While driving back roads in northeast Wisconsin as I researched the 9th Chloe Ellefson Mystery, The Lacemaker’s Secret, I encountered a handful of old Belgian structures featuring stars. Most of them were white, on the gable ends of barns.
Near Union, WI.
No one seemed to be sure of the custom’s origin, although some historians have speculated that they represented the settlers’ strong religious faith.
There are a handful of Catholic Churches in the region named Stella Maris (Our Lady, Star of the Sea), an ancient title for the Virgin Mary. It signifies protection and guidance.
Near Algoma, WI.
I chose to incorporate that idea into one of the book’s pivotal scenes. Last July, when participants on a tour of Belgian sites in the vicinity asked about star barns, I promised to share some photos.
Near Rosiere, WI.
I hope these shots will help you imagine the scene!
One of my favorites! Near West Kewaunee, WI.And a star house! The brickwork on this beautiful home is astonishing. Near Rosiere, WI.
By the way…I’ve neglected my blog of late in order to focus on manuscripts in progress. I’ll try to do better. Happy autumn!
I’m delighted to announce that the Belgian Sites Tour inspired by the 9th Chloe Ellefson Mystery, The Lacemaker’s Secret, is a go! The special event will take place—live and in-person—on Saturday, July 9, 2022.
A full day of programming by the amazing folks at the Belgian Heritage Centerin Door County, Wisconsin will provide exclusive insights into the world Chloe explored in the the book.
Highlights include a Great Fire Presentation, a lunch featuring traditional Belgian food, and a guided bus tour of the Namur National Landmark Historic District. I’ll also provide a behind-the-scenes program about The Lacemaker’s Secret.
Space for this unique experience is limited. Click HERE for more information, and to register. I’m excited!
Due to the pandemic, my friends at the Belgian Heritage Center and I have decided to postpone the special Chloe tour scheduled for this summer.
The NEW date is Saturday, July 10, 2021. The tour plan outlined below remains the same.We all need things to look forward to, right?
The 9th Chloe Ellefson Mystery, The Lacemaker’s Secret, takes place in northeast Wisconsin where early Belgian immigrants made their homes.
When readers asked for a special book-themed tour of the area, I turned to my friends at the Belgian Heritage Center in Brussels, WI.
We’ve planned a very special excursion for readers on Saturday, July 11, 2020. I hope you’ll join Mr. Ernst and me as we explore featured locations and learn about the inspiring history of one of Wisconsin’s lesser-known ethnic groups.
Activities will include:
Great Fire Presentation
This powerful program will be provided by Barb Chisholm, historian at the Belgian Heritage Center. The Great Fire, which happened on October 8, 1871, was devastating for southern Door County’s Belgian community. Two of Barb’s ancestors survived the fire by hiding in a well, and part of her presentation shares her great-grandmother’s experience.
Guided Bus Tour of Namur National Landmark Historic District
Experience Belgian culture and tradition on a narrated tour of the largest Belgian settlement in the United States. The tour will include Belgian architecture, Roadside Chapels, and the National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help.
The Lacemaker’s Secret Illustrated Presentation
Learn more about the stories, places, and artifacts that inspired Chloe’s—and Seraphine’s—stories.
Time to explore the Belgian Heritage Center’s exhibits.
Traditional Lunch of Booyah, Bread, & Belgian Pie.
Optional add-on tour of Heritage Hill State Park’s Belgian Farm (Friday)
Space will be limited, so save the date!
When the time is right I will announce registration here on my blog, in an email to those signed up for my mailing list, and on my Facebook Author Page.
I’ve been dithering about whether to announce the Chloe tour scheduled for this summer. In the spirit of optimism…here you go.
The 9th Chloe Ellefson Mystery, The Lacemaker’s Secret, takes place in northeast Wisconsin where early Belgian immigrants made their homes.
When readers asked for a special book-themed tour of the area, I turned to my friends at the Belgian Heritage Center in Brussels, WI.
We’ve planned a very special excursion for readers on Saturday, July 11, 2020. I hope you’ll join Mr. Ernst and me as we explore featured locations and learn about the inspiring history of one of Wisconsin’s lesser-known ethnic groups.
Activities will include:
Great Fire Presentation
This powerful program will be provided by Barb Chisholm, historian at the Belgian Heritage Center. The Great Fire, which happened on October 8, 1871, was devastating for southern Door County’s Belgian community. Two of Barb’s ancestors survived the fire by hiding in a well, and part of her presentation shares her great-grandmother’s experience.
Guided Bus Tour of Namur National Landmark Historic District
Experience Belgian culture and tradition on a narrated tour of the largest Belgian settlement in the United States. The tour will include Belgian architecture, Roadside Chapels, and the National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help.
The Lacemaker’s Secret Illustrated Presentation
Learn more about the stories, places, and artifacts that inspired Chloe’s—and Seraphine’s—stories.
Time to explore the Belgian Heritage Center’s exhibits.
Traditional Lunch of Booyah, Bread, & Belgian Pie.
Optional add-on tour of Heritage Hill State Park’s Belgian Farm (Friday, July 10)
Space will be limited, so save the date!
I sincerely hope that all of us feel comfortable traveling by July. Since we don’t know how events will unfold, however, I am not yet taking reservations for the tour. When the time is right I will announce registration here on my blog, in an email to those signed up for my mailing list, and on my Facebook Author Page.
When I give programs about the Chloe Ellefson Mystery Series, I often mention overarching goals I developed long ago for the series: celebrating real historic places, highlighting folk arts, using artifacts from museum collections to help tell stories, and honoring our ancestors.
Ten books in, I need to add one more goal. I hope that each Chloe book can honor the volunteers who do so much to make sure local history, family stories, or cultural heritage isn’t lost.
Barb Chisolm telling the story of the Great Fire as seen through her own ancestor’s eyes.
I’ve had the opportunity to visit many local historical societies in Wisconsin and neighboring states—sometimes to do research, sometimes because I’m invited to make a presentation about the Chloe mysteries or my nonfiction book, A Settler’s Year: Pioneer Life Through the Seasons. I usually leave feeling awed that a small group of people is making such a big difference in their community.
Three generations of milling technology, from ancient stone grinding to the modern roller mill to modern electricity, are preserved in The Messer/Mayer Mill, owned by the Richfield County Historical Society, WI. (RCHS Photo)
Some groups focus on ethnic heritage, preserving important traditions brought to the Upper Midwest by their own parents and grandparents.
Volunteers often perpetuate food traditions—often giving their time to support bake sales that fund educational programs and other projects.
Vicky, Joyce, and Carol taught me how to make Kransekake, a traditional Norwegian almond cake made of stacked rings that I mentioned in Fiddling With Fate. These ladies and many other bakers at the Sons of Norway-Mandt Lodge in Stoughton bake lots of goodies to raise money for important programs.
Some share music…
Alphorn players at Swiss Volksfest, New Glarus, WI.Hardanger fiddle players, members of Fykerud’n Spelemannslag, performing at Syttende Mai, Stoughton, WI.
…and some dance.
The Pommersche Tanzdeel Freistadt dancers are organized into three age groups. I love seeing the young ones involved! The group is located in Western Ozaukee County, WI, site of the oldest German settlement in the state.
Stoughton High School Norwegian Dancers have been delighting crowds since the 1950s.
Some individuals focus on folk arts, honing their own understanding of techniques and, often, sharing it with others by teaching or giving presentations.
Kasia Drake-Hames (in tan sweater) teaching a workshop in Polish paper cutting, wycinanki. I featured this folk art in Tradition of Deceit.Susan Slinde sharing some history about Hardanger embroidery, illustrated by one of her own gorgeous pieces. Rebecca Hanna teaching carving to young people through the Whittling Klubb for Kids at Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum. (Photo http://www.thegazette.com)
Many artifacts are saved by the volunteers who preserve them at local historical societies.
This sampler is on display at the William H. Upham House, owned by the North Wood County Historical Society, Marshfield, WI. It was just what I needed when looking for a sampler to reflect a character in A Memory of Muskets.
Volunteers preserve buildings…
Reedsburg Area Pioneer Log Village, WI. I’m looking forward to visiting!No only did descendants of early Belgian settlers save this historic church, they turned it into a gathering place with museum exhibits and cultural programs, preserving immigrant stories, the Walloon language, and local history. I visited to do research, but decided I had to include it in The Lacemaker’s Secret.The Pottawatomie Lighthouse on Rock Island State Park, WI, was in sad shape before volunteers organized to preserve and restore the building. Mr. Ernst and I was privileged to serve as docents there for eight years, sharing the stories of lighthouse families who once lived and worked there. Part of The Lightkeeper’s Legacy was written in the lighthouse.
…and sometimes volunteers even recreate buildings, because they understand that place is important.
The Little House Wayside Cabin allows fans of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods to walk the ground where the Ingalls family once walked, and imagine. I enjoyed visiting while writing Death on the Prairie.
Family volunteers—those who collect and stories about their ancestors–make a difference too, in ways larger than they might imagine. Many of my books include details inspired by a reminiscence or family history I discovered.
The list could go on, but suffice it to say that I’m enormously grateful to everyone who helps preserve, protect, perpetuate, and share.
Many of the dedicated and generous people I’ve met on the road merge and blend into characters in the Chloe books. Chloe, and I, couldn’t do our work without you. We’re grateful!
When I went to work at Old World Wisconsin many years ago, one of my first assignments was working at the 1860 German farm. The curator who’d furnished the building left a couple of pairs of reproduction wooden shoes near the back door. “Aren’t those Dutch?” visitors often asked.
I explained that many rural people wore such clogs. (In this 1982 photograph I’m wearing a pair while knitting in the doorway of the 1845 Fossebrekke cabin, home to Norwegian immigrants.)
The clogs were sturdy, and kept the wearer elevated from muddy pastures and mucky barns. Most that I’ve seen are pretty basic.
This pair worn by a Swiss immigrant is on display at the Swiss Historical Village & Museum, New Glarus, WI.
I got a lot more interested in wooden shoes when I began learning about the Belgian immigrants who settled in northeast Wisconsin for the 10th Chloe Ellefson Mystery, The Lacemaker’s Secret. One man recalled:
While at work or at home the Belgians all wore wooden shoes… When plowing, they wore them without socks, for the sabots soon filled up with loose soil. …They were also worn in winter when logging or working around the sawmills. They then tacked on long canvas leggings which made cheap and serviceable footwear. The sabots of the women were fastened on the foot with a strap above the instep. A few could even dance with them but that was exceptional. (Hjalmar Rued Holand, Wisconsin’s Belgian Community, Door County Historical Society, 1933)
Belgians called their clogs sabots. The word can be traced to early 17th century France—a blend of savate (shoe) and botte (boot). (Most of the Wisconsin Belgians spoke Walloon, a language similar to French.)
By the early 20th century, another word had developed: saboter, which roughly meant “to kick with sabots, to willfully destroy.” These acts of willful destruction gave rise to one more term: sabotage. One definition provided by Merriam-Webster is this: “destruction of an employer’s property (such as tools or materials) or the hindering of manufacturing by discontented workers.”
Early in my research I found a reference to poor tenant farmers in Belgium wearing their sabots to crush harvest crops if they were angry with their employers. How could I not use that in my novel?
Now that I was paying more attention to wooden shoes, I was attracted to a pair on display in the Belgian Farm at Heritage Hill State Historical Park. These are the sabots that are attributed to Seraphine in The Lacemaker’s Secret.
I love the decorative carving on these. The shoes are still practical, but beautiful too. (I don’t know what the small holes were used for—perhaps to tie the shoes together when not being worn?)
I’ve since read about other sabots that were carved or painted. Some were evidently quite colorful.
These shoes, on display at building owned by the Peninsula Belgian American Club in Namur, inspired another pair mentioned in the mystery.
And here’s a beautiful pair:
On display at the Peninsula Belgian American Club, Namur, WI. I’m sorry I don’t know who made them.
Sabots popped up again when I read about the plight of Belgian civilians during the German occupation of World War I. This headline is from the September 25th, 1914 edition of the Green Bay Gazette:
(Associated Press)
Every day at 5 o’clock a bell rings in the Exhibitions Hall of Alexandra Palace, whereupon 1,500 hundred women, children, and old men, with a scattering of youths, set up a clatter of wooden shoes. This amusement park is now the largest camp for Belgian refugees in the London district….
The Belgian settlers continued to wear their sabots in Wisconsin. The photo below is one of my favorite images in the extensive Belgian-American Research Collection in the UW-Green Bay Archives (shown here on exhibit at the Belgian Heritage Center, Namur, WI.)
(Mrs. Frank Martin pumping water for the cows. Photo dated March 5, 1919)
Many Belgian people wore sabots as they met challenge after challenge. I was thinking about that when I wrote one of my favorite moments in The Lacemaker’s Secret, when Sharon makes a confession:
“Seraphine must have had a hard life. All of the earliest arrivals did. I probably shouldn’t admit this to a curator, but…sometimes when I’m facing a challenge I slip off my shoes and stand in Seraphine’s sabots.” Sharon’s gaze flicked to Chloe, then away again as if afraid she’d see mockery.
But Chloe was anything but amused, or annoyed. “Standing in her shoes,” she said softly, with complete understanding.
“Exactly.” Sharon’s shoulders relaxed. “Seraphine—all of the women who came in those early years—they were so courageous. Their faith was so strong. It’s inspiring.”
Artifacts are most precious for the stories they can tell, and the people they represent. Belgian sabots are a wonderful example.
Congratulations to Dianne Martingano, Miriam R. Nelson, and Kathleen Newberg! Each won a signed, hardcover copy of the large print edition of the 9th Chloe Ellefson Mystery, The Lacemaker’s Secret.
Winners were chosen at random from all entries here and on my Facebook Author Page.
Adele Brise was born in Belgium in 1831, and immigrated to Wisconsin with her family in 1855. The Brise family settled about 16 miles northeast of the city of Green Bay in Robinsonville, now Champion, Wisconsin.
Little is known of Adele’s early years, but she was remembered as a devout young woman.
(Photo on display at Our Lady of Good Help)
In October, 1859, apparitions of the Virgin Mary occurred to Adele as she was walking through the woods. Mary instructed Adele to teach local children in the faith. Adele devoted the rest of her life to that charge.
Adele Brise with students. (CatholicLane.com)
Many church leaders doubted the veracity of Adele’s story. Her friends and neighbors believed, however, and Adele’s father built a chapel nearby. In time it was replaced with a larger chapel, and facilities for students.
In 1871, during the Great Fire, some area residents fled to the grounds. They processed around the chapel carrying the statue of Mary. Conditions almost overwhelmed them, but Adele instructed them to pray. When the firestorm finally passed, everything around the chapel grounds had been destroyed. The outside of the fence was charred, but the grounds were undisturbed.
Adele Brise was not a nun, but she adopted attire similar to a nun’s habit. (Photo on display at Our Lady of Good Help)
Adele’s vision was not accepted by the church before she died in 1896. Finally, over century later in 2010, the apparitions were formally approved. Today, The National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help is the only Marian shrine in the United States on the site of an approved apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
I read about Adele while doing early research for The Lacemaker’s Secret, the 9th Chloe Ellefson mystery, which focuses on Belgian immigration to Northeast Wisconsin. I wanted to include Adele’s story. As a non-Catholic, I also wanted to be respectful.
Before making any final decisions, I visited the site itself.
It includes a small museum that tells Adele’s story.
The apparition appeared between a maple tree and a hemlock tree. These are pieces of the roots of those trees.
The site includes a contemporary church, home to an active congregation. The sanctuary is beautiful.
Around a corner and down some stairs is the Apparition Oratory.
These crutches near the entrance are testament to reports of visitors being healed of illness or affliction after a visit.
To me, even more powerful was the absolute, reverential beauty of the small chapel.
I knew that if Chloe visited the chapel, she couldn’t help but be moved as well. I decided to have her visit at an emotionally low point, so she could find solace.
The grounds are also peaceful and inviting.
This is Adele’s grave.
The building below is a roadside chapel that was moved to the site and restored in 2003.
Visitors are welcome to visit any day of the year, from 7 AM to 7 PM.
* * *
To learn more about The Lacemaker’s Secret, or my other books, I invite you to visit mywebsite.
Click here for a more detailed account of Adele’s story.
I’m celebrating last fall’s successful launch of the ninth Chloe Ellefson Mystery with a Giveaway! Nine winners will receive a signed and personalized trade paperback copy of The Lacemaker’s Secret.
To enter the Giveaway, leave a comment here before 11:59 PM (Central US Time) on Wednesday, January 30, 2019. One entry per person, please.
Nine winners will be chosen at random from all entries here and on my Facebook Author Page. Winners will be announced here on Thursday, January 31. Good luck!
Sometimes you just need some comfort food—something steaming and fragrant and utterly delicious.
The 9th Chloe Ellefson Mystery, The Lacemaker’s Secret, begins at just such a moment.
“Something is burdening you,” Libby told Roelke McKenna. “Spill it. Now.”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
Libby’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe you.”
Roelke turned to the kitchen counter where an old-fashioned percolator burbled with promise. Trust his cousin to just know. He’d had another rough night, but he didn’t want to talk about it.
. . . Libby turned and cracked the oven door. A rich wave of banana, vanilla, and cinnamon swirled into the room.
“Please tell me that’s Libby’s Legendary Banana Bread Pudding.” Roelke’s favorite Sunday-morning treat at his cousin’s house.
I came up with this recipe for Banana Bread Pudding on a frigid Wisconsin morning. It pairs beautifully with the delectable maple sauce, so don’t skip that step!
Pudding Ingredients 3-4 ripe bananas 4 c. 1-inch bread cubes (French, Italian, or any other sturdy type) 3 large eggs 2 cups milk (soy or dairy) 2 t. vanilla extract 1 t. ground cinnamon 1/2 t. ground nutmeg 1/2 t. ground cardamom (optional)
1 c. chopped walnuts (optional)
Note: Because the sauce is sweet, I used no sugar in the bread pudding itself. If you prefer a sweeter version, add 1/4 c. or 1/2 c.
Maple Sauce Ingredients 3 T. butter 2 T. sugar (raw or granulated) 1 T. cornstarch 3/4 c. milk 1/4 c. maple syrup 1-1/2 t. vanilla extract
Instructions Grease a 2-quart casserole. Pre-heat oven to 375.
Place the bread cubes in a large bowl.
I used half a small loaf of Italian bread. Bread that’s a day or two old will retain its texture better than soft bread.
In another bowl, beat the eggs with a whisk. Stir in milk, vanilla, and spices. Add sugar, if using.
Set one banana aside, slice the others into this mix, and stir to coat. Add this mixture, and walnuts if using, to the bread cubes. Gently stir.
Stir the pudding into the casserole dish. Slice the final banana over the top.
Use banana that are ripe but firm if you want to retain their texture. Over-ripe bananas can be mashed and mixed with the bread mixture.
Bake for about 40 minutes. Towards the end of the bake start the maple sauce (directions below).
Remove the casserole when the pudding is golden brown and a skewer inserted into the center emerges clean.
Fresh from the oven.
When the pudding is partly baked, begin the Maple Sauce by melting the butter in a small saucepan. Mix the sugar and cornstarch together and stir into the melted butter.
Add the milk and maple syrup, whisking continuously. Continue stirring until the mixture comes to a low boil. Let simmer until thickened, about a minute or so.
The silky-smooth sauce just coming to a simmer.
Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract.
Serve the pudding warm, topped with the warm maple sauce.
I think Libby and Roelke would enjoy this version of Banana Bread Pudding. I hope you do as well!
I've worn many bonnets over the years: writer, reader, historical interpreter, curator, reenactor, naturalist, educator. I've never had a job I didn't love. How lucky is that?
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