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Friday, August 24, 2012

The Sphinx of 22nd Place



In 2005 Mrs. Chatterbox and I decided to explore urban living; we bought a hundred year old house on Northwest 22nd Place in downtown Portland. The neighborhood, dotted with late Victorian houses, had a shabby chic quality. Our street was slightly run down but our realtor convinced us to overlook the decay. The area was adjacent to the trendy shops and restaurants of Northwest 23rd only a block away. Our street had seen its ups and downs over the years but our realtor told us it was about to experience gentrification. By gentrification he must have been referring to all the money we would need to invest to keep our house from falling down.


Not long after moving there I decided to explore our new neighborhood; I made a closer inspection than I had before deciding on a home purchase there. I walked a hundred yards until 22nd place ended at Burnside, a crowded thoroughfare lined with tattoo parlors, flop houses and cheap restaurants, a far cry from the trendy establishments only a few blocks away. I quickly began to question the local color Mrs. C. and I had decided to immerse ourselves in.


As I retraced my steps home I paused in front of a house half a dozen doors from ours. The structure was rundown, the elaborate trim and molding in need of attention. Weeds sprouted from the rain gutters on the roof. But I was intrigued by the plaque near the sagging porch. Along with a picture of a winsome woman it read: Hazel Hall House.


I was determined to find out who Hazel Hall was and asked around. No one was aware of her, not college kids renting cheap rooms or folks old enough to have waved when Lewis and Clark when passed through. I began to think of Hazel Hall as a mysterious sphinx, and I was determined to know more about the person behind the enigmatic face.


I decided to Google her and discovered that Hazel Hall was an Oregon poet who died in 1924. Little was written about her but I managed to pick up a few facts. Hall was born in 1886. As a young girl she moved to Portland from Minnesota, but at the age of twelve she contracted scarlet fever and used a wheelchair for the rest of her life.


According to Wikipedia, Hall was an exuberant, unusually sensitive, and imaginative child. Like Emily Dickinson, who had died several years earlier, she would live out her life in an upper room of her family’s home. To help support her mother and two sisters, Hall took in sewing and gainfully occupied herself embroidering the sumptuous fabrics of bridal gowns, baby dresses, altar cloths, lingerie, and Bishop’s cuffs that would figure so lushly in her poems. Hall took up writing poetry only when her eyesight began to fail. What must it have been like, I wondered, to sew dresses for brides from wealthy families when she herself would never marry and have a family of her own?


Armed with this information, I walked back to Hazel Hall House and examined it more closely. An attempt had been made to create a memorial to her in an empty lot beside the house, an unkempt spot where a house had probably burned down. On a path now used as a shortcut to a nearby Goodwill Center, three granite slabs had been placed with Hall’s poems. The words on two were covered with moss and graffiti, but the third was legible.



After reading the poem I turned around and glanced at Northwest 22nd Place, trying to see it through the eyes of a young woman, confined to a wheelchair and trapped in that upstairs bedroom, imagining a world far away from this shadowy street. Her gifts with needlework and words must have been meager compensation for her limited mobility, isolation and loneliness. Still, she managed to transform her grief into poems of remarkable originality and durability.


Hazel Hall was in her twenties when she began writing poetry. She died in her thirties. Shortly before her death she published a collection of poems called Walkers. (Interesting since she couldn’t walk.) She didn’t live long enough to hear critics call her: The Fresh Voice of Female Poetry in America. Her work drifted into obscurity, her stanzas obliterated like the words on the slabs beside her crumbling house. But words can withstand the vicissitudes of fortune when they are stitched to truth and honesty.


Sphinxes can be dug out of the sand. Houses can be restored and granite slabs cleaned, but poems are only immortal while they live in memory. Hazel Hall deserves to be remembered.



29 comments:

  1. The good thing about the Internet and Google and all that is you can get this kind of information out there so it can live on with whole new generations of people.

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  2. What a poignant tribute to a deserving woman. And now because you've shared her with us, her candle burns even brighter.

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  3. How interesting. I've never heard of her, but that's quite a tragic story, fit for a poet indeed. Is the house still there, and if so has somebody fixed it up?

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  4. Wow! A year ago we rode the light rail past that street and never even realized what is there.

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  5. You are a real seeker of knowledge. We need more folks like you to keep these treasures alive. I am sure there are many stories in old neighborhoods that would be important if discovered.

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  6. touching story. ThX Stephen for sharing it..the house looks cool.

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  7. Never heard of her until now, but most of us go unnoticed. It's the way of things. Excellent read.

    Have a terrific day and weekend. :)

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  8. Chatterbox, that is so interesting. Not only about finding the home of a poet who's name and fame is sadly obscure but the story of buying into a transitional neighborhood is also interesting. The picture at the top of the post is that Hazel Hall's home? You know I will be looking for info on Hazel because I'm me.

    Are you still in that neighborhood...and if so, how did it fare? No one can ever predict how a neighborhood evolves. I have seen lovely neighborhoods turn into figurative cesspools and less-than-desireable neighborhoods become "the place-to-be". I love old houses but as a Realtor I realize nearly all older homes require money and effort.

    For the most part, I still believe that you need to be cautious when listening to anyone that has a monetary motive for you to do something. Esp. those that work on 100% commission. (translation: if a real estate agents lips are moving you are probably being manipulated)

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  9. She's otherworldly, as if she had already started to move on. "For only Gossamer, my Gown -- / My Tippet -- only Tulle -- "

    Love,
    Janie

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  10. G'day CC. Great post. The poem she wrote is beautiful. Take care. Liz...

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  11. Such a sad story but what a gorgeous young woman she was. I wonder if her poetry will get a second breath now that you've mentioned in your post. Hope so.

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  12. And now, thanks to you, i will remember, gladly.

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  13. I often wonder about the people that used to live in old houses, and what their lives were like. That's so neat that you were able to find out about Hazel's life. How sad that she died so young.

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  14. thank you for bringing her story back to the light of day. it's a sad story but one worth knowing.

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  15. What a remarkable young woman she must have been, never letting her artistic spirit be stifled. Thank you for sharing her story.

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  16. Amazing story! I'm glad you did some research.
    sometimes the ordinary unsung heroes have a great story to tell.
    Now did you stay on 22 nd?

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  17. very interesting! I wonder how many things we would find out if we took the time to investigate? to even notice....glad you did!

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  18. I'm so glad you did this research and told this story. Is that her house picture at top? It looks like it's been given some love in recent years.

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  19. What an interesting project for you, that turned into a tribute to a talented woman. I for one am glad you did the research. The fact that a woman wrote poetry and it is her legacy to all of us puts the name Hazel Hall on the list of heroines. I cannot imagine being confined to a wheelchair and then to also lose the eyesight. My father lost almost 100% of his eyesight when he was 15. Thank you for introducing us to a woman poet who at a young age was writing about the plight of working women and her view of life.

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  20. What a nice piece, “convinced us to overlook the decay” – great foreshadowing. Ha!
    Seriously, Stephen, you should send this piece to the Oregonian or the Oregon Historical Society.
    I'm from Portland and you live in my favoirte neighborhood. Whenever I'm home I eat at Kornblatts. Have some Pastrami and Latkas for me. Mindy

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  21. Extraordinary post. Thanks so much for the work and for bringing Hazel Hall out of obscurity.
    Your lines-

    "But words can withstand the vicissitudes of fortune when they are stitched to truth and honesty.
    Sphinxes can be dug out of the sand. Houses can be restored and granite slabs cleaned, but poems are only immortal while they live in memory. Hazel Hall deserves to be remembered."

    are elegant and timeless. Marvelous writing. Thanks for that as well.

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  22. What magnificant history you stumbled across. Thanks for sharing it with us.

    S

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  23. A lovely tribute and an enigmatic photograph! Makes me think about all the millions of people who are here and gone...and forgotten. Every one of them would be interesting. :)

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  24. What a lovely tribute to Hazel. Just think how she would have fared if she had had the internet- her world and life might have been less lonely and brighter. Thanks for finding her for us.

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  25. Strengthens my belief in the old adage that each one of us, irrespective of handicap and disadvantage, has at least one special gift.

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