Almost a decade ago, while she was helping her mother transition to an assisted living facility, Melora Fern ran across an old, blue-striped box marked “Family history.” What she discovered in the box would change her path and inspire her first book.
“In among a bunch of photographs and different things, I found out that my grandmother, before she married and had my mom, was a whistler,” said Fern, who, in 2022, moved from Texas to Hillsborough.
Her grandmother was a professional whistler who traveled from town to town with Circuit Chautauqua, a popular form of cultural and intellectual entertainment from the late 19th and early 20th centuries that brought lectures, music, drama and other specialists to rural and small-town communities.
“At the height of their time, in 1924, there were more than 10,000 different circuits throughout the entire United States and up into Canada, and they reached more than 4 million people,” Fern said.
Similar to traveling religious revivals, Circuit Chautauqua would set up a large tent as the venue for several days of educational information and “high-brow” entertainment. And that included professional musical whistlers like Fern’s grandmother, who also played trombone.
The Hillsborough author became fascinated with the art of whistling and with the history of the Chautauqua traveling shows. So much so that the basis of her debut novel, “Whistling Women and Crowning Hens,” which takes place in the 1920s and follows the fictional character Birdie Stauffer, a whistler on a train-traveling roadshow. She joins the all-female Versatile Quintet, a Chautauqua circuit opening act, and goes on a raucous adventure mixed with flappers, smuggled whiskey, travel, romance and misunderstandings.
Fern’s grandmother had long ago passed, and her mother’s Alzheimer’s condition greatly limited any available first-hand resource, so the Texas native relied on the box of family history and doing her own research.
“My grandmother traveled with what was called Swarthmore Chautauqua, and it was out of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania,” Fern said. “I went up there and spent a while at their library. It had boxes of old train schedules, old rule books. It was a treasure trove of information for help me to make my story more authentic.”
Soon, Fern was consuming enough history and background on the Chautauqua shows that she was able to build the setting and experiences for someone who would have traveled and performed with the circuit. And then there was the whistling.
“Back in the turn of the century, whistling was a very popular music,” she said. “And it wasn’t just whistling bird calls. It was, like, instead of the violin solo, it was whistling an aria or a solo with an orchestra or a band.”
Fern found out that her grandmother took a correspondence whistling course in the early 1920s, from a school in Los Angeles.
Agnes Woodward, an American music educator and professional whistler, founded and led the California School of Artistic Whistling, and taught a number of celebrities, including John Wayne, Bing Crosby and Pat Boone.
“I found out my grandmother had perfect pitch, and that’s what made her unique in the whistling world,” Fern said. “That’s the biggest struggle with whistling with a band or orchestra is staying on pitch. Because she naturally could hear the pitch, she could whistle in pitch without any trouble. So of course, the main character in my book has that.”
For the record, Fern said she has average whistling skills.
“Whistling Women and Crowing Hens” took more than eight years for Fern to write and have published. While she’s been an avid reader throughout her life, Fern had a career in accounting, leaving much of her writing experience to emails and other work-related paperwork. She knew she would need to develop her writing skills.
“In addition to trying to flesh out the story, I needed to hone my craft of creative writing” she said. “I went to workshops, and I took online creative writing courses through different continuing education programs and then I found this writers critique group, and just kept taking the comments back and working it into my story and making my story better. I definitely would not have a story without all that helpful critique.”
Once she was finished and happy with her manuscript, Fern began the arduous task of cold-calling and writing to find a publisher for her book. After nearly a year of futile efforts, she found Sibylline Press, a California-based, woman-owned company that publishes works by women.
“The day I found out they accepted my story, I ran around my house, whooping and hollering,” she said,
Through a local book club, Fern met Lee Smith, a nationally known and local favorite who, as it turned out, was a neighbor. She took a leap of faith, and asked Smith if she would write a blurb — a comment that is used to promote a book — for “Whistling Women and Crowing Hens.”
“She said ‘yes,’ and I got it to her that week,” Fern said. “Within 10 days, she had written this beautiful blurb. On top of that, she went to Sharon (Wheeler) at Purple Crow Books and said, ‘You’ve got to have an author event for her.’ Lee Smith has just been the best.”
Melora Fern’s book “Whistling Women and Crowing Hens” is available at Purple Crow Books at 109 W. King St. in downtown Hillsborough. Upcoming events to mark the book’s release are as follows:
Sept. 17 6:30–8:30 p.m., at The English Garden Florist
Whistling Women and Crowing Hens will be the inspiration for Books & Blooms, a floral design class that includes a signed copy of WWCH, local blooms, arrangement class, and light refreshments at The English Garden Florist in Raleigh at 8820 Gulf Ct., Raleigh 27617
Sept. 18 6:30 p.m., hosted by Purple Crow Books
Melora Fern will be in conversation with local author, Melissa Bourbon at Thomas Stevens Gallery at 126 W. King St., hosted by local bookstore, Purple Crow Books, in Hillsborough. Light refreshments provided, no RSVP necessary, free
Oct. 26 4:00-6:00 p.m. Hosted by Scuppernong Books
Dual Author event with Melora Fern and fellow Sibyl author, Suzanne Uttaro Samuels at Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro, free