My book club pick was a flop. Maybe because everyone else read it in print, and I got to hear Academy Award winner Rita Moreno read the audio version? When all was said and done, the only member who liked Sonia Sotomayor’s My Beloved World as much as I did was Jamie Ceaser.

Always knew that Jamie woman had good taste.

Award-winning producer Jamie Ceaser.

When Jamie isn’t reading fascinating books like My Beloved World, she’s busy putting videos and films together. She’s been producing shows for Chicago’s public TV station WTTW for years, and one of her latest productions debuts nationally tonight. Local, USA is a weekly 30-minute compilation of stories produced by independent producers, content creators, and public television stations across the country. Jamie and her co-producer Eddie Griffin have already put 13 Local, USA episodes together, each one exploring a particular theme. It’s a busy time for Jamie, but she was kind enough to answer a few questions about Local, USA for my blog readers.

• Me: How’d you get involved in Local, USA?
• Jamie: V.J. McAleer — He’s Senior Vice President of Production at WTTW — got approached by WGBH in Boston about working with them on a new show. VJ is my boss, and my biggest advocate, too. He called when I was in Florida on a Tuesday and said we’d need a proposal by Friday. So I tanned and wrote.
• Me: Are you doing it all by yourself?
• Jamie: I’m co-producing it with Ed Griffin. Maggie Ness is associate producer.
• You drive me to book club sometimes, and I always love hearing about your work during those drives. You’ve produced programs on everyone from Abraham Lincoln’s wife Mary Todd to baseball icon Bill Veeck. What makes this project different from other ones you’ve produced?
• Jamie: Well, To be honest, this project does bring back memories of something I’ve done before: my first show at WTTW. That was Image Union, also a show for independent producers. But it was way back–way before youtube and iPhones and Quicktime and even DVDs.
• Me: How were things different then?
• Jamie: Films would come on 16 mm reels or videos in VHS cases. Local, USA may end up being a similar show, but the technology has changed so much. Now people send weblinks to screen their films and videos., And i can screen all of the shows I’ve produced so far — on my iPhone!
• Me: What do producers do?
• Jamie: Production can mean a lot of different things – it all depends on the type of show you’re working on, and the studio where you’re working. Show development, researching, interviewing people, shooting, editing, or even gentle coercion — production includes whatever you need to do to get the project completed.
• Me: So what did you have to do to get this one completed?
• Jamie: For this program, basically, we’re screening videos, logging them and cataloging them by theme and seeing what works together organically. After that we script the show and videotape the hosts on location.
• Me: Who are the hosts?
• Jamie: Niccole Thurman, a performer from Second City, and Evan Allen-Gessesse, an independent producer.
• Me: How long did it take to put these episodes together?
• Jamie: It was a lightning-fast season — we started in March and finished 13 shows by the end of June. That’s a pretty quick production schedule.
• Me: What can viewers look forward to on the first episode this week?
• Jamie: The first show has four stories about times gone by.
• Me: Any favorites?
• Jamie: My favorite one is produced by a teenager. It’s about his grandfather with Alzheimer’s Disease. He intercuts old family films to link his father’s early memories with his grandfather, and those memories aren’t available to his grandfather any more. It’s very poignant and sweet.

Jamie says the first season (13 shows) focuses on human interest stories and art pieces. “The shows we’re working on right now are more social justice-oriented.” Local, USA debuts on The World Channel tonight, October 21, at 9:00 p.m. Central Time and will continue to air on Monday nights after that, at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Blog readers who live in the Chicago area can also tune in to WTTW Channel 11 to catch it on Thursday nights at 11:00 p.m.

That’s Floey helping me field questions during a school visit last year.

I have a seven-year-old great-niece with a big name: AnnMarie Florence Czerwinski. I call her Floey for short, and you know what? She kinda likes it. Here’s Floey now with a guest blog post about our visit to the Chicago History Museum last Friday.

The Great Chicago Fire: Chicago is Burning!

By AnnMarie Czerwinski

Last Friday, October 11th, I went to the Chicago Historical Museum and learned about the Chicago Fire. I went with my Aunt Beth and my mom and my brother.

It was my job to help my aunt Beth, who is blind. I did this by leading her around and read her things that were in the museum. So, I will tell you what I learned.

The Great Chicago Fire all began in 1871. Here’s how it began: In Chicago, there was an Irish neighborhood. In that neighborhood, there was this Irish lady named Mrs. O’Leary. She had a cow to sell. One of her friends smoked a lot and probably dropped a cigar on the grass. Then the grass caught on fire and that’s what we think caused the Great Chicago Fire.

Floey is returning this Saturday to join a friend and me for a New World Symphony concert at the Harris Theatre in Chicago’s Millennium Park and a slumber party afterwards. Sorry this blog post is so short: gotta go lie down for a nap to prepare.

Some members of the memoir-writing class I lead at the Chicago Cultural Center. Wanda is to my left in the photo (the far right as you look at it).

Wanda Bridgeforth is 92 years old and has been attending the memoir-writing class I lead in downtown Chicago for seven years. She grew up in Chicago and her mother worked “in private family,” which means Mama lived at the houses she took care of. Wanda lived with one relative one week, a friend the next, and sometimes, with complete strangers.

When I asked writers to describe their favorite plaything as a child, Wanda came back with an essay about her doll, Geneva. Wanda is compiling some of her essays to self-publish as a gift for friends and family this Christmas. I have a feeling this one about Geneva will be included in that collection.

My Favorite Toy

by Wanda Bridgeforth

I must have been a really good girl in 1927 because Santa left an ironing board, electric iron, sewing machine and the Effanbee “Rosemary Doll” all of my friends and I had asked for that year.

Her curls and eyelashes were natural hair. Every time I sat her up or laid her down she opened and closed her eyes and said, “MA-MA!!!” That was enough to melt a little girl’s heart. Without hesitating I named her Geneva, after my Mama.

In late spring 1928, Dad’s company closed their chemistry lab and he was laid off. Mama and I moved into a bedroom with Aunt Gert and Uncle Larry on 51st Street and Dad went to live with Uncle A.S. and his wife at 42nd and Vincennes. Mama showed me how to wash and iron Geneva’s dress, panties and bonnet.

Mid summer, Mama went to work “in private family.” I abandoned all of my toys except Geneva. She became my confidant and bedfellow. I guess you could say she was my security blanket. I took her everywhere. The kids began to tease me and called me a “big baby,” so, when I left home I hid her under the pillow on my bed.

Every Tuesday after school I washed her clothes so she would be nice and clean when Mama came home on Wednesday, her day off. The three of us would sit at the kitchen table and exchange the events of the week. Geneva’s clothes were almost faded white.

Christmas 1931, “Cousin Sugar” the lady I was staying with made Geneva a new outfit. Mama and Cousin Sugar assured me the new clothes did not need weekly washing.

Some of my friends boasted about their dolls made of rubber that could drink milk or water from a tiny bottle with a tiny nipple on it. I looked at Geneva, her mouth was open and she had a space between her lips. I bought a tiny bottle with a tiny nipple on it from Woolworth’s 5 & 10 cents store and fed Geneva.

After a while Geneva developed a horrible odor and her body became damp. Cousin Sugar and Mama cut a slit in her body. The straw stuffing had mildew and mold and her plaster body had melted. Only her head was intact. I didn’t realize her straw insides absorbed the liquid instead of passing it through like the rubber dolls did.

I was inconsolable. Geneva was DEAD!!!

I decided she must have a funeral. Mr. Brunow, the janitor, dug a grave in the far corner of the back yard. Dressed in our parents black clothes, my friends and I marched behind the Radio Flyer Wagon lined with black crepe paper.

We sang a hymn and sent Geneva, My Favorite Toy, dressed in her Christmas Outfit to live with the Angels.

At the Q & A session during our visit to St. Anne Catholic School last month a first-grader wanted to know, “How do you cook if you’re blind?”

People who are blind can cook, and lots of them are very good at it. “I’m just not one of them,” I said with a shrug.  A reporter was in the audience, too, and I had to laugh when I read her description of my cooking skills in the article she wrote about our visit in the Barrington Courier Review afterward:

Although her husband does most of the cooking at home, Finke said she enjoys making salads. She just has to stay away from the stove and sharp knives.

Well, it’s not exactly what I meant, but hey, it is good practice. Anyway, here are some photos from the visit:

     Whitney and I spent the whole day at St. Anne’s. Here, we’re with fifth through eighth graders.

We also made individual class visits.

Here’s an understatement: I learn a lot about history by listening to the essays the writers in my memoir groups read out loud every week in class. Last week I asked them to write about a meaningful object they’d lost, broken, or destroyed, and then explain why that object had been so meaningful to them. My guest blogger, 93-year-old Hanna Bratman, grew up in a Jewish family in Germany and was only 19 when she arrived, alone, in the United States. She generously agreed to let me share her very moving essay.

The Time of Loss

by Hanna Bratman

That’s Hanna, the author. (Photo by Nora Isabel Bratman)

Probably in 1936 or 37 Hitler’s need to finance the Army and the National Socialist Party had decreed that Jews could no longer own jewels, precious metal items, gold, silver , diamonds or precious stones. I well remember the day my mother carried a bag of things to the police station. Upon her return she no longer wore her beautiful diamond earrings or the ring on her finger. They just always had been a part of her attire. I had never before seen her without them. In return, to make this transaction official she received a detailed receipt from the police department.

We never talked about it.

I think it became about this time that my mother realized that Jews were indeed in for a difficult time in her Fatherland. Her belief, which she had often told, and I had heard time and time again, was this: “I was born in Germany, my husband, a pacifist in World War I, died for the Fatherland. He even got a medal for serving. What are they going to do to me?”

All our relatives and friends packed huge container boxes that we called “Lifts.” These were to be shipped through Holland on the Atlantic Ocean to America for storage as there were no more German boats allowed to go to the United States. We packed newly purchased furniture, bedding, household goods, clothing, anything you might need to start a new life in another country. We packed under the watchful eye of an official. Several Leica brand cameras were the favorite item to be included. They could be sold for needed cash.

Some of my clothes and personal things found their way into the Lift, some books, my tennis racket, ski pants, and jacket. I was especially watchful that the ski jacket was in a safe drawer, for it contained my secret: I had hidden my gold bracelet.

I could not bring myself to turn in my cherished gold bracelet that my mother had given to me for a birthday present. It rarely left my left arm. This charm bracelet had been converted from my father’s gold watch chain. I had seen him wear it. The only charm it sported was the watch fob, about the size of a quarter, with my father’s initials, M.S., in fancy script. Hitler was not going to get it to melt it down. This was mine. Hidden in my ski jacket.

I had sewn my bracelet between the quilted lining into the seams of the left sleeve, and the fob had found its way into the quilting. I was happy that it would escape Hitler’s clutches.

In 1941 we made a claim to Lloyd’s of London insurance company when they informed us that the container had been shipped on a container ship. The ship had been attacked and sunken by a German U boat. This was an act of war and the insurance did not cover war losses.

Years later the rumor had it that these Lifts never made it even to Holland. They were plundered by the Germans before they got to the safe border.

I often have wondered if someone found my father’s watch chain, MY bracelet. Over the years I have gotten several new bracelets, but I have never worn any of them.