Flyover Lives

                                    
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Transcript for file: focus140220a.mp3

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after dinner at a house party

party a French friend was Frank with Diane Johnson about her opinion of Americans

really have is true

few years later we have Johnson’s response for new book is a memoir detailing

bringing in Moline Illinois

00:00:30

Midwest family history

Vocus all talk with Diane Johnson about her new MMORPG Lavalife

chipolte about her memories of Moline in the 40’s and 50’s how to trace your family history

do you have a sense of humor

coming up on focus after this news

Draya Michele I’m talking with writer Diane Johnson

00:01:05

finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and has been nominated 3 times to the National Book Award

nes a biography and fiction novels in Clute 1997

2000 the mariage in 2003

why our lives published recently by biking Penguin

is in part of response to a French friend

that Americans have no sense of their personal history is in the book not only offers

of her childhood and adolescence in Moline Illinois but also the circumstances of her

00:01:40

from France to the northeast and eventually to Illinois

questions for listeners do you feel like you have a sense of your personal history

Americans generally struggle with this idea what are some of your perceptions about living in the Midwest

disagree with out stereo types at 1 800 to do tonight

29455 what you know about your family history the things you’ve learned

you can also email it will talk it Illinois Facebook and Twitter

Twitter @ focus 580 Diane Johnson thank you so much for doing yesterday

00:02:15

thank you for having me so I would like to start with a house party

party that you were out and that you were at in Provence France visiting friends and that store

does set the stage for everything that follows can you

can you talk a little bit and describe the situation at this party and what was said to you that made you think

is it true that should I start digging through my family history

something that a French friend that we were in the south of France visiting

sitting in a beautiful house

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love in French food in Fallon NV

where a group of American General who

taking and they will retire

taking a trip to France to look up there

this is how a conversation

where the girl with the subject

okay though the topic of historical memory came up after the excellent dinner

00:03:25

when we gathered on the patio and the American army general wrong with telling

French ancestors is calling Billabong within us

look up his roots in Germany the bones in Los Lobos retired and have the Montreal

Dreamstime virginal Daniel optical research

Washougal Rosso

summer Catholics mean before the Revolution and the French Revolution timeline

many people don’t realize it extend of Catholic immigration into America

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Maryland it was the discourse well informed and lightning

early immigrants to America visit prompted are holy

hostess saying that it was unusual for Americans to take a nap

can interest in history in any form after they mentioned

the covered wagon nothing

it’s because we don’t believe that ancestry matters is what you are yourself

it’s an axiom of America selfmade set times

00:04:35

delete defensive I suppose international class list

American Pacific

Civic for knowing and caring so much about a background Simone rental

is it feel because French’s pizza place on citrus mall stay

St John of the Cross

the blue dress

he has a covered wagon in his family tree

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is on grandmother went to California in one in the 1880s

avg answers most American treatment had no idea about

about anything before their own grandmothers if that  indifference

2 history Simone Smith that’s why Americans have so naive

as always in Vandeven countries  American Mason FL

it’s winter in the foreign land in someone criticizes the United States

00:05:45

that you come to feel loved American most Midwestern because

California weather live for 50 years has ever felt like America

Illinois dot  ok

so how so how did you feel in that moment when im on

says that

play thinking about it I started

my mother had a drawer full of maggots cramps and diarrhea

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I’ve always believed

not without reason I think that the interest in front of family

geneology is at the gumline with increasing age

and at the time I guess I haven’t reached that point

quickly did because I thought I should look into those manuscripts and Irish

and so I did

what do you think she was trying to accomplish by bringing that up

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it was probably the continuation of a conversation she didn’t have a

American husband over the air

probably fence historical woods way

kind of flooring in NC

I could you could just stay here

Wanderlei a conversation I did have to laugh when I read the park

the part where she said you know all Americans think they’re descended from royalty

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what that’s ridiculous but then I remembered that my

my grandfather on my dads side had had told me when

geological research and he told us that we were descended from Napoleon

which you could see all of us were all like sex

after I realize that died in my family Skating what there is always a

to be related to somebody way back who was it was important

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yeah I know it’s true

when I haven’t heard usually is

as it was in my family

the cafe in festival



and I would ask the audience

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how many people had a tradition

condition of someone great

very high proportion

everybody listeners have have

Family Feud questions or comments for Diane Johnson

give us a call at 1 802 to 2945 email at will

talking at illinois.edu Facebook and Twitter at a Twitter

00:09:15

Twitter @ focus 580 and leave a message for a there and will get back to you

just one last question about the French

do you feel that the Europeans in particular have a better sense of their head

history of Nations as individuals or is that something that there

will talk more about this question a basic answer now that something that you think is

is actually true true I think of a number

free things in their education

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little so different from all the places in Glendora

Brownsburg Zampa has a more compact history where of America

has a live in different regions are after dentist on

on educating the luck of the West what happened in Louisiana

California and outside of the side of the big picture sometime

time  impressed with how

school children are made to remember all those Louis MO

00:10:25

do deers a little bit so

counter with somone and in France with with the general

general you decided to start pursuing

family history maybe it’s starting to work on your own story of your family so

talking bout moving in your childhood bear

is that the winter wear currently experiencing this year in central Illinois

your recently in Chicago on your book tour you might have had a little taste of exactly like your description

00:11:00

scription of winter in Moline that you gave in yearbook we all feel like we been wearing

wearing many layers of clothes for several months now

Chicago one day when it was I thinking

17 below on my book to a couple weeks ago

I don’t like it I like it very very much longer but it took me back

low freezing water

Logan grade school from my house

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why have to say it’s actually been awhile since we’ve experienced a winter like that

here our selves how long has it been since

the wall above the winter season in the Midwest when was the last time

sixth and I had to move to California

and of course I’ve never had anything even if

address in winter even when we go skiing in the ass

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it’s not that common like in the

3800 just below freezing with nothing like

below zero in fact I don’t think that people can even imagine

experiences talking to people overseas aid

crazy for living here

back in the 1930s 40’s and 50’s you know when your book sounds like it was

largely untouched by the outside world in a lot of ways

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what does feel that way to me because I was

I was a child on Goodreads about far away places

and I know that we did not have

sailing ships above all

pirate Council

videos of child even even Tom Sawyer

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amor eterno amor Aventura

little girl in Moline even though he wasnt that far away

do you think that insularity is more of a small town thing

or is it that you need to Midwest

it’s just a little bit a condition of being in the Midwest

when I start would I find myself thinking about it said and realize

it was true that you’re a thousand miles ocean when you’re in my way

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or or more

during the war yes they were headlines yesterday

they came every morning with

details of of the war but it wasn’t

funny thing to do with the war

graphical reality I fink  so in the book

book you talk a little bit about how you loved parrot stories and you love to read

00:14:30

can you talk a little bit about the library that you visited when you when you were growing up

ESI I was happy to see that it was still there

InMotion when I visit a couple of years ago it was the Carnegie Library

is there were in love lots of small towns in America

what is that was such a great thing that

Andrew Carnegie did to build Library

smaller communities over over the country

00:15:05

and they were wonderful looking if you if you’ve ever seen a Carnegie Library with the column

looking Library the Carnegie Library

is closed Anu

community library is here and I think you’re looking for something to do with the

what the building that as a couple years ago it was in the news

pencil eyebrows which is sad but at least fans turn it down

down when to when you were a kid was that what it was clearly a center for youth

00:15:40

you had a really have the library and I feel like libraries

even now I remain at the center of small town life

what it seems like a library still remains

place that sounds like it was really important place for Moline as well it was very

very important that I have to say when I was on my book to I

beautiful library in Libertyville

and you know it boot it really

00:16:15

the continuum of the library

the community center place to get books on now

media related things and it was a fairytale land

the community and that the flushing library

okay we’re going to go to the phones online for we have Steve

Eve from Urbana

my last name is Julia

00:16:50

HRL lyer and for my whole life my brothers

paternal grandfather

that are surname was a French Huguenot

we believe him well I look to research and it didn’t take much dick

its in fact an occupational name the originals

hial lier

workman who does that

00:17:25

and it is hot pseudo houses and then the other fat so I just

lawyer

tourney for the Interstate Commerce will he was working on

nevermind he was bright mad at any other matter I wanna bring up

I had this friend moved to Urbana

Anna from Evanston to two and a half years ago

distressing time and close friend here

00:18:00

family law photo

that’s what I did she said it well if I had to I would never

when did the revelations that I have had the experience going

are you might make my father was a brilliant photographer

completely missed his call and he should have been

genius photographer

00:18:35

it’s like Faulkner said I don’t know if I have the exact wording

famous quotes of William the past is never pass it isn’t even

dead people

who sings it all that was in the past forget about it move on

clueless

something so Calif that that that stuff

yeah I’m so glad you didn’t

00:19:10

do it is another Mather and sometimes the Chevalier

things really dont spit ball

thank you Steve for your call an effect anyone else has AIDS

I want to ask our guest Diane Johnson 1 800

9455 mail it will talk at illinois.edu

Facebook or Twitter @ focus 580 and Diane

Diane we just received a tweet from reign Mary Queen of Scots

00:19:45

what is a story in her mom’s family

lily thai

Mary Queen of Scots

do the math

it’s very likely that bad

descendants of if anyone that was alive

Queen of Scots OH

00:20:20

truth very often they do

think there’s something in the

International psi kids don’t you about wanting some connection

European history or or the history of the old country

from which immigrants come to

keep that connection have a sensor off of the past

the past tense of the whole new country with everyone

00:20:55



talking about no stories to tell my ticket Delta because

because our country’s history is relatively young compared to

European countries is Histories go back millenia really

there are histories in North America that go back millenia also b***

what are current culture that immigrant culture from Europe

are becoming a nation in 1776 history is really not that old

00:21:30

old and so I think maybe you’re right that’s that that’s part of it

Steve who talked about his

the divisions of his name is another way of recovery

recovering history what people think of their family

family name of the place that the format

forbearance left until then some of the history

in his steps to love

00:22:05

probably came from France so

so that we try to hold on

we have another color online for bill is driving

riding on his way on his way to the family farm

full size my family back

2010 Minnesota Minnesota Saipan

back to 1601 Fulton Illinois

00:22:40

back to France and Germany

everybody’s got friends people

people as answer if you’re from Western Europe

Cleopatra related to Caesar





00:23:15

remember the mass murder

murder

character only the good get remembered

member of the very very bad to write yes you have that

link to somebody who is a truly an outlaw that’s not so bad either

Yahoo

when we were talking at the well my great great

00:23:50

great grandmother was the host of 4 Jesse James

flights from the banks bill for your call

I’m sitting in virgin Meadows today we’re going to take a short break year

I’m talking this hour with Diane Johnson she’s in a clean daughter whos recent memoir fly over live

contractor upbringing in Moline Illinois

questions about how Americans see themselves in relationship history this is focus

00:24:25

WI AM 580

Diane Johnson screenplays

94 the break your talking again about our relationship

relationship with true or not to a famous or folks

Cecil from Saint Joseph

Joseph is on the line hi thanks for sharing stories

nice out we have a semicolon

00:25:00

my kind of story family and I found a whole lot of history and it was related to

infamous people and they hit them to research in

unchanged go away after my father passed to change the way we are with herself

heritage of astonishment very proud

city with a very similar meanings and after my father passed weekend

can cause a document politician 3340

at that had a chase down

00:25:35

and it turns out that we are in Spanish

French indeed again and back time

Mike Kemp great grandfather actually came across something called

first ship iss the Huguenots word from England

and I just found out 3 interesting

are some of the things that are princess resort but when you find out

find out so much more about you know that your real history

00:26:10

not here say I just furniture

best writing I’m a couple things

it turns out that I have never understood the extent to which

people of France in the Midwest there was a lot of emphasis on on Germantown

in my timeline

Louis from Scandinavia but in fact France

America from from the Alleghenies

00:26:45

the Rocket from the Great Lakes who booty

is there was a massive French immigration

best way to part of that so

looking up more you know

absolutely

your nationality is completely different

I wonder what they have

00:27:20

friends at what point of the family

Spanish is there was a hole

holtel that was created around it is well my father told to stay at someone came from the

Louisiana

Old Republic for a bow at the end

they said that the people in New Orleans couldn’t understand

Gracian the name at the end

00:27:55

pow

and then eventually the W was dropped in thats my name

today

Italian or Spanish name an exactly exactly

Cecil thank you so much

how much for your call

Alva who says American history of young many immigrants in captivity wanted to forget the past

00:28:30

the past and begin anew think that’s an interesting point over here

I do think that’s true

specially people

my family have come early in alphabet

most of the memories of anything that happened in the Old West

long fence

no recollection of the old country anything but

00:29:05

for somebody who had the Advent wreath

Mikasa solar oil level on the Holocaust

cost any of those things

and so I think at a certain point

work from the 1880s

1920 that was very much

program UK you dropped your own language

00:29:40

encourage your children to learn that

embrace American but of course not

it’s really sad when people could have learned another language

bilingual

this idea was mistaken a lot of way

is that we should have

not

00:30:15

not going out the family paper right right sided love reading about

about your great great great grandmother and I think that’s great

so she’s a little further

into your history shes born in 1779 if I’m not mistaken

so your family had had come over for a while and had their names

maybe not exactly changed but certainly change something

is something a little more American like in your family

00:30:50

call France Way

what was pretty funny but really I really like dreaming about

she actually seems like a teenage girl from any era

you always feeling like she’s doing all the work and no one really understand her

more about her about her life was like before she married

is this he was born as his hand 1779 and so that was doing

American Revolution her father or some kind of joke

00:31:25

who is a in the Santa professional family

family things are really cry primitive in 1779

so so that would have been open fire

lots and lots of laundry to do in the probably would have had a hired girl

leg b***

had to do a lot of work and so as a girl

how many 96 girls

00:32:00



principle of occupation

area of a circle

Hampshire

what was related to the church

Church going to the descendants of characters

Pilgrims and a very caught up in the ology

00:32:35

and so

going to different meanings of different denominations

I’m also that she was a teenager with a very

fervor in the country it was

is it was called the Great Awakening and people

April

with all kinds of method is a Presbyterian Rosa

00:33:10

azfamily would wear to a concert that point

but at that time the Church of England whetstone

the revolution was an over anyway so she

into the logical questions like

will the nation with one big subject

big word for her definition is weather

weather not your dander saved has been decided

00:33:45

nothing that you can do nothing that you just can’t change it

she was worried about bad to cut off Dancing

say but I suppose you

epic church

young Mr Perkins

Mary’s when she’s a tan in real life

Vegas live in very rustic circumstances

00:34:20

in the wilderness in a cabin

The Weeknd

primitive life for a season 4

middle middle class people note 2 or listener

if you have a question or comment about memoir personal history or the Midwest place in history

we would love to hear from you at 1 800 22 29455

00:34:55

will talk at Illinois .edu or you can just be a social media and Facebook

Facebook and Twitter at focus 5800 the next generation after

after an

Kathryn was quite the writer

Ann’s writing kind of drops off because she probably had all these kids to deal with b*** Catherine

Catherine Rohr quite a bit with an unusual for that time I don’t know

it’s really very hard to find out how many people have

00:35:30

grandmother diarrhea in their attic something it is heated

is he into the relatively unusual but um but they’re not writing is Delaware

and so I think maybe girls diarrhea

Juno

Diary like

statesman like to do a professional to do so

I think it was more than usual for women 5’3 heard

00:36:05

just grateful that is a generation

people have held on to do with something

importance of these women voices

are there lots of others out there

IHOP distance from somebody listening

remember only a I go to look at that girl

Ashley recently had a program edition of focus that was about the preservation of

00:36:40

vision of family heirlooms including people out there who are starting to dig around looking for those things

things that would be

what to do with them

but I think will need to be aware of what

archival resources are found in which library is win

accept things like this

should encourage library to a car

00:37:15

this kind of material which is on the way

is the meaning of deciding to throw it out

Fred from Urbana online 1

it’s a comment on place names that were adopted by our ancestors from other places

French Andhra incest records all along the rivers

in the Midwest the French were some of the first

European place name all over and from

00:37:50

your part of the state that Moline IL later

immigrants from New York State canal in the Great Lakes

place names I think maybe one of the closer wanted to where you grew up with

the town of Geneseo name for the Genesee tribe I think of the name

Native American names were also years and up but also other

mother TownePlace names for New York State little town of Utica

what comes to mind when you aware of any of that when you were out

00:38:25

come along Aaron in Moline

the local area being called the Quad Cities sure of course

when I was growing up actually I have the address to the 4th

what is the fourth and maybe he’s falling out

or Bendorf Iowa

in and out

place names of the fence

00:39:00

because of his lesson was about 5

Father Marquette and Joliet

me cumming

the Erie Canal in Mississippi and of course the

does playing February

hot and lots and lots of friends

Detroit lots of Midwestern Center names that wave anglicized

00:39:35

my mother

what Sica

American tribal names what was the name of the prince

what Sica so

tradition that up thank you

thank you for your call I died and I just

I want to get back to Katherine really quick eventually got married

00:40:10

part of the Yankee migration moving from from what is the NE

Illinois sickness

and death or constant actually in a lot of the writing that you do talking about your ancestors

sick or dying or something terrible is happening in

there’s a part in the book written by Kathryn Kathryn involving the death

three of her daughters and I had to get up

he’s around the room for a few minutes after reading those words that story was was incredible

00:40:45

how how did people handle that how did Catherine handle that how

how did people even recover from something like that

2009 children in data

died

three little Khalsa weather like 531

something within a couple of weeks but over there should have

boy died

00:41:20

and then all the Left

but very little

photos from the confirmation but I’m not sure

what church going of Korra

does Akoo

little girls when she writes about it later she said something like

when I got up they will go on

00:41:55

she was taken sick by the same as he was in

stay right so I think maybe the

the collapse today the boy with

with great difficulty and waffles

mystery really how how brave people wear her writing about it

about it I thought was was incredibly powerful so I’m very glad that you include that in the b***

in the book we have another color online to its Ron from Decatur and he has

00:42:30

as he wants a comment on how he knows about his family history

first of my grandmother was a f** offa Jyoti

she had a Bible what are French Bible with a geology and she took a couple

couple of a French girl who just come over to help a mountain board of them for a week or two

crystal the Bible history of gone

set up my other, is it looks of America

are part of mixed by have German French to English

00:43:05

difficult to do genealogy or just one for flight before I go

willow tree for a complication over here

to do with a geology

increasing and sister .com sites in

in France and I don’t know about Gemini but I would guess probably

similar thing in Germany

more more things are digital eyes that’ll be possible to track

00:43:40

black people on their voyage essence of find out a bit more

about what about the people that  the Gamo over

what the families were doing and where they were in the old gum tree

bentos a lot of different record themselves a very good

good and they go back back back in o2

some of the 15th century

yeah so

00:44:15

thank you so much for your call bring me to

do a question about writing a biography how is it going to change now that we have the Internet

information you think what I think

problem too much information

what in in the long way it’s a great blue in all of the stuff that’s been all the census records

everything that’s been on

and I just think it’s going to be up to the challenge of people not to

00:44:50

overcome

rise up to do something with air with air genealogical

thats that represents a little bit of

Idaho

organization and so are you talking about how

because he working so many other genres house write a memoir different from working

will iphone

00:45:25

remind myself that these were stories of truth

true stories in this case but they were still stores that have had to be told in it

Benetton a kind of novel is not novelist

you have to make the characters Claire

Claire and the narrative sequence has to be understandable

37 kind of climax

Maxtor ending to the story that you’re telling her that says about Anna cafe

00:46:00

think thin

the hottest pepper in the world list talking about my own life

very self reflective person

and so when I try to

memories came rushing and then I had before

out of this stuff in my own mind make a selection

election I would give an idea life in on me and my family was like until I’m just

00:46:35

as examples of Midwest America I will interest was in

and in this region in the little towns in ND

lives of those those courageous people who came trekking across

crossed a root canal in wagon

21

Bloomington OR

how to live how long did it take you to

00:47:10

well I have a couple

sum of the parts of a written from time before

Publix the general

weather experience

I had written up and so that was

changes to make it fit in but it was already written

fat ass so I was a boy

00:47:45

is material that I put into some kind of shape

so just things up

you know we got about a minute left do you miss

living in the Midwest that you split I should tell that you split your time between San Francisco

France and you left the Midwest permanently when you are 16

and I know you’ve been back to visit is it a place you miss is there anything about it

do you have a more than that

00:48:20

book about your life I think so I think when I back off

hilltop of years ago 3 years ago

and then I of course have this

experience of things that I remember

IHOP

forgotten about green and beautiful

foliage was American society

00:48:55

Sat

remember those we love to have you

what have you back for a visit sometime in Urbana Champaign but I actually have to

how many more questions for you but don’t have to do it for today Diane Johnson thank you so much

talking with me to date and lovely

sitting in this hour for gym Meadows have been talking with Diane Johnson

Johnson about her recent memoir flyover lives you can find out more about her and her book

00:49:30

will.illinois.edu/focus

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