Growing Up in Folklore

Volume 27
Fall-Winter
2001

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The study looked like chaos, but whenever anyone visited and asked Ben for a particular book or article, or just inquired about a topic, he immediately where to find it.

Daniel Botkin, a biologist and writer, teaches at the University of California-Santa Barbara and at George Mason University, and he is president of the Center for the Study of the Environment. He lives in Arlington, Virginia. Dorothy B. Rosenthal is a science education consultant who lives in Florence, Massachusetts; drosenthal@nettaxi.com.

New York Folklore Society
P.O. Box 764
Schenectady, NY 12301
518/346-7008
Fax 518/346-6617
nyfs@nyfolklore.org

Growing Up with Folklore: A Conversation with Ben Botkin's Children, Dorothy Rosenthal and Daniel Botkin

Dorothy: The first thing I think of when I think of growing up as a child of Ben Botkin is the books. Even before we moved to the house at 45 Lexington Drive in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, the largest house we ever lived in, the books were like another member of the family, the most important member! I don’t know which our father liked more—reading books or collecting them.

Ben Botkin’s study, Croton-on-Hudson, New York.
Photo Jerry Rosenthal

He bought most of our children’s books at secondhand bookstores. He made a notation on the first page of every book he bought—his initials, where he had purchased it, and how much he paid for it. If the book was a gift for us, he would write an amusing nonsense rhyme on the title page. The rhymes were one of the things I loved best about being Ben’s daughter. In the 1920s and 1930s he had written a few hundred serious poems and published a number of them, but by the time I can remember, most of his poetry was what he called doggerel—written in books or on cards for special occasions, such as birthdays. He also made up poems on the spot when we lived in Washington. While he was shaving in the bathroom, which was at the head of the stairs, I would sit on the top step and he would spin off a short poem for me. He communicated to me a love for books that has been influential all of my life. . . .

Dan: Some of my earliest memories are of our parents reading proof. One would sit with the manuscript and the other with the galley or page proof, and one would read aloud. I would sit on the floor and listen. When a person reads all the punctuation as well as the words, there is a tendency for the voice to drop when it comes to the punctuation: "You know [COMMA] he said [PERIOD]. So it seemed to me, as a little boy idly listening, that they were telling the stories to two people named Comma and Period and occasionally their friends, Semicolon and Question Mark. I sat there imagining what the creatures Comma and Period looked like and what they were doing while they were being read to.

The Botkins, 1938: Ben and Gertrude, Dorothy and Danny.

Dan: But the visitors who impressed me the most were Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Alan Lomax. Once, when I was eight, Alan brought Woody to visit us in Croton, and he and I sat outside and played mumbley-peg. To me, he was a friendly, jovial, fatherly person, wiry, with curly hair. He had his instruments and played them after our game. That’s a memory I’ll never forget.

Woody Guthrie and Alan Lomax with Ann Lomax and Dorothy Botkin, 1946

Read more memories of Ben Botkin in the full text of "Growing Up in Folklore," excerpted here, in Voices, Vol. 27, Fall-Winter, 2001. Voices is the membership magazine of the New York Folklore Society. To become a subscriber, join the New York Folklore Society now.