What was to have been the spring issue of the Bucks County literary journal Neshaminy, became the Fall/Winter issue, published in late 2020 and circulating now, in early 2021.
It’s the second edition of the Doylestown Historical Society and the Bucks County Writers Workshop collaborative effort and it is true to its promise, as Stuart Abramson, publisher explains, “that well-written stories, essays and poems that humanize the rich history of Bucks County, will always have a place here.”
With the first issue, published in October 2019, Abramson said, “we confirmed that rumors of the death of the printed word are premature.”
Sales were robust enough, he said, “to recover our publication costs and then some.”
The coronavirus pandemic, of course was mostly responsible for the publishing delay. David L. Updike, managing editor at the time, said, “Because much of our distribution still relies on good old-fashioned person-to-person transactions through bookstores and events, we felt that this delayed response would help us better reach our audience.”
The new issue holds some attention grabbers – like the story of Ralcy Bell. Bucks County has always attracted an unusual mix of residents, many in search of a hideaway, a private place removed from big-city bustle. Bell was one of those people, a mysterious occupant of a stone house he called Sycamore Lodge in the village of Centre Bridge.
“Ralcy Husted Bell, a retired alienist, a term used in his day for psychiatrist, was a prolific and widely varied author,” writer Don Swaim says in a story for Neshaminy, “as a causal glance at his bibliography suggests. He wrote at least three books on language, others on art and social matters, as well as indulging in his own poetry.”
In 1931, Ralcy met his death, in a strange and unpredictable way. For a while local authorities questioned whether it was murder or suicide. They concluded that Ralcy was the victim of his own ingenuity, but not until they explored his life, his relatives or lack of them, and his neighbors’ opinions.
The true story is called “Racy Bell: Knight of the Loyal Heart,” and the title may be romantically significant.
Lester Trauch, longtime “Man About Town” for the daily Intelligencer, who died in 2001, was involved in the unearthing of an unpublished piece by author James A. Michener.
Doylestown lawyer Frank N. Gallagher was executor of Trauch’s estate. He discovered a manuscript by Michener noting “Copy given to Lester Trauch for editing.”
The manuscript, written at Michener’s home in Tinicum Township in 1987, described Doylestown as Michener knew it when he was growing up, between 1907 and the early 1920s. It is a snapshot of small-town America in the early 20th century and “The Doylestown of My Early Years” is printed for the first time in the Neshaminy journal.
Melinda Cox the local librarian told Michener, “I do believe you and Margaret have read every book on our shelves.” That was Margaret Mead, the anthropologist.
“The Things Joseph Pickett Left Behind,” is a story of an artist in the primitive style. He had no academic training but became well known for his paintings of the river towns. His painting “Manchester Valley” is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Pickett is famous in another way – as a highlight of the Ghost Tours of New Hope. Adele Gamble, who leads the tours, encountered Pickett during a seance. “He is a quiet, gentle man,” she said.
Once a Parisian, Daniel Dorian has written earlier of his days growing up during World War II, but after living in New York for many years and a career in film production, he settled into a house once occupied by an artist of the Phillips’ Mill colony. For Neshaminy’s second issue, he has contributed “Fear and Expectation: A Theatrical Experiment.”
It’s a profile of Alex Fraser, the producing director of the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope.
“No producer could function if he somehow didn’t look forward to facing and surmounting the risk element present in any theatrical enterprise. All producers are gamblers at heart,” Dorian wrote.
Like so many other precious enterprises from Bucks County’s past, the venerable Playhouse had fallen into decay when Kevin and Sherri Daugherty purchased the Playhouse and created a nonprofit, they hired Jed Bernstein, an eminently successful Broadway producer, who got the revived theater off the ground.
When Bernstein left, the Daughertys offered the position to Fraser, who hired Robyn Goodman as executive producer.
The Bucks County Playhouse was an experiment from the beginning, back in 1939, but Bernstein, Fraser and Goodman engineered the second experiment and through the pandemic, the theater is surviving. Dorian’s story helps us brush up on the refreshing world of entertainment right here in our backyard.
Another New Yorker is highlighted in a story about the legendary Dorothy Parker. “The House Dorothy Parker Lived In” is a history of the purchase of a house occupied by squatters and turned into an elegant stone mansion.
The new managing editor, William J. Donahue, invites contributors of all ages to submit work of fiction, history, memoir, poetry, photographs and illustrations for consideration in the issue of Summer 2021. Send to neshaminyjournal@gmail.com.
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