Frances R. Schmidt

Hi, I’m Fred

My Novice Novelist blog has now transitioned to FRED’S MEMORIES, a blog written through the voice of FRED: Buffalo Building of Dreams.  Currently in the publication process, the book will be available in 2021 through BookBaby Publishing.

Hi. My name is FRED and this is my very first blog. I’m an apartment building who has waited patiently to tell the story about many of the tenants who lived in my building from 1900-2018. I tried to get someone to listen, but it was decades before someone actually heard my plea.  Finally, in 2006 Fran Schmidt, the woman in the black Toyota, heard my voice.  It took her another six years to actually begin work on this multi-period historical fiction novel, but my story started to come to fruition in 2012 when she began writing about me.

I want her to know I appreciate her, her research partners, and the new friends and acquaintances who believe in me and my tales.  They all make me feel so alive! Great thanks also goes out to the BookBaby Publishing for publishing this novel in 2021.

I am so excited that I’m actually still standing and currently undergoing a preservation process.  My new apartments will be authentic and almost like they were when I was first built and will then be the home to a new generation of tenants with their own amazing stories! My own blog is launching now because I want my potential readers to be excited too.

You will learn interesting historical information decade-by-decade…about how I came alive and lived vicariously through the lives of many of my immigrants, refugees, internal migrants, and descendants of enslaved peoples of Africa, They were German, Sicilian, Italian, Irish, Polish, Hungarian, Canadian, English, French, Puerto Rican, Jewish and African American.

I provided shelter and comfort to my tenants after they had experienced extreme poverty and the effects of war and other traumas. Freedom was the common denominator that tied each generation of tenants together regardless of their backgrounds. I’m not human, but I have learned first-hand through these amazing people, what it’s like to be one.

I can’t wait to tell you more…

 

The Woman in the Black Toyota

I wouldn’t have a novel being published about me without the woman in the black Toyota.  It took decades for someone to hear me and I don’t know if it was by chance or fate, but through telepathy she was the only one able to hear my plea. “Please tell my story before it’s too late.”

In the Spring of 2006, she drove by me looking puzzled, at 8:15 a.m., on the busy Niagara Street on the West Side of Buffalo, New York I call home.  When she turned with a lingering look in my direction, I thought maybe a miracle had occurred and hoped it wasn’t my imagination.

For the next several years, I saw her black Toyota pass by me and noticed that she always turned her head in my direction. I would see her stop by weekly at Carm and Sal’s Gas Station, directly across the street from me. She would buy gas and visit for five or ten minutes, talking to either the father or the son who pumped her gas. I watched as they all would glance in my direction or point to the changes taking place on the outside of my building.

Although I was unable to communicate with her directly, I knew she heard me, and I never gave up hope that she would tell my story. Time was taking its toll and I kept deteriorating a little bit at a time.  I was becoming slightly desperate because I wanted to share my rich history with current and future generations before it was too late.  I wanted people to have the opportunity to honor my tenants who were immigrants, refugees, internal migrants, and descendants of enslaved Peoples of Africa; their tales paying tribute to their struggle for freedom, and their lives proud legacies for current and future generations of Americans.

Then it happened and I’ll never, ever forget 2012.  This was the year the woman in the black Toyota pulled right up in front of my building and spoke to me.  “Here I am FRED.  I’m here to learn more about you and begin researching your story.  I have to find out why you spoke to me.   Never in my whole life has a building talked to me.”

Eventually, I found out that when she first saw me…heard me…she was shocked and couldn’t believe what had just happened to her. She rushed into her office which was not very far down the road from me, and scribbled down notes on a scrap pieces of paper.  As the years passed by, she told everyone she worked with about me, Building #1469 on the corner of Niagara Street and Potomac Avenue. That was me before I got a real name.  Fred.

I’ll tell you more about how her research team emerged next time. I can’t wait.

 

It’s Happening Soon!

FRED and I are getting excited because soon the editorial process will be complete and FRED: Buffalo Building Of Dreams, a multi-period novel will be published in the early of Spring of 2021 through BookBaby Publishing.

The Revision Process

Hard work is now underway for this Novice Novelist.  I’m currently making revisions and changes as suggested by my developmental editor and have a deadline of two months to complete my task.  Yesterday I was able to spend a significant number of hours on the manuscript and will have hundreds more to go before I finish. There are many goals that must be achieved before Fred’s words will reach readers. It’s important to stay focused and I’m learning the importance of constructive feedback. It’s exciting and challenging at the same time, and I love revisiting Fred’s tale through the process.

I’m only guessing how many hours it will take for me to finish working on Fred’s novel, but will spend as many hours as necessary to finish the work on time or earlier.  How grateful I am to have expert advice.  Writing a novel is a process that continues long after the book has been completed, revised several times, and pre-publication edited. I hope to tell Fred’s story with his strong voice filled with the emotions he felt by being a good listener.

I’ve written Fred’s story longhand and have rewritten each chapter multiple times. I have to feel the words as I write them. Needless to say, I do have two fingers I use to write with that stand out from the others. I look at both and smile because there’s nothing I can do about it.  If they feel stiff I bend them backwards and they are pen ready again.

Somehow, I was selected to take this journey back in time.  Before Fred’s voice spoke to me my books were nonfiction.  Now I have an appreciation for history and have learned the importance of research.  My characters are all important and Fred’s novel is a legacy of hope for all generations.  My message to beginning historical novelists is to keep writing and work hard to get your story completed no matter how long it takes. It’s a journey with twists and turns before your widened path leads to a chance to move forward to publication.

 

Fred, Buffalo’s Building of Dreams Architect, Edward F. Pickett, sets the stage for decades of unique characters

It happened in 2006 when this story was destined to be told.  The building’s voice haunted me for another six years before I could begin the research on the dilapidated empty four-story apartment building located on the corner of Niagara and Potomac on Buffalo, New York’s West Side.  It talked to me via mental telepathy, as I passed by on my way to work.

In 2012, I vowed to find out why I heard the building’s plea.  “Please tell my story before evidence of my existence is gone.”  Now looking back in time, I realize it was the beginning of a compelling story waiting to be told about the legacy of many of “Fred’s” tenants and their families who lived in the building from 1900 through 2020.

An Orphan Building Research Team of three was organized, including me and at the time, Pat, Janet and I were novice historical researchers.  After six more years, we became seasoned researchers with a detailed biography of an apartment building growing up in the 20^th Century and beyond.

We couldn’t wait to find out who built apartment building 1469! Our team discovered that forty-two year old Irish-American Edward F. Pickett was the architect. His father was a laborer and his mother was a seamstress who lived on the West Side of Buffalo, New York.

Edward was a go-getter and by 1895 he was employed by Bull & Brown, a local bicycle manufacturer located on Main and Chippewa Streets in the City of Buffalo, New York.  There he became a department manager, skilled in developing bicycle-related patents.  By 1896, he was Vice President and Secretary of the Non Punctual Tire Company.  Within a year he was a draftsman for the Great Northern Fire Elevator Company, a storage facility.  Our research team was amazed by his achievements and traced him as long as possible, but had to move on mainly because we had to find out was who building 1469’s builder and first owner?

These important people in the history of 1469 Niagara St.; the architect, builder, and first owner, constructed the framework for an enormous cast of characters.   The individuals arrived in my mind only after extensive research going back in time, year by year, reviewing major historical events in Buffalo and America, both nationally and internationally, focusing on the effects on immigrants, refugees, internal migrants, and descendants of enslaved peoples of Africa who arrived in Buffalo between 1900 and 2020.

Each character revealed themselves slowly only after reviewing and re-reading research notes for hours and hours at a time. Then, there was a second and third wave of notes with character ideas that fit perfectly into the historical period of time.  Gradually, all my characters felt like an extended family and I tried to make them speak the way they would if they were alive today.  Each chapter was written and rewritten at least three or more times until I felt satisfied.  Many character questions had to be answered.  For example, why did they move into the building? What were their back stories? How did they handle hardships, loss, and despair?  What happened to them in the future? How did they survive and have hope for life in America?

Our team identified each tenant that lived in the building from 1900 to 2020, including their ages, occupations, family members, borders, and employment, knowing it was impossible to be completely accurate because of possible recording errors.  It took about two years before building #1469 got the name Fred and readers of the unusual reason knew why first hand. Edward F. Pickett was a remarkable character and little did he know he was setting the stage for a legacy of many generations.

Buffalo’s West Side Renaissance- The Mentholatum Company, Fred and Me

Buffalo’s West Side Renaissance was well underway when I discovered that the Mentholatum Company was in the process of being repurposed as a 54 market-rate apartment building with commercial or retail space.  Hearing this news made me think about how the Metholatum Company first came to my attention.

It happened when two new tenants, Hungarian brothers, and characters of my imagination moved into one of Fred’s second floor apartments back in 1965.  The brothers could only afford to move into the building because they were hired to work at the Mentholatum Company.  They worked as boxers and packers of products for distribution to all parts of the free world, which also included filling orders in many different languages.

The Company was built in 1919 and had natural sunlight, was clean and spotless, with modern equipment.  The Mentholatum Company took crystals of menthol taken from hermetically sealed cans and compounded them in glass and tanks.  The product was used as an external application for the cure of many inflammations including sore throats, ear aches, headaches, chapped hands and more.  The company also donated almost two hundred thousand jars of Mentholatum to help win the release of Cuban invasion prisoners in 1965.

Writing about Fred and his dream of leaving a legacy of hope to honor all of the tenants he was able to observe and connect with over a hundred twenty year period of time, was a challenge.  For myself and co-researchers Janet Mazzaroppi and Patricia Smyton, it was a decades-long history lesson with multiple twists and turns.  My goal was to discover time-tested factual information and create realistic characters who share what their life was like in their historical period of time.

Fred the building, was my inspiration and through unusual circumstances managed to take me on the adventure of a lifetime.  Writing this new novel was tough because I want to give my readers a personal view of what this novice novelist experienced in the past nine years.  To be honest my characters became an extended family.  Often when I talked about them to my researchers and “Fred’s Friends” they asked me if the characters were real.

Please visualize a gigantic inflated balloon filled with historical research such as story lines, drafts, outlines, revisions, ideas, scraps of paper without lines, questions looking for answers and answers, and notebooks piled high, that kept generating more questions and interview topics.  I was afraid it was going to burst open before I finished the book.  Year after year, each topic inside my balloon was explored.  There was nothing in the balloon that showed me exactly what to do first or last.  I was excited, driven, and determined to tell Fred’s story, like he dreamed it would be told.

Then it happened in 2020.  My balloon burst into a full-fledged historical novel ready for publication. It is the culmination of FRED’s dream to seal his tenants legacy of hope for current and future generations of immigrants, refugees, internal migrants and his descendants of peoples of Africa who also lived in his apartment building.

 

Research Puzzle Pieces

Research puzzle pieces became the roots of this historical novel.  They were the seeds of decades of historical facts that had to be rechecked multiple times to ensure their accuracy.  My large manila envelopes became a constant reference regarding Fred’s building.

Year by year, each envelope was filled with tiny and large bits of valuable information I could find easily tucked into their proper envelopes.  Edward F. Pickett, the architect, John C. Muessen, the builder, and Evelina Spanner, the building’s first real owner come alive fictitiously on the pages of this book.  My readers will learn about their lives in the context of the historical times they lived in.

The hardest part of creating each character took place after I reread inches of truth-based research. Janet and Pat were diligent partners with excellent questions and ideas I could use to explore the unknown. I believe it was Fred’s plea for help that created a constant desire in me find out why I was selected to write his story, before evidence of his existence was gone.

What surprised our Orphan Building Research Team of three the most was how vital it was to provide accurate historical information about what life was like for all of the characters in the novel. Over the decades Fred was often a quiet observer without their knowledge.  He was only able to communicate via mental telepathy to three people. All of his other tenants in the book were quietly observed and honored while he learned what it was like being human, yet knowing he would never be one.   Before I knew it, each character became real, almost like family in my mind’s eye. I feel privileged to have been able to peek into their lives and with Fred’s help, putting Research Puzzle Pieces together into a legacy of hope for all generations.

It wasn’t long before I realized I had to figure out how to organize all the research our team was generating about our sad looking apartment building, number 1469.  It was important to find a way to make it easier to categorize the research and I was worried about how long it would take before the novel’s first draft would appear on paper.

I had to write the entire book in long hand because it was the only way I could make the novel could come alive. It was a challenging process.  First, I had to read the research over and over and it was a struggle to create the first chapter. It took a lot of thinking, writing, and constantly revisiting our research. I began by describing building 1469’s current physical state and then decided to describe what he looked like as a brand new building in 1900.  His current physical condition was poor, except for his structural integrity.

As often as I could, I drove by Fred and waved to an empty building. For the first couple of months building 1469 had no name.  But in a future blog, I’ll tell you an amazing story about how he was named and wondered if it was by chance or fate.

For a while I continued to use my small white one inch notebooks with the subject matter inserted in a plastic holder on the front of the notebooks.  When they could no longer hold any more information I transferred the research into several large three to four inch notebooks.  The building’s ownership was traced backwards from 2012 back to 1900 and then forward to 2015 when the book ends.

It was a priority to find a way to be able to find all the information immediately.  I’m not good at looking at file folder labels, so I selected extra-large manila envelopes, twenty-seven of them, and filled each one of them with priceless knowledge from the past.

Keeping Track of Time

As the author of a first time historical novel, I was responsible for establishing The Orphan Building Research Team’s research goals and objectives. I did this by scheduling time alone, for planning the bi-weekly follow-up research questions we needed to answer. Then, it was important to coordinate our team research sessions.  In-between these sessions, we planned field trips to various research sites and scheduled multiple interviews with individuals who grew up on the West Side of Buffalo, New York.

Time became a priority and a balancing act for all of us. When we were researching together, time evaporated right before our eyes.  We would look up from our pile of research books and it would almost be time to leave and live our separate lives. Time was special and we knew that Fred was afraid that his story wouldn’t be told before evidence of his existence was gone.

I began the creative process slowly, yet gingerly, because the novel had to be truth-based first and foremost.  Fred’s apartment building had to be described as accurately as possible from the time he was built in 1900 until a hundred and fifteen years later.   It took time to read and reread our research using my hand written notes, while my characters waited on the sidelines to emerge on the page.  Eventually, I also wrote the entire book in longhand, over and over, chapter by chapter.

After letting my pages marinate while I worked on a new chapter, I would go back, revise and rewrite the previous one again, hoping the three major fingers on my right hand would survive until the project typist could type the entire novel.  Each chapter was revised again at least two or more additional times.

Time was both a friend and a challenge.  Time is a perfect writer’s companion.

 

Stepping back into the 1900’s

Our journey into the past began when the Orphan Building Research Team parked our cars in the lot of the Church of Latter Day Saints Family History Center, waiting for their door to open. It was incredibly exciting, as we were greeted by two friendly research volunteers at the center. We came prepared with a list of basic questions; Who was Fred’s architect and his first owner? and How much did the land and the building cost in 1900?