Releasing this month, Blooming Hollyhocks: Tales of Joy During Hard Times by Naomi Helen Yaeger is a work of creative nonfiction telling the story of the author’s mother growing up in a small prairie town in the 1930s and ‘40s during the Great Depression and World War II. “With faith, family, and grit, she rose from heartbreak to hope, offering a story for anyone who’s ever longed to serve, to belong, or to make a difference.”
Naomi Helen Yaeger is a Duluth-based writer, reporter, and Earthkeeper. Her work has appeared in the Grand Forks Herald, the Sioux County Index-Reporter (Hull, IA), the Duluth Budgeteer, and nowadays in Duluthian, Positively Superior, and Northern Wilds. She lives in Duluth, Minnesota, where she enjoys the beauty of nature with her husband and their faithful dog.
To celebrate the upcoming release, I am pleased to share this Q&A with the author.
You discuss it a bit in the “Note to the Reader,” but what did your research process look like while writing Blooming Hollyhocks? Were there any surprising discoveries you made during your research?
Naomi Helen Yaeger: My research involved recording my mom and uncle while asking them questions. I also verified as much as possible. She told me she had a big birthday celebration for her 12th birthday, which was on a Friday. Even though the family was Protestant (Methodist), her mom wondered what to serve because many of the Catholics had to have fish on Fridays, and half the town were observant Catholics. However, when I looked up August 15, 1942, I found out it was on a Saturday. In the book, I wrote that the party was for her 11th birthday (1941) because that fell on a Friday, and I could weave in the story about her and her mom walking to the butcher shop to see what Catholics could eat on Fridays.
I think Winifred wanted to celebrate her children’s lives after a frightening event. Mom told me about the time her mother and the five children were riding the train from South Dakota to Minnesota, when massive snowdrifts forced the train to stop, and they had to spend the night in a town with a stranger. Through research, I figured this had to have been the Armistice Day Blizzard of 1940. The day began pleasantly, but the sudden storm caught many people unaware, and many lost their lives. The storm swept across the entire Midwest. Because of this storm, the National Weather Service adopted new policies and procedures.
Also, there is a story about her brother, who was in a terrible accident at age 4 in Worthington, MN. I knew this story was true, but I couldn’t find the story in the Worthington Globe. Later, I visited the Gale Family Library, within the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul, to browse through their newspapers (which were on microfiche. It turns out that the Worthington Globe didn’t publish for two years, and another town’s paper, with a different name, covered the story. A librarian at the Gale Family Library helped me figure that out.
I did internet searches on the cars of the 1930s and ‘40s. I learned about rationing and how it affected clothing styles. When Jimmy took Eleanor Wilcoxon (whose boyfriend was a solider) to prom, I discovered that the styles had really changed. All the styles required less fabric.
Inspiring? Learning that my mother was quarantined at age 3 or 4 helped me realize why her brothers and sisters and cousins were so important to her. Can you imagine being quarantined at that age?
The setting in Blooming Hollyhocks is vivid and easily draws readers in. What details helped you craft the reader’s experience of this specific time and place?
NHY: As a child, I had visited these same landscapes myself and knew what they looked and felt like. Yes, I did say “felt.” Depending on where you live, you may not have experienced wind like the prairie winds. When I was a child, we lived in northern Maine, quite a different landscape from the prairies of Minnesota. Seeing that geographic contrast forced me to think about how the landscape was different.
What was the most unexpected challenge you encountered during the writing process?
NHY: You know, since I’ve been a reporter, and I swim laps and am a member of Weight Watchers, all of which have taught me to chip away at goals a little bit each day, the most challenging part was sticking with it. At one point, I wasn’t writing (I was suffering from an anxiety disorder after my mom died), and my development editor (Jill) wanted to stop working with me until I was ready to work.
How did the experience of writing Blooming Hollyhocks impact you personally?
NHY: I struggle with depression and obsessive thoughts, so writing this gave me something to focus on each day and drove out the irritating obsessive thoughts and focused my thoughts on what I would write.
What was your favorite part of the process of writing and publishing this book, and what has been the most rewarding?
NHY: My favorite part was teaching my mother how to use Google Docs when she was in her 80s. At one point, I said to her, “Mom, I don’t mean to be mean, but you have short-term memory loss, so I don’t think using Google Docs is something that is going to work.”
“No, no, no,” she protested, “You write down on the recipe card what I’m supposed to do, and I will look at that.”
I made a shared folder for both of us. I created a document with questions, and she could answer them. For example, I had documents named “Q Grandma sewing,” “Q Christmas,” “Q Neighbors,” and “Q Pa Hansen.” I recall a specific time, late at night, when I logged into a Google Doc and could see her typing. She was clarifying some questions I had asked. In red, I typed, “Mom, can you see me typing in here?” She typed, “Yes.” I thought it was so cool that two people hundreds of miles apart could be working on the same document together in real time.
Determination and loving a challenge were part of her character. Just yesterday, my husband was putting together a puzzle at the YMCA. He said if my mother were alive and doing a puzzle with him, it would have gone faster because she was competitive and would have enjoyed finding those missing pieces before him.
Another favorite part was daily emails back and forth with my Aunt Phyllis, who married my mother’s brother Jimmy. Phyllis knew a lot of family history (she knew information about the original Fairley homestead). She grew up on a farm about 10 miles from Avoca. I would often ask her about the names of neighbors, the Sunday School teachers, the songs they sang, and other things. I especially enjoyed hearing what war propaganda she remembered. She can still cite the lyrics to some of the songs. Informally, she served as a sensitivity reader. We had discussions about the use of the words bum, hobo, gypsy, and other words used at the time for Indigenous and African American people.
Looking at a feature of my email that tells when and how many emails we have shared, it says, “You and Phyllis Minehart have traded 3,500 emails between January 2019 and September 2024.” The bulk of those were in 2022.
This book isn’t about my father, but once in a while, Phyllis would tell me a tidbit about his family. She graduated from the same high school as my mother and all her siblings and was in the same graduating class as my father’s brother.
What do you hope readers will take away from your mom’s story?
NHY: I hope readers will learn that neighbors and strangers used to help each other. When I read my story about the transient men riding the rails and knocking on doors to ask for food, the members of the writing groups who were younger than me were shocked that townsfolk weren’t afraid. Also, it wasn’t that long ago that people lived without indoor bathrooms and electricity, but they still had happy lives.
October Book Launch Events:
Minneapolis Book Launch: Author Reading and Signing
October 18, 12:30 pm
Nokomis Branch of the Hennepin County Library
5100 34th Ave, Minneapolis, MN
Horseback Preachers, Tent Revivals & Blooming Hollyhocks
October 26, 2 pm
Hope UMC
301 W Saint Marie St, Duluth, MN
Duluth Book Launch
October 28, 6:30 pm
Wussow’s Concert Café
324 N Central Ave, Duluth, MN
Visit the Events page on Naomi’s website for more details.