Lottie Johl

She was just Lottie
One of Bodie’s working girls.
Her past colored her present and her future
She could do nothing to change it.

She married a respectable
business owner Eli Johl who was
A butcher and owner of the City Market.
Yet, even that could not erase her past sins.

How do you out live your past?
Decisions made under pressure,
Or in a weak moment shouldn’t
Live longer than you do.

It’s is hard for others to see past your sins
When social norms are rigid.
Women have no rights anyway,
Only property of another.

Even in death her banishment did not end.
Her grave generously placed at the far end
Of the cemetery away from good citizens,
Her husband granted the favor
Of not having to bury her outside the fence.

Change is slow and control is hard to give up.
Seems like a story out of today’s headlines.
We still can’t let people be who they are meant to be.
Will we ever learn?

Humans are fallible,
Perfection does not exist,
And normal is a myth.
Love conquers all if only we let it in.

Cheryl McDonald 2023©

If you would like to hear me read this poem, please click below.

This is the first digital painting in a new series of images based on my photography of abandoned places. I seek to bring these images of decay along with some of their history into a new format that expresses more than just a photograph. I will be combining photography and other kinds of traditional art techniques which may include drawings, watercolors, and other collage techniques. This first image is all from my photos combined in Photoshop to create a new composition that expresses more. I have created an original poem to further express my thoughts.

This is going to be a limited edition series, and I plan to only sell 20 signed 18″ x 12″ copies of each print in this series.

This image is called Lottie Johl, because it starts with a photograph I took inside the Johl house in Bodie, California. Bodie is a ghost town in northern California which was a gold mining town. It is one of the most intact mining towns from the 1800s that is being preserved by the State of California. The park rangers there practice what is called “arrested decay” which means they are preserving to a degree the buildings and their contents as best they can without revitalizing them, and using them as a historical landmark of the California Gold Rush.

I was given a chance to photograph all the interiors as part of a bat habitat team which was on site for several days in 2013. I have published some of the photos as prints in color and black and white, however, I have many that I just was unsure how I wanted to use them. Many of these photos made me sad to see what was left behind. It was a booming and wealthy town while the mines were open, however, most of the people who left Bodie, did so because life here was no longer an option. Mine closures meant there were no jobs, and because it was a difficult place to get to, many people had to leave most of what they owned behind.

Lottie Johl was a call girl in Bodie, she lived from 1855-1899 and she fell in love with a German immigrant, Elias Johl, who was a butcher and part owner of the City Market. They lived in a little house near the market. Even though Lottie did everything she could to turn her life around, she was never accepted by “polite society” and she died of accidental poisoning from a mistake made by the pharmacist. Here are a couple of website links I found that share her story. The first is the Bodie State Historic Park, where you can find out more about this amazing place and if you are inspired please make a donation to help support their mission. The second is a site I found called Find a Grave, which has entries by others that further tell the story of Lottie.

These stories tie in with my continuing themes of change and transformation, which people have been going through since the beginning of time.

My goal for these images is to create something that tells a story that can bring you, the viewer, closer to history as well as add some understanding about how we are all connected in our stories through time. Maybe these images and poetry will also someday become a book too, just like Mystic Dreams of Transformation.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to your comments.

Have a Happy Day!

Cheryl