Ellouise Schoettler
Artist and Storyteller "You painted so many visual pictures that I am still thinking about your stories days later." Alexandria, VA
"Ellouise Schoettler brought history to life in the classroom." Univ. of MD
" Your stories weave history and nostalgia so that I was entertained and informed in a most refreshing way." Brookeville, MD
" Thank you for a week-end of wonderful stories. They gave me a new outlook on Genealogy and what it can tell you about the past." Pinehurst, NC
"My mother, Ellouise Schoettler, tells our family stories to total strangers and they listen." Robin S. Fox, Oakland, CA
Ellouise Schoettler admits it - "that is what I do - and I hope people listen to my stories and remember their own."
Schoettler combines personal memories with family and local history in stories that reveal and bring to life moments in the lives of ordinary people.
"Listen," she says," when I told an acquaintance who had heard some of my stories that my aunt had just died and she cried out ’not Koki’ with the same loss I was feeling I knew I was on the right track."
A professor of Sociology at Meredith College, Raleigh, NC told Schoettler, "you’re doing cultural preservation"; another at the University of Maryland called her account of her misadventure journey to the UN Conference on Women in Nairobi, Kenya - "a transformational story." Schoettler says, "maybe so - but to me I am just doing what I learned to do as a kid.
I come from a North Carolina family that liked to tell stories, mostly about each other and believe me, those folks were never dull. When they recounted the daily doings of their lives it was exciting - and when something special happened - they had a field day. So that’s what I do.
I want my children and my grand-children to hear these stories so they can tell them to their children and and to add on their own as well.
I hope people who hear me tell my stories get the idea - - and that they won’t waste any time starting to tell their own stories."
Check out Ellouise Schoettler’s web-sire - www.storyteller-artist.com for more information about her programs and workshops, pictures of her fabric art works, and how to order her new CD, Bits and Pieces, Stories from a Family Down South.
