from a stranger, via LinkedIn.
She had a question about a publishing house at which I had done some work. Would I be willing to hop on the phone with her for a quick chat?
On January 19, she came to Naples for what would become a three hour lunch, gab fest at one of my favorite restaurants, which is Ridgeway's downtown.
(11:11):
I left there that day with a certainty that the woman meant to lead the nonprofit organization dedicated to elevating women, minority and rural community voices in the story landscape had arrived.
And with that certain knowledge, the name for the organization landed gently in my mind.
(11:34):
The Retta Collective.
A group that approaches living beings first to listen and learn, and then without stretched hands to help.
An organization dedicated to enhancing their voices in the multimedia landscape as stakeholders, as witnesses, as agents of change.
(11:55):
A place where cultural equality and justice are addressed through the powerful lens of storytelling.
I anticipate that the projects within Rebeca Books and the greater 1C Story Network itself will often be in alignment with Retta Collective's mission.
Each an avenue toward the path of storytelling.
(12:18):
But we'll talk more about that on episode eight when you'll get to meet its executive director, the woman who messaged me that day.
Crystal Canney.
Thank you for giving your attention to this unfolding story. It's a gift I do not take lightly.
And if you wish to get in touch, please feel free to.
Might I suggest a note … via LinkedIn?
(12:39):
You've been listening to Raising Rebeca Books, the birth of a publishing house from the 1C Story Network.
Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more at RebecaBooks.com.
That's R-E-B-E-C-A Books.com.
(13:00):
[Music]
The 1C Story Network, for the love of stories.
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