Tonight on Showcase with Barbara Kellar, author Kathy Merchant.

Stay tuned, Showcase starts right now.

(music) KELLAR: Hi, I'm Barbara Kellar, welcome to Showcase.

And I have as my guest today a really, really wonderful friend and writer, Kathy Merchant.

MERCHANT: Hi, Barbara.

KELLAR: Hi.

Who now has two books out.

MERCHANT: Yes.

KELLAR: We want to hear about them.

Tell us about the first one about Cincinnati women.

What's the actual exact title?

MERCHANT: Oh, it has a long title.

So it's Imagineers, Impresarios, and Inventor's.

Now I made up that title, and I promise you I'm sorry because it's too hard to remember.

But Cincinnati's Women in the Arts is a very memorable subtitle.

So that's what it's all about.

KELLAR: Well, tell us a little bit about your background and what brought you that first book?

MERCHANT: Sure.

Well, I guess you could call this maybe my second or third act.

I'm formerly the CEO of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation is why I moved here to Cincinnati.

And I loved that career, but I've always loved to write.

I mean, things as silly as when I was in junior high going to journalism camp, when other kids went swimming and fishing and all of that.

So I've always loved to write.

And I guess it really -- today's an anniversary day, the day of our taping, and I know this will air on a different day.

But today is August 20th.

It's a friend's birthday in Connecticut, and I was visiting her on her birthday and saw a book that provided the inspiration for the book about Cincinnati.

It was written by a friend of mine who used multiple authors, people from New Haven, to write about the people, men and women in New Haven who contributed to that city's cultural vibrancy.

I thought, well, you know something?

I actually think Cincinnati has a lot more to offer than New Haven, so don't tell them that I feel that way.

KELLAR: This won't air there.

MERCHANT: I lived there for 20 years, but so I brought the concept home, wrote up a book prospectus.

And I thought, you know, there's really only one place that I would go for a sponsor for this book and that's ArtsWave because they have the whole region at heart, they're arts advocates, they support all the major arts organizations and the new and up and coming ones as well.

So it took a couple of months to actually get on Alicia Kintner's calendar.

And I sat down with her and shared the idea.

And two minutes later, she said, "Well, if you'll write it about women, I'm in."

KELLAR: Wow.

MERCHANT: That's really all it took, it was amazing.

But there's a back story for that.

The ArtsWave was just getting ready to launch their Power of Her initiative.

Patty Beggs, the former CEO of the opera, was partnering with Alicia to create an initiative that would celebrate -- shine a spotlight on women in the arts during the time that we were celebrating the The Amendment, Women's Centennial Amendment, the 19th Amendment.

I was blanking on the number.

And so that was really just the launch point.

And then there was the key question: Well, who do you include?

Because we have a richness of people to choose from here, and there are even more.

I mean, let's just go to the end of the book.

It isn't comprehensive.

It's inclusive, but it's not comprehensive.

You're in it, Barbara.

We loved being able to tell your story.

KELLAR: Thank you very much.

MERCHANT: But you know the process then to figure all that out had a couple of layers.

So first we did what I would call crowd sourcing.

So we sent out an all call to as many people as we could think of, the huge network at ArtsWave and said, "Tell us who you think should be in a book," and here's what it's about.

KELLAR: Right.

MERCHANT: Well, we got hundreds of responses.

KELLAR: Right, a lot.

MERCHANT: Yeah, a lot.

And so then we had a smaller group of people who know the community really well and asked them to cull that down to a smaller number, and it was still a huge number.

But importantly, it had a couple of missing elements, and that was mostly diversity.

So two things about that.

One is that in our history, we don't always do a good job of writing about, of celebrating, of acknowledging women of color.

And so we went to two of our arts organizations, the Cincinnati Museum Center and the Art Museum, and said, "Could you please ask your people in the research department to help?"

And they did.

It was fantastic.

I think the other thing is that the younger folks aren't quite well enough known.

KELLAR: Right.

MERCHANT: So they're on their way and eventually they'll be as well known as everybody else.

So, we did the research to kind of put those two pieces together.

And we still ended up with 120 stories that, all told, mentioned the names of some 200 people.

Yeah, it's a lot.

KELLAR: Weren't you looking for like 50 to start with?

MERCHANT: A hundred.

We were we were trying to like match it up with the 100th anniversary.

KELLAR: Oh, yeah.

Okay.

MERCHANT: Finally we gave up.

We're like this is not possible.

Well, I mean, we may as well not do it.

KELLAR: Yeah.

MERCHANT: So we thought, well, 200 is, twice 100, we'll just go with it.

And where we got those larger numbers is, for example, in the good old days, there were groups of women who started what became the art academy, what became the Cincinnati Art Museum, and other important durable institutions.

And they banded together with groups of their friends and colleagues because you really had to collaborate to get something done.

And so we found the names of all of those women who were on the initial boards, and we included those in the book as well to give them credit for that.

KELLAR: Yeah.

So you had 200 and where did you get the information on each one?

It just -- people knew, or how did you determine what you were going to say about each one?

MERCHANT: After I realized that I alone could not write all of those.

It just was not going to happen.

KELLAR: That's overwhelming.

Yeah.

MERCHANT: I copied something else from my friend's book in New Haven, which was to have multiple writers.

So I contacted people in Cincinnati who'd written books, who were journalists, who write blogs, men and women, and said, "Would you be interested in writing from 1-10 profiles, either as a volunteer," and many did, "or for a small honorarium?"

And if you took us up on that as well.

So we ended up, I think it was 34 different people wrote stories.

So I kind of became the managing editor of 34 people.

KELLAR: Wow.

MERCHANT: Yeah, but it was beautiful because that's an art form by itself to be able to write and to give your voice to a profile about someone.

You know, I edited for some continuity among them, but I tried to preserve the writer's voice.

And so they would conduct secondary research if the person was no longer with us to talk to them.

Everybody conducted an interview of the women who are contemporary, and each one is a fun story.

KELLAR: Yeah.

MERCHANT: One funny example that I love the most.

When I get a chance to read a story, I read this one.

Kathy Y. Wilson, who's an African-American woman from Cincinnati, a writer.

She writes for City Beat and whatnot, is in the book because she's also an artist and a writer.

And her sister wrote her profile.

Her sister was living in Washington, D.C., at the time, and I am going to have a huge moment here where her name is not fresh in front of my mind.

But she wrote the most beautiful essay about Kathy because it was from her heart about them growing up together.

So each one is a little bit different like that.

KELLAR: Yeah, that's a great -- I mean, that's a really wonderful idea because it puts, it makes people human instead of just, well, she did this, this, this.

MERCHANT: Right.

KELLAR: It's something about the person as a human being, which is really, really wonderful.

MERCHANT: Yeah, these stories are not resumes.

They're real.

And the nice thing is, it looks overwhelming.

Okay, 120 of them.

You can just read a couple at a time and get through it.

And that's what most people tell me that they do.

KELLAR: I kind of went to first and look for the people I knew.

MERCHANT: Yeah, then you met some new people then, right?

KELLAR: Yeah.

You know, Thea, oh, well, she's married to John Morris Russell.

MERCHANT: Right.

KELLAR: Has the thing, she gives talks about the women of Music Hall.

MERCHANT: Mm-hmm.

KELLAR: And I think people are starting to realize that women did have a significant impact on what we are today.

MERCHANT: Huge.

KELLAR: So, it's wonderful to make note of that.

And is that book available?

Where is that book available?

MERCHANT: A couple of different places.

You can buy it directly from ArtsWave.

And I should have mentioned that because my partner was ArtsWave, it's really a philanthropic initiative.

So we raised sponsorship dollars to cover the cost of getting the book designed and printed so that all the net proceeds benefit grants that ArtsWave will make.

So I don't get the royalties.

I think that's a very important thing for people to know that when you buy that book, you're -- it's a life cycle that you're continuing to support women in the arts.

So because of that ArtsWave can sell it directly.

You can go right on their website, ArtsWave.org and purchase it there, and they will ship it to you.

Joseph Beth carries it.

Amazon carries it.

And you can also buy it from our publisher.

And their name is Orange Frazer.

So it's OrangeFrazer.com.

KELLAR: Now we leap to your second book.

Okay, tell us about this one.

MERCHANT: Well, sticking with the theme of women, but that was kind of an accident.

We couldn't actually do a book launch for the first book because of COVID, and so instead I wrote a second book.

And I wrote a biography of Cathryn Hilker.

Her book is called Answering the Call of the Wild: The Remarkable Life of Cathryn Hosea Hilker.

She's a wonderful woman.

We had her book launch on her 90th birthday this past June 22nd, but I was able to write her biography in five months because it was COVID and I didn't have any distractions.

KELLAR: No, you had nothing else to do, that's great.

MERCHANT: Yeah, so we did interviews.

I have the recordings of her interviews.

And, you know, from the very first time I met her, the way the book should be organized to reflect the cool parts of her life became really clear.

And I only made one change in the order.

I mean, I made lots of changes in the story as things got written and whatnot.

But she grew up on a farm in Mason, Ohio, and went to Mason Public Schools.

Then her parents decided to transfer her to what is now Seven Hills.

KELLAR: Right.

MERCHANT: Which was a little bit of a shock for her.

She didn't feel quite prepared, so she worked very hard to get prepared.

And as soon as she finished college at University of Cincinnati, she did something really wild.

She became one of the women who went to Guam to provide songs and entertainment for the guys at the Air Force Base there.

KELLAR: Oh, my gosh.

MERCHANT: Uh-huh, when she was 26.

Yeah.

But even before that, she went to Africa alone with a fellow who was the part time veterinarian for the zoo and traveled with him for a month.

And that's when she really fell in love.

I mean, she was already in love with animals.

She had cats and dogs and cows and horses when she was a little girl.

So she, if you asked her, she would say she likes animals better than people.

KELLAR: Well, don't we all?

I mean, dogs?

Yeah.

MERCHANT: No, I like people better, actually.

KELLAR: No, no, no, I'm a dog person.

Are you?

Okay, well -- Not better than you, but -- MERCHANT: Cathryn loved all of them though.

There was no animal -- She was exposed to the cheetah at our Cincinnati Zoo at an early age as a child.

And then, when she went to Africa had that firsthand experience of seeing cheetahs in the wild and began to understand that they were an endangered species.

And she married late and had a child late.

But after that, she had the most massive second act of anybody I've ever met as a volunteer and then as a staff person at the Cincinnati Zoo.

She was a cat trainer and a champion for cheetahs and with her husband did as much as anybody to help with cheetah conservation globally in Namibia and in Cincinnati.

I mean, just an amazing story of what a woman's love and a passion for animals, and in this case, the cheetah could do.

She raised cheetahs on her farm.

She had two that she raised on her farm.

I mean, just I only know Cathryn is a one-er.

There is only one Cathryn Hilker and I was so privileged to be the one to write her story.

KELLAR: Well, I did a show with Cathryn a long time ago.

I've been doing this Showcase for 15 years, so it was early on where she brought Angel to the studio and with a little dog.

MERCHANT: That's right.

KELLAR: In Africa they sort of team up.

MERCHANT: They do.

And in fact, there may be another book in here about that very subject because the dogs were the secret sauce to help the ranchers not literally shoot the cheetahs to save their herd.

They didn't know that they had a choice, but the Cheetah Conservation Fund, which Cathryn also helped to support, discovered this along with others worldwide who are into conservation that these Anatolian shepherds could be trained to manage the herd and ward off cheetahs, leopards, everybody else, and protect the herd and protect the ranchers' livelihood.

So, I mean, that's like an amazing global event.

And so, yeah, the dogs are pretty key.

KELLAR: Yeah, they came in there with the trainers, and Cathryn and I sat in high chairs on the side of the set and we didn't have any -- I didn't get to pet her.

You know, I always want to hug an animal.

But then later, years later, I had two of the cats, pumas.

I can't remember the exact species, but two, and one they brought in and one of them wanted nothing of the show but wanted to inspect the studio and went all around.

The other one came up the step, at that time had steps up, it came up and fell asleep on the steps.

MERCHANT: That's so cute.

Was it a mountain lion?

KELLAR: Yeah, yeah, it was.

MERCHANT: That was another one of Cathryn's faves.

KELLAR: Right.

MERCHANT: Carrie Cougar was her favorite mountain lion.

KELLAR: Yeah, it was a fabulous experience.

The thing that amazed me is I got -- I was petting the one and it was purring, you know, and their fur is so dense you can't feel their skin.

I mean, I've never -- I've had -- I'll pet -- MERCHANT: Along their back?

KELLAR: Yeah.

MERCHANT: Or all over?

KELLAR: All over, it's just thick.

Not like a dog or a cat, or any other animal I've ever petted.

So I thought that was interesting.

But I've been to her lectures where she, you know, talks about this, the scientific and how they are the fastest.

MERCHANT: Yes.

KELLAR: And they can stop on a dime because of their claws.

MERCHANT: Yes.

KELLAR: Yeah.

MERCHANT: Her cheetah, Sarah, held, may still hold the world record for speed, and it was documented by National Geographic in 2012.

And I only remember the year precisely because I was able to buy the magazine.

You can buy old copies of National Geographic.

It's like, there she is, there's Sarah.

It was so cool.

KELLAR: How much time did she spend in Africa?

MERCHANT: It got to be well over a dozen times that she went back and forth.

So I don't know how long she was there each time.

KELLAR: Over what period, do you know?

MERCHANT: Well, starting when she was in her 20s for that fateful month long trip where she acquired her passion.

KELLAR: Yeah.

MERCHANT: And then as part of her role as a cat ambassador for the zoo, she would lead groups of half a dozen to 12 people.

They would go to Namibia, go to the Cheetah Conservation Fund.

KELLAR: Wouldn't you have loved to be a part of that?

MERCHANT: Absolutely.

KELLAR: Oh, my God.

MERCHANT: I would, to listen to Cathryn tell her stories about that, it's almost like being there.

She's a great storyteller.

Yeah, in fact, Cathryn herself wrote some of this book because, this is funny.

She had this massive trunk that it turns out after much hunting and pecking, we figured out that was the trunk she had from Guam when she went to the Air Force.

We're like, "Where did this thing come from?"

Well, it had photos and papers and Cathryn had written several stories.

She had started to write her own book.

And I thought, "Well, why would I not include those?"

So really Cathryn and I collaborated on writing her book, telling her story.

KELLAR: Did she ever have the cheetahs living with her?

MERCHANT: Yes, two of them, yep.

So Angel was her first cheetah.

And she wrote a book about Angel, which you can still buy on Amazon and at the Cincinnati Zoo.

And it's really written in such a way that it would be appealing to young readers.

But I found it entertaining as an adult.

And it talks about a trip that she took to Belize with the cat.

And, you know, just she did things that, according to Cathryn, would not be allowed today because, you know, they just wouldn't.

You can't travel with an animal on an airplane like that.

KELLAR: Well, you could for a while if it was a comfort animal.

MERCHANT: Well, maybe so, but I don't know about a cheetah.

KELLAR: Well, oh, no, people started bringing all sorts of peacocks and Great Danes, and they were not -- the reason the people abused it was they could bring any animal and call it a comfort animal, and then they didn't have to pay.

MERCHANT: Right.

KELLAR: It was $150.

It's $150 each way if you bring your little dog or cat or whatever in the box.

But people abused that because they didn't have to pay and the animal didn't have to be enclosed in anything.

And I said, "Well, what would they do with like a Great Dane said, "Well, he'd just sit in the aisle."

I thought, "Oh, my gosh."

And we have a friend who was a Delta pilot, and he's said that one time they got a memo when they realized they had to crack down on this.

The Delta employees got a memo that said Delta Airlines will no longer accept animals with hooves.

MERCHANT: Oh, that had to be too funny.

KELLAR: Yes.

MERCHANT: Talk about claws, the Cheetah's claws.

KELLAR: Or claws, they didn't say claws, but they said hooves.

So that would be goats, cows, horses.

Yeah, no more.

MERCHANT: In the old days, apparently, they didn't object because the cheetah got to fly to Belize with Cathryn to meet the president, and it was a pretty fun event.

KELLAR: I'm sure she was in the cabin with Cathryn because normally big animals have to be in cargo because we had to do that.

We had -- my daughter had a Neapolitan mastiff, and my German shepherd too one time, but they lost him, so I didn't do that again.

But, yeah, well, Cathryn's had such an incredible life, and she's still living.

MERCHANT: She is, indeed.

We had her 90th birthday on June 22nd at the zoo.

KELLAR: Yeah.

Do you have any books in your future?

MERCHANT: Well, you know, one of the -- that's why I hesitate when I said that being an author was my second or my third act.

My middle act, my second is that I'm a trained wine professional.

I'm actually a sommelier, right.

So for four years, three years, at least now, I've had in mind to write a book about wine.

But then these other books kind of came along and that keeps going on the back burner.

So it's in a middle burner right now and I'm not sure if that's going to happen, but I love to write.

I do hope there will be another one.

KELLAR: Well, you have to.

The world needs your books.

I mean, there's so -- I mean, how diverse.

The first one about just women and what they did and then about a cat, extremely-- MERCHANT: And a cat lady.

KELLAR: A cat and a cat lady, yeah.

Angel doesn't?

No, angel passed away a long time ago.

So did Sarah.

KELLAR: Yeah, when you said they did live with her, you know, when they had her here, there were great safety precautions.

So, is that because the animal doesn't know us and might -- MERCHANT: In part.

So Cathryn couldn't have them live with her as full grown adults.

She was able to raise them as a tiny baby up until a certain point.

And then they really need to be in a situation where they are managed and fed in a certain way.

But you know, Cathryn has pictures and stories about driving around with the cats in the back of her little car because her primary education tool was to go to schools and try to help children just have fun, for starters, but to slip in an educational moment about how important it was for you to care about animals and care about conservation.

Because it was more than cheetahs, it was the whole small cat lineup at the zoo.

She would drive around with them.

She goes, "I used to have a bald spot on the back of my head where the cheetah wouldn't be like, clawing her hair."

She didn't care.

KELLAR: Oh, my gosh, yeah.

MERCHANT: It was so cute.

MERCHANT: She has so many great stories.

What a life.

KELLAR: When they came my granddaughter was doing a paper on cheetahs and I said, "Well, you can come," you know?

And luckily I ask them and they said, "Oh, no, no, no."

And I said, "Well, you go to schools."

And said, "Well, the difference is in a school there's a large group, but one child is prey."

MERCHANT: Yeah.

KELLAR: And so she came and stayed in the control room.

But I thought that was really interesting.

But now, you know, she has them as babies until they get to the point.

The other thing, one of the things that says if the cat jumps up and puts his arms like this, because it is a wild creature, all of a sudden you're not their friend, you're prey.

Yes.

And so they're -- it's unpredictable.

MERCHANT: Well, Cathryn, one of her other contributions at the zoo as she learned how to manage, they're wild animals.

I mean you can't treat them like a house cat.

It just doesn't work that way.

KELLAR: Yeah.

MERCHANT: So, but she's trained the fantastic staff team that they have there.

So, for example, at Cathryn's birthday party we had 150 some odd people there, but we wanted a cheetah to come out and wish Cathryn happy birthday.

So there was a table separated from everybody else, and I think there were four of the staff team handling the cheetah with treats, with a leash.

I mean, they've got a whole very professional system for handling that, for safety, right?

For fun and for education, but also for safety.

It's very, very important.

KELLAR: Yeah, of course, I'm just fascinated because I love animals.

I'm a dog person rather than a cat, but those cats are just absolutely spellbinding.

MERCHANT: Well, you can still go visit.

I mean, the zoo has a very, very robust cheetah program, the Cheetah Run and a bunch of other things.

They are cheetah breeders to make sure that they don't, you know, they help with the extinction extinction problem.

Now, Cathryn doesn't do those programs anymore.

The staff team that she trained did.

But you can still go.

You can still have fun.

You can still see them.

There's a statue of a cheetah and also Carrie Cougar.

I think it must be Angel and Carrie Cougar that a sculptor, a local sculptor did.

And then I should mention as well that you can buy Cathryn's book and by so doing, benefit the zoo's cheetah conservation efforts.

At the zoo, at Joseph Beth, on Amazon.com, and once again from Orange Fraser, the publisher.

And the proceeds from those book sales will help cheetahs forever.

KELLAR: Yeah, so many people love cats.

My daughter has five cats.

Yeah, and the Cincinnati Zoo does incredible.

We have to be -- aren't we ranked up there like second?

MERCHANT: We are one, two, or three, depending on who's doing the rating.

KELLAR: Yeah.

MERCHANT: Yeah, it's a very, very special place.

KELLAR: The whole saga and fabulous story of Fiona, I mean, where else would you have such dedication?

MERCHANT: Absolutely.

KELLAR: I was dying to get my hands on her.

I had the chief curator on Showcase, and of course, I had ulterior motives also.

So I said, "How do I get to see her?"

So she made those arrangements.

But yeah, they have -- there's every day there's a different and wonderful perspective and animal and story, so you have to keep writing.

MERCHANT: Thank you.

KELLAR: Your wine book sounds good.

MERCHANT: I know, but so I'll have to figure out something that goes like this, though, when you think about it, how fortunate, how privileged am I that ArtsWave is the oldest and number one arts organization of its type in the United States, probably in the world.

And then our zoo, as we just discussed, is either one, two, or three, depending on who is doing the rating.

I don't think people in Cincinnati fully understand and appreciate those beautiful assets that we have here.

And here I was able to work with two of them to make these wonderful stories come to life.

So not sure what exactly to do to top that, but I'll be waiting for and open to it.

KELLAR: We'll be waiting also for your next book.

MERCHANT: Thank you, Barbara.

KELLAR: Thank you so much for coming.

It's really wonderful.

And two books, one about women in Cincinnati and the other one about Cathryn Hilker and her wonderful cheetahs.

MERCHANT: That's right.

KELLAR: So thanks for coming.

MERCHANT: Thank you.

I appreciate the opportunity.

- Join us next week for another episode of Showcase with Barbara Kellar right here on CET.

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