Something in their spirits just seemed to resonate.

I’m talking about Spalding University President and explorer Tori Murden McClure, who became the first woman and first American to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean, and Dawn Landes, the singer-songwriter and musician who would write songs for the musical ROW about Tori’s first attempt.

In addition to being an album, ROW is a musical that premiered this past summer at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts.

Tori and her book, A Pearl in the Storm, are what inspired Dawn to create ROW.

Dawn Landes grew up in Louisville and followed Tori’s failed attempt in 1998, which preceded her successful attempt a year later.

As a young woman, Dawn would later read A Pearl in the Storm, and as fate would have it, take a meeting about the potential for a musical soon after. Dawn immediately thought of Tori and her story.

Now all she had to do was convince Tori, and sing a couple of the many songs she would write for the album and the musical.

You can hear how that meeting played out in my interview with them.

What I’m most excited to tell you is the Frazier is hosting a program with both women on Sunday, December 12, from 6 to 8 p.m., titled “Independent Spirits.”

Independent Spirit was the name of the ship that plucked Tori from the ocean on that first attempt that was foiled by a hurricane, and the name of a song Dawn wrote for ROW. We added the “s” to “Spirit” for this program, because both women are forces to be reckoned with.

The December 12 program will start with a conversation in the Great Hall where you can see Tori’s boat American Pearl, then move into the Brown-Forman Theatre where Dawn and friends will perform several of the songs from ROW.

Andy Treinen and I will moderate, with opening remarks from Kathleen Driskell, Chair of Spalding University’s School of Writing, and University of Louisville President Dr. Neeli Bendapudi.

Enjoy the interview with Tori and Dawn, and be sure to purchase tickets quickly. We want it to be a smaller and intimate audience, so don’t miss out.

Rachel Platt
Director of Community Engagement

This Week in the Museum

Museum Store: A Pearl in the Storm and ROW

Before you come to Independent Spirits on December 12, make sure to read Tori’s book, A Pearl in the Storm, that inspired both the musical and the album ROW. It can be purchased in our store for $15.99.You can also pick up a copy of Dawn’s CD ROW for $16.00. They are a dynamic duo.

A Brief History of Waverly Hills Sanatorium

This is the time of year when everyone is searching for the spookiest place to visit, a place where you can see floating orbs or hear unknown footsteps in the hall. We try to recreate these events with haunted houses or spooky experiences to get the sense of excitement that comes with an actual paranormal encounter.

But there is one place in Louisville that needs no eerie recreation, stunts, or actors: Waverly Hills.

Over the years, Waverly has been the focus of ghost hunting television shows and countless visitors hoping to confront a ghost. But we must remember there is a reason this place is considered spooky or haunted: Thousands of real people suffered tragedies there.

This is a brief history of the Waverly Hills Sanatorium.

In 1883, Major Thomas Hays purchased land where he built a family home and a one-room schoolhouse in which his children could be educated. Ms. Lizzie Harris was hired to teach and referred to the school as Waverley Schoolhouse, a nod to the Waverley series of novels by author Sir Walter Scott. Major Hays loved the name and adopted it for his land, calling it “Waverly Hills,” since the land was vast and hilly, providing wonderful views of the world around.

In the early 1900s, tuberculosis — also known as TB, consumption, and the White Plague — devastated communities around the world. Tuberculosis is an infectious bacterial disease that affects the lungs and causes cough and fever. It wasn’t known at the time that it was spread through tiny droplets released into the air. Jefferson County, Kentucky was suffering an outbreak of tuberculosis, and because little was known, other than the fact that the disease needed containment, a board was created to determine a location for a TB hospital. The current city hospital was over capacity with the number of cases growing rapidly. The board determined the hospital needed to be on the outside of town, in a location that provided fresh air, which was considered a treatment for the disease.

In 1908, the hospital broke ground on Waverly Hills and was much smaller than what we are familiar with today. The original structure was a two-story wooden building with fewer than fifty beds. The facility got upgrades in the following years, and in 1912 the hospital opened for the treatment of advanced cases with an additional fifty beds. In 1914, a children’s wing opened where ill children received treatment and residents whose caregivers were ill were housed.

With the disease continuing to spread and the original structure needing repair, construction on a new facility began in 1924, which provided space for 400 additional beds. The new facility opened on October 17, 1926, and was a city in and of itself. Onsite amenities included laundromats, water treatment facilities, a slaughterhouse, vegetable gardens, and a post office. It even had its own zip code. Employees of the hospital were required to live onsite to help contain the disease.

Waverly Hills Sanatorium served the Jefferson County community until 1961, when the hospital closed after tuberculosis was being successfully treated, making a facility that size obsolete. In the time the hospital was operating, 63,000 people died from the disease.

The facility served as the Woodhaven Geriatric Center, a nursing home, from 1962 until 1982 when the state shut it down following reports of neglect. Ownership changed hands many times over the years, and various ideas for how the property should be used came and went. Plans were made first for a privately owned prison, which failed because of protests from neighbors, then apartments. In 1996, Christ the Redeemer Foundation, Inc. planned to construct an arts and worship center, along with the world’s largest statue of Jesus. The project was called off due to a lack of funding, and the facility was sold yet again.

In 2001, Tina and Charlie Mattingly purchased the facility, giving guided tours and opening a haunted house during Halloween. The proceeds of tours go toward renovating the interior of the sanatorium.

Casey Harden
Director of Exhibit Ideation

Introducing Kentucky Bourbon Distillery Spotlight

Welcome to the Kentucky Bourbon Distillery Spotlight!

The Bourbon business is booming again, and as the Official Starting Point of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail®, the Frazier is proud to partner with now thirty-eight distilleries along the trail. That’s over three dozen unique experiences thriving throughout the great Commonwealth of Kentucky. If you want to see them all, it would take at least a week to complete your Bourbon voyage. It’s true that planning for that 250-mile journey can be a bit intimidating — but don’t worry, we’re here to help.

The Frazier’s Kentucky Bourbon Trail® Welcome Center is the perfect place to begin — It Starts Here! Our role is to ask questions, share the great story of Kentucky Bourbon, and help curate KBT® distillery experiences. Whether you have a day, a weekend, or ten days to explore, maximizing every minute of your experience is the objective, and our team is here to guide you. Consider it an appetizer before enjoying the meal. And make no mistake, the distilleries are both the entrees and the desserts: They are the culinary masterpieces of Kentucky Bourbon. The proof is here.

Each month in our Virtual Frazier Magazine, we will present a “Kentucky Bourbon Distillery Spotlight” featuring a different KBT® partner. We will answer some of the questions we hear every day in the welcome center. Who’s open? What are the hours? Where can we get cocktails and culinary treats along with our tastings and tours? Who has classes, personalized bottles, and accommodations for large groups? Guests inquire about admission fees, lengths of tours, mask requirements, and so much more. For Bourbon purists, it’s often: What Bourbon bottles can I buy that I can’t find anywhere else? Yes, those unicorns are out there, and yes our Distillery Spotlight will help you to find them!

We look forward to partnering with each and every Kentucky Bourbon Trail® distillery to share what is unique about their brand and to highlight something special from their team. Those distillery highlights start in November. To whet your appetite, check out the Kentucky Distillers’ Association’s stylish new website.

Andy Treinen
President & CEO

Weekly Screenings of Along the Way Forth: Unraveling Dominion

Rachel Grimes released her folk opera The Way Forth in 2019. The internationally recognized pianist, composer, and arranger was inspired while tracing her family’s genealogy and integrated the stories of many Kentucky women into the artwork. One of the stories that resonated with her the most was the story of Dolly, an enslaved woman who was among Daniel Boone’s party that settled Fort Boonesborough. Though The Way Forth was recorded, wrapped, and released, Rachel continued to uncover more of Dolly’s story.

We’re excited to share some of the fruits of that effort.

Every Sunday in November, we will be screening her companion project Along the Way Forth: Unraveling Dominion in our Brown-Forman Theatre at 2 p.m. The thirty-minute film and music hybrid production includes portions of the larger production. Included is a documentary-style look at the inspiration, work, discoveries, and results of Rachel and researcher Sharyn Mitchell’s time uncovering the stories of Dolly and her remarkable descendants. Also featured is a portion of the opera, titled End of Dominion. Paired with interpretive imagery, Rachel’s music is performed by members of the Louisville Orchestra, guitarist Nathan Salsburg, vocalist and percussionist Jecorey Arthur, and more.

Screenings:

Sundays, November 7, 14, 21, and 28
2 – 2:30 p.m.

Brown-Forman Theater
First Floor
Frazier History Museum

Included with general admission. Free for members.

Mick Sullivan
Curator of Guest Experience

October 28 “Racial Reckoning: Education” Program at the Muhammad Ali Center

As part of our exhibition “West of Ninth: Race, Reckoning, and Reconciliation,” we continue to offer programming to talk about social justice issues that impact our community. The next program to be hosted at the Frazier is on Policing and will take place November 18, but the Muhammad Ali Center will host our conversation focusing on Education, October 28. Here, the Ali Center’s senior manager for programming and community engagement shares the details with you. — Rachel Platt, Director of Community Engagement

On September 30, community members gathered at the Frazier Museum to hear narratives about racism’s impact on housing in Louisville. This event kicked off a collaboration between the Frazier Museum, the Muhammad Ali Center, and the Courier Journal titled “Racial Reckoning.” The four-part series looks at aspects of our community that have been molded by racism and challenges participants to take a critical look at some of the most unsettling policies and practices that guide our daily lives.

During the second installment, the October 28 program “Racial Reckoning: Education,” story tellers Solyana Mesfin and myself will share firsthand accounts of racially charged issues within our education system. Next there will be a panel moderated by Courier Journal education reporter Mandy McLaren. Panelists will include the following community members:

• Dr. Ricky Jones, Graduate Director & Chair of Pan-African Studies Department, University of Louisville

• Ronda Cosby, Principal, Grace M. James Academy of Excellence

• Sydni Gordon, Social Justice Teacher, Knight Middle School

• Solyana Mesfin, Muhammad Ali Center Council of Students

We hope to see many community members present either virtually or in person on October 28 (at the Ali Center) for this second installment of the Racial Reckoning series. Registration can be found on the Muhammad Ali Center’s website.

Ashleigh Hazley
Senior Manager for Programming and Community Engagement, Muhammad Ali Center
Guest Contributor

History All Around Us

Carnegie Center on Regarding the Underground Railroad in 2021

The Carnegie Center for Art and History in New Albany, Indiana is a gem in our Kentuckiana community and we’ve had the pleasure of working with them many times over the years on collaborative professional development sessions for teachers, public programs, and joint projects. In fact, they recently assisted us with promotion and logistics for our program “Digging for a Promised Land,” which was hosted by the Second Baptist Church (Town Clock Church) in New Albany in September.

When I learned the Carnegie Center was featuring Jermaine Fowler and regional scholars for a session titled “Regarding the Underground Railroad Today: A Community Conversation,” I immediately signed up. I’m glad I did, because both my husband and I found the program to be highly informative and engaging. Learn more in Julie Leidner’s overview below and be sure to set aside some time to view the video recording of the presentation. — Megan Schanie, Manager of School and Teacher Programs

In 2022, the Carnegie Center for Art and History will celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of its exhibit Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage: The Men and Women of the Underground Railroad. This milestone approaches against the backdrop of a recent and profound reckoning around issues of race in Kentuckiana. It begs the question: How do you tell the truth about painful histories while also attending to the well-being of people in the present? As we have seen through private and public discussions at the Carnegie Center over the past month, historians, artists, and other community members will answer this question differently.

But first, here’s a little history about the Carnegie Center’s Underground Railroad exhibition. Brought to life in 2007 by the work of then-director Sally Newkirk, historians Pam and Curt Peters, Cynthia Torp of Solid Light, and many other historians and consultants, Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage is based on the research that proves that New Albany, Indiana was an important junction for people secretly fleeing the grips of enslavement — across the Ohio River from Kentucky — before the Civil War. This exhibition, and its frank American narratives of cruelty, bias, bravery, and hope, has been experienced by scores of visitors to our museum for a decade and a half, and more recently by thousands of elementary-aged children through our school programs. It has earned us membership in the National Park Service’s National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, a distinction given to locations that have verifiable connections to the Underground Railroad through educational programs, objects, or exhibitions. We are proud to be members of this Network along with our neighbors the Town Clock Church (Second Baptist Church), who are a vital part of this history.

As part of an endeavor this September* to reflect on the subject of the Underground Railroad (and in the wake of the astonishing new Barry Jenkins miniseries based on Colson Whitehead’s novel of the same name), we invited a group of regional scholars and community members to visit, review, and gather to talk about how the Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage exhibit hits today. The discussion provided an opportunity for a gut check. Historians, parents, professors, authors, school principals, artists, curators, pastors, and community members talked for over three hours with our Carnegie staff about what it feels like to experience this Underground Railroad story in our museum through a 2021 lens. We ended that discussion with renewed belief in the urgency of telling this history, but also with innovative ideas about healing, language, and the need for connection points that lead us to today’s reality for many Black Americans.

The following week, on October 7, a similar question was raised in a public forum at the Carnegie Center, with a panel made up of several members of the September review committee. However, rather than focusing on the impact of the exhibition, the question of the night was broadened: What does it mean to see, confront, and talk about the stories of the Underground Railroad today? Along with our keynote speaker, historian and podcaster Jermaine Fowler, New Albany resident and Principal of Whitney Young Elementary School Dr. Erica Lawrence, artist and cultural strategist Dr. Jabani Bennett, and the Carnegie Center’s own Museum Educator Tierra Deacon filled out the panel. They sat before an audience to discuss the subject of contemporary representation of Underground Railroad stories (not just via our own exhibition, but in general), how the story is told in New Albany specifically, its remaining cultural relevance, and how we talk about it with our children.

Frazier Museum patrons will recognize Jermaine Fowler as a Louisville-based historian and creator of The Humanity Archive, a podcast that challenges dominant narratives around the history of chattel slavery, resistance, and civil rights. He’s currently in the process of releasing a twelve-part series within his podcast on the history of “Slavery and Resistance.” Fowler’s presentation on October 7 was powerful in the vaulted halls of the old Carnegie library. His fresh style of storytelling underscored the fact that museums should not only be places for preserving history, but also safe places for imagining new ideas for the future.

To preface some of the difficult racial histories he presents in his podcast, Fowler says, “We are going to tell this untellable story because the story must be told, always seeking to answer the fundamental question: why?” The Carnegie Center commits to more examinations of that question directed both inwardly and outwardly, motivated by anti-racism, and we invite you to be a part of the ongoing conversation.

*International Underground Railroad Month is an annual commemoration in September that aims to elevate the stories and honor the actions of freedom seekers and their allies. Thanks to a proclamation this month by Governor Eric Holcomb, the State of Indiana now officially recognizes September as International Underground Railroad Month. (It was first initiated by the State of Maryland in 2019.)

The Carnegie Center for Art and History is a branch of the Floyd County Library in New Albany, Indiana. Open Mondays through Saturdays 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. and open until 8 p.m. on Thursdays. Admission is always free. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram @ccah_na.

Julie Leidner
Exhibition Development and Education Leader, Carnegie Center for Art and History
Guest Contributor

The Big Walk and Talk, Presented by The Big Table

Looking for ways to “bridge the divide?” Join us for The Big Walk and Talk on October 24 between 2 and 5 p.m. at the Big Four Bridge. Experience the magic that happens when we take a walk with neighbors whose stories may be different.

Similar to The Big Table, hosts will connect participants into small groups of individuals whom they don’t already know. This time, instead of sharing food, we will be taking a stroll together and using our conversation cards to share the stories of our lives. In a short reflection, we will uncover what truly bridges us, connections that aren’t always visible on the surface.

Like the idea but not the walking? Come anyway! There are flat areas on both sides of the bridge, and plenty of benches around for conversation.

For registration and detailed information on how to participate, click here. See how your story can expand our collective understanding.

Cathy Berkey
Executive Director, The Big Table
Guest Contributor

Staff Pick

Where Y’all Really From

As I was scrolling through social media on September 10, I noticed a post from Louisville Public Media (LPM) that caught my eye. They were advertising their newest podcast from the LPM Podcast Incubator, Where Y’all Really From, about AAPI (Asian American & Pacific Islander) Kentuckians. As a proud Filipina and Kentuckian, I was so excited to see representation about an intersection that shapes my life every day.

To better explain the premise of the podcast, here is a short blurb from LPM’s website:

What’s the one universal question Asian Americans are asked at least once (but more like a million times) in their lives? “Where are you from?” “No, but where are you really from?” Where Y'all Really From focuses on the tens of thousands of folks whose answer is, “Kentucky!” Hosts Charlene Buckles and Dan Wu chat with and share the diverse stories and perspectives of Asian American and Pacific Islanders living, learning, and loving in the bluegrass state.

I was so excited about the podcast that I went home and played the trailer for some of my relatives.

“OMG, that’s so relatable!” was the obvious consensus amongst the relatives with whom I shared the podcast.

I also excitedly shared the podcast with my Peace Corps Philippines group chat. (If you’re a longtime reader of Virtual Frazier Magazine, you may remember my article from back in June about my experience being evacuated from the Philippines due to COVID-19.)

The podcast premiered on September 22 with their first two full-length episodes. I listened to them in my car before and after meeting a friend for dinner in the Highlands. The only way I can describe my experience as a listener is that it made me feel seen. Although the experiences of the individuals they highlighted differ from my own experiences, I still felt an extraordinary connection to the featured guests and the AAPI hosts and producers.

Shows like Where Y’all Really From are incredibly important for building connection amongst community members while also providing crucial representation for a group of Kentuckians whose stories and contributions have largely been unaccounted for. This show had me beaming with joy from hearing about the remarkable stories of my fellow AAPI Kentuckians.

There are five full length episodes out now, and new episodes premiere every Tuesday. I would highly recommend this podcast for anyone who wants to learn a little bit more about some of their neighbors living in the Bluegrass State!

If you would like to learn more or listen to the podcast, click here. The podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.

Shelby Durbin
Education & Engagement Specialist