An Occasional Tribute

(from 2019)

I will always retain fond memories of Rachael. We corresponded regularly for ten years, both on history matters and other matters too. We emailed, we shared blog comments, and tweeted too.

One of my correspondents who contacted me back-channel could not believe she was only 41. He thought, from her insights and comments, that she was much older. She was a tenacious researcher who argued her point of view passionately. I must confess that I didn’t always agree with her point of view, but that’s human life for you, and I couldn’t fault her conviction and turn of phrase to express it.

In fact my alter ego, Occasional Reader, came about through disagreement. It was friendly disagreement, but disagreement none the less. Many years ago on this blog, Rachael wrote a long piece about how she viewed certain members of a religious group. She’d had some bad personal experiences. I couldn’t argue about her experiences because I wasn’t there and I felt for her, because what happened just wasn’t right. However, I did feel that others were being “tarred with the same brush.” I broke one of my own rules and decided to respond online and on the defensive. I was an “occasional reader” of her blog, so to preserve my anonymity, that’s what I called myself. Back came a lengthy well-written response on the blog. I still didn’t agree with her I must confess, but almost immediately. I decided that an open forum was not the place to discuss such matters and the conversation went back-channel.

Not very long after I was invited to submit something for her blog, as far away from religious history as could be. So I started writing – sometimes occasionally, sometimes frequently. Rachael had soon worked out who I was, and that was OK, and actually – being fairly adept at sleuthing – I soon found out her real name too. But I never told her or anyone else for that matter. She had a right to her privacy.

So the years went by. I wrote and researched for Rachael and Bruce and also followed up the quirks of history that appealed to me. I’d written on this subject for many years in different contexts, and had a wide range of contacts, but this project provided me some regular focus and continuity. We shared resources and Bruce and Rachael entrusted me with rare materials that needed checking.

On the pixie blog I learned about Rachael’s family, and their nicknames. I learned about her book collecting and library – a passion I shared. I learned about her holding down several jobs while seriously ill, being determined not to give in to the adversity of her medical condition until it was absolutely forced upon her. I learned about the goats, the family history back in the old country, and all the artwork of pixies and children. I learned about her eclectic music tastes, from swing to hymns to country and western (come back Marty Robbins, all is forgiven). I received and enjoyed Pixie Warrior. In return I told slightly exaggerated tales of our family’s doings, with an occasional serious rant on something interspersed. So Rachael knew of Mrs O, my wife Lyn, and also had her own correspondence with my daughter, Amy, who sings and records. We sing too, after a fashion, but Amy REALLY sings.

So it is the end of an era. I am sorry never to have met her in person, but the global village of today means that most of our contacts are probably people we will never actually meet. I put that right with some when I visited historic sites in America in 2014, and who knows, one day maybe a book will come out of that. But Washington State was just too far away, and anyway, I think the distance and anonymity suited Rachael still. We will all miss her.