tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12707803730012624182024-02-18T21:14:14.175-05:00We Were Dancing on a Volcano:Bloodlines and Fault Lines of a Star-Crossed Atlanta Family, 1849-1989, by Joseph Gatins -- A non-fiction historical biography & memoirUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-1702594181779356332012-08-02T06:15:00.005-04:002012-08-02T06:15:56.625-04:00Taking a breakWe are currently taking a break from book events and festivals -- but always available for author talks and signings in the Atlanta-to-Asheville axis. Call 706-782-9944, or click: jgatins@gmail.com.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-80943917644862370192011-10-06T06:23:00.000-04:002011-10-06T06:23:59.070-04:00Between the Lines archived interviewClick here to listen to a non-boring interview with the author by Valerie Jackson of the "Between the Lines" show on WABE 90.1-FM.<br />
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<a href="http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wabe/.jukebox?action=programs&sortBy=program&browseProgramId=200048">http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wabe/.jukebox?action=programs&sortBy=program&browseProgramId=200048</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-82189815932426856622011-09-16T05:22:00.005-04:002011-09-16T05:28:07.258-04:00Between the Lines live broadcastFriends: Valerie Richardson Jackson is a keen interviewer. Her show, <i><b>Between the Lines,</b></i> will air the results of last night's taping event at the historic Georgian Terrace Hotel at 7 p.m., Friday, September 23 on 90.1-FM Public Radio WABE, Atlanta, Georgia. Live streaming, too, for those who live outside the listening area. Click:<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.pba.org/programming/programs/btl/">http://www.pba.org/programming/programs/btl/</a></span><br />
And then click: Listen<i>now.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-52833278242291534472011-09-16T05:13:00.000-04:002011-09-16T05:13:43.279-04:00Between the Lines live taping<table cellpadding="0" class="Bs nH iY" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; width: 1177px;"><tbody>
<tr><td class="Bu" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><div class="nH if" style="padding-bottom: 1px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div class="nH"><div class="nH hx" style="color: black; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 4px;"><div class="nH"><div class="h7 " style="clear: both; padding-bottom: 0px;"><div class="Bk" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(226, 226, 226); border-bottom-left-radius: 7px 7px; border-bottom-right-radius: 7px 7px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(239, 239, 239); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(239, 239, 239); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(239, 239, 239); border-top-left-radius: 7px 7px; border-top-right-radius: 7px 7px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; position: relative; width: 928px;"><div class="G3 G2" style="background-color: white; border-bottom-color: rgb(188, 188, 188); border-bottom-left-radius: 7px 7px; border-bottom-right-radius: 7px 7px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(188, 188, 188); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(188, 188, 188); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(188, 188, 188); border-top-left-radius: 7px 7px; border-top-right-radius: 7px 7px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; padding-top: 3px;"><div><div id=":129"><div class="HprMsc mNrSre"><div class="gs"><div class="ii gt" id=":1dm" style="margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 15px; margin-right: 15px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 20px; position: relative; z-index: 2;"><div id=":1dn"><div><div style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Richard Eldredge of <i>Atlanta Magazine </i>and his Eldredge ATL blog said it well.</span></div><div><a href="http://www.atlantamagazine.com/eldredgeatl/home.aspx">http://www.atlantamagazine.com/eldredgeatl/home.aspx</a></div><div style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><table cellpadding="0" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 894px;"><tbody>
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<tr><td style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;" valign="top"><div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><span>"BETWEEN THE LINES" GOES PUBLIC</span></b><span><u></u><u></u></span></div></div><div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span>Former Atlanta first lady <b>Valerie Jackson</b>, host of WABE-FM's popular "Between the Lines" author interview program, is offering a rare opportunity for readers to be part of the experience. This Thursday night at 7, as part of the Georgian Terrace's year-long centennial celebration, Jackson brings her show to the historic Midtown hotel's ballroom to tape a "BTL" edition with <b>Joseph Gatins</b>, the author of the fascinating "We Were Dancing on a Volcano: Bloodlines and Fault Lines of a Star-Crossed Atlanta Family 1849-1989." Gatins' family built and opened the Georgian Terrace in 1911. Admission is free but limited to 250 attendees. Reservations can be made by emailing <b>Chelsea Deedy </b>at <a href="mailto:chelsea@newaboa.com" style="color: #0000cc;" target="_blank">chelsea@newaboa.com</a>.<u></u><u></u></span></div></div></td></tr>
<tr style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px;"><td style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;" valign="top"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; color: #565656; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;">Posted By:</span></b> Richard Eldredge <a href="" style="color: #0000cc;"><span style="border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; color: #0088cf; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="10" src="http://www.atlantamagazine.com/EI/T/Images/Blogs/bullet_email.gif" width="12" /></span></a></div></td></tr>
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</tbody></table>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-21549663900414710352011-06-02T05:50:00.002-04:002011-06-02T05:53:18.226-04:00Atlanta INTown review<div style="color: #505050; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Joseph Gatins is the author of the new non-fiction biography </span><em style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We Were Dancing on a Volcano: Bloodlines and Fault Lines of a Star-Crossed Atlanta Family, 1849-1989</span></span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, published by The Glade Press. The indexed, 330-page book, with family pictures and news clips, is a who’s who tale with truth bearing episodes of the Atlanta-New York Gatins family.</span></div><div style="color: #505050; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The author grew up in Paris and Atlanta and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He served in Vietnam as a U.S. Army intelligence analyst during 1969-1970, and awarded the Bronze Star for that service. He is a former Richmond Times-Dispatch reporter and special projects editor, now retired to the mountains of north Georgia. Gatins chronicles memorable family characters especially his elegant French grandmother, Marie de Villelume-Sombreuil Gatins. Her oral history reminiscence tape-recorded in 1976 and her 1988 written memoir pepper the family history with the turmoil of occupied France during World War II.</span></div><div style="color: #505050; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Three key family role players with the same Joseph Gatins name are all buried now in Historic Oakland Cemetery. They are Irish born, great-great grandfather Joseph F. Gatins (1827-1905), settling first in Savannah and connecting with the Central of Georgia Railroad; great-grandfather, Atlanta native Joseph Francis Gatins, Sr. (1855-1936) New York Wall Street wheeler-dealer-builder of the Georgian Terrace Hotel; and one armed grandfather, Joseph Francis Gatins, Jr. (1882-1927), known as Joe, sportsman and real estate investor, died in his Georgian Terrace Hotel apartment.</span></div><div style="color: #505050; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">– Ann Boutwell</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">PS: See also Boutwell's "look back" for June 23, 1910. <a href="http://www.atlantaintownpaper.com/2011/06/a-look-back-22/">A Look Back</a></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-80548646966062927312011-05-02T06:47:00.002-04:002011-05-02T06:49:26.638-04:00"Volcano" on YouTube<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There's a new bookstore in Atlanta burbs, Peerless Book Store, with everything from old books to modern modes, including a serendipitous YouTube interview with PDB Group Venture during a book signing event last Saturday with author Joseph Gatins Click here for </span><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">very brief</span></i></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> interview:</span><br />
<br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/89uJOUDwG8c">http://youtu.be/89uJOUDwG8c</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-44565517408425194892011-04-22T05:48:00.001-04:002011-04-22T05:49:02.238-04:00"Volcano" at the Georgian Terrace<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Readers who do nothing more than skim the book will realize that the Georgian Terrace Hotel in Atlanta played no small part in the family's star-crossed history, beginning 100 years ago. Click here for a preview of centennial doings.</span><br />
<div><br />
</div><div><a href="http://www.atlantamagazine.com/atlintel/culture/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10229318">http://www.atlantamagazine.com/atlintel/culture/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10229318</a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-42049924471859428852010-12-28T06:48:00.005-05:002011-04-22T05:51:14.493-04:00If you simply cannot wait ... for the audiobook!<div class="gmail_quote" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZbkJ0NUqF-dyiXJjzrOJXGtllRsPikvVnXZeNZrsvEYbkKEYqYNJmrW4hP3KkstN_OstqM-Nf4EVzEuk_6HSu7iXElsWT-u4V6yLFNPBu8ZnGg_IklAc1S6qXJAVZjJS5cgXd_c53AyE/s1600/DSCN1483.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZbkJ0NUqF-dyiXJjzrOJXGtllRsPikvVnXZeNZrsvEYbkKEYqYNJmrW4hP3KkstN_OstqM-Nf4EVzEuk_6HSu7iXElsWT-u4V6yLFNPBu8ZnGg_IklAc1S6qXJAVZjJS5cgXd_c53AyE/s200/DSCN1483.JPG" width="200" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Dear readers, friends and family far and wide: The book </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">has been produced as an audiobook, narrated</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> by yours truly, likely to be available for download sometime in January.</span></span><span style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">For those who cannot wait to listen to all 8.3 hours of prose, poetry and song from preface to final eulogy, kindly send check or money order to coordinates below, or call 706-782-9944 to give me your Visa or MasterCard numbers. Cost: $16, tax and shipping included. It will be e-mailed to you as an (overnight ) download, or shipped on a disc (receipt in a few days), as you wish. Both are in MP3 format. Many thanks for your support.</span></span></div><div class="gmail_quote" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><div class="im"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Joseph Gatins</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Remit check to:</span></u></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Glade Press</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">2489 Glade Road</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Clayton, Georgia 30525</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">706-782-9944</span></span></div><div><a href="mailto:joseph.gatins@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">joseph.gatins@gmail.com</span></span></span></a></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span> </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Audiobook details:</span></u></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">We Were Dancing on a Volcano:</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Bloodlines and Fault Lines of a Star-</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Crossed Atlanta Family, 1849-1989</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">© 2010 Joseph F.M. Gatins</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Narration:</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> Joseph Gatins</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Length:</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> 8.3 hours</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Category</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">: Non-fiction Biography & Memoir</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Provider: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The Glade Press</span></span></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Recording:</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> MP3 files courtesy of StarPony Productions</span></span></div><div class="im"><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Digital Hard Disc Recording Studio & Production Company</span></span></div></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZbkJ0NUqF-dyiXJjzrOJXGtllRsPikvVnXZeNZrsvEYbkKEYqYNJmrW4hP3KkstN_OstqM-Nf4EVzEuk_6HSu7iXElsWT-u4V6yLFNPBu8ZnGg_IklAc1S6qXJAVZjJS5cgXd_c53AyE/s1600/DSCN1483.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br />
</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Asheville, North Carolina</span></span></div><div class="im"><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Cynthia L. Stacey & Charles E. Wilhide</span></span></div></div><div><a href="http://www.starpony.com/" target="_blank"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">www.starpony.com</span></span></span></a></div><div><br />
</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-76935710579257709582010-10-17T07:21:00.003-04:002010-10-17T07:22:34.457-04:00Book sales top 1,000<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The Glade Press today is pleased to announce that more than 1,000 copies of Joseph Gatins’ first book, <i>We Were Dancing on a Volcano, </i></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">have sold since its launch a year ago.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The intriguing family biography and non-fiction narrative, subtitled <i>Bloodlines and Fault Lines of a Star-Crossed Atlanta Family, 1849-1989, </i></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">has been well received in the book and reader community that arcs from Atlanta to Richmond, with important stops in Athens, Asheville and Highlands, a press spokesman said.</span><span style="color: maroon; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"><b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"></span></div><a name='more'></a>Said Gatins: “I’m really gratified to see that readers are warming to this narrative, which represents my first foray into the brave world of self-publication. It’s much like the old Johnny Cash song, <i>“One Piece at a Time,” </i><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">but eventually the solo sales begin to add up.”</span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">“The Glade Press has been tireless in promoting the work, as has Esther Levine of Book Atlanta,” said the author, who has conducted more than 32 book talks, signings and media interviews since initial publication. “I’m really grateful for all the marketing help and advice that they, and others, have provided.</span></div><div class="MsoBodyText" style="margin-right: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;"><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The book is available both in soft-cover at the usual digital outlets and many independent-minded bookstores in Georgia and Western North Carolina, and as an e-book (on iPad, Nook and Kindle readers). Look for it soon as an audio book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-66881420445914991272010-09-13T06:14:00.002-04:002010-09-13T06:17:49.150-04:00For book clubs & discussion groups<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Joseph Gatins is prepared to meet with book clubs and discussion groups to talk about his book, generally within a 125-mile radius of north Georgia. Call 706-782-9944 or contact author at joseph.gatins@gmail.com for details. </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We Were Dancing on a Volcano </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">richly illuminates the moods and motivations and memoirs of more than five generations of a family line that dealt with social change, war and its aftermath -- from the Civil War to the Vietnam War. In doing so, he paints an an unsentimental and unforgettable portrait of Atlanta and its people.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-79890236471950678192010-02-09T14:19:00.007-05:002010-05-13T06:21:26.864-04:00More Volcano on the radio<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><b>Here follows transcript of author interview </b></i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><b>with Sandy Hausman, Charlottesville Bureau Chief, WVTF Public Radio, Charlottesville, Virginia, on January 6, 2010:</b></i></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">WVTF</span>: </b></i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What got you started on this family history and how did you pull it together?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><b><o:p></o:p></b></i></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLixJmIJ5_W6aFg6CsVnpe3ccGJIKJlKzHr3H4A86geS28Sm3up3ytFwxhHEdh088N6VWiRjGYR2CopKnCUigcG-VBDYK7tdJKGIhmtXa4eBUHUb9Fd4cpWAtaMljaUwjfXRHwPXPmQ7M/s1600-h/hp_scanDS_937816827.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLixJmIJ5_W6aFg6CsVnpe3ccGJIKJlKzHr3H4A86geS28Sm3up3ytFwxhHEdh088N6VWiRjGYR2CopKnCUigcG-VBDYK7tdJKGIhmtXa4eBUHUb9Fd4cpWAtaMljaUwjfXRHwPXPmQ7M/s200/hp_scanDS_937816827.jpg" width="125" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Gatins:</b> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1983, when my dad died, we found an old photo that I’d never seen before of a one-armed gentleman holding a baby in the crook of his good arm. And I said, “Who is this?” And it turned out the baby was my father and the one-armed man my grandfather who no one in the family had ever really ever talked about. So, I decided then, even before I retired, to look into the family history a little bit more. I had the chance beginning in ’96 and spent an awful lot of time accumulating at old letters and convincing my brothers and sisters to provide what they had in their attics and old files. And we accumulated a great treasure trove of material, multiple old photo albums and letters that were frankly priceless. My dad was a prisoner of war during World War II and sent 26 postcards and letters to back to my mom before they were married, which she saved, which gave me a road map to where he’d been, which gave me a road map to what the Red Cross in Geneva was doing to inspect those camps – and I managed to get hold of those reports, as well as basically a lot of e-mails back and forth with brothers and sisters to recollect what did they remember about whom. There were also a variety of standard sources: Microfilm files, computer files, old newspaper files, many of which are now on computer, and those proved useful as well. So, I started the project off as a project just for my family. I was going to write this up for the children, the grandchildren, the nieces and nephews. But as I got into it, there were enough adventures and misadventures that maybe the public might be interested. And we’re now testing the waters to find out if the public will buy the book.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>WVTF</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, your timing is pretty darn good, I must say. Tell me about your grandfather – why he was such an interesting character.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Gatins</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, my grandfather was one of the lovely men who populated the family but I really concentrated more of my effort on the remarkable women who put up with the lovely men. My grandfather essentially was the descendant of a really very aggressive financier in Atlanta and New York, who basically lived off his dad’s fortunes and happened to be fortunate enough on the eve of World War I to be partying in Paris in the summer of 1914, where he met my grandmother -- who was also partying in Paris. Two months later they were quickly engaged, married and came back to Atlanta. The marriage did not work. They were separated within five years. They had one son, my father. Mother and son went back to France. And </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">my grandfather</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> died a quiet and unholy death from tuberculosis in 1927.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, I never knew him but I was intrigued by what he had managed to create. Now, the family is something like 50-strong from that one child.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>WVTF</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, I thought the great-grandfather and the grandfather were interesting in terms of all the money they had – they were really the privileged elite of Atlanta, yes?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Gatins</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, here’s what I like to say about that. Essentially, they bootstrapped themselves out of the Reconstruction era of Atlanta right after the Civil War and did very, very well for themselves financially and in real estate. But what you also have to remember is that no matter how blue your blood is, it all bleeds red in the end. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>WVTF</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And people are learning that lesson right now.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b></b></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Gatins</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That’s true.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>WVTF</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I couldn’t help thinking how this relates to what’s going on in our time and wondering if you were intrigued by the parallels – the ups and downs of the market, so to speak.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Gatins</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, I’ve learned not to worry too much about the market, because you can’t control it. It’s way beyond any individual’s ability to control, I think. Most of what’s going on right now is done as computer trades – more and more of it. You’re at the mercy of machines, when it comes to making money on the stock market.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>WVTF</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, the title of the book is </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We Were Dancing on a Volcano. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Where does that come from?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Gatins</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That comes directly from a 20-page memoir that my grandmother left for us. And if you won’t mind my reading it … it reads as follows: She is describing the scene in Paris, France, on the eve of World War II in 1939.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Paris was very festive. Everyone was dancing on a volcano, but we were all dancing a lot. I recall a fancy dress ball at the Polish embassy – in that magnificent private home on </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">rue de Talleyrand. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That night, I had the an extraordinary feeling that something was coming to an end – that our world, as we knew it, was fleeing and that we’d never see it again.” And so I used that, because it was also a very apt metaphor for the ups and downs of this particular family.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>WVTF</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Really, I hate to say it, but I feel it’s like the ups and downs of any given family at some time and likewise any given culture. I mean, doesn’t it feel like we were dancing on a volcano there in the 80s and early 90s? </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Gatins</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, yes. What I’d like to tell people when I talk about this book is that I would encourage everyone who is listening to this interview to basically talk to your parents, talk to your grandparents, collect all the papers and photos you can possibly collect and even if you don’t write a book, pull it together in one file for your children and your grandchildren and their children and grandchildren will know where you came from and know some of the stories. The stories in every family are often intriguing, fascinating and when it comes to families, often very personal.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>WVTF</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It sounds like this grandmother of yours, this French grandmother was quite a character in her own right.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Gatins</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She was a very strong woman. Basically, a good Catholic girl from France left her husband, leaving a divorce file behind her – she never talked about it that I know of – raised a child on her own with her own parents back in France. And then during World War II, she had some signal opportunities to help the cause of the [French] Resistance. She was head of a POW care package program for prisoners and managed through that to take care for about 4,000 of them from her little section of Paris by collecting and sending care packages for all of them – and in doing so, saved my father from probably near-certain demise.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>WVTF</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tell me about your dad. What exactly happened to him? </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Gatin</b>s: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As son of a French mother and an American father, he opted to do his military service in France, was mobilized in 1939, captured in 1940 and for the next three and a half years was essentially a prisoner of war behind the lines in Germany and Poland and the Ukraine. He tried to escape numerous times – the 5th time worked. But in the meantime, every time you are captured and recaptured, you get sent to solitary for two weeks and then transferred to a harsher prison camp further away from Paris, further away from home. So, he managed to survive those with his wits and sometimes by taking some extreme measures. At one point, he was afraid of being transferred to an island that would have been hard to escape from, so he had a fellow prisoner break his right arm with a cudgel so he would get sent to the infirmary instead of being transferred. He also survived what’s now called – and not that many people know about it – POW punishment camps. These became more prevalent toward the end of the war, 1944 and 1945, but he was pushed into one of these on the Polish-Ukrainian border, right in the middle of the Holocaust extermination camps, in 1942. Essentially these camps were aimed at breaking the will of those who were not hewing to the Nazi line, with 10-hour-per-day work, six or seven days per week, with very harsh measures for discipline. The discipline was tiered. In the first case, if you were out of line as prisoner, the guards would strike you with their rifle butts. As a second tier of discipline, they would jab you with their bayonets. And if you weren’t behaving as they saw it in the third tier, you’d get shot. So, people died fairly quickly in that camp, from either from starvation or discipline. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>WVTF</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As you were learning about this, you must have asked yourself if you had the mettle to survive a situation like that – it really sounds quite terrifying.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Gatins</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, uh, I was in the Army, I was in Vietnam, but I did not meet anything like this anywhere along the line. I think what happens when men are at war – and now women are at war – that individuals are tested beyond their comprehension when they first join the army. And some people make it and some do not. And you have to rely on instinct and moxie and luck and a grandmother’s prayers and grandmother’s care packages – which is how he survived, because she was sneaking cash to him in these tins of honey in these care packages. So, you have to have a lot of luck to survive harsh war – I don’t know if I could have done it.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>WVTF</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, how did you learn about the French side of the family? You always knew that your grandmother was French and you must have traveled back and forth? </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Gatins</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We did. When we were children, we went back and forth fairly often. I have a feeling that my parents even though they had decided to move to the states and move to Atlanta in particular weren’t sure if that’s where they wanted to end up. So, between 1946 and ‘49, we were in the states. Between 1949 and ‘52, we were living in France. And then from ’52 on, in Atlanta. But it took a while for all that to gel. And we did spend some summers back when we were kids back in France. We ended up speaking French and home, American at school, and still bilingual today.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>WVTF</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is not a bad thing.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Gatins</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Mais, oui!</i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>WVTF</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> So, how did writing this book change you? What did it mean to you, and what do you think it’s meant to your family. You said that you wrote this for the kids – have they gotten anything out of it?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Gatins</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are now five brothers and sisters left and all their children, and it took a while for all this to sink in. Early on, about halfway through this 12-year project, we had a two-to-two tie as to whether we really were going to turn this into a book and I was going to have to break the tie. By the time it came closer to being in book form, with all the photos, everybody was on board because they realized – and this is how I feel about it today – how liberating it was. This is the good, the bad and the indifferent all together – it’s as honest and true as I knew to make it. And there’s an old saw: Truth will set you free. We now know where we came from, who our parents were, who our grandparents were, what they did, good and bad, or indifferent, and liberating is about the best word that I can use to describe how I feel it.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>WVTF</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When you say liberating, what were you liberated from – the ignorance of your family’s history?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Gatins</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not knowing what the details were, and also you know, you get the feeling that half of this was deep, dark secret. Nobody talked about the one-armed grandfather. Nobody talked about the great-grandfather’s suicide ‘til you found out about it. Nobody talked about the divorce filing, which was interesting to me. I mean, they never talked about it. So, you flesh out details of events that they were trying to keep secret, and that was part of what I used to do when I was a reporter and I’m glad I did it to myself right here. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>WVTF</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now listeners are wondering: How did your grandfather lose his arm?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Gatins</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Age 16, he tumbled on a set of stairs and had to put the arm in a cast, from what I can find out. The problem was that a couple of weeks prior to that he had had a smallpox vaccination. The vaccination spot got infected underneath the case and grew so septic that they had to amputate his right arm. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>WVTF</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What would you say was the biggest surprise for you as you researched the book? Because there were many? Was there anything where you said, “ah-ha,” or, “oh, my God?”</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Gatins</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Oh, my God” is about the right way to put it. This was in black-and-white in the early letters from my father to my mother, before they were married and before World War II erupted. It was plain that as a good Catholic boy in France, he had been infected by the tenor of the times as far as anti-Semitism was concerned. And it was brutal and honest and unmistakable in his letters that, in his words, he “was practicing anti-Semitism” on fellow soldiers who happened to be Jewish. And that was shocking to me, because it is not something that came up when we were children, but it was obvious it was part of him when he was growing up. That was the most shocking.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>WVTF</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We’re all products of our time and out culture for better or worse I think. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Gatins</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That’s a good way to put it. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>WVTF</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What else would you like to say that I haven’t asked you about?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Gatins</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let’s tell the listeners that they all ought to try this. They may not succeed, but they all ought to try to write down what they remember, or talk to their parents and grandparents before they die and get this written down for their families.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>WVTF</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think some people may worry that they won’t be able to get this published because they are a first-time writer and what would you say to them?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Gatins</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, it depends on whether you want to try to sell it or not. You can go to Kinko’s or FedEx-Kinko’s … and print it yourself on 8.5” X 11” sheets of paper and basically bind it one way or the other. Or, you can do what I did, which was to get it designed as a file and then self-publish by any number of print-on-demand companies that are now in existence. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">WVTF: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And how does that work – then you just take it to local bookstores and ask them to stock it? </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Gatins</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Exactly, that’s why I’m here in Charlottesville today. We had a great gathering at the New Dominion Bookshop. I was in Richmond yesterday at the Library of Virginia and we had a great event there -- 70 people showed up, and a good number of books got sold. So, what I tell people – it’s like the Johnny Cash song – you’ve got to sell ‘em one book at a time. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>WVTF</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No problem with that though – it was a good product to sell. Thank you very much. It was a joy talking to you.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Gatins</b>: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sandy, thank you very much for your time. It was my pleasure.</span></span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoBodyText2"><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-83898494326657948212009-12-01T04:55:00.008-05:002010-01-08T10:05:37.447-05:00What they're saying ... (blurbs, reviews, comments, etc.) Dec. 1, 2009-Jan. 31, 2010<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcCL2pFZ5NmDpcDGvDruAbHtfK2gFUFH4rOHwdVZXqmQV3MobgWTFM-MXiTbYF4cQzs_Yr6hILOUe29wzPhJYl4s4vP1brpCITKLvPKRvSldhL0AmTG7ePVwhHm_xNmwTyU-7b9pblBxw/s1600-h/Glade+LVA+Signing1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcCL2pFZ5NmDpcDGvDruAbHtfK2gFUFH4rOHwdVZXqmQV3MobgWTFM-MXiTbYF4cQzs_Yr6hILOUe29wzPhJYl4s4vP1brpCITKLvPKRvSldhL0AmTG7ePVwhHm_xNmwTyU-7b9pblBxw/s200/Glade+LVA+Signing1.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><span style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>1.6.10. Amazon. Very entertaining & educational. <span style="font-weight: normal;">Five-star review from James Campbell, Atlanta. </span> <span style="font-weight: normal;">Dancing on Volcano was indeed a very entertaining and educational book. Joe Gatins does a fantastic job of researching and providing many facts, events, etc., that take you back to the turn of the last century, right up to the present. The book starts out a little slow, and then picks up wonderfully as Gatins takes the reader back, to the lead-up to and the horrific events that occur during his Father's participation in WWII. If one is a history buff, this book will give you a very different and enlightening description of the challenges, tragic events, and various efforts of regular people, just to survive during WWII, and the sections on the POW camps and what prisoners did to survive, was particularly enlightening and educational. A good read, and well done by Joe Gatins. </span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>12.26.09. Amazon. <i>"Riveting history of a family." </i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Five-star review from Joan L. Amory, Portland, Maine.</span><i> <span style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">What a family of strong, determined, creative, and occasionally unruly individuals. Gatins skillfully folds their stories into the family history that is a great American story. Characters from Ireland and France, then Spain and Germany via Colombia, forge a fortune and a narrative that is emblematic of this country. Each new immigrant takes on the challenges of its generation as he or she joins the family. The reader's joy is taking up with each inimitable personality to follow how trials are met and how good fortune is dealt with. Gatins' fine research creates a vivid milieu for his family, and difficulties of character and decisions are handled with honesty and sensitivity.</span></i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i><span style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">12.1.09. <i>Georgia Mountain Laurel. </i><span style="font-weight: normal;">" ... not a sugarcoated family memoir in the usual sense of the word. Rather, it lives up to its subtitle. Fault lines, indeed ... adventures and misadventures aplenty."</span></span></span></i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i></i>12.1.09. Amazon. "Some Forgotten History." </b>Four-star review from "Dem Mtns." <b> </b>This is part of Atlanta history I never heard truth about. Joe takes extreme measure with his research and tells it very objectively considering it is his family roots. His honesty is welcoming and the blend of immigrants in his background so indicative of America then and now. A great reminder that we all began as immigrants and it is how we treat them in each society that is telling of our destiny.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-59191948484347598802009-11-28T05:13:00.008-05:002009-12-02T06:10:18.006-05:00Volcano on the radio ...<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">12.1.09. Click on: </span><a href="http://www.pba.org/dictator/media/229/btl_reading_list_winter09.pdf"><span style="font-size: small;">http://www.pba.org/dictator/media/229/btl_reading_list_winter09.pdf </span></a><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">WABE 90.1 FM and Valerie Jackson's well-respected "Between the Lines" show has added the book to its suggested "adult literature" reading list for Fall and Winter, 2009.</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">11.24.09. Click on: </span><a href="http://www.gpb.org/wppr"><span style="font-size: small;">www.gpb.org/wppr</span></a><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: small;">and scroll to the Community Life interview for Nov. 24, 2009. Author was interviewed by Candice Felice (about 28 minutes into the show.)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">11.7.09. Click on: </span><span style="color: #333333; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://agentofcurrency.blogspot.com/2009/11/hot-lava-two-step.html">http://agentofcurrency.blogspot.com/2009/11/hot-lava-two-step.html </a> Review on WCRX-LP 102.1 FM. Columbus, Ohio. "Hot lava two-step." </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Perhaps this non-fiction tale is too Southern, too European and too Hispanic for midwestern tastes. As the story documents, there is an abundance of "diversity" in this family. Midwesterners will call it "confusion" but will also be seduced by the family's charm and understanding of its imperfections.</span></span></span></span></span></b></span><br />
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</span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-85594813076029574192009-10-02T03:29:00.061-04:002009-12-13T06:56:32.617-05:00What they're saying ... (blurbs, reviews, reader comments, etc.) October-November, 2009<b></b><br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small; font-weight: bold;"><b>11.27.09. Amazon. "As fascinating as the Kennedys. </b><b> </b></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Dr. Michael Hogan (Guadalajara, Mexico). Family history is not a popular genre these days, unless the families being written about are the Tudors, the Romanovs or the Kennedys. Nor it is an easy one to write especially for a family member; the tendency to sentimentalize, to over-dramatize the family's historical impact while ignoring or sanitizing their foibles is hard to overcome. <br />
Despite the fact the Gatins is not a well-known name outside of Atlanta, and that this history was written by a family member, readers of We Were Dancing on a Volcano by Joseph Gatins are in for a pleasant surprise. Not only is the family as fascinating as the Kennedys to whom they bear some surface similarities (Irish Catholic, a rich scion with a disreputable past, a war hero and international impact), but the author is able to keep his distance and cast a cold critical eye on the family curse of alcoholism and its insidious legacy. <br />
The Gatins family story begins with the founder's acquisition of considerable wealth through illegal speculation in New York, his investments in real estate in Atlanta and the building of the Georgia Terrace Hotel which provided income for the next three generations. Where the book evolves from interesting to fascinating, however, is with the founder's marriage to a French noblewoman and the subsequent connections to Paris which would continue in the succeeding generations. The most compelling is the tale of Joseph Francis Gatins III, the author's father who served in the French Army during World War II, was captured by the Germans, tortured because they thought he was Jewish, and who escaped several times only to be transferred to more and more horrible prison camps. With the help of his mother, Eglé Gatins, who smuggled gold coins to him in tins of honey via Red Cross care packages, he was able to bribe prison guards and get transferred finally to a work detail from which he finally made his way to freedom. This whole section with escape attempts being foiled, prisoners being executed, and the boxcars of Jewish prisoners transported to death camps as part of the Third Reich's "Final Solution" is as compelling as an action novel. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">For more sophisticated readers, Eglé's own life "entre deux guerres" in Paris is as rich as Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. She knew Hemingway, of course, and Gertrude Stein, Paul Valery, de la Rochefoucauld, and Paul Claudel. Another of her friends was Sylvia Beach, the founder of the famous Shakespeare and Company Bookstore in Paris. She was a cousin of the well-know paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. These wonderful years between the wars give the book its title, to quote Eglé in her own letter: "We were dancing on a volcano," the German resentment over Versailles which would eventually plunge the world into a devastating war. Soon the invasion of Paris would come and the end to life as Eglé and most Europeans knew it. During the war, she not only worked to get her son out of the German Stalag, but she also labored to help other prisoners through the International Red Cross, and operated as a liaison for the French Resistance. For her services she received France's highest award, the Legion of Honor. <br />
Joesph Gatins' research is extensive and the book contains a useful index as well as voluminous end- notes and a bibliography. It is the work of a careful historian with a journalist's eye for the telling detail, as well as the compulsion to tell the whole truth even when it might sometimes be embarrassing to other family members. The book itself is handsomely designed and rich with photographs which show us not only the colorful characters that enlivened four generations of the Gatins family but a mini-documentary of their lives and the times.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>11.26.09. Amazon. "Worlds Converge." </b>B. Smith, (Rabun Gap, GA). <b style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A beautiful French lady becomes a wise old woman living in an apartment in Buckhead, a neighborhood of Atlanta Georgia; this seemed to be the hook that drew me into, We Were Dancing on A Volcano. Seeing history through the eyes of this lady as she lives through the French Occupation helps make it less textbook and more real. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My favorite part of the book was the last few chapters as the author wove the strands together and put himself into the picture with his own memories. This book was well researched and written, but when feelings and emotions were added to the weaving, it gave it a more personal touch that allows all the parts to converge into one man's story and his place in history.</span></span><br />
</div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">11.17.09. Blog comment and Amazon. "Move Over, Margaret Mitchell." <span style="font-weight: normal;">Five-star review from Delphine Herbert, (Ocala, FL). "<span style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">A real-life refugee from the potato famine spawned a dynasty in which his son was among the Madoffs of his day, gaining notoriety and the attention of the Feds a hundred years ago as a wheeler/dealer stock trader known on Wall Street as a "bucket shop man." His oldest son, in turn, transformed himself into a pillar of social and entrepreneurial respectability on Peachtree Street aided by Atlanta's adulation of his French wife, the "Comtesse." Their son, Francis, the author's father, joined the circle of American expatriates living in Paris between the great wars during which time he fell in love with a beautiful aristocrat from Colombia. As a French military prisoner of war responsible for opening cattle cars arriving at a death camp in the Ukraine, Francis was witness to the horrors of the Holocaust while his mother played a significant role in providing succor through the Red Cross to those unable to escape Paris during the Nazi occupation. Once the reader negotiates the initial introduction to the bewildering number of Josephs and Egles , the fact-filled pages fly swiftly through one hundred and forty years of the triumphs and tribulations of this indomitable family which has survived wars, tenuous marriages, the ebb and flow of their finances and the scourge of alcoholism. Through it the women of the family were sustained by the certitude of their strong and rigid Catholic faith. This searingly honest and well written family history will be my Christmas gift to my most cosmopolitan friends, many of whom now also are "dancing on a volcano" of global uncertainty. </span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">10.31.09. Amazon. "Fascinating Family Saga. </span></span></b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Five-star review from Marianne J. Skeen (Decatur, GA). "</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This unvarnished account of a multi-national family with strong historic ties to Atlanta provides a personal window into the turbulent times of the 20th century. The volcano erupts and it's not always pretty, but always intriguing, especially when viewed from the family perspective. I meant to read just a bit more while finished a cup of coffee after breakfast, but ended up reading the second half straight through! I found it a bit slow at the beginning, but it really gained momentum when the author's personal reflections began to dominate. It's both a thoroughly researched history and fascinating tale."</span></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">10.31.09. Amazon. "A Must Read." </span></span></b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Five-star review by Alexander Shapleigh (Massachusetts).</span></span><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> "</span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">We Were Dancing on a Volcano is a compelling read from start to finish. It traces the coming together of two extended families in Atlanta and France over five generations, against the backdrop of the emergence of Atlanta after the Civil War, the fast money and wealth of the Gilded Age, the Belle Epoque in Paris, the concentration camps of World War II, and the author's coming of age in Vietnam and as a journalist. As pure history, one is drawn from chapter to chapter in anticipation of what will be the fate of each generation on both continents (and a third -- South America also enters the story). As pure, and emotionally charged, writing, the real life characters all come vividly onto the scene, backed by thorough research and unmasked conclusions by the author on motivations and outcomes of decisions (and behaviors) of each protagonist. There is a treasure of history and stories in this book that should resonate with hundreds of thousands of potential readers, who can pick and choose where and how it relates to their own experience, and will leave them contemplating about the roll of the generations, the very real lives that our forebear generations have led, the lives that we are now living, and that those who follow will have in turn."</span></span></span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">10.30.09. </span></span></b><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Consistently excites the imagination."</span></span></b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Dissection and critique</span></span><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">by James Crusselle (Atlanta, GA), in the form of a letter to the author's sister, Eglé. "I thoroughly enjoyed your brother's book. He has a journalist's instinct for the telling detail, so that he's able to use what he shows us to evoke what he doesn't. When he has no way of knowing what happened, and has to speculate, he's scrupulous about letting us know that that's what he's doing, and he does it with a tact and intelligence that opens up the subject. By having the wit to tell us, for instance, what the various historical terms for alcoholism were, he even gets by with such currently fashionable diagnoses as </span></span><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">post traumatic stress disorder</span></span></i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> (a real howler, I think) and, of course, </span></span><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">alcoholism.</span></span></i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> We get a sense of a problem larger, as he points out, than anyone has yet been able to define properly and solve. We get a sense of the mystery of how clinical data actually function in people's lives (to the extent that they do). Terms like these tell us less than they're popularly thought to mean, and too neatly close off the subject. They don't in this case because the author's mind is always at work exploring the possibilities in the people he's writing about, and in the use of language. It's a gesture of what can only be called love, and not in the sentimental popular sense but in the sense of accepting the potential of one's self in others and vice versa. (This is not always a happy discovery -- especially, I'm afraid, when the others are relatives.) Having read some truly terrible attempts at this sort of thing, I know just about every way his book could have gone wrong. It doesn’t.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a name='more'></a></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Since your grandmother provided so much of this material, it may seem inevitable that she's its center – even when she's offstage; but she does it by force of personality. Even when she's in the background, we wonder about the effect on her of everything that happens. She was the right choice for a central figure, and the recurring pattern of fortunes won and lost, which the book shrewdly sets in motion in the first chapter, provides such a solid, expressive structure that the narrative never rambles. The author doesn’t overanalyze the key moments or prod us to respond. He doesn’t need to, because he’s drawn us into his speculative approach to the material; he invites us to participate; we get a sense of discovery. (For me, at least, the image of your father asleep outside on the ground and of your brother Miguel helping him up to bed is one of those great, wounding moments that says everything.) The simplicity of the presentation gives it tragic dignity. I realize that the final chapters of </span></span><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">We Were Dancing on a Volcano</span></span></i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> must be painful for the family, but they have, if you'll forgive me, their own sweeping dramatic logic. The book brings us so close to the people that we'd feel insulted for them, I think, if it handed us the usual easy gratifications. Satyajit Ray's artistry prepares us for gratifications other than what we expect from ordinary popular entertainment, and in its own way I think this book does too. It does the almost unheard-of for this kind of project: it consistently excites the imagination. This is a demonstration or such subtle sensibility that I can't exactly see how the author brought it off; it can't have been conscious. It's a sustained expression of respect for the subject.</span></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Your brother suggested that the women here often overshadow the men; but extraordinary as the women are, I don't think that's exactly what happens. As he's organized the material, it's full of disturbing, reverberant images: your grandmother's quietly not lingering at the dinner table during those boisterous discussions, your skipping the debutante scene and going off to study art in Paris, your father's not too corporal application of military discipline, those hikes in the mountains, his death in his son's arms. The author’s most aesthetically impressive achievement here is that he’s reached the point of responding to the material intuitively. (Some of us remember from the Art Department how difficult that can be to achieve.) If he hadn’t, these details wouldn’t work as beautifully as they do, and possibly not at all. They feel unplanned, spontaneous, and yet arrive just when they’re most needed to sum up his themes. Though he admits to having known your grandmother only as a rather remote and indecipherable figure, his portrait of her comes close to justifying his opinion that the women tend to dominate the book. In many ways they do; they're not weaklings, to put it mildly -- but then neither are the men.</span></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Your grandmother had an obviously phenomenal capacity for enjoyment, and for practicality, and though we always understand that France and its troubles must have been real to her in ways Atlanta wasn't, quite, she seems eager and delighted to find something good wherever she goes. (So what if her tolerance didn't extend to Gertrude Stein? Mine doesn't either.) The way Atlanta "society" and the local papers sucked up to her and kept desperately turning her into a countess made me squirm with embarrassment for Atlanta (then and now), but I couldn't help noticing that she accepted this, too, without looking down her nose at it. That same open-handed but not really naive acceptance of experience and new places sets much of the tone of this book, so that in a way her presence dominated the book signing as well. The family the author describes seems perfectly functional because she's at least one of the sources of the spirit that holds it together. Your father is another. The description of his acceptance of financial trouble, and his taking jobs wherever he could find them, would be admirable enough even if we didn't have your Uncle Charlic to compare him to; and when his withdrawal into himself begins, we may almost feel that, family man or no, he's earned the right to it.</span></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Your father, to whom the author was obviously much closer than to her, emerges as a great, unsettling character, torn between love for his family and his increasingly compelling need for isolation. Difficult as it is to search out a personality one didn't relate to very much, achieving the objectivity to do justice to those one knew best is even harder. Your father's conflicts with himself would probably speak to more men than you might suspect. Your brother's success in doing justice to what your father suffered -- in accepting his humanity rather than simply his role as protector and head of the household -- is a rebuke I can appreciate. When our parents fail us, we may, as their children, hate their guts; and even if we don't, we may recognize that our survival (psychologically at least) depends on distancing ourselves from them. But we are spoiled babies if we don't face the fact, at some point, that our parents had a life, with or without us -- and why shouldn't they have? Your family comes across as a triumphant example of what can happen when people achieve that awareness and go on to do something with their lives. What moved me most about the narrative is that that other fashionable term, </span></span><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">dysfunctional family</span></span></i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">, really doesn't seem to end up applying to the situation at all.</span></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"I might be more tolerant of the dysfunctional family concept if I knew how a functional family would behave. (Like the Waltons, presumably, and who wants that?) It occurred to me while watching the gathering at the book signing that what I was seeing is not what dysfunctional means. </span></span><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">We Were Dancing on a Volcano,</span></span></i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> and that book signing reception, too, showed me how a family can in fact function and achieve a great deal under disruptive circumstances. That's part of the reason why I think the publishers who decided it didn't have broad enough appeal made a bonehead mistake.</span></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"The narrative does get sketchier toward the end than one might like; but this is actually a compliment to the strength of the storytelling. We can sense the author's rush to get it finished, and we're not in that much of a hurry: we want to know more about how these people accomplished what they did. Publishing has changed so much that reaching a responsive public may no longer depend on working with a big publishing house (or trying to). This book deserves to be read, and could mean something, I think, to a large audience. I hope it gets the chance to do so. I found it so disquieting that I slept very badly after reading it; and this isn't just a question of the gruesome parts but of the many instances of family solidarity as well. After exp</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">osure to people that intensely alive, who wants to sleep? There's too much else to get up and do.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b></b></span></span><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">10.26.09. Amazon.</span></span></b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Five-star review from Lucy Bartlett (Tiger, GA). "Well-researched and compellingly written, this book is a must read. Particularly, the material about Mr. Gatins' father's time in the POW camps during World War II bring to life the conditions in these camps that even a degree in history didn't give me. One is able to feel the horror of the POW camps through Mr. Gatins' vivid descriptions of his father's time there as well as be inspired by his grandmother's devotion to the work of the Red Cross and in sending the care packages to the POWs. To have written so honestly about the history of his family, warts and all, gives the reader real insight into life in France and in Atlanta during almost 150 years. I strongly recommend this book, particularly to students of the history of the World Wars and to those who need to understand Post-traumatic stress syndrome."</span></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">10.25.09. Amazon.</span></span></b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Five-star review from Betty Booker Morriss (Richmond, VA). "I'm a huge fan of real stories about real people, especially families. Joe tells all, only his relatives are far more interesting characters than most families' kinfolk, including mine. The Gatinses are Wall Street and Southern wheeler-dealers, a World War II French Resistance fighter and a POW escapee thrown into ever-more-hellish stalags (no Greatest Generation vet should miss these gripping tales), heiresses, Irish immigrants and high society and Spanish relatives by way of Spain, Mexico, England, France and the US. They all live life to the fullest -- and sometimes a little too much and suffer the consequences. But they endure through the generations. Joe reports on the whole thing with respect and unstinting truth-telling. I read half of it in one sitting, and finished up the next day! Kudos and highly recommended."</span></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">10.25.09. Amazon.</span></span></b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Four-star review from Cynthia Stacey (Highlands, NC). "Joe's book delivers a piece of history through his personal accounting of his family's lineage that otherwise would not have been available. It is of particular interest to those with connections to Atlanta. The voice of his Grandmother is that of a strong and independent woman who lived through tumultuous as well as enlightening times. We are fortunate that Joe has taken the time to research and share these bloodlines and fault lines with us. The imagery is strong throughout the book and I think it would make for a great movie. I also can't wait for the audio book so I can hear all the wonderful French and other inflections spoken by the author himself."</span></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">10.20.09.</span></span></b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Amazon. </span></span></b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Four-star review from P. Howell. "Compelling story. Well-written and entertaining. I just finished reading </span></span><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">We were Dancing on a Volcano</span></span></i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> and found it to be a compelling story that describes the profound impact of major world events on a far-flung, eclectic family. I was particularly moved by the lives of the women in this family. This book made me realize that we all have stories to tell and that we will never know our place in history until much later. Highly recommended for anyone who is interested in Atlanta history. Gatins has woven together his personal story with well-documented research and I truly couldn't put it down!"</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">10.18.09</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">: </span></span><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Amazon.</span></span></b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Five-star review from Alicia M. Scotti, NY, NY. "Debut Biography That is a MUST-READ. This is a must-read family biography that is simultaneously blunt, profane, sweet, tender and true-to-life, and that depicts some remarkable women and lovely (but not-always-nice) men over more than five generations of life, love and war. Joseph Gatins weaves a wonderful story with ease and style of this fascinating family, you cannot put it down."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">10.01.09.</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">From the book blurb</span></span></b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> by Dr. John C. Inscoe, Editor, </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The New Georgia Encyclopedia.</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> “Joseph Gatins boasts a remarkable family tree, and chronicles their dramatic ups and downs with great verve and insight in this very aptly titled We Were Dancing on a Volcano. It’s a narrative full of memorable characters – from the Irish brothers who first came to Atlanta in 1849, to a great-grandfather whose gambling operations in New York City provided the wealth with which he built and operated the Georgian Terrace Hotel, to his one-armed grandfather and the French heiress who married him, to his father’s harrowing experience in and ultimate escape from German POW camps during the Second World War, and his romance in the midst of it all with Gatins’ mother, daughter of Colombian ex-patriates in Paris. Through their lives and those of other ancestors, equally colorful, Gatins makes this as much a rich social history of Atlanta – and early twentieth century Paris – as it is a compelling family saga.”</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-90737003090481861372009-08-31T06:13:00.013-04:002009-11-24T05:31:47.860-05:00Culture Shock<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYauQ7SXgvI7ODRkFiUWlVNy9cM6GOVu4AyxKSC94-LhBmpLmLio2H2Rk0uOnCB9cqdDldIqr152o7WcFBwdMoi-ebBwcDADbqHio1xGPbDfiJmci5dlYkrxw4wo4f3oJZFCepZ7EgOJ0/s1600-h/Block+IV+Page+6SM.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5387561316327826898" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYauQ7SXgvI7ODRkFiUWlVNy9cM6GOVu4AyxKSC94-LhBmpLmLio2H2Rk0uOnCB9cqdDldIqr152o7WcFBwdMoi-ebBwcDADbqHio1xGPbDfiJmci5dlYkrxw4wo4f3oJZFCepZ7EgOJ0/s200/Block+IV+Page+6SM.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0 0 10px 10px; width: 138px;" /></a><br />
[Excerpts from Chapters 28 and 29, "Culture Shock" and "Tabasco in Buckhead."]<br />
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In many ways, the Gatins family’s permanent return to Atlanta proved to be a culture shock for both the family and for their new American friends and neighbors. To begin with, none of the children spoke English in 1952. The oldest three had forgotten it, the youngest three had never spoken it. For Sylvia in particular, who had only visited Atlanta previously, this was a strange new world. In Paris, there was the underground Métro for transportation; in Atlanta, electric streetcars going up and down Peachtree Street. In America, the children had the funny papers, Dick Tracy and Snuffy Smith, and later, the very irreverent Mad magazine. In Paris, there was Tintin’s Hebdomadaire, which Grandmother Eglé religiously shipped to her grandchildren.<br />
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The Gatins kids looked and dressed differently from American children. In elementary school, the boys all wore shorts with long knee socks (flannel shorts in winter, khaki cotton in summer) and high-top leather shoes from France. American kids wore T-shirts and jeans and rubberized, high-top Keds. The food was strikingly different, too. In France, we ate macaroni with butter and Parmesan. In America, spaghetti was lathered with Ketchup. Sylvia made sauce Béarnaise to put on steaks; in America, there was Heinz 57 Sauce. Instead of hot roasted chestnuts bought from Paris street vendors in newspaper cornets, we stopped at the drive-by watermelon-and-fruit stand at the intersection of Peachtree Street and Peachtree Battle Avenue. And there was hot popcorn at the movies in Atlanta!<br />
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Still, assimilation did occur, somewhat faster for me and Charles and Sophie, who’d been born in the U.S., than for the youngest three. By dint of daily repetition, I recall learning to say the Pledge of Allegiance and the Hail Mary every day at Christ the King School by rote memory and sound—not having the faintest idea what all the words meant. Charles and I stopped dreaming in French, and with the help of little crystal radios attached to a metal night-light, learned idiomatic English while tuned in to Atlanta Crackers baseball games, Georgia Tech football games and the Grand Ole Opry, whose AM broadcasts from Nashville were powerful enough to reach Atlanta. Cousin Minnie Pearl, with her trademark greeting, “How-deeeeeee,” was our favorite. Rather than Citroën sedans and 2CV economy cars, we learned to recognize the sweeping lines of Plymouths and Buicks, Chevrolets, Fords, the ill-fated Edsels and every version of the modified hot rods that teenagers used to cruise up and down Peachtree Street. <br />
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It cannot be overestimated how memory of the Lost Cause suffused Georgia and Atlanta in the 1950s. Gov. Herman Talmadge has just been succeeded by an equally adamant segregationist, Marvin Griffin. Confederate flags flew everywhere after the state flag was changed in 1956 to include the stars and bars, as a protest to the U.S. Supreme Court’s desegregation ruling, Brown v. Board of Education. The little Studebaker sedans still driving around Atlanta traded in their “I Like Ike” bumper stickers for vanity license plates depicting a scruffy, mustachioed soldier in grey. The tagline: “Fergit, Hell!” Sometimes, sinister-looking redneck ruffians rode around town with Ku Klux Klan posters affixed to the sides of their big sedans, sidearms on their dashboards, after another cross burning on the top of Stone Mountain.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-55323227218321257382009-08-13T04:44:00.010-04:002009-11-19T04:39:53.171-05:00Excerpt: Grandmother lands in Atlanta<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXwajnrw2xzXZPlmAdKh1osFoYYNXrymRaZjbXBSOm58Wbn3TcJv2noxXzT5XxgM3ujyQS60fIQbql2ieBIQK3K1LW66tgg1Bt_uyjM0enKqGAoxWG6FaWlVyc6HYBfGmAr_1NuY0sdjs/s1600-h/Egle+YoungerSM.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5387901061981627682" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXwajnrw2xzXZPlmAdKh1osFoYYNXrymRaZjbXBSOm58Wbn3TcJv2noxXzT5XxgM3ujyQS60fIQbql2ieBIQK3K1LW66tgg1Bt_uyjM0enKqGAoxWG6FaWlVyc6HYBfGmAr_1NuY0sdjs/s200/Egle+YoungerSM.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0 0 10px 10px; width: 150px;" /></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">[My grandmother Eglé de Villelume-Sombreuil Gatins arrived in Atlanta in 1914, an event that marked her for life. That part of the story is now to be found on </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Like The Dew: A Journal of Southern Culture & Politics</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">. Click below to view the entire, 1,500-word excerpt.]</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://likethedew.com/2009/08/12/we-were-dancing-on-a-volcano-an-excerpt/">http://likethedew.com/2009/08/12/we-were-dancing-on-a-volcano-an-excerpt/</a></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-45366977872532328582009-08-11T05:39:00.004-04:002009-08-11T06:59:05.232-04:00Excerpt: Grandmother's private war of resistance<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1aC88Q7qNirlhqkCpk_5DftvnA3_GhduOPwAMPC-hw-9PfqgGHjxROr3-oBHLqJAAQs2H_rlSmGeat1afZ55Ve_Mf5LqRKNoPXcUzz68FHtW2XvsM622L7MrPeFhKrqUvFwipo1goKGE/s1600-h/DSCN0470.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 79px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1aC88Q7qNirlhqkCpk_5DftvnA3_GhduOPwAMPC-hw-9PfqgGHjxROr3-oBHLqJAAQs2H_rlSmGeat1afZ55Ve_Mf5LqRKNoPXcUzz68FHtW2XvsM622L7MrPeFhKrqUvFwipo1goKGE/s200/DSCN0470.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368659039762738802" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdYwvXPhQKfLjX4ihzv8uHfB_J5X_XAwDaFhSswLZMJHX8B7r3vGMB9deE_rY0MCAaRnvavuw1Zwe7GrxB0ygQXl9I1a6wq_z1h9ffagZu_vjvDYZtIYShUkZ4PwPb9kE8Vk-vXbeZtSA/s1600-h/hp_scanDS_973635157.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 130px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdYwvXPhQKfLjX4ihzv8uHfB_J5X_XAwDaFhSswLZMJHX8B7r3vGMB9deE_rY0MCAaRnvavuw1Zwe7GrxB0ygQXl9I1a6wq_z1h9ffagZu_vjvDYZtIYShUkZ4PwPb9kE8Vk-vXbeZtSA/s200/hp_scanDS_973635157.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368656190814624002" /></a><br />Eglé de Villelume-Sombreuil Gatins fought a private war right under the noses of the German forces occupying Paris [during World War II]. She sneaked escaped prisoners to the then-still free south of France, hid papers for Free French forces and aided the budding Resistance as best as she could. Unlike many of her countrymen and the cowardly Vichy government—and not a few collaborators of her own class of society—she had little use for the Nazis and the French puppets who were running what was left of the French government, or for the Vichy policy of working hand-in-glove with the Nazis’ anti-Semitic extermination programs. She particularly resented the military parade the Germans staged down the Champs d’Elysées every day of the occupation in Paris, so jarring to one who had seen the magnificent victory parades down the same long boulevard after the Allied victory over the Krauts in World War I.<br /><br />In the early years of the occupation, in 1940-41, goodly numbers of escaped French prisoners of war were still fleeing through Paris, trying to get to the south of France, which was then still classified as a “free zone.” “So, we looked for passage and with money we could pass people through there,” Eglé recalled. “Thank God, we got some money, and the most important thing was a man in Montmartre who could make phony papers. He could make the best phony papers—you could not tell the difference from the real ones. That’s how I could get so many people out.”<br /><br />The escaped prisoners, Eglé explained, were directed to a safe passage near Macon, a small town in Burgundy, about 35 miles north of Lyon, where a Red Cross committee provided them money “after they’d crossed the line,” (that is, the boundary between occupied France and the “free zone” in the south of the country). Eglé also recalled being able to assist several British escapees using the same escape route. “When the free zone was taken over by the Germans, it became much more difficult, but we managed to do so anyway. We had to watch out, though, because not everyone thought the same way as us, that is to say, they weren’t opposed to the Germans,” she said.<br /><br />Grandmother Eglé’s work with the Red Cross in Paris, as well as her helping prisoners escape, was recognized after the war as a signal achievement that garnered her the highest award possible for French civilians, the Legion d’Honneur.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-59132177581260980162009-08-11T05:29:00.004-04:002009-08-11T06:48:56.989-04:00Excerpt: Of torture on the Eastern front<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr47GnnRxp3EyeLqJY37jSvxfVhw7mwG6xfy7e9UDTvNvcNZ-1pUrB57gR9dLAWXi6WJZiiMCxUSmYuBtSZr1Sj1AW-8he1WVHmh_clJAz4a1JCwYpNVdHLoCbPNYBHSmOlI3zf3eEZvU/s1600-h/hp_scanDS_9378415627.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 80px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr47GnnRxp3EyeLqJY37jSvxfVhw7mwG6xfy7e9UDTvNvcNZ-1pUrB57gR9dLAWXi6WJZiiMCxUSmYuBtSZr1Sj1AW-8he1WVHmh_clJAz4a1JCwYpNVdHLoCbPNYBHSmOlI3zf3eEZvU/s200/hp_scanDS_9378415627.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368656411300116658" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimVPvNJtIbcrK8dQ7-uCWxQ9TQ0svUf7zsgxAfKhJ3PkXFrdKZJszL7Hbu0mWUWd616VfHSvX0Oo1GfhqXwGSUjsEQfYbLtphgvGCzwCgYL9YDeFE02hRk2Z7l31xjbV39cn8TIodGTT0/s1600-h/hp_scanDS_93612182849.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 134px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimVPvNJtIbcrK8dQ7-uCWxQ9TQ0svUf7zsgxAfKhJ3PkXFrdKZJszL7Hbu0mWUWd616VfHSvX0Oo1GfhqXwGSUjsEQfYbLtphgvGCzwCgYL9YDeFE02hRk2Z7l31xjbV39cn8TIodGTT0/s200/hp_scanDS_93612182849.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368641470283290306" /></a><br />[During July-August, 1942, my father was imprisoned in Stalag 325 at Rawa-Ruska, a harsh Nazi punishment camp for recalcitrant French POWs, located on what today is the Ukraine side of the Polish-Ukrainian border.]<br /><br />There was a persistent scrambling and scrounging for anything that could be eaten, including the vegetable peelings and kitchen scraps thrown away by the prison guards, which were then cooked by the prisoners in small, make-shift pots over open fires. In one instance, a root cellar abandoned by the guards after they’d finished all the good potatoes once kept there, turned into a hunting ground for prisoners so starved there was little reluctance to pick at the leftover rotten and frozen tubers. “As we uncovered them, [there was] a terrible smell. We were picking up the feet and the arms of dead men, scattered among their bones. The root cellar had been placed on top of a charnel house for several thousand Russians, dead of typhus!”<br /><br />My father never ate many potatoes after Rawa-Ruska.<br /><br />Daddy’s imprisonment at Rawa-Ruska was to mark him physically, psychically and indelibly, as his children would discover decades later. What he never spoke of in any detail to the children was that he was singled out for special punishment and torture there. He was taken for a Jew by his captors, who burned off his eyelashes. That point was well known to his wife and mother, but not to all of his children. I only learned that something awful had been done to my father’s eyes in the early 1970s, when he told me he’d had a hard time letting an ophthalmologist treat his eyes after a storm blew dust and tiny gravel into them. It reminded him too much of what had been done to him.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-77162165879003821632009-08-11T05:16:00.006-04:002009-08-11T06:58:06.805-04:00Excerpt: Of Colombian bloodlines<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZwo4OZocw5MYy0qxr244JPFXLCCu_n-7UbSSmi-OfpMRC6x9c3QSapuXR75qQcPJ8Fd_wXTArAQZe5xQnCPGUoBv6twjhU6vfqeNfFhzh7gnbIVIIrLKEmUYWuflU20JAXg0HEZlqD_U/s1600-h/hp_scanDS_9736225214.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 148px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZwo4OZocw5MYy0qxr244JPFXLCCu_n-7UbSSmi-OfpMRC6x9c3QSapuXR75qQcPJ8Fd_wXTArAQZe5xQnCPGUoBv6twjhU6vfqeNfFhzh7gnbIVIIrLKEmUYWuflU20JAXg0HEZlqD_U/s200/hp_scanDS_9736225214.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368658785979965170" /></a><br />[The Gatins clan allied itself with a colorful Colombian bloodline when my father Francis married Sylvia de German-Ribon in 1943.]<br /><br />The German-Ribon family was no less colorful than that of the Villelume-Sombreuil-Madec-Gatins clan. It had originally settled in Colombia in the early 1700s, sent over by the Spanish crown from its home base in Seville to help govern parts of the new world. The family settled in the Mompox area of Colombia, which was then the cultural, educational and riverine transportation center of the country along the Magdalena River (and now a World Heritage Site, largely because of its rich, colonial/Indian architecture). With other Spanish families, they subsequently took up arms against Spain and fought for the independence of Nuevo Granada (in the early1800’s) with the help of Simon Bolivar. But guerrilla incursions and hopes for a better life prompted the entire German-Ribon family to leave Colombia, first decamping to New York City and eventually moving to London, where they sought out a more European cultural environment. My German-Ribon grandfather Martin and his siblings grew up in London, where he obtained an engineering degree and secured a position with the international public works engineering firm S. Pearson & Son (a predecessor firm to the global Pearson PLC), and where Sylvia eventually was born.<br /><br />His wife Elvira's family, the Valenzuelas, also of Spanish origin, first came to Nueva Granada, as Colombia was then known, in the mid-1700s, when Don Eloy Valenzuela, a learned botanist, was commissioned by Spain to identify and record the new world’s plant life. His relatives settled in and never left Colombia and built their own enormous wealth through the acquisition of land and other businesses, eventually settling in Bogotá, the capital. Elvira, née Valenzuela, was born in Colombia, descendant of an arch-Catholic family that encouraged her, as a young teenager, to flagellate her back with stinging nettles. She was attracted by Martin de German-Ribon, who first spied her on a visit to Bogotá in 1913. He was immediately struck by her beauty and obvious international savoir-faire, given that she was reading the French periodical, La Revue des Deux Mondes. He proposed almost on the spot but her father would have none of it until substantial proof of Martin’s reputation and financial standing could be ascertained. As this turn-of-the-century credit check had to come from bankers in far-off London, it took months for this to be completed. But eventually all was approved, and a lavish wedding was organized.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-77833486292564440202009-08-11T05:09:00.004-04:002009-08-11T05:53:35.157-04:00Excerpt: Of French bloodlnes<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGIwAAqnT_ZxjB5ZVfzikRgNfzuRKudTYidX7V7yJh3zy3uInM79Sa8n-7jRAzKrCwQCUiR_H3K_tv4jqjnTxidyReNWDSOXN8JL2Bd61nv1g6vyb7SaJfLAbvozWRfPCea3n0VIyNJsM/s1600-h/hp_scanDS_95165585223.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 147px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGIwAAqnT_ZxjB5ZVfzikRgNfzuRKudTYidX7V7yJh3zy3uInM79Sa8n-7jRAzKrCwQCUiR_H3K_tv4jqjnTxidyReNWDSOXN8JL2Bd61nv1g6vyb7SaJfLAbvozWRfPCea3n0VIyNJsM/s200/hp_scanDS_95165585223.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368642150123901842" /></a><br />My grandmother Eglé de Villelume-Sombreuil Gatins, was a direct descendant of one of France’s best-known families, several of whose members, unreconstructed Royalists, were guillotined during the French Revolution. Another, René de Madec, became a minor French historical figure for his exploits as a French corsair in India during the late 1700s. A sailor from Quimper in Brittany, he’d gotten his start on the high seas in the slave trade to Santo Domingo, then translated that experience into what he hoped would be more lucrative efforts as a privateer in India, sanctioned by the French government.<br /><br />Her father, Charles Jules, Comte de Villelume-Sombreuil, was born in Paris, August 26, 1861, the fifth child of a family of six, descendant of noble lineage dating to an early Crusader. At age 28, he was married for the first time to a widow twice his age, 57-year-old Eglé Ney de la Moskova. That wedding took place in China, where he was posted as a diplomat attached to the French government’s foreign desk. Eglé Ney, duchess of Persigny by her first marriage, died a year later. Less than a year after that, young Charles consummated a second marriage, with his niece from Brittany, Jeanne Marie de Madec, 23, herself the descendant of French nobility through that family line.<br /><br />“She was a very pretty woman, very headstrong and very independent,” Eglé said of her mother, but not so strong-willed as to defy her own prideful mother. “My mother was really very much in love with a truly handsome man, charming and rich,” Eglé recalled in her 1988 oral history. “But he was just an accountant. And my grandmother, arrogant and proud, never permitted her to marry him.” Instead, she was foisted off on her uncle.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-78161947317183609502009-08-11T05:02:00.004-04:002009-08-11T05:25:11.977-04:00Excerpt: Of Irish-American bloodlinesOur particular branch of the Gatins family originated as the McGettigan clan, of Killybegs, a small, commercial fishing village in County Donegal, on the craggy and stormy, northwestern-most coast of Ireland. This territory was so barren and rough and wild that local people viewed some of its rocky features as a gate to Purgatory. Three McGettigan-Gatins brothers, James, John and Joseph (the latter, my great-great grandfather) came to the United States in the mid-1840s as part of the huge Diaspora that brought so many Irish families to the new world as the crippling potato famine decimated Ireland. John and Joseph moved to and remained in Atlanta, marrying two sisters who also immigrated from County Donegal, Ann and Bridget Cullen, respectively. James returned to Killybegs after their father died. <br /><br />John and Joseph Gatins and their descendants seemed to quickly outgrow Irish antecedents to become part of the meteoric ascent that Atlanta, with a knack for self-promotion and self-aggrandizement, still evidences today. The extended family emerged from Celtic immigrant beginnings to hobnobbing with Atlanta society in Buckhead and with high international society at the Hotel Ritz in Paris in three generations.<br /><br />The first Joseph Gatins in this particular line of new Irish-Americans arrived in Atlanta, probably via New York and/or Savannah, Georgia, by 1849. Once there, he worked for the next 50 years as a clerk and freight manager for the Central of Georgia Railroad, located in the Atlanta freight depot. He also was a founder of the Immaculate Conception Church, and often was referred to as one of Atlanta’s original “pioneers.”Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-57267828385282887972009-08-11T04:47:00.003-04:002009-08-11T05:01:39.247-04:00Excerpts: Love letters[My mother, Sylvia Gatins, saved many of the letters from my father, both from behind enemy lines when Francis Gatins was a prisoner of war during World War II, and afterwards, when he was isolated in upper New York state to fight a deadly case of tuberculosis.]<br /><br />July 5, 1943 (from Berlin): "All I wish to tell you is that I love you. I am absolutely incapable of adding an adverb to that verb, or to tell you that I love you more than before. All I know is that my greatest times of happiness, of fun, are always tied to your presence. A future without you would seem eternal ennui."<br /><br />September 12 & 13, 1946 (from Saranac Lake, N.Y.): “It’s very pretty and cold today. But the house is really sad without you. Yesterday, your bedroom still smelled of you; today, it’s a sad room as anonymous and dead as an hotel room. I think of nothing more but to repeat: I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you … "<br /><br />Undated, from late September, 1946 (from Saranac): "I’m always thinking of you – you’re the only one I have fun with. I love your spirit, the way you see things, your laugh, the blues you get in the fall. I have so many warm memories of you that we could spend years remembering them. But especially, you are always new to me. I’m really looking forward to seeing you as a mother. Because your dominant strengths are your freedom and your kindness. That’s what makes you so desirable: Your native ease for making love. You gave me your mouth one day, so simply, so kindly and with such a good, open heart. The same way, one night, you gave me the best gift in the world, your entire body, all the sweetness of your skin, all your perfume ... "Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-39903596012180961412009-08-10T07:27:00.002-04:002009-08-10T07:37:53.794-04:00Excerpt: Of a one-armed grandfather<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUMeeEYrx-Z3XYDxn1k8Zdt0IfUtAxTExed3JXE_HMNcjjhSAyaIjBMPZDgOkiuZc7yh7i51gaNAl1GA0Z6jdN6QGAkdUfScJYbsZsVA11gyXOztuXoB2mezM3EE6HUXlPCSI-Sk1BVWI/s1600-h/hp_scanDS_93116225544.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 172px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUMeeEYrx-Z3XYDxn1k8Zdt0IfUtAxTExed3JXE_HMNcjjhSAyaIjBMPZDgOkiuZc7yh7i51gaNAl1GA0Z6jdN6QGAkdUfScJYbsZsVA11gyXOztuXoB2mezM3EE6HUXlPCSI-Sk1BVWI/s200/hp_scanDS_93116225544.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368297944227858226" /></a><br />What might a young, international playboy and sportsman with plenty of money do for fun in his free time in the advent to World War I? Well, why not head to Paris for a party like so many others? Thus did my grandfather Joseph F. Gatins Jr. become part of the crowd of Americans descending on the French capital during the summer of 1914. He was a young real estate investor and horseman from Atlanta and New York, a well-traveled and well-heeled 32-year-old international sportsman and aficionado of French history, and a member of that class of idle rich spawned from America’s Gilded Age, largely living off of his father’s considerable fortune, well- traveled in Europe and the Far East, and still an eligible bachelor.<br /><br />As things were done in that era, he was properly introduced to a lovely and intelligent French girl 10 years his junior, Eglé Marie de Villelume-Sombreuil, my grandmother, who had enough experience and savoir-faire to speak passable English. They were attracted to each other. “He was the handsomest man I had ever met,” Eglé recalled many years later. “He was very handsome. He was short, nice-looking. He was very intelligent, very well read and had studied in England. I met him at a big party at the Ritz. And very quickly, we were engaged. He pleased me very much. He had beautiful blue eyes,” Eglé recalled. But she also felt sorry for her fiancé. “He had lost one arm,” Eglé said. “That was probably one of the reasons I married him. I felt sorry for him.”<br /><br />I discovered two versions of how my grandfather lost his right arm. The first had him taking a tumble while running on a set of stairs as a youth of 16 and losing his arm from that accident. The second, which seems more plausible, would have had him receiving a smallpox vaccination before his arm was set in a cast, and the vaccination spot becoming so infected underneath the cast that it necessitated amputation.<br /><br />His recollection of meeting Eglé is not recorded for posterity but the available record suggests clearly that he was very much intrigued by Eglé and her connections to a rich French history. As early as July 1914, he’d sent a cable to Atlanta to announce his intentions, which were duly recorded in a brief article in The Atlanta Constitution of July 10. “Joseph Gatins, Jr., wins bride in Paris,” the headline said. The article went on to relate that Gatins Jr., “one of the most prominent young men socially and otherwise” in Atlanta, was soon to wed Eglé, daughter of the countess de Sombreuil of Paris, “one of the most aristocratic of French families.”<br /><br />A post-wedding headline was, “Marriage of Mr. Joseph Gatins and Comtesse de Sombreuil in Paris,” marking the beginning of a long newspaper love affair with the Gatins family, which apparently fascinated Atlanta society and its society columnists.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-24869143210066497762009-08-10T07:17:00.002-04:002009-08-10T07:26:19.449-04:00Excerpt: Of Salons and Suffragists<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgchW-8oM9f06BEeahOhwdaK0LnnHCKakiYX_EBdL6ZSgT5yUmaAy3p4ILQI5aq7fE6kMEMwgfl9XA0T_CG-nXDNtFjyRggzYoS3ochcTZUvZRopmO9DMm-YDDPXd_0gqXGm4mDgxNmb1I/s1600-h/hp_scanDS_9378131924.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 132px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgchW-8oM9f06BEeahOhwdaK0LnnHCKakiYX_EBdL6ZSgT5yUmaAy3p4ILQI5aq7fE6kMEMwgfl9XA0T_CG-nXDNtFjyRggzYoS3ochcTZUvZRopmO9DMm-YDDPXd_0gqXGm4mDgxNmb1I/s200/hp_scanDS_9378131924.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368294968320450514" /></a><br />In Paris, Grandmother Eglé found relative freedom and rich reward, intellectually and spiritually, in the two decades between the world wars. Denied in love, battered by unholy matrimony and unable to afford staying in Atlanta with her only son, she had formally filed for divorce, and left her one-armed, womanizing husband, Joseph F. Gatins Jr., in 1920. Brief attempts at reconciliation in the States (1923) and in France (1924) had failed. By 1927, she was a young widow back in her native France, wearing the black dresses and plain black overcoats she was to wear for decades hence, her husband having succumbed to the double curse of tuberculosis and hard drink. But she kept his name.<br /><br />Eglé and her son, Joseph F. Gatins III, had moved into a residence with a decidedly fancy address, 150, avenue des Champs d’Elysées, with her mother, her stepfather, the Swiss banker Henri Fischer, and her brother Charlic, a World War I cavalry veteran, former German prisoner of war and confirmed, life-long bachelor. She also found a second spiritual home—the first being the Roman Catholic Church—in the Salon Society that flourished in Paris between the world wars. “My life was truly pleasant. I moved in a very intellectual milieu,” she said. Her memoirs also make mention of following feminist and suffragist matters, linked particularly to Edmée de la Rochefoucauld, “with whom I busied myself over feminist questions, which truly absorbed me. I wanted equality for women."<br /><br />Like many salon-goers, Eglé also traveled in the circle of American expatriates known as the Lost Generation, the motley collection of American wanderers, hard-drinking writers, publishers and adventurers seeking something other than what the United States had to offer. “In Paris between the two wars, it was marvelous,” said Grandmother, who had just turned 30 years old in 1922. “Especially from the 1920s to 1929-30—and the Americans were kings of the place. It was the day of Hemingway and Sylvia Beach and all those people—and Gertrude Stein, [whom] I never liked. We used to go see Sylvia Beach because she banked with Hanzi Fischer,” Eglé said. “She had a bookstore and I saw Hemingway there several times.”<br /><br />As for other intellectuals in her life, she felt especially attracted to an old and distant cousin, Pièrre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest and now well-regarded paleontologist, whose works were spurned by the Vatican and his Jesuit hierarchy at the time. “He was famous for his paleontological research and he’d tell me: ‘Don’t read my books. Keep on believing, like a good girl from Brittany, in goblins and fairies.’ The Jesuits treated him really shabbily,” Eglé said in her memoirs. “They fired him. They made him leave Paris, defrocked him and shipped him to New York, where he died. No one attended his funeral. But when he became famous worldwide, they made him their great man. I’ve always resented the Jezzies because of that. "Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1270780373001262418.post-77266521931502518032009-08-09T07:48:00.002-04:002009-08-10T07:13:41.546-04:00Excerpt: Grandmother arrives in Atlanta<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9J1MGIycNCw0DGkgLfZNqBwtrzTDhB6GNu462R4FL7iCFYyWexUvEmsfb2IWsMyleV3lRZNy5QkLET7vj0BNQSN1v3bAkcpOkmyKxg47I-FfCOaWAEBAh9Mw9dPIiSxSFDSmxDtjMiOQ/s1600-h/hp_scanDS_93116184529.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 116px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9J1MGIycNCw0DGkgLfZNqBwtrzTDhB6GNu462R4FL7iCFYyWexUvEmsfb2IWsMyleV3lRZNy5QkLET7vj0BNQSN1v3bAkcpOkmyKxg47I-FfCOaWAEBAh9Mw9dPIiSxSFDSmxDtjMiOQ/s200/hp_scanDS_93116184529.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368291697026672402" /></a><br />While still in New York and New Jersey, Grandmother Eglé had received a telephone call in which it was suggested she had better come to Atlanta quickly. Her husband had gone on such a bender that he’d been hospitalized. “I learned that he was really sick and in a clinic,” she said. Yet, the worry and concern over her husband’s state seemingly was offset by her first experience of the deep South, an experience that foreshadowed a long love affair with Atlanta and its people and the many women friends she made there, if not with the man who had brought her to this brave new world.<br /><br />Outwardly, her new home could not have been more different than Paris: Its population in 1914 approached a mere 155,000 compared to the French capital’s three million-plus residents; recorded Paris history began in the 3rd Century A.D., while Atlanta did not exist as a metropolis before the 1800s. Yet, the social milieu she moved within was remarkably similar: Society in both cities was consumed with maintaining appearances of propriety and class and, for Eglé in particular, putting on a brave public face.<br /><br />“It was a 22-hour trip in those marvelous Pullmans,” she recalled. “Upon waking up in the morning, I was won over by the feeling of the South, the cotton fields, the Negroes coming home from work with a song on their lips.” If she was cruelly disappointed upon her arrival at Atlanta’s old Terminal Station “to not find my husband there,” she simultaneously found herself embraced by the upper crust of a little railroad crossroads state capital down in the middle of nowhere, whose denizens then, as today, appreciated a class act.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0