ELYSE'S JOURNAL

Lincoln letter, Illinois

I was really looking forward to this shoot as I had never been to Springfield. I was also really excited about the Lincoln letter, although I had some great concerns about its condition.

The crew met at the airport for our flight to Illinois to check out the lovely Owen Lovejoy house. I did not know very much about Owen Lovejoy before I started this investigation and I really enjoyed meeting Rev. Moore. He was extremely knowledgeable, well spoken and taught me a great deal about this remarkable man and his views on slavery.

The Lovejoy house was quite a treat. I’d never been in an official Underground Railroad home, and it was very interesting to see how Owen Lovejoy hid slaves - or maybe I should say it was depressing to see the conditions the slaves had to live in to survive.

Afterwards, we drove two hours to Springfield, passing beautiful scenery through cornfields and farm land, just as the sun started to set.

The next two days in Springfield were great. It was fun researching at the Lincoln Library, meeting other experts and historians, seeing the Old State Capitol and the room that Lincoln made his great “House Divided” speech in. It helped me to really understood what a great politician Lincoln was and how he so carefully guided our nation during such a traumatic time. What we learned about our story was incredibly exciting as well.

With everyone happy it was time to go home. It was my son’s fifth birthday the next day and despite some flight cancellations I managed to negotiate my way back to New York. I arrived at 3am, my son heard the door open, woke up and ran down the steps, into my arms. Home safe and sound.

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Posted on 27 August 2007 By Elyse Luray

GAR PHOTOGRAPH, CAZENOVIA, NY AND WASHINGTON D.C.

Saturday-Sunday: Although I love the photograph for this shoot, I have to admit I was a not looking forward to flying to Syracuse, New York in the middle of February. We had heard that they were expecting snow and the temperature was well below zero. I meet the crew at JFK on a Saturday afternoon and our plane is two hours late. We have an hour drive to Cazenovia and arrive late Saturday night. We are staying in a lovely inn, which is quite a treat.

We all wake early on Sunday to shoot some scenes with the contributor, Angelo Scarlato. We agree to meet at the home of Tom and Julie Currie, which is a period, arts and crafts style home with the most beautiful detail and woodwork. Before we get there we decide to drive around and see the town and all of us agree that it’s adorable with some great character.

We all are ready to shoot until the crew’s worst nightmare comes true: the camera is broken and our amazing cameraman, Matt, can’t fix it. He spends an hour trying to make it work, as our associate producer, April Marks, tries to find another camera. It’s a Sunday, early morning, and almost everyone is at church or not at home. We call Syracuse University, other production companies, rental places and no one is open. Then luckily Tom and Julie remember a friend, who is a producer at the local PBS affiliate and call him. We are so lucky that not only is he in Cazenovia, but he is willing to drive us to PBS, which is an hour away, to find a camera.

More bad news: we finally get a new camera and it works, but now we are having sound issues. It seems the sound producer is new at working in the field and we have to completely re-shoot two scenes. This day is taking forever! I am keen to get going as I’m really excited about this story.

The contributor’s questions about who the African Americans are in the photo seems impossible to figure out but in the last couple of weeks, the team has done some great preliminary research. We eventually find one of the descendents, George Geder, and I am really looking forward to meeting him. I think surprising Angelo with meeting George at the end of the show, will be great and I am also excited to show George his family’s gravestones at the cemetery in Cazenovia. It is going to be a great day of surprises … if only we could get started.

Finally success! We are done, George cried, Angelo cried and even our producer Hugo cried. It is such a great feeling to bring people their heritage and past back to them.

Monday: We are taking George to the cemetery. He has no idea where we are going and his wife thinks he is going to be really surprised. George is very touched at seeing his family’s graves, and it was incredible to be able to share that with him. Then it’s off to the airport to fly to Washington DC. I hope we get out of here, as they are calling for a major snow storm tonight. Tomorrow we are shooting at the Library of Congress in the Reading Room, which is one of the most beautiful in the country.

Tuesday: I think this shoot is cursed. Major snow storm last night. I have been on the phone all morning, with my kids, their schools, and other moms arranging carpools while the crew are trying to find us places to shoot. All government offices are closed, so that includes libraries and archives, our homes away from home, here on History Detectives. I get back from breakfast and run into an old friend, Gorge, who was an associate producer and then produced for us during the first two seasons. His crew was stuck at the hotel as well due to the weather. At least we’re all in the same boat.

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Posted on 9 July 2007 By Elyse Luray