Laurie Schneider is the author of the new middle grade novel Gittel. She lives in Norman, Oklahoma.
Q: What inspired you to write Gittel, and how much was the novel based on your family history?
A: My great-grandfather Alvin Garber lived in a Jewish agricultural colony near the Village of Arpin in Central Wisconsin in the early 1920s and that was really the initial spark. He is Zayde in the story and my fictional version of Arpin is called Mill Creek.
In the mid-1990s I was doing research on Jewish agricultural colonies for my master’s thesis at Washington State University and my husband and I visited Arpin on a trip to Wisconsin to see family. I’d been hoping to see what remained of the colony’s old synagogue, which I’d been told had been incorporated into a local farmer’s home.
Someone at the local bar—this is Wisconsin after all—directed us to the house and I stopped to snap a picture of my great-grandfather’s synagogue-turned-farmhouse: just a nicely kept white farmhouse indistinguishable from other houses in the area.
It was a beautiful summer day. No one was out and about and no trace of the 80-some Jews who once lived, worked, and worshipped there.
I can’t say that was the moment I vowed to write my novel, but I did write several poems about the colony that made their way into my master’s thesis and those poems were the seeds for the novel that came years later.
As for how much is based on my family, the timeline of the story doesn’t match my family’s time in Arpin, but many of the central characters are based on family members.
My great-grandfather Alvin Garber lived and farmed in “Mill Creek” for five years, but he wasn’t part of the original group of settlers. He was however, as portrayed in Gittel, the community’s shochet and de facto rabbi.
Other characters, including Bubbe, Mama, Papa, and Gittel are also based on family members and conjured from a soup of magic, memory, and the many stories I’d been told by my mother growing up.
The novel gets its name from my mom, Gloria, whose name was Gittel when she came to the United States from Romania at age 2. She was a spitfire, a state champion debater, and social-justice activist late into her life.
Q: How did you research the story, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?
A: I was lucky to have two brief oral histories on cassette tape, one a story-corps style conversation my brother recorded with our great-grandfather in 1968 and another more recent tape that my mom recorded focused on her memories of my great-grandmother. Those are family treasures.
I also spent a lot of time pouring over old newspapers and, of course, I had all of my graduate school research on Jewish agricultural colonies. And, thanks to a professor I had in grad school who was a fabulous cultural historian, I have a solid grasp on the people and movements of the Progressive era. (Shout-out to LeRoy Ashby!)
There was so much that surprised me and things that I had forgotten while doing my research. I hadn’t listened to the tape my brother made since I was a child. In fact, I thought it had been lost and I was so relieved to find it in a filing cabinet with my mother’s papers.
It was touching to hear both my brother’s and my great-grandfather’s voices again as both have passed away. At the end of the tape my brother asks our then 89-year-old great-grandfather if he would like to sing something and grandpa launches into an old Russian folk song! I hadn’t remembered that at all and listened with a real lump in my throat.
Q: The writer Kirby Larson said of Gittel, “Impulsive, brash, and full of heart, she endures loss and prejudice without losing sight of her remarkable self.” What do you think of that description, and what do you hope readers take away from the story?
A: I think it’s spot on, and I teared up when I first read it. Kirby’s Hattie Big Sky is a favorite book of mine – I have a signed copy from an SCBWI conference I went to years ago —and I felt honored that she read my book, let alone loved it.
As for the takeaway, I didn’t start the story with anything in mind other than to preserve a piece of little-known Jewish American history, but as a writer, I suppose my biggest hope is that readers are able to make an emotional connection with Gittel’s story. That’s the only way I know how to write and I hope that my connection creates a pathway for readers to connect, too.
Beyond that—Gittel’s story is even more relevant now than when I began writing it. It’s no longer a quaint immigrant story, but a reflection not just of our past, but our present.
So maybe there is a takeaway. I think Gittel asks today’s reader that we be open to others who are different, that we be interested in learning and listening with our hearts. That we have compassion for one another and understand that we all endure loss and experience joy; we all carry our family histories with us— for generations.
Q: Emily Dickinson plays a big role in the story—why did you choose to include her poetry?
A: I’m a pantser not a plotter, and Emily popped into the story and refused to go away. Gittel is prone to flights of fancy and I think Emily Dickinson keeps Gittel grounded and appreciative of the here and now, helping her to see the divine in the humdrum farm life she often complains about.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I have a fun middle-grade dramedy set in the summer of 1969 that I’d love to find a home for and a folder full of story starts I’m excited to dive into.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I’m so grateful to everyone who has read or chooses to read Gittel. It means so much to me. If anyone is interested in using Gittel in the classroom, there are downloadable lesson plans for grades 6-9 on my website, along with a digital scrapbook of vintage photos and an audio clip of my great grandfather singing that Russian folksong. www.laurieschneider.com
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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