By FRED KRONER
fred@mahometnews.com
Every story, Margaret Rinkel will tell you, has a beginning, a middle and an ending.
Her personal story started decades ago, “so far back in my childhood,” she said.
She was surrounded by people who were storytellers or story readers.
Hearing the words, both fact and fiction, helped her visualize vivid images. She formed a picture in her mind as her mother read from the mysteries of Mary Roberts Rinehart.
Her fascination with stories extended beyond the family home.
“Sixth-grade was my magic year,” Rinkel said. “My teacher (Alice Lott) was very expressive in teaching history and geography.
“I could almost feel Columbus and the three boats coming across the ocean. She was very creative and opened the door to a bigger world.”
The inspirational elementary school teacher sparked a lifelong interest.
“We had history lessons on Sir Francis Drake and Magellan,” Rinkel said. “I started a historical novel at that point.”
The book went unfinished after a few pages, but the idea was not forgotten.
“In upper elementary grades, I thought I wanted to write a book,” Rinkel said.”
Now 91, Rinkel published her first book last month. It has historical overtones relating to more than three dozen Old Testament Bible characters, “some known and some lesser known,” Rinkel said.
Her book, “The Plowshare and the Sword,” is available on Amazon and should be in stores by summer. Hard-back copies are priced at $33.95, paperback copies are $17.95 and, on Kindle, it’s $3.99.
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A retired school teacher, Rinkel taught English in the Mahomet-Seymour school district from 1963-94.
Over the years, she approached her interest in the written word from different angles and perspectives.
In her classes, she included units on authors, at times turning her room into a mini drama department as students read aloud from the works of Shakespeare.
Her own school days were important in forming a passion for the ancient era in which she focused on in her book, from 4,000 B.C. to 445 B.C.
“In high school and college, I took Latin,” Rinkel said. “I got acquainted with Cicero (a Roman orator). I read the stories in Latin, and that gave me a feel for the ancient days.
“Latin introduced me to the ancient world.”
As she pursued her own writing, she felt she had a natural starting point.
“The old-world stories caught my attention,” Rinkel said. “The Old Testament is difficult to read for most people, so simplifying it and getting to the pith of the story intrigued me.
“One of my goals is to share stories. Who will sit down and read the King James version? By using episodes, you can take little episodes and make them more human.
“It’s a great feeling of happiness to be creating something; to share a story and add information not in the Old Testament.”
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On and off, Rinkel estimated she did research or writing for the book for nearly two decades.
She didn’t feel pressure to meet any self-imposed deadlines.
“This was my work,” Rinkel said, “and it made me happy to do it.”
Even when she turned the lights off for the night, she wasn’t necessarily done working.
“I’d go to bed and work on it mentally,” Rinkel said. “When I’d go to sleep, I’d leave a pad by the bed in case a word or phrase I needed came up. Then I’d turn on the light and write it down.”
Rinkel had a knowledge and understanding of what she was delving into.
“I was versed in Biblical materials,” she said. “I knew the Old Testament stories gave bare bones, but don’t tell what the motivation was.
“It wasn’t just a man who went from Jerusalem to Jericho. What prompted that?”
Her stories on the Bible characters are told through narrative poetry and after thoughtfully contemplating each passage.
“I was thorough in the preparation,” Rinkel said. “It took two to three months to do one (character).
“I did a lot of reading. Reading helps set the mood, which the Old Testament did not do. Part of the time, I was going to Barnes & Noble every afternoon.”
She introduces each character through a storyteller and ends each segment with the storyteller returning “to tell a little bit about what happens after this,” she said.
In the centuries B.C., and even thereafter for centuries, a storyteller was a noteworthy member of society.
“Storytellers were an important part of ancient days,” Rinkel said. “They would be like the newsman, traveling by foot or by donkey and going from place to place.
“It was about the 10th century before people began to put stories in written form.”
Rinkel was insistent on having a balance within her 234-page book.
“I wanted to make sure I had some women in the book,” she said.
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In her section on Jeremiah, the prophet during the destruction of Jerusalem, Rinkel writes:
“How shall I tell it?
“Jerusalem is a dung heap
“of broken faith, broken bodies, broken hopes,
“steeped in waste, in desolation.
“Mine is the agony, mine the despair
“that bids my tears, unchecked, flow down my beard.
“I stand, my arms outstretched toward God,
“beside the burning altar of Jerusalem
“and pour my grief above this grisly offering,
“and shroud this needless sacrifice with tears.”
After concluding a 52-line poem on Sarah, the childless wife of Abraham, Rinkel imparts the words of the storyteller:
“While Sarah knows that the law is on her side as to Abraham’s heir, she still must work through her distress to regain her happiness. She was not the vengeful woman that her thoughts suggested. She was not the spiteful wife. Had she treated Hagar other than the handmaid or servant that she was? Any of the servants could see how Hagar had treated her mistress. Had Sarah been wrong to protect Isaac’s place as rightful heir?”
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In 2006, Margaret Rinkel edited a book written by her husband Gene and “worked on details of the art,” she said.
The book, “The Picshuas of H.G. Wells: A Burlesque Diary,” helped her understand the process of getting a manuscript in print. It also enlightened her to the commitment needed for such an undertaking.
“We lived Wells night and day, practically,” she said.
Working without an agent now, Rinkel faced challenges after completing her written manuscript.
“If you don’t have an agent, it’s much harder,” she said. “It was a long process. We started about eight months ago.”
The Rinkels found a publisher in WestBow Press, an Indiana-based Christian self-publishing company, which is a division of Thomas Nelson and Zondervan.
The book’s printing is done and Rinkel is awaiting delivery, which she believes will happen, “within weeks.”
She will then finalize details of book signings, which she hopes will take place at several area churches, including the Lutheran Church of Mahomet, where she attends and is the former education director. She expects to be accompanied at the book signings by her son, Steve, and daughter-in-law, Jill.
“I’ll do the storytelling and let them do a story or two,” she said.
While stories do, in fact, have a beginning, a middle and an ending, Rinkel’s – for now – will move from beginning to middle to a continuation. There is no end in sight.
Instead, it will soon be time to move on to her next project.
“I want to pull the family history and photos together,” she said, “and write regular poems that have nothing to do with the Old Testament.”
In the latter endeavor, she has already begun.
“After the flooding in New Orleans, I wrote one from the point of view of a cat,” Rinkel said.
For the first-time author, whose 91st birthday arrived in January, this calendar year is marked by other noteworthy events.
In March, she became a great-grandmother to twins when Campbell and Cullen Ptasienski were born. She’s used to that experience.
Rinkel also has grandchildren who are twins.
Later this year, she will celebrate 69 years of marriage to Gene Rinkel, who did editing work on her book and was “the first boy I met on campus at Greenville College.”
A native of Georgia, Rinkel moved to Illinois with an idea of what she was seeking for her future.
“I thought I wanted to be a medical missionary,” she said. “Being at college broadens your outlook.
“I began to think more of teaching and took education courses after I graduated from college.”
She is officially retired as a teacher, but those who read her book – which is described in a flier as “poetic tales of Old Testament characters” – will learn more than they knew when they started.
Isn’t that what teaching is about?
