Interview with Neva Carpenter, author of Harem Scarem in El Cerrito

Neva Carpenter was born in El Cerrito , California in 1928 and grew up in El Cerrito until her family moved to Merced , California when she was 13 year old. After a few years the family moved to the Fresno area and she graduated from Fresno High School in 1947. Neva worked for many years in the Fresno area as a nurses-aid/companion but is now retired. She was widowed many years ago but now lives in Clovis , California and shares her life with her three children, five grand-children and six great-grandchildren.

Neva enjoys writing very much. She has written quite a bit of poetry but Harem Scarem in El Cerrito is her first book. Neva has a wonderful way with words and the typical comment of someone who reads her book is “I have had many people tell me how it was in those days but through your writing I can now see it.”

How did you come up with the idea for the book? I had been planning to write about my childhood memories for my daughters for quite a few years but never seemed to get around to it. While searching for my ancestors on the Internet I became very excited when I discovered that there was more available than just the dates of birth, death, etc. I then decided it was time for me to get down to business and write my memories, primarily focusing on my fondest memories.

I had written to the Historical Society in the towns where I had lived as a child ( El Cerrito and Merced , Calif. ) to see if they had pictures of the town for the period of time I lived there. Both wanted me to send my writing on to them. I received word from members in both societies saying they were impressed with what I had written up to that point and that they thought I should go into more detail. Once I got started seriously trying to do this I was surprised at how much I could remember. So much so that I was encouraged to think about making it into a book that could be published.

How long did the project take? The manuscript went through numerous revisions, probably too many to count. I was very lucky to have several people volunteer to edit it because they all had a different perspective on it and they gave me many valuable ideas and suggestions. At least twice I completely reorganized the book. I was always finding things I had left out or errors that no one had noticed. Searching for pictures, verifying dates, and so forth was very time-consuming. Of course there were the normal family crises that drew my attention away for weeks or even months at times. It took about three years to get to where we are today with a finished product. It took a long time but I'm so thrilled with the way it turned out.

What did you learn from researching and writing the book? I found that my sisters had pictures that I didn't realize existed. The same was true for some of my friends. As I wrote about various members of my family, I learned that in some cases I had never put two and two together to get four in terms of why certain things had happened. And while I have always been very interested pursuing my family history, having to write it down forces you to think clearly about events in the past. On a more practical note I found that writing seriously for a book that you hope to publish is much more time consuming than just jotting down memories for your children. A person doesn't need to be overly concerned that the grammar is perfect when writing for their children and as for the spelling....they already know if you can't spell. To them that is part of you. You obviously need to be much, much more careful when writing a book.

Why do you think people will enjoy your book? At first I thought that the book would only interest people who now live in or who once lived in El Cerrito . But after I asked several of my friends here in Clovis to read my manuscript so I could get their suggestions, everyone told me that they enjoyed it even though they had never lived in El Cerrito or known me or my family in those days. They said they could actually see what I was writing about. (They also told me to get an editor!) As for the people who live in or lived in El Cerrito: depending on their age they will either say “Oh, I remember that wonderful time long ago in El Cerrito” or “How could all those things have possibly happened in El Cerrito?”