Into Real Pages -- A New Blog-to-Book Producer (December 20, 2020)

Ever since I began blogging I have worried about how best to preserve for my sons–and now my granddaughters–the fruits of my family history blogging efforts.  As I first mentioned in a blog post dated February 20, 2015 (three years into my blogging), having the blog exist only out there on the web was not enough to ensure its survival for descendants now and into the future.  At the time, I had discovered Blurb as a source for easily converting my blog into book form.  I used Blurb for two volumes of a 12" x 12" hardback reproduction of my blog into book form.  But then Blurb stopped supporting the Blogger format for "slurping" the blog content into a book project that allowed me to review and edit the content and look to best reproduce the blog in book form.  And all the time I continued posting on the blog so that content was growing, but capture was at a standstill.  This past year I decided I had to do something about finding a replacement blog-to-book provider.

After a few hours of research online this past summer, I finally settled on a new to me provider known as "Into Real Pages" and as a result I have completed a trial run of another book form volume of The Prism covering three months of posts from 2013 (that is how far behind I am).  The book arrived this week and I must say I am pretty happy with it despite some limitations.

The new Volume 3 has a completely different look than the first two volumes, because duplicating the same look I had with Blurb proved to be either too difficult or not possible (as you can see by comparing the look below with that from the original post on my blog-to-book project back in February 2015).

Into Real Pages currently supports Blogger and other popular blog formats (and I hope they continue to do so).  For this first trial run, I captured quite easily and quickly three months worth of blog posts from 2013 and they were automatically put into a book project form for me to review and edit.  The editing ability is broad and easy, but there are some limitations imposed in the present form of the Into Real Pages application (which is done entirely on the web).  I found the editing pretty easy and frankly less involved and time consuming than Blurb was.  The photos were better placed with Into Real Pages and required much less moving and correcting.  Like Blurb, Into Real Pages does not provide an exact duplication of the layout and look of the blog posts themselves, but it does a very good job of laying out the essentials with a minimal need for correction, moving, and editing.

Here is an inside look at one of the blog posts that can be compared to the original Blogger post of August 19, 2013. 

This also illustrates one of the limitations of Into Real Pages that is apparently a feature of their application and cannot be changed.  Each post has its original title converted into a full-page title page, which is superfluous inasmuch as it duplicates the blog post title that appears automatically as the heading of the post immediately beside the created title page.  Not only is this redundant, it increases the pages in the book and thus the cost.  This is something I hope Into Real Pages changes or at least gives the creator control over.

There are a couple of features of Into Real Pages that I like more than Blurb.  Foremost of the improved features is the table of contents at the front of the book (called "Chapter index" by Into Real Pages).  This allows one to find exactly what page a particular blog post starts on, whereas Blurb just placed the posts in the chronological order in which they were "slurped" into the project (unless one edited the order).  Blurb provided page numbers within the book, but no way to have a table of contents or an index to find exactly where a post could be turned to--they simply followed in chronological order throughout the book and some posts ran into more than one or two pages.  With Into Real Pages one can see the actual page where a particular post begins and turn directly to it.  It makes the book more user friendly in my opinion.

There is another feature that I think I like, but it is really not necessary and, as with the redundant subject pages, serves to make the book length longer and somewhat more costly–but it does look nice and is growing on me, which is good because as I understand it the feature is imposed and cannot be deleted.  [That having been said though, I have to confess this was a first attempt with Into Real Pages and I might not be fully versed in the use of the application and what things can be changed.]. The feature is the "Great Photo Wall" that occupies the first two pages of the book.  The Photo Wall reproduces in thumbnail form photos from the blog posts in a collage of color as you can see below.  Some of the photos get cut off in odd places decapitating some statues and people, but the full photos can be seen at the Post themselves.

In summary, I am happy with this trial run of Into Real Pages and I hope they continue to support Blogger for some time to come so that I can catch up with converting my existing posts into book form.

So what about the cost?

As with Blurb I wanted to produce my blog books in the 12" x 12" square, hardback format on high quality glossy paper.  The cost runs about $1.15 per page for the first 80 pages in that format.  Each additional page above the first 80 is $0.60.  Into Real Pages does offer discounts periodically--especially if you purchase more than one copy at a time.  As you would expect, there was a holiday discount offered and my savings on three copies of a 174-page book was a total of $102.34.  Each 174-page book came out to a net cost of $137.75 (with tax and shipping from Germany included), which works out to an actual cost of 77 cents per page.  The books are not cheap, but the quality is good and when viewed as a very long term investment in preserving family history, the cost is then "amortized" over many years and I think the books are worth the cost and effort.  I see no reason why minimal care of the books would not allow them to be enjoyed by generations of descendants.

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Readers might have noticed that there have been no Saturday Serendipity posts for the last couple of weeks.  That feature of Filiopietism Prism is now on an indefinite hiatus.  The time devoted to the reading and writing that went into each Saturday Serendipity post is being reallocated to a push to catch up with converting the accumulated posts on this blog into book form.

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Copyright 2020, John D. Tew

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Amends (December 18, 2020)

[Bernard A. Handler is my brother-in-law (husband of my sister Susan).  He has been a guest blogger here before https://filiopietismprism.blogspot.com/2014/12/searching-for-ernest-by-bernard-handler.html.  In fact, back in 2014 he was the first ever guest blogger here at The Prism.  This time Bernie shares a short story about a Christmas long ago and his mother's yearning in a time of Depression hardship to provide a little holiday cheer in her family's home.  It is a story of understanding and amends that captures the spirit of the season.]

Ellen Forbes circa 1930 with possible nephew and dog

Amends

by Bernard A. Handler

My grandmother Sarah Clay Forbes departed Leicester, England in 1908 with six kids in tow. She and her children sailed from Liverpool on a ship named the Hartford and arrived in Philadelphia to join her husband, Thomas Albert Forbes, a loom operator. The family settled in Germantown and grew: six more children, and in 1921 a seventh, my mother Ellen, the baby of thirteen. 

During the Great Depression the family managed - a rented roof overhead, food to eat, clean clothes to wear, but little else. As the Christmas of ’33 approached Ellen decided to find a Christmas tree for her family’s home on Bringhurst Street. One evening with the help of a friend, she snuck onto the grounds of the First United Methodist Church on the corner of Germantown Avenue and High Street and cut down a tree which she and her accomplice carried back to the Forbes’ household. 

First United Methodist Church of Germantown (circa 1905)

Six years later Ellen became the first in her family to graduate from high school, Germantown High, right across the street from the church, the same school from which my sister Beryl and I graduated in ’65 and ’67 respectively. Ellen first told me the story of the stolen tree several years before she died in 2009. My initial reaction was, “Geez Mom, a church. Why a church?” Her sheepish reply, “They had quite a few so I didn’t think they’d miss one.”

Certainly Esther, the current United Methodist Interim Office Administrator, nor the present pastor, Bob, missed the tree since they were unaware of Ellen’s 87-year-old transgression until Monday, July 27, 2020.  On that date, my wife Susan and I stopped by the church office to make a voluntary donation to the church and to confess Ellen’s crime–perhaps in hope of absolution.  Judging by the looks on the faces of Esther and Bob, and their positive reception of the background story, Ellen can rest in peace. 

Ellen Forbes Handler, thank you for guiding me with love and teaching me that through forgiveness peace is found.

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Copyright 2020, Bernard A. Handler

Published with the permissionof the author.

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Success, But Support Still Needed: An UPDATE on the United States Cadet Nurse Corps Service Recognition Act

 

Cadet Nurse Corps recruitment poster

Cadet Nurse Corps badge

Cadet Nurse Corps pledge pin

Since the post of December 5th,  many citizens, former Cadet Nurses, and family members of deceased Cadet Nurses contacted the office of Senate Minority Leader, Charles E. Schumer [D-NY], and as a result he added his name as co-sponsor of the United States Cadet Nurse Corps Service Recognition Act on December 7th–making him the 36th co-sponsor.  Such a significant and meaningful date to have signed on (Pearl Harobor Day). Thank you Senator Schumer!

The strong bipartisan support for this long overdue recognition of Cadet Nurse Corps members for their vital service during WWII is now at just over half of the U.S. Senate.  More needs to be done, however.  There are still some states whose senators have not added their names to the support for this Act.  Perhaps they have not been informed about the nature of the Act, that it is virtually a no-cost piece of legislation, and that it provides long delayed and overlooked recognition to a female medical workforce that answered the call of the country in a time of serious need and thereby saved the country's health care system from total collapse.  By the oft used terms of "heroic" service today, they were heroines of their time!

The following 26 states count one or both of their senators among the co-sponsors of the United States Cadet Nurse Corps Service Recognition Act:  New York, Maine, Montana, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Oregon, Alabama, Maryland, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Delaware, Wisconsin, Arizona, Texas, Kansas, Ohio, North Dakota, Washington, Arkansas, Vermont, West Virginia, Nevada, and Louisiana.  This means that barely half the states have had one or both of their senators weigh in on support for minimal recognition of these heroines of WWII.  

The senators from the other 24 states need help to do the right thing and add their support for this important Act.  They may be very busy during the close of this Congress and have not been reminded of the pending Act, so we need to remind them and urge them to step up and join their colleagues from both parties to remedy this oversight.  These are the 24 unrepresented states on the co-sponsorship of the United States Cadet Nurse Corps Service Recognition Act:  Rhode Island, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Oklahoma, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, California, Alaska, Colorado, Utah, Virginia, New Mexico, Indiana, Iowa, and Hawaii.

Lest we forget the vital role nurses play in our health care system, we have a very stark reminder playing out before our very eyes on a daily basis during this COVID pandemic.  Nurses are sacrificing their family life and sometimes even their very lives to keep our health care system functioning and to prevent even more catastrophic loss of life than we have experienced so far.  During WWII about 124,000 young women stepped up in a similar way to save lives and to keep our health care system from imploding.  They were role models for generations of nurses and the nurses today are their direct descendants.  We owe the Cadet Nurses the minimal recognition and honor that the United States Cadet Nurse Corps Service Recognition Act would provide.

Perhaps some of your ancestors or relatives were attended to and cared for by a Cadet Nurse.  If you believe those young nurses then and our nurses today provide an invaluable service that should be recognized (no matter how late), then please reach out to the U.S. Senators in the unrepresented states listed above and urge them to sign on to S997 as co-sponsors right away.  It is an easy, but so meaningful way to say thank you to all the nurses that have touched your lives!   

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Copyright 2020, John D. Tew

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A Long Overdue Recognition of Service--And How YOU Can Help (December 5, 2020)

Today is a special post in lieu of the usual Saturday Serendipity, but it does include this recommended read. 

As the COVID 19 pandemic rages throughout our country and our medical system is being stressed to the point of near collapse in many areas of the nation, it is worth pausing to consider that in some respects we have been here before.  Just as 102 years ago we suffered at least 675,000 American deaths due to a virulent strain of influenza that challenged scientists, physicians, and nurses, we are again finding ourselves relying on front-line medical professionals to battle a deadly disease–and they are being stretched and stressed to the breaking point.

We have been here before.  Beginning 77 years ago and lasting for just over five years the nation called on a segment of its population (entirely women) to come to the aid of the country during a medical care crisis.  It was not due to a deadly virus or influenza at that time, but rather to a severe loss of medical personnel as the result of World War Two.  After the entry of the U.S. into the war following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, doctors and nurses were swept up into service in the war effort in such numbers that the majority of nurses were no longer available to serve the domestic medical needs of the country.  As a result, a call was put out to increase dramatically and quickly the number of nurses so that the medical needs of the country could be met while the home front worked to supply and support the military efforts overseas during the war.

Beginning in 1943 and lasting until the end of 1948, about 124,000 women answered the nation's call and pledged to devote essential nursing services for the duration of WWII.  These women joined the newly enacted uniformed service known as the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps and received training, financial assistance, and a small allowance in exchange for their open ended pledge of service.  It is estimated that Cadet Nurses were soon providing 80% of the critically needed nursing care in civilian, government, and military hospitals during WWII and they have been credited with preventing a total collapse of the U.S. health care system as the war raged on.

But then–and for the last seven-plus decades–the members of the Cadet Nurse Corps have never really received the recognition, appreciation, and honor that they surely earned and deserved.  In this respect, the Cadet Nurse Corps was overlooked or forgotten in a similar way that the members of the U.S. Merchant Marine serving to supply our military during WWII were treated for several decades until they were finally recognized by the Merchant Marine Decorations and Medals Act of 1988.  [See this previous post on that subject here on The Prism.]

Presently there is pending before the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives two identical bills to rectify this long overdue recognition of the service of the members of the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps.  IF these bills are passed and included in the year-end omnibus package, the surviving members of the Cadet Nurse Corps and the families of those deceased Cadet Nurses can finally receive the virtually no-cost recognition and honors they so admirably earned and deserve.  The text of the Senate bill, S997 is as follows .  .  .

If you believe the nurses of the uniformed U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps deserve this belated recognition for their contributions to the nation's war efforts and the preservation of the country's health care system during WWII, please contact Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ASAP to voice your support and request inclusion in the omnibus package.  Your support can be noted by calling his Washington office at (202)224-6542 or his New York Office at (631)753-0978.  It is easy and you can just leave a message if the office is not answering live calls due to the pandemic.  It will take less than two minutes to accomplish.  

Very few of the 124,000 Cadet Nurse Corps members are still with us and those few are running out of time to receive and see the long overdue recognition the bills provide and that they so richly deserve.

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In the interest of full disclosure .  .  .

Shirley Carpenter in her Cadet Nurse Uniform circa 1944

My mother, who will turn 94 this coming March, was a Cadet Nurse.  On July 22, 2016, I blogged about her service in the Cadet Nurse Corps and you can read that post here.

AND FINALLY, as we daily see the agonizingly hard work and emotional toil and stress that our front-line COVID nurses and doctors are dealing with as this pandemic accelerates, it is not too early to suggest that we begin now to consider how their hard work and sacrifice to assure their communities and nation can weather and recover from this horrific pandemic can be recognized and honored.  Just as the current bills to recognize and honor the members of the Cadet Nurse Corps allow for the design and production of a medal to award to the Cadet Nurses, we should make sure that a truly grateful nation takes similar steps to honor the doctors, nurses, and other front-line health care workers who served to get us through this pandemic.  It is the least we can do.  They should not have to wait decades to receive some manifest token of appreciation and gratitude from a thankful nation.

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Copyright 2020, John D. Tew

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