"It was such a gift"

Jim Seaver (class of 2004) was one of the last cohort of Gaines Fellows to know Gaines founder, John Gaines, personally. Current fellows Leena Haider and Jessica Miller invited Jim back to Bingham Davis House to ask him about his time in Gaines and his life since.

LH

Could you tell us a little bit about yourself, growing up in Kentucky, and your journey coming to UK?

JS

I was in the class of 2004, here at the Gaines Center. I'm from Lexington originally; I went to Lafayette High School and ended up at UK because, well, for starters, they gave me a Singletary Scholarship. I was a history major with a geography minor and I went through the Honors Program. And I have really fond memories of my time here, especially my association with the Gaines Center. I think of all my memories from my time as an undergrad, and where my heart lies, when I think about that area of my life, is the Gaines Center. And I know that sounds very trite, but UK was and still is such a big sprawling campus and a big entity. So many of the buildings that I remember have changed, but the fact that the Gaines Center is still substantially the way I remember it feels like a homecoming.

LH

What prompted you to apply for the Gaines Fellowship? How did you hear about it?

JS

From the time I was a freshman I was very fortunate to work with faculty who knew of the Gaines Center and said, "You're the kind of student they're looking for." I think several of them are still here:

Francie Chassen-Lopez in the history department; Rich Schein in the Geography Department— they both suggested Gaines to me. It was surreal to walk into this building earlier. I round the corner and I see a photograph of Jane Gentry Vance she was my very first Honors Program teacher; it was just surreal to see her again and suddenly be whisked back in my mind to be in my freshman year in her honors class in Boyd Hall. And to think about who I was and about people like her and Rebecca Gayle Howell (who is in the photograph across from her) and the influence they had upon kids like me. You know, when you are teaching at a university level, students come and students go and you may be close to them, but they're only there for a moment. But when you ' re a student, and you really click with a faculty member, you remember that association and the role they played in your development. It's wonderful to me that both of them are commemorated here in those photographs.

So, how did the experiences in your undergraduate years affect where you headed afterwards?

Js

I knew that I was going to graduate school for something; if I could be a professional student my whole life I would do it in a heartbeat. I know that sounds crazy for you all who are in the middle of crunch time finishing papers and exams! But I loved being a student; I loved hanging out with really interesting peers and faculty and soaking it all in. So I had this idea: I'm going to live the life of the mind. I kind of wish I'd taken a year off after I graduated, just to figure out what I wanted to do. But I thought, "Oh, I was good at history as an undergrad; I should keep doing history." Graduate school was so different intellectually, emotionally, and socially from the very nurturing intellectual environment that I'd known here. I think I had assumed grad school would be like the Gaines Center, and it's not. That was a bittersweet transition, but a lot of the thinking and development that happened in Gaines influenced the historian that I became. After I graduated from UK I went to Indiana University for my Masters degree in history and, years later, my PhD in history. I minored in folklore, so I'm a folklorist as well, and still very involved in the folklore academic community. It’s interesting to look back at that trajectory and see that the scholar and the person that I am now. That journey began in this building.

Lh

You are a Community Engagament Coordinator for the Kentucky Historical Society. Did you think that this is the work you'd be doing? Or did you think you were going to go into education? What were your career plans?

Js

I had several life changing experiences in graduate school. One of them is that I got to live abroad, in Germany, in 2006 and 2007. And then in 2008, I interned at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. When I was at the National Gallery, I was part of a larger ecosystem of public facing humanities work and the people that I worked with seemed to have a fairly good division of work and life, something you don't always see in academia. That balance was appealing to me. I worked in publishing for three years, which has its own crazy kind of environment. After I left publishing, I fell into the wine industry somewhat haphazardly. It was a fluke. But I remember when that opportunity opened up thinking that I could learn a lot from it. The kind of spontaneity and curiosity that I honed as a Gaines Fellow is what made that opportunity so appealing to me. So, I spent 11 years working for the largest winery in the United States that's not located along the West Coast; it’s based in Bloomington, Indiana. I was doing wine education and I was a wine ambassador. I was teaching, but in a different setting. I also developed an interest in the history and culture of alcohol in the United States, so I taught a very popular course at Indiana University on that topic. About a year ago, though, I was kind of looking for a transition. I was looking to get closer to my family in the Lexington area. The Community Engagement Coordinator job opened up at the Kentucky Historical Society. One of the reasons they hired me is because I had one foot in academia and could "walk that walk and talk that talk," but I had also been in the public sector (when I was working at the winery), meeting people where they are and simultaneously representing an organization. Those two skill sets really came together well for the work that I'm doing now as the community engagement coordinator. I have three main roles within KHS, one of which is constituent relations. When people have a history problem it's usually very practical like, "Hey, I'm trying to figure out where my ancestors genealogical records." I help with that. I coordinate the state's Historic Marker Program. And my third role is with cemetery issues. That can run the gauntlet of "hey, how do I clean an old headstone?" to "what are the legal stipulations for developing a site that has a historic cemetery on it, or, "Oh, my God, we were digging, and we hit something, and we don't know what to do!" I connect those folks to resources that can help them out. That’s another strength that the Gaines Center really developed: being a generalist. I think it can be easy to have one thing that you hone in on, and you ' re the expert on, but how often can you pivot? And know, within a week, a whole different field that you didn't know about before and know enough to give good advice to people! But also to know when to pull back and acknowledge your own limitations or lack of knowledge. It was so humbling as a Gaines Fellow. And I say this with genuine admiration for this program. I was a Singletary Scholar, and all my professors during my freshman and sophomore year told me, " you ' re brilliant, you know you ' re getting an A,” and then I get to the Gaines Center, and I look around, and think "I am the idiot in this room. " I had imposter syndrome. It was also humbling in the way it needed to be, for me to realize that there were people in this space who were experts on things that I was never going to be an expert on, and learning to rely on them and collaboratively engage with some of the things that we ' re working through, and know who had strengths that we could lean on. And, also, when to talk and when to shut up. And I'm still working on that.

LH

You learned to rely on others, to approach your cases differently, being a generalist and making sure that you ' re being as aware and respectful as possible. That must have been important going into your work with the Kentucky historical roadside markers. How did you begin working on this project?

JS

The Kentucky historical roadside markers program is the main public program in my office. There are over 2400 historical markers throughout the state that date back to the mid 1930s. On the one hand, I'm just trying to keep the existing markers standing upright. I'm also working on putting new markers out on the landscape. There are three that I dedicated last fall, right after I came on board with the Kentucky Historical Society. The points of contact for these nominations invest well over a year of time and effort in getting these things put up, so to see these people grinning from ear to ear witnessing their history being commemorated is amazing. It's not always easy history; it's not always happy history, but the state is giving some recognition to those stories.

History is such a hot button topic, from what curriculum is being taught to the controversy of removing or replacing statues. How has that influenced your work? And what advice would you give to people when they're in these discussions?

Js

History is not always easy. It's not always fun. You're not always going to agree with it. It's an ongoing discussion or a debate. And sometimes it’s an argument about what happened in the past. You need to look for reliable data; you learn to read silences and try to read between the lines. If people look to history only to prop up a self-congratulatory narrative, they're not approaching it for all the right reasons And if you look at a place like Kentucky, there are a lot of difficult narratives that have been mapped upon this terrain. With the marker program that I manage, I want people to have some sort of engagement with that, to get a sense of where they fit within the larger timeline of this space. Historical markers are part of this larger culture. And this larger debate that we ' re having right now about what does it mean to engage with the humanities? I think people need to be challenged to engage with the wider world. And the Gaines Center does that for its students and with its public programming I look at these posters here [in the seminar room of Bingham Davis House]. Imani Perry. Nikky Finney. Rhiannon Giddens I wanted to drive back for that talk so badly. They're all doing phenomenal work. And I think they get it: this idea that history is not always easy, you should be challenged. And you should also be challenged to listen. That's another thing that I learned at the Gaines Center just because I have very strong feelings doesn't mean that I'm the only voice in the room. And sometimes I’m especially mindful of the fact that at this point in my life I'm a middle-aged white guy and I should listen, and really listen, try to see people for who they are, and meet them where they are, and then see if my way of thinking about something needs changing. My hope is that the historical marker program starts conversations. I always tell people that it's the beginning of the conversation, not the end. My chief goal, as the coordinator of the Historical Marker Program for the state, is to create educational encounters. When people start attaching their own emotions to a historical marker, and turning it into a monument, or a statue, or a trophy, or advertising, or even a gift for somebody else, that's when it starts to get problematic. But being a part of this program means that I cannot escape the larger debates that are going on in society about monuments and memorials. That has been challenging. Every day I learn a little bit more, and I learn to navigate those waters a little bit better, but I'm still getting there.

If you could only record one single moment as a Gaines fellow in your memoir, what would it be?

I was one of the last Gaines Fellows to have a personal relationship with John Gaines before he died. I was thinking about him today; he still looms large in my mind as this intellectual figure, this very cultured Renaissance thinker. He was wealthy, but he also had a sense that he needed to use his wealth to foster other people who didn't have access to the privileges that he did. He could be intimidating as a thinker! I remember being at a party at his home, a dinner party. And he was in his later years so he would often just sit and watch the room and witness all these people coming together. It was like a salon, if you ' re familiar with that. He would listen to the conversations happening around him.

He had a brilliant art collection that went up for auction in the 1980s and I actually have a catalog from that art sale somewhere in my own book collection. But he was just an impressive human being. He was also very down to earth. Once we got to know him and his wife, Joan, another phenomenal human being, the fellows and I cooked spaghetti for them here in Bingham Davis House. We served them Crystal Light lemonade. And they were so nice about it. I have such fond memories of them.

When he passed away, in the spring of 2005, I was in my first year of grad school. I was ailing; I was not doing well in grad school. My sense of self had been rocked and I remember just thinking, "Jim, you ' re a fake, you ’ re a bad intellectual; what are you even doing?" And I hear that Mr. Gaines is not well, and we have been told, "if you ' ve ever had something you want to say to him, now ' s the time." And I wrote a card—he didn't know how appreciative I was for this experience. I could get choked up right now talking about this. But I wrote a card. And it arrived not long before he died. He was with Dan Rowland, who was the director of the Gaines Center at the time, and a few other trusted friends, and he said to his wife, "Joan, go get that card." So, they read it, and they're all emotional. He passes not long thereafter. And I find out and I send an apology note to Joan, and it says, "I'm so sorry, I cannot make it back for the funeral." But then Dan Rowland called me and said, "John Gaines wanted you to represent your class at his funeral." So I never sent that note to Joan. I went to the funeral. I got to read at his funeral, sharing something he had written. And, yes, it was proof that in this place he fostered the community that surrounds it, he fostered the worldview that we get from it. It was not only beyond these walls, but it was beyond him, and Joan, and all the other people who are associated with it. So it was such a gift. I'm just going to leave it at that. It was a gift. I think as you go out into the world, you ' re going to see that the two years you spent here are going to cast a long shadow in the best possible way. And I think about moments when I was a Gaines Fellow where I was uncomfortable, I was angry, maybe I'd been bickering with one of my fellows, something like that. But I was learning and I was growing. And this place was a crucible that really did turn me into the person that I became. And what a gift.

I want to end it right there. I'm going to be thinking about this message you just gave me, because my last question was asking for advice. You just gave me advice.

If I had to give advice to Gaines Fellows, I would say first of all, comparison is the thief of joy. It’s so easy to look at other Gaines Fellows and think, "Oh, they're getting accolades and they're doing cool things and who am I? What am I doing?" We're all on separate journeys. I think it's important not to compare yourself too much. And to acknowledge that we will each find different ways to impact the communities that we live in. And I look at the Fellows who I knew, who were within a few years of me and none of us are famous. And, you know, I truly thought "I'm going to go off and I'm going to be the hero." No, I'm not. I'm a 41 year old dude who's putting up historical markers. But I feel like I'm making a difference in the communities that I'm moving in. And I think I'm on this larger journey, where I'm hoping that when I die, like John Gaines, I can look back and say, "I did enough for people."