2010.01.26: Comoros RPCV Ghlee Woodworth found her own unique vantage point to begin her history of Newburyport

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Comoros: January 23, 2005: Index: PCOL Exclusive: Comoros : 2010.01.26: Comoros RPCV Ghlee Woodworth found her own unique vantage point to begin her history of Newburyport

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Comoros RPCV Ghlee Woodworth found her own unique vantage point to begin her history of Newburyport

Comoros RPCV Ghlee Woodworth found her own unique vantage point to begin her history of Newburyport

Local pride ran deep in the Woodworth home, and if you ask her about her background, one of the first things Woodworth will tell you is that she's a twelfth-generation descendant of Robert Adams, one of the first settlers of Newbury. Still, despite a love for the local, Woodworth wanted to see the rest of the world. She studied environmental science and outdoor recreation at Unity College in Maine, then grad school down south, where she earned two master's degrees in physical education and outdoor education. She taught what she learned in the classroom: whitewater canoeing, rock climbing, rappelling and windsurfing before.taking a job as the assistant dean of students at Hendrix College in Arkansas. In 1991, Woodworth began a 13-year stint with the Peace Corps. She started as a volunteer in the Comoros Islands, one of the world's poorest nations, located off the coast of Mozambique. When her own two-year term of service as an environmental educator ended, she stayed on to train other volunteers headed for some of the most underdeveloped and troubled spots on the planet ‑ places like Turkmenistan, Bangladesh and AIDS-ravished Nambia. "It was pretty intense and very fast-paced," recalls Woodworth, who traveled to 45 countries during her years with the Corps. And while she describes it all as a wonderful experience, by 2004, she was ready to head back to Newburyport.

Comoros RPCV Ghlee Woodworth found her own unique vantage point to begin her history of Newburyport

New local book ‘Tiptoe Through the Tombstones,' picks up three awards

Ghlee Woodworth's first book captured top honors for Best Book Design in the annual New England Book Festival competition.

By Barbara Taormina / Newburyport@cnc.com
GateHouse News Service
Posted Jan 26, 2010 @ 09:00 AM
Newburyport -

History sometimes comes from unexpected places.

For generations, historians have relied on distant dates and big names to write sweeping accounts of the past. But more recently, students and scholars have found new approaches to history, and some of the most interesting studies have used settings and locations as a starting point. Writers have turned to factories and mills, amusement parks, highways, churches and other familiar places as a focus to explore different times and cultures.

Ghlee Woodworth found her own unique vantage point to begin her history of Newburyport. In her new book, "Tiptoe Through the Tombstones, Oak Hill Cemetery, Volume 1," she pieces together a picture of 19th-century Newburyport through the stories of 80 people laid to rest in the burial ground off State Street

Released last fall, the book was warmly welcomed by many in the city who appreciate local history, and by many more who have enjoyed Woodworth's guided tours of Newburyport cemeteries.

But "Tiptoe Through the Tombstones" is getting some attention and praise beyond the city limits. Woodworth was in Boston last weekend to collect several awards from the New England Book Festival, an annual competition held to highlight and foster the region's literary industry.

"Tiptoe Through the Tombstones" was named runner-up for the 2009 Book of the Year among some 1,300 entries. The book captured top honors for Best Book Design. It also was named runner-up in the Biography/Autobiography category, beating out the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's book, "True Compass."

Bruce Haring, managing director of JM Northern Media, says of Woodworth's book: "It was really innovative, and we were really pleased to have it in the festival.

"It was a really well done book ... very innovative, very unique ‑ a page turner." Haring also raved about the design.

But for Woodworth, the awards ceremony was more than a night of personal satisfaction; it was a night of recognition for the city.

"The history of Newburyport is very significant to New England, and the book epitomizes the importance of local history," she says.

Woodworth feels the community support and interest in "Tiptoe Through the Tombstones" sets it apart from other books.

"So many people have been excited about the book and the awards, as opposed to most books that are written by one person who has a dream to write something," she says.



A reluctant author

It's actually surprising that the book was written at all, since Woodworth will be the first one to admit she really doesn't like writing. It was actually a lucky lineup of the stars that brought "Tiptoe Through the Tombstones" into print.

Woodworth grew up on Prospect Street, in a home and in a family that was all about Newburyport. Just about everyone in the city knew her father, Todd, in one way or another, since there were so many ways in which to know him. Todd Woodworth was a funeral director, a local historian, city councilor, a runner, a volunteer for Yankee Homecoming and director of the city's board of health for decades.

Local pride ran deep in the Woodworth home, and if you ask her about her background, one of the first things Woodworth will tell you is that she's a twelfth-generation descendant of Robert Adams, one of the first settlers of Newbury.

Still, despite a love for the local, Woodworth wanted to see the rest of the world. She studied environmental science and outdoor recreation at Unity College in Maine, then grad school down south, where she earned two master's degrees in physical education and outdoor education. She taught what she learned in the classroom: whitewater canoeing, rock climbing, rappelling and windsurfing before.taking a job as the assistant dean of students at Hendrix College in Arkansas.

In 1991, Woodworth began a 13-year stint with the Peace Corps. She started as a volunteer in the Comoros Islands, one of the world's poorest nations, located off the coast of Mozambique.

When her own two-year term of service as an environmental educator ended, she stayed on to train other volunteers headed for some of the most underdeveloped and troubled spots on the planet ‑ places like Turkmenistan, Bangladesh and AIDS-ravished Nambia.

"It was pretty intense and very fast-paced," recalls Woodworth, who traveled to 45 countries during her years with the Corps. And while she describes it all as a wonderful experience, by 2004, she was ready to head back to Newburyport.



Tiptoeing behind Todd

While she was away, her father ‑ who had long been the go-to guy for information about the city's past and its early residents ‑ had started sharing his love of local history by giving tours of Oak Hill Cemetery. "Tiptoe Through the Tombstones with Todd" had been a popular event at community celebrations like Yankee Homecoming for 18 years, and when her father died, Woodworth decided to step in and continue the tours.

"I knew nothing about local history," she recalls. "I only went on one tour with my father, and that was to take some pictures."

But Woodworth soon discovered she loved looking into the past. Digging for information on the people buried at Oak Hill Cemetery, and the time in which they lived, became a passion.

She also discovered how much she appreciated Oak Hill, which, like Mount Auburn Cemetery in Watertown, was founded in the first half of the 19th century. Both cemeteries were envisioned as community gardens, a peaceful escape where families could stroll and even picnic.

"It's not a sad place or a scary place," says Woodworth, referring to the more modern concept of a cemetery as a setting exclusively devoted to grief and ghosts.

"A cemetery is a place to learn about history and the people who make up the community," she says. "I like them because they are peaceful and because you are walking where people walked during the 17th and 18th centuries."

Although Woodworth's cemetery tours were just as popular as her father's had been, other aspects of her homecoming were not quite as smooth.

Back in Newburyport, she was unable to find a full-time job and, despite an impressive resume, the search went on for years.

"I got so burned out," she recalls. "I was emotionally demolished from all the rejection."



Reporting their stories

But in the fall of 2007, she happened to catch a talk that local author Jean Foley Doyle was giving about her book, "Life in Newburyport 1900-1950."

"It was personal; it was local; it was something real," recalls Woodworth.

She considered turning all of her research on Oak Hill into her own book, but there was that one sticking point ‑ she didn't like writing.

After talking to both Foley and Jay Williamson, curator of The Historical Society of Old Newbury, who is also at work on a local history of Newburyport, she leaned that writers rarely go it alone ‑ they have editors. Woodworth teamed up with Jane Uscilka, an editor who came highly recommended by other local historians.

She then gave herself permission to take a year off and work on her book.

Woodworth knew from the beginning the type of history she wanted to write.

"I wanted it to be about people," she says, "and I wanted it to be real."

And she wanted it to be inclusive. She looked at her own parents as models for how to write a history of a particular place. Her father had a very public role in the community complete with elected and appointed positions. Her mother, Grace, was, as she says, "a behind-the-scenes" person, a teacher's aide for special needs kids who also volunteered with the Girl Scouts and the Red Cross.

"My parents contributed in different ways," says Woodworth, adding that it takes all types of work to build a community and create a local history.

"Tiptoe Through the Tombstones" tells the stories of some of Newburyport's movers and shakers: the ship captains, the entrepreneurs and the political leaders. But Woodworth's history also includes accounts of people whose lives were led outside of the spotlight.

"It takes many citizens to build a community, and some of the people I've written about were well known for their contributions during their lifetime. Some were not," she says, in the book's introduction. "The majority of people who make up our community will never be part of a book or written about in a local newspaper, but this does not mean that he or she made any less contribution to their community, today or two hundred years ago."

Woodworth not only wants to recognize and record some of those contributions, large and small; she hopes her stories from Oak Hill will build an interest in Newburyport's rich and complex history. She is already at work on volume 2 of what she has said will be a series of four books that present a heritage everyone who now lives in Newburyport shares.

Creating a communal sense of pride and identity through local history is a big challenge, but one Ghlee Woodworth is happy to accept.

"I didn't write this book for me," she says. "I wrote it for Newburyport."




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