Felicity Buckwinder | The Poetic, Raw Archives of a Documentarian

Having lost her mother to a rare cancer when she was 16, Jessie was left with unanswered questions about her mother’s past. Of course, Jessie knew the hard-working single mother who practiced law to protect children who didn’t have a voice in custody disputes, but who was Cheryl McCall before assuming the identities of lawyer and mother?

Over the years, Jessie has slowly pieced together parts of her mother’s past by matching old photographs to entries from her mother’s journals. Though she heard child-friendly doses during dinner conversations, there were still parts of the story that were missing. Through Felicity Buckwinder—the project which chronicles this journey—Jessie began to discover a successful journalist with published work in LIFE, Time, and People Magazine. Her mother interviewed and formed deep and lasting relationships with musicians of the era, including Willie Nelson, Bobby Bare, and Miles Davis. Cheryl wrote and produced the ’80s documentary Streetwise with American photographer Mary Ellen Mark, which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1985. She also documented humanitarian work in Ethiopia which turned out to be one of her hardest assignments of all. Her work with children, in particular, inspired her to return to and graduate from law school. She became an advocate for children who needed a voice and representation in the legal system. She opened her own law office in Nevada City, California where she practiced, raised Jessie, and lived a beautiful, purposeful life until her passing in October 2005.

In an email written to Maya Angelou, who was a close friend of Cheryl’s, on April 23, 2005, just a few months before her passing, she expresses her fear of leaving Jessie with so many questions. She writes:

“I haven’t told her much about my accomplishments because I never wanted her to feel overwhelmed and as though she could not live up to some of the things I’ve done. I wrote so many stories about celebrities and got to know them and their children, I saw how overshadowed their children felt and so many turned to drugs and self-destructive behavior. I wanted her to live this protective life in this idyllic small mountain town with so much charm in a normal way.”

Cheryl talks about feeling like she’s lived a double life as a homemaker rather than being the writer she is. She also talks about starting a memoir and then putting it away because of the amount pain surrounding her words. She continues:

“I have a suitcase of personal journals for 19 years during my younger life as a journalist that I unearthed yesterday but I think she’s too young for me to give them to her now. Some of what I read last night is just so full of the pain and stupid affairs I had and all the mistakes I made in my personal life, but some of it describes the wonderful heart connections I made with people like you and others who inspired and influenced my worldview. Give me your thoughts on that sometime. I will try very hard to see you when you come to Reno, or I will send someone to bring you to me if I can’t travel. Love, Cheryl “

Questions that would have been answered in the friendship that forms between a daughter and her mother in adulthood, were left to be answered through this rare collection of writing. As Jessie discovered more about her mother, she also discovered many sides to herself. Jessie is a photographer who travels often for work, meaning much of her life mirrors the years her mother spent as a journalist. Some of the opinions Cheryl expresses in her writing are opinions Jessie also holds. The parallels in their lives are striking. Parts of Jessie became the same parts of her mother, despite not having a direct influence on her formative years.

So why Felicity Buckwinder? I’ll let Jessie explain it in an excerpt from April 2016:

“[I found] the words ‘Great Western Buckwinder Migration’ towards the back of the very short notebook. The simple notion, ‘This is our gear, using the philosophy that you shouldn’t oughta own whatcha can’t carry on your back,’  was followed by chicken scratch drawings of what everyone was bringing on the roadtrip from Chicago to Relief Hill in Nevada City, CA. It’s not dated, but judging by her playful and scribbled handwriting I don’t think she was more than 19 or 20.

I’m not sure how she came up with the pen name, ‘Felicity Buckwinder,’ but hopefully, after some further digging, I’ll find out.”