A Memory from Childhood

As I look through the many essays, stories, and writing assignments that my sister left me, “for whatever they’re worth” I see a treasure trove of excellent writing and rich story-telling skills. An imagination backed by a close empathy with humanity that comes from not only experience, but also from a close observation of human nature. Joanie paid attention, and her intuitive understanding of people made her a master at characterization.

Today I picked up the workbook she wrote in when taking a writing class that I gave in Colorado several years ago. Here is the anecdote she wrote for lesson one. “Fiction is a Lens on Life” The instructions were to look into your memory and chose an incident in which you were embarrassed, humiliated. or had your feelings hurt by another person. This is a timed writing. You don’t have time to plan ahead or revise.

By the way, I’m only sharing this because Joan gave me permission. Customarily, anything written or discussed in any of my workshops is strictly confidential.

Joan remembered an incident from early elementary school that stayed with her for the rest of her life.  She wrote:

I was so excited. What a beautiful bauble! I hadn’t had that much luck lately, what with the hard time, Mom and dad in the mountains and me spending my third grade year with strangers. Now I’d found the pretty necklace in the dirt on the playground. I showed it to Susie, thinking it would surely elevate me in her eyes. She looked at it briefly and said nothing. The bell rang and I noticed Susie whispering something to the teacher.
“Joan,” the teacher said sternly, “Susie tell me you stole her necklace. Is that true?”
I felt my face flush as everyone stared. I was terrified. I thought I might wet my pants. There wasn’t a friendly face in the room.
I fingered the necklace I had put around my neck and looked at my shoes.
“Come up her,” the teacher commanded.
I couldn’t move.
She approached me and removed the beads from my neck. “Susie, is this your necklace?” she asked.
I stared in disbelief as Susie said, “Yes, It is.”
The entire class looked at me in disgust. I felt smaller and smaller and hoped I would just disappear!


A subsequent lesson from the workshop is on Point of View, and in order to get back into the realm of fiction, as well as to get writers thinking from a perspective other than their own, the exercise asks the writer to take the antagonist from the exercise above and get into that person’s head. What might have been going on to provoke the behavior that caused so much humiliation?  In the next post, I’ll share what Joan did with that assignment.

Joan Bochmann—early adult years

In the previous post, I shared the first part of Joan's Toastmistress's speech where she told about school days up to her graduation, which took place in the spring of 1952. Although she was valedictorian, she didn't go to college—at least not right away. I never knew why, and guess I still don't, exactly. But here, I'll let her tell you, in the rest of that speech.

"Shortly after I was offered a scholarship to Colorado University, a family crisis arose and I was forced, or at least I thought then I was forced, to turn it down. I tell you this with much pain, as it was one of my greatest disappointments."

(I don't know what the family crisis was. I suppose at age 10, I didn't need to know, and my family shielded me from it. )

"So, I went to work for the County Agent. Now, for the benefit of any of you city lasses, a County Agent is the man who tells all the ranchers how to vaccinate their cows, dip their sheep, rotate their crops, etc. I worked exactly one year until June, when I was married and entered an entirely new dimension…service life."

(This is when, as I mentioned in an earlier post, her brand new husband, John Zimmerman, took her to faraway California, breaking my heart. The many months that passed before she returned seem like forever to me.)

"My husband was sent overseas and I returned to Steamboat to give birth to my daughter, a lovely feminine replica of her absent father. Two years later, the family again intact and civilian, my son was born.

"In 1959 we moved to Boulder and I found my second home. Not quite so safe and sheltered, so small and cozy, but alive and part of the world, a place to grow and live. 

"Perhaps it is because I love the mountains, because they have been such a part of my life, that I think of my goals and values as a range of glittering, shining peaks. Not goals attained, but prizes I still have to earn. Let me show you my majestic, mental mountains. The oldest peak in the range is called, 'sheepskin.' It represents the diploma from C. U. which I had to give up when I was 17. But I'm still going to get it. It may well be after my children have received theirs, but I am going to do it. Next, snow-capped and a little remote, we have 'Writer'. The day I stand on its summit I will have published something…not necessarily famous or best-selling, but something I know is good. But wait. A new peak is arising on the horizon, perhaps the highest, most formidable of all. It's title is 'Speaker'. It represent the day I stnad before you all and Dazzle you with my eloquence." 

"Thank you." 

Joan and I talked a lot, when not face to face, then on the phone, but now I see there was still so much I could have asked her if I'd only known the questions. I am grateful beyond words for the folders of her old college papers and other writings that give me further glimpses into the life of my sister, Joan, the person I most admired in the world. I am proud that she stood on the summit and saw the publication of many short stories and essays as well as her novel, Absaroka. Her many fans will attest to just how good it is.

Janet Muirhead Hill