Stairways to Story

Ann H GabhartAnn's Posts, One Writer's Journal 56 Comments

Stairways have played major roles in my Shaker stories. In most of my Shaker books, I’ve let my characters wonder why it’s so important to follow the Shaker rule of always stepping on the first step with one’s right foot. Unity was very important to the Shakers and they believed if each member did such things the same that would make their unity stronger. Therefore they made rules about how to do many common things such as climbing steps with the same foot first or always kneeling with the same knee on the floor first.

A few of my characters stepped with the wrong foot first just to be contrary. I’m not sure what that says about the writer who gave them contrary ways. Perhaps I resisted the Shaker unity myself. I have been accused of stubbornness at times.

The double stairways gave me the opportunity in my stories to point out to what extremes the Shakers would go to keep the men and women apart. Two stairways in the houses. One for the brethren and one for the sisters. The leaders feared an accidental brush against the opposite sex on the stairways might lead to sinful behavior. At least sinful according to the Shakers.

Then there are those beautiful stairs in the Trustee House at the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill near where I live here in Kentucky. The graceful lines of the double stairways as they spiral up three floors is breathtaking and shows how talented the Shakers were in their workmanship. Since I use that village as a model for my fictional Shaker Harmony Hill village, I nearly always let my characters admire those “floating” stairs. In The Seeker those stairs gave me a way to let my two main characters see each other. But first I had my character admire them when she first came into the village. Here are a few paragraphs to show how Charlotte felt upon first seeing the double stairways.

As she followed Sister Altha down the hallway once more they stopped between a matching pair of winding stairs that curled along opposite walls up two floors with little visible means of support. She had never seen anything to compare with them in any manor house. No outward decoration adorned the cherry handrails or steps, but even so the stairs rose upward in such a graceful spiral that surely no eye could gaze upon them without admiring their beauty.

“What lovely stairs,” Charlotte said before she thought better of breaking the silence between her and the stern sister.

Sister Altha looked at the staircases and then back at Charlotte. “Many of the world say the same, but to us their beauty is in their usefulness. That is where true beauty resides.”

Whoever built this stairway had more in mind than utility, Charlotte wanted to insist, but she bit her lip and remained silent.

Then in my most recent Shaker story, The Innocent, these stairs going down to the kitchen play a part in the action toward the end of the story. I won’t tell you how since if you haven’t read the story, that might be a spoiler.

It’s not much of a stretch to think about story writing being like climbing stairs. Each step brings you closer to the end of the story, but each step is important.

I’m going to add a couple of days to my Shaker book giveaway since I’ve been out of town and didn’t get the winners picked. New deadline is midnight EST on October 31, 2018. That’s Halloween. So if you haven’t entered yet or if you want to get an extra entry to have a chance to win your choice of one of my Shaker books, just leave a comment on this post. You do have to be at least eighteen years old to enter.

So, what stories do you have about stairways? Have you lived in houses with stairs?

I used to sit on the stairs in our farmhouse when I was growing up to read since the heat from our woodstove would rise up and warm the stairway. Sometimes I listened to basketball games on my transistor radio. And when you are unhappy or mad, you can make a lot of noise stomping up a wooden stairway.

As always, thanks for reading.

Comments 56

  1. Hi Ann, I loved reading how stairs and stairways figure into your books. My first memory of a book with stairs was the Nancy Drew mystery The Hidden Staircase by Carolyn Keene. Last year I read an excellent debut novel by Jaime Jo Wright called The House on Foster Hill and the cover shows the stairs. I’ve actually lived in two older houses that had beautiful stairs but now, my knees appreciate that we live in a one-level home. Thanks again for sharing!
    Blessings!
    Connie

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      Interesting, Connie. I hadn’t thought about asking about books you remember with stairs in them. I do remember that Nancy Drew title, and I’ve heard a lot about Jamie Wright’s book. All good things.

      Stairways can be symbolic or in a mystery sometimes dangerous. 🙂

  2. We had stairs when we were kids and we would slide down the stairs on cardboard, have conversations, etc. Imbedded in my mind is my daddy crying in the stairway on his knees when my granny died.

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      Some of my grandkids have tried that surfing down steps and ended up in the ER for their trouble. 🙂 They forgot how low the ceiling was in one place.

      I have some stairway memories too, but none quite as touching as yours when you remember your dad’s grief. That is very touching, Lucy.

  3. The older I get the harder it is for me to navigate stairs! And we live in a tri-level! I remember just 10 years ago I could run up and down not using the handrail. Now I walk and depend on the rail! 😟. Beautiful staircase in the picture!

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      Doing those steps does get harder when the knees start complaining, Karen. But maybe the act of climbing up and down them helps us get the exercise we need to keep us in shape. A nice sturdy railing is a good thing, however.

  4. My grandparents had stairs in their house . The children sat on the stairs to eat meals. The men ate at the table. The women ate last. It was a different time. Now children or elderly eat first. In the past, men worked on the farm and had to get back to work outside. So I guess it made sense. As children, we didn’t want to wait.lol

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      You’re so right about it being a different time, Judy. My husband is always fussing about how he had to wait until the adults ate when he was a kid and that now the kids get to eat first. I tell him he has always found plenty to eat. LOL. He’s probably forgetting about how his mother ate last. Steps do make a good place to eat when you’re a kid.

  5. I was pushed by a cruel classmate down the stairs in gradeschool. I’ve been afraid of heights ever since. I fel down the stairs at about 1 year of age. My mother thought I must surely be dead. I sat up and greeted my father, who had just arrived from work. We had stairs in our house when I was 10-20 . It was built in 1836. Hubby and I lived in several houses with stairs. They are fun to decorate at Christmas.

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      I can understand why you are afraid of heights with your stairway experiences, Paula, although it doesn’t sound as if you were very concerned about tumbling down the steps when you were a baby. Your mother was the one very concerned then, I’m guessing. So be careful with those stairs now. Sounds as if you have found a way to like them by decorating them. I’ve never lived in a house with stairs that are open to the room. The ones when I was a kid had a door at the bottom and now I only have basement stairs.

  6. Since it’s almost Halloween, in the first apartment my husband and I moved into after he (and Elvis) were discharged from the Army, one of the bedrooms at the top of the stairs always gave me a funny feeling when I walked in it, so we made that our “ironing room” and didn’t use for a bedroom. Later I talked to a person who lived in the apartment before and she asked “You know that apartment’s haunted, don’t you?”

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      It is the time of year for scary stories and haunted places, Fran. Odd the things we can sense without really knowing what is happening. My youngest son was scared to go through a room in my mother’s house without her or somebody with him because of the “woman” he saw in there. Needless to say the room was empty – except for persons unseen to all the rest of us. He was maybe two when he was doing that.

  7. We lived in a house that had a stairway that turned at the top to the second floor. At the bottom was a door with glass panes, I was little and liked to sit on the top step and watch what was going on downstairs. When you are little that is exciting.

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      You had a bird’s eye view, Donna. A good way to keep up with what was going on. I like that last thought that when you are little, the simplest things can be exciting.

  8. When I was young we lived in a house that had an old wooden stairway and most nights after we were upstairs and all tucked in we would hear the stairs creak as if someone was walking up them, but there was no one there. Mom always said it was the old wood of the steps just moving back in place after being stepped on. Me….I was never too sure about that.

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      Sounds like it might have been a scary noise to some impressionable kids, Donna. I do have to admit that our old farmhouse was constantly creaking. It would have had to take more than that to slow down our snores.

  9. I love stairs .When we moved in to this old house I re-did my steps.I painted the risers white and the steps brown.Then I stenciled some of my favorite words on every other riser.Compassion, loyalty, love, faith, hope, kindness, laughter and patience. Actually that last word is more like a reminder.
    I recently read The Innocent so I know what it is about those kitchen steps…great story as all of you books are.

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      Glad you enjoyed my Shaker book, The Innocent, Lisa.

      Your steps sounds like so much fun. The only steps I have in the house where I live now are the ones down to the basement. I can’t even get them painted and here you have stenciled words on yours. Great words you picked to put on the steps where they can remind you that a good attitude makers life easier.

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      I find that interesting, Ola, that you’ve never lived in a house that had stairs. But sounds as if you got some up and down exercise at your grandparents’ house.

  10. The house I grew up in had a set of steps, not really stairs. You had to go inside the closet to get to them. They led up to the very wonderful attic that I spent many, many hours playing in. My mom also hung up her clothes to dry there on rainy wash days before we ever got a dryer.

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      Attics can been loads of fun in older houses, Connie. You knew when you went into that closet that you were on the way to imagination fun. Reminds me of that story where the kids went through the cupboard. As for hanging clothes up there, a woman had to do what a woman had to do, and it could be that it added to your fun.

      1. April, your stairs to the attic reminded me of ours in Indiana when I was in elementary school and before that, in Kansas we had three sets of stairs. A front elaborate set, a straight set in the back of the house near the kitchen and a set down to the basement! My grandparents had the same in their large home in Indiana. Wow, brings back memories. Thank you! 😊

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          1. This was in the Officer Quarters at Fort Riley. Amazing homes! Wonder if they’re still there???

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      The Shaker floating stairs are a feat of engineering by a very talented Shaker, Micajah Burnett, who came to the Shakers as a young boy and was responsible for the designs of many of the Shaker buildings both at Pleasant Hill and at other Shaker villages around the country, Lisa.

  11. I remember going downstairs to the basement in a house we lived in when I was a young girl. Scary, as I remember red eyes in the basement windows. Thankfully, I outgrew that! LOL!

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      I hated going down the cellar steps to get canned food when I was a kid. I wasn’t much better after I got married. At least it didn’t have windows where I saw red eyes. No wonder you were scared, Linda.

  12. I really don’t remember living in a house with stairs, but remember the story my mother told of my older brother pulling me around on a quilt and getting really close to to the stairs!! Lol

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      A great place for those cardio workouts. Up and down steps, Melanie. I’m enjoying using my broom. That sounds like I’m flying around on it or something, but no. Simply sweeping up dog hair. 🙂

  13. Good morning Ann! Those curling stairs at Pleasant Hill are indeed beautiful. I also love the stairway in our Old Capitol building in Frankfort. My grandfather loved the craftsmanship of their unique structure.
    When I was a teenager our pastor’s wife took my Sunday School class to visit family that lived on a horse farm outside of Lexington. That house had a grand staircase reminiscent of antebellum days. We’d imagine what it was like to live there as Scarlett and Melanie. Back then I think a grand staircase was often the focal point when building a house.
    I hope you’re enjoying these beautiful, but windy October days.

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      The Old Capital is a beautiful building and the capital is worth the trip to see it too, Lavon. A grand home in our town was a funeral home for many years. When I was a young girl and would have to go to the funeral home with my parents, I always imagined how it would be to sweep down those stairs to a handsome man below waiting to take me out or perhaps marry. A wedding dress trailing down some of those grand stairways would be the stuff of romance novels.

      I did enjoy a very windy Sunday and sunshiny Monday. Hope you did too.

  14. When I was little and I visited my Aunt’s house in Indiana, I remember my Cousin Matt carrying me and running up and down the stairs in his house as we played imagination games together, like Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz. I remember feeling like I was flying in my Cousin Matt’s arms. 🙂 Such great childhood memories of growing up together! ~Psalm 97~

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      Those are fun memories, Emily. Times with cousins when we’re growing up are some of my favorite memories too although we were always outside in the woods playing our imagination games. We did once try to sneak outside through an upstairs window and of course got caught. LOL.

  15. I tripped & fell up the stairs in high school, I wasn’t hurt but my pride was bruised something awful. 🙁
    Happy Halloween Ann!

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      I know what you mean, Robin. I tripped going up the concrete stairs into my high school in front of a crowd of boys. Totally wrecked my knee and stockings. You can see how long ago that was since I was wearing stockings. Does anybody wear stockings these days?

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  16. There is a stairway in our farmhouse that was built in 1841. I often wonder about the people who lived here so many years ago….and how different life was in those early pioneer days. No electricity, running water, central heat ; I imagine them going upstairs by lamplight at the end of their busy day.

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      Hmm, Nancy, you might awaken some stories with those thoughts. Just think of all the different people who have used those stairs and the times when they may have climbed them happily or angrily or sadly. And carrying those lamps or maybe a candle. I’ve lived without central heat or running water, but never without electricity. I do like the central heat and the running water. 🙂

  17. I enjoy learning about the Shaker ways. Still wouldn’t want to live that way though . Had to laugh at your remark about wondering why you made some characters resist. I had stairs to my bedroom, but no real stories about them. There were also stairs to the basement that had the open backs and I never did like them!!

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      Glad you enjoy reading about the Shakers, Darlene, since my next summer’s book, The Refuge, is going to be set back in my fictional Shaker village of Harmony Hill.

      Those open back steps do look a little less sturdy or something.

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