Asenior from Elliottville, Kentucky, I have been part of the Honors Program community since coming to the University of Kentucky.
I attended the Summer Environmental Writing Program (SEWP) in 2003. The College of Arts and Sciences awarded me a Dean's Scholarship for 2005-2006. I also had the opportunity to spend 5 weeks in Mexico this summer studying Spanish with the Kentucky Institute for International Studies.
Whether professionally or as a hobby, I plan to continue my writing. This story has been an amazing opportunity to try my hand at historical fiction. The link to family makes this piece even more special to me. Zoshia in the story is based on my great-grandmother and is the first story in a series documenting the progress of my family in the United States.
This project held the fascinating element of combining research gained through interviews with my maternal grandmother, online searches, and the creativity needed to fill in the gaps.
Working with my mentor, Jane Vance, was an incred¬ible experience. The discussions between the two of us have helped guide my writing and take it in directions yet unexplored.
My interests include reading, writing, exploring the outdoors, time spent with family and friends, guitar, and martial arts.
This is a portion of a longer work that includes the story of Zoshia leaving her home and embarking on her voyage. The complete story is included in the on-line version of Kaleidoscope at www.uky.edu/kaleidoscope/ fall2005.
Mentor:
Jane Gentry Vance
Professor, Department of English and in the Honors Program
Amanda Doerrfeld's series of six stories is unique among the tens of creative projects I have supervised during my thirty years of teaching at the University of Kentucky. Each of her stories blends carefully researched facts with dramatization of crucial events in the history of her parents and her grandparents on both sides of her family. After interviewing them, she filled in the gaps by imagining the motives, conversations, and circumstances that are lost to memory, thus re-creating the narrative of their lives, from the experiences of her immigrant grandmother coming in steerage from Poland to America just before World War II, to the adventures of her activist father in the 1960's in a commune in Eastern Kentucky. Thus she makes real, as both good historians and good fiction-writers do, a prototypical American family drama. Writing about herself and her own very particular family, she tells us about ourselves and our families. Using the methods of creative nonfiction, Amanda imaginatively explores the roots of American life.
(KALEIDOSCOPE FALL 2 0 0 5)
HOME
Thinking of her family was as painful as it was sweet. Zoshia hunkered in her allotted space and watched the families around her giving each other comfort. A father would cuddle his daughter to his chest when no amount of scolding would quiet her fear. A Mama would grow hungry as she gave the remainder of their food to the children and prayed that they would not grow sick in the dark confinement. There was even some laughter that was the physical expression of the hope that lay thickly even in the gloom. It was this hope that had led so many to leave what they knew behind, because there must be something better. Zoshia wanted her family around her; the backbone of strength she hadn't realized she rested on until she was alone. Though she learned to control and channel her fear as the days in steerage passed, her fright kept her apart from those around her. Fear of the unknown and longing for love gnawed at her belly as much as the hunger that inspired her hoarding of bread. Occasionally a kind soul would pull her from herself. A woman whose children had fallen asleep would look to her.
"Are you alright, child?" she would ask in the mother voice that woman earn as surely as their breasts swell with milk.
Zoshia never knew how to answer. She would say:
"I'm going to America." They would smile knowingly at her response, a gentle smile that allowed Zoshia to breathe easier and turned the
