Remembering Francelia Butler

IN the last two "Wordspeak" columns about nursery rhymes, there was a mention that another children's chant, the rhymes said while skipping rope, may contain sexual innuendoes. This surprised and intrigued some readers, while others wondered if such apparently "innocent" play can have any sexual connotation.

Francelia Butler, whom I had the honour of knowing, was a world- renowned expert on children's literature. She published her collection of over 350 of the best rhymes for skipping from 70 countries as Skipping Around the World (Ballantine Books, 1989). In the introduction to the book she said that "skip-rope rhymes are fascinating. Within the invisible world of the turning rope, children can relieve their pain by chanting their need for romance and identity, respond to the mysteries of life, protest real or imagined injustices and even cruelties inflicted by adults and the adult world, compensate for loneliness, and above all, dream of a happy and self determined future."

Like the nursery rhymes, skip-rope chants may stem from charms, snatches of old ballads, satirical adult verse, or from the children themselves, based on their observation and experience. But unlike the nursery rhymes that are taught by adults, skip- rope ditties come out of material adopted and adapted by children for their own use.

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Francelia McWilliams, when 24, was fired from her first job as the publicity director for the Raleigh Hotel in Washington, DC in 1937 when she allowed Black students to attend a function in the hotel. Disgusted with racial segregation in the United States, she left for Paris, and talked her way into a job as the drama critic for the International Herald Tribune newspaper.

Jerome Butler, a city editor at the Tribune, soon found that the perky but brazen young woman had no journalistic experience. He not only taught her how to write, but ended up marrying her as well. Francelia Butler was pregnant when the young couple fled Paris just as the German forces were marching in. They tied some of their belongings in blankets and started down the street on foot, towards the railway station. Taxis were not available, they had all been requisitioned by the army.

Parisians did not want their treasures to fall into Nazi hands. Along the way, the proprietor of a fancy china shop offered them a set of tea service meant for the Duchess of Windsor. A gallery owner gave them paintings by some minor French artists. They tied the china and paintings in blankets, and kept with them in the train. On the way, German planes bombed the train and the back compartments with their luggage were destroyed. The china, up front with them, remained intact. Francelia Butler still had the china (and the paintings) when I first met her in late 1980s, and she gave me a cup and a saucer from the set.

The young couple's adventure was not yet over. A fellow passenger gave them a ride to the port where the ship to America was docked, and helped them aboard. In mid-Atlantic, their ship was threatened by a German submarine with torpedo attack. America was not yet at war, so they were allowed to pass. On reaching New York, the helpful fellow passenger was arrested by the FBI because he was a known Nazi spy. Dr. Butler's courses in children's literature at the University of Connecticut (where she taught for 21 years) were among the most popular, and drew eminent visitors including Dr. Benjamin Spock, the childcare guru, Nobel prize-winning writer Isaac Bashevis Singer, and internationally known illustrator and children's author Maurice Sendak. She retired when she was 79, with several books to her credit. In 1990, Francelia Butler launched the International Peace Games Festival that in its first year was attended by some 2,000 elementary school teachers and children from across US. The idea for the peace games came to her through her children's literature classes. She had her students create games that involved cooperation and negotiation instead of competition, conflict and rivalry. Her ideas spread quickly. Since 1993, peace games festivals, with participants from all over the world, have become an annual feature at Harvard, Yale, Columbia and a few other U.S. universities.

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Francelia Butler died in 1998. I could not attend her funeral due to a miscalculation about time and distance. In the preface to Skipping Around the World, she had given me far too much credit for helping her with the book than was my due. She was always doing things like that.

ANAND

E-mail the writer at anand@journalist.com

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