Journal Register (Springfield, Illinois)
September 2, 2007
By Daniel Pike

Original Article

It's probably safe to say elephants weren't often the topic of conversation when what's now the Old State Capitol Historic Site served as the center of state government.

For a half-hour Saturday, though, storyteller Megan Wells used the House of Representatives chamber to spin a yarn about Shirley, an injured former circus elephant who now lives on a Tennessee sanctuary.

Wells, of La Grange Park, is one of three nationally known storytellers participating in this weekend's second annual Once Upon a Prairie Storytelling Festival. The story of Shirley's relationship with another elephant, Tarra, is a good example of Wells's approach to the art form.

"I guess if there's one thing consistent in my work, it's really compassion and reminding people again of their relationships with the natural world," Wells said. "Because we've gotten kind of separate. This is kind of the perfect story (in that respect) because what do we think of elephants? We kind of think of them as dumb animals, but there's a whole soul life going on in these creatures."

While the storytellers - Chicago's Anna Marie Johnson-Webb and Woodstock’s Jim May also are featured — aren’t required to tell stories with specific Abraham Lincoln connections, their tales often have some sort of historical context, said Chet Rhodes, staff development specialist for the Illinois Historical Preservation Agency. The agency co-sponsored the event with the Old Capitol Foundation, Illinois Times and the Hilton Springfield hotel.

The free event drew a couple dozen audience members to each performance Saturday afternoon, and Rhodes said the goal is for the festival — which was started by Justin Blandford, site manager for the Old State Capitol — to grow in the coming years.

“(Justin is) actually hoping that eventually it will expand beyond this building and take in some other historic sites in the city and perhaps become a city-wide festival,” Rhodes said.

May told a couple Lincoln-related stories Saturday, Rhodes said, while Johnson-Webb picked out a few women of the approximate Lincoln era to portray.

Johnson-Webb performs under the name Momma Kemba, then crafts scripts based on the lives of famous black women such as Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells and Fannie Lou Hamer.

“Do I look like an Anna Marie?” the dreadlocked Johnson-Webb said after removing the brightly colored African shawl she wore while delivering a slavery tale. “I am called Momma Kemba. The Pan-African community gave me that name. It means ‘faithful and dependable, one who can be trusted to get the job done.’”

Mississippi-born Johnson-Webb, a costumer and theater veteran, began telling stories about 15 years ago when she was invited to participate with a group of storytelling women, she said.

“I just want to tell the life and the strength and the fortitude of these women,” Johnson-Webb said. “I go to college-level books and then I go to elementary school books because in elementary books they give more information about how they were as a child. Then I can have a range of things to do.”

Like Johnson-Webb, Wells also researches her own subjects. Her story about Shirley, for instance, is drawn from Wells’ own interviews with the people involved in Shirley’s journey, which Wells first learned about online.

“Every story you tell, you have to really understand and own it yourself,” Wells said. “(Whether) it’s a folktale or a myth. Even a personal story from your own life, you can’t just tell it right away, you’ve got to kind of research yourself and get some distance on it.

“If it’s historical, I don’t want to just spout facts I have no wisdom about.”