From
Insurance to Theater
Delivered by
Bruce Arnold, April 8, 2008
At the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, New Bern, NC
In the late 1700’s, southern
Ohio was a virtual paradise. Blessed by rich land, abundant water, forests
and plains and rolling hills, and wildlife of every description, those who
lived there considered themselves richly blessed.
Those who lived there were relatively few, and
predominantly Shawnee. A trickle of French voyageurs and British soldiers
had visited this paradise. That was soon to change. The trickle became a
torrent.
Led by backwoodsmen like Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton,
and Simon Girty, citizens of the new American Republic moved westward in
droves. Many had been given land grants as payment for service in the
Revolution. Others came to homestead. Some sought adventure. Some came
because of conscience.
By 1776, all American Quakers had freed their slaves.
Those who would not were kicked out. So strong was the anti-slavery
feeling among Quakers – including Daniel Boone – that virtually all
who lived in Virginia and the Carolinas emigrated to the new free
territories of Ohio and Indiana as soon as they could. The Quaker meeting
where I pastored, West Elkton Friends, was founded in 1803. I know many
people still farming the same land their forebears settled 200 years ago.
This did not sit well with the Shawnee. Their
ancestral home was being transformed into something both unrecognizable
and, from their viewpoint, unsustainable. Several of them grew to
prominence in resisting this influx. Best known among them were
Bluejacket, and the brothers Tecumseh and Tenskatawa, better known as The
Prophet.
Tecumseh in particular saw the danger as one
affecting all the tribes west of the Blue Ridge, and not just the Shawnee
in Ohio. He traveled for months, as far south as Mississippi and as far
west as Missouri to raise support among the tribes. He fought bravely for
his homeland and was instrumental in thwarting an American invasion of
Canada during the War of 1812. He was killed in battle near Chatham,
Ontario, in 1813.
Legend also says that he was in love with Rebecca
Galloway, daughter of James Galloway, who settled near Tecumseh’s home
village just north of modern-day Xenia. It is fact that Tecumseh was a
friend and regular visitor at the Galloway cabin. Whether he and Rebecca
were romantically involved is open to speculation. According to the
legend, they never married because he would not live as white men do, and
she could not be an Indian.
Many events of this history took place in and around
my hometown of Chillicothe, where they are preserved in historical sites
and place names. I still have a dear friend living on Tecumseh Drive.
In 1966, Rusty Mundell took the leadership of the
junior high youth fellowship at First Pres. It was the usual mix: social
events, sports, sock hops, charity drives. I don’t remember any of it.
But I remember the retreat. We went to a retreat
center one weekend out in the hills somewhere. It was rustic – bunk
rooms, community showers, fieldstone fireplaces, the whole works. Again, I
don’t remember much. I remember that my buddy John Coppell had
discovered girls and spent a lot of time with Cathy Crum. But what made
the weekend memorable was a story Rusty told us. It has stuck with me all
these years. It changed my life. Rusty told us that, a year or so before,
he had been diagnosed with cancer. The very word “cancer” was often
whispered back then. Treatments were few, harsh and usually ineffective.
In short, cancer was a death sentence.
And this is what the doctors told Rusty: he had six
months to live. In his late 30’s, with a wife and young children. What a
blow.
And, Rusty told us, he knew at that moment that he
had a choice. He could leave his family and friends with memories of a
bitter, scared man dying a miserable death, or of a happy, loving man
making the most of the time he had on earth. It was up to him. He chose
life. He did his best to make every moment one his family would cherish.
Then he learned that the treatment was working. The
cancer was going into remission. He would live. And he had another choice.
He could go back to life as it was, or he could keep living life to the
full. He chose life.
Rusty was an insurance agent, and a successful one.
But it was just a job. He had no love for it. He had a dream, and decided
to make it reality. He wanted to found an outdoor drama like “The Lost
Colony.” He wanted to base it on Ohio history. And he began to bring it
to life.
He found the story in the historical novel “The
Frontiersmen” by Allen Eckert, the story of Boon and Kenton, Tecumseh
and Tenskatawa. He convinced Allen Eckert to write a play based on his
book. He found the land for an amphitheater on Sugarloaf Mountain, north
of Chillicothe. He secured the funding, oversaw the construction, hired
cast and crew. Still working to support his family mind you. When he told
us his story in 1966, it was all just a gleam in his eye. But the decision
had been made.
Tecumseh! premiered in 1973. I knew many of the cast.
Simon Kenton was played by Bruce Dickinson. Rebecca Galloway was played by
my neighbor Katherine Wasson, who majored in theater at Kent State. Dozens
of extras were hired locally.
Rusty Mundell produced and directed Tecumseh! from
1972 to 1986. His dream came true. It just started its 37th summer of
action and romance. Who knows how many lives it has touched, in big ways
and small?
But this is certain: before a word was written,
before a penny was raised, before a shovelful was turned, Rusty Mundell
was already changing lives: his own, his family’s and mine.
He made the same choice that Tecumseh had made, years
before. When faced with adversity, you can give up, or you can take it
head on. Tecumseh knew that the white men were innumerable, and that his
war against them might not matter, but he could not live life in any other
way. Rusty knew that he might succumb to the cancer, but neither could he
live life in any other way.
No matter what happens,
choose life.
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