The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Close Friends’ Cathedral Adventure by Anne Ward Crocker

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

Close Friends’ Cathedral Adventure by Anne Ward Crocker Annewardcrocker.com https://www.amazon.com/Close-Friends-Cathedral-Adventure-Crocker/dp/1638298009 Peat, a toad, and Paul-Paulette, an earthworm, live in the woods beneath the roots of their friend, Christy, a Christmas fern. One day they are dug up and carried away. Christy is replanted in a pot large enough to hold Paul-Paulette, but Peat is too big to get in and cannot completely hide. He stays under Christy’s fronds, but can’t disappear. Together with their wild flower friends, they are taken to the Washington National Cathedral to participate in the annual Festival of Flowers. While the plants are being carried into the cathedral, Peat is discovered, picked up and left in the Garth – the small, enclosed garden near the base of the stairs. This is the story of the little toad’s adventure as he tries to find his plant and animal friends in the huge building. It is a tour of the cathedral and an introduction to cathedral architecture inside and out. A short glossary of architecture terms is included.

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Anyway, we have an amazing young lady on the show today. We're talking about her book called Close Friends Cathedral Adventure out December 6, 2024, and Ward Crocker. joins us on the show. And we're going to be talking about her book, her insights at 95. She is still writing books, doing interviews,

and not getting out of the park when it comes to sharing her adventures of life and trying to make the world a better place. And what an important thing to do. She's written a much longer version of the book and stuff like that, so we'll get into some of those details. Welcome to the show. How are you, Ann? Fine, thank you.

Fine. It's wonderful to have you, Ann. Give us your dot-coms or any websites, social media, where we want people to follow you on the interwebs. I don't do social media. I'm still in the old end. I mean, I think I have a website that somebody set up for me. It's Androidcrocker.com. But, no, I don't even do Facebook.

I do do email. Yeah. And I still write letters in cursing. Oh, do you. So. Oh, there you go. Well, don't you have a Snapchat for those other 95-year-old guys to tune into? Snapshot?

Snapchat. Oh, snap. What's that? It's one of the social media things. It's just a phone chat. No, no, no, no, no. No. All right.

Well, so tell us about this book. This book, give us a 30,000 overview, if you would. Well, first of all, it's my one and, actually it's my second book. My first book was 40 years ago in a cookbook. So this one is a one and only because I'm not a writer. I do other things. But the story came about in 1979, the altar guild of our church was invited to do a flower arrangement at the National Cathedral. for the annual flower festival and they were offered to give us lessons so we took them up on it and decided because they assigned us the staircase that goes down to the crypt or the lower level of the cathedral that we would do a and had a statue of abraham lincoln at the top that we would do a wildflower garden and while we were carrying plants in to do this

I realized there was a toad on my Christmas farm, and normally I would not pick up a toad that I could not take him into the cathedral. So I put the plant down and put the toad in a nearby garden and went on with the festival. Well, the little toad haunted me because I had to get him from where I left him at the cathedral to the other side of the cathedral where there was a woods in a much better environment for him. And so that's the long answer to your short question. Hmm. Yeah. And so you wrote this book. Now, is this your first book?

Or do you have many other? Well, the cookbook, I wrote a recipe column for the local paper in the 1970s and used other people's recipes. And I started with the ministers-wise of all the churches. And they had, there were such interesting people in themselves that I, decided I would write short biographies of these women. And after I had collected, oh, I think I had over 800 recipes, I got sort of tired of.

I was busy doing other things. And the editor of the paper convinced me to do a cookbook. So having done cookbooks before, when I worked for the Washington Gaslight Company, It was a labor of love And we sold all the copies You're a prolific author Well yeah well too You could hardly call that

But anyway it was fun Well I mean it is writing You have to write the narrative So this book is about I believe the National Cathedral Is that correct Yes well I had to get him I had obviously it's fiction Except for the Toad

was a real toad, but I had to give him friends, and I had to get him to a proper environment because where we had gotten these plants was in an area of Herndon, Virginia, where we live, that was scheduled to be a subdivision, and they were uprooting plants and trees, so we didn't have any guilt feelings about digging up all kinds of ferns and wildflowers from this area. And obviously, the toad hitched a ride. But then so did an earthworm and so did the plant. So they were all his friends. So was this the first cathedral flower festival you and your altar guild participated in? Oh, no. No, no, no. It was actually it was the fourth of, third or fourth of five. We did it five times. But we did different things each time.

Although this one was so successful that we did it twice Or they asked us to do it twice Now for those who don't know anything about the National Cathedral Can you help people know what that is and where it's located? Well, of course it's located in Washington, D.C. And most people are familiar with it, I think, Chris, because that's where all the national funnels are And we just buried, we just buried Jane Goodall from there within the last month.

Another person, my memory is slowing down, it's thinning out. So anyway, but it's a, I think it's the second largest Gothic cathedral. No, don't call me on that. It's anyway, it's a Gothic cathedral, and it was just finished being built in the late 90s. So go ahead. And you started as a student, I believe, at the University of Maryland in 1948 and watched it to get constructed, I guess. Is that right? That's right. In 1948, I was in college at University of Maryland

and we would take field trips into the cathedral to hear different ministers. But the cathedral was hardly what it was. In those days, There was only the altar and the apse, which is the area of a cathedral where the choir is. And one of the transeps, which is one of the cross parts of the cross-shaped cathedral, that's all that was built. The rest of it was open air and temporary wooden structures. and all those stones were out in the yard piled up as the stones that went into constructing it. So anyway, I watched it being built my entire life.

Wow. That's got to be a lot of fun, right? Well, interesting. It wasn't really fun, but it was a very interesting exercise. And I made every, since I was. fortunate enough to live near there for a few years, I was able to visit and attend services there. In the beginning, am I giving you too long an answer? No, this is what we're looking for, hear from you.

I was going to say, in the beginning, in the 50s, when I was living in Washington and working for the Washington Gaslight Company, I attended a Christmas Eve midnight service there, which is where the cathedral was lit by candlelight. They had, oh, many, many candelabra station throughout the cathedral. And it was only then, I guess the other transept had been built by that time. But anyway, the wind was so strong that it blew wax from those candles

all over people in the congregation. And I had a terrible time getting that wax out of my coat because of course you had to wear your heavy coats because there was no heat but it was still beautiful and the choir was beautiful and it was well worth

the wax well worth the wax the wax burns you gotta love it yeah you gotta love yeah now this is a story who is this single toward children

and parents who want to read for their children well I didn't And I just wrote it just read because it was a story that I thought was unusual, and I just wanted to tell. But people that have talked to me about it think it's a good thing for adults to read to children and discuss with them because I do include the various parts of a Gothic cathedral, which have their own vocabulary. So there's a, I see my memories from the thing in the back, gossary, the gossary in the back of the terms. But the cathedral itself is a marvelous place to, and an essential place to visit, I would say, in Washington. You do all the museums, but the, I got the cathedral is unto itself in beauty. Yeah.

You got to love it. I kind of love it. Now, with the book, it's a story about Pete, a Toad, and Paul Paulette, an earthworm, the live in the woods and the roots of their friend, Christy, a Christmas firm. And then one day, they're all dug up, puts in the pots, and taken away. That sounds like what you guys were up to. And tell us kind of a little bit more about the story and these characters and what you were hoping to convey to the reader. I wanted to convey the interconnection of everything in nature, how the mankind is connected to animals and plants. We could not live without plants.

But also, I became fascinated in earthworms because I had not, I mean, I knew they were essential to gardening and I knew they were good things, but I didn't know anything about them before I started doing this story. And Paul Pellett, it has a double name because earthworms are both male and female. You still need two to tango, but each worm does both jobs. So, and Charles Darwin wrote a whole book about earthworms. He even, no, don't go me starting on earthworms. It sounds like you've studied them a lot.

Well, this is a Christmas show. We will go into the, you know, the other than story. But there's several books on earthworms, and the one that I really like is, let's see, what's her name here, Amy Stewart's book called The Earth Move, and it's interesting and like, but she continues where Charles Darwin started on the importance of earthworm, not just to mix up. the soil, but in other capacities, too. So it's an easy and a good read about earthworms, if you are inclined to be curious about earthworm. Yeah.

And so you think it's a mix for a great story for young people. And, of course, they love characters, and they love cute characters, and they love animals, too. You know, they're children's youth. They're trying to understand their world. Now, you engage in talking about death. in the book too. Sometimes that's a topic

that kids have a hard time understanding or some people broach, you know, away from that subject because it's kind of hard to understand when you're a kid. But you cover it in your book and why did you do that? Well, I think it's important for people to

even at least discuss it. And nowadays it's being more stuff than it used to be. But no, we lost two children, too, as earlier our marriage. So I had to face death

and learn about it and I learned how to cope with the death of two children. And I often wonder how... Hang on one second. I think we're having some audio bleed. Let me see if I can fix this here real quick.

In the end of summer, when a lot of our dollars are dying back. Okay, there we go. Sorry about that. We'll get that fixed the post. You were saying you had two children that passed away. Yes. One at birth was still born and the other died of cancer at age three.

So she had cancer of the eye and she had an artificial eye. That was an interesting episode. And anyway, you'd test your faith for one thing. and you learn a lot about life as another. But I often wonder how animals and insects cope with death when they expect to be eaten or stomped on at any time in their life. So they live in fear or maybe they don't. Anyway, I don't worry about it, I'll tell you,

but I do think about it from time to time. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, these are important. in subjects, though, right? And sometimes presenting them in a way in setting a format that children can understand or identify with, they can maybe help these things, too.

And so you've written this book, you've written a few different other things we talked about on the show. Do you still cook and make recipes and stuff like that? Oh, yes, indeed. I do still cook because I enjoy

cooking and experimenting with things. things I haven't cooked before, and even yesterday, I had a, we had our fourth floor, I live in an institution, old folks home, well, it's hardly an old folks home because we do a lot of great, anyway, we had our fourth floor party yesterday, and I usually make a cake, but I didn't, I wanted something simpler, so I decided to make chocolate-covered strawberries and a little bit healthier, and how hard could that be? There's only three ingredients.

So anyway, I learned they didn't turn out exactly. They looked beautiful and they tasted good, but the chocolate was not exactly right. But anyway, that was, all of them disappeared. So apparently they were well received. Well, I'm going to perfect the recipe next. It called for coconut oil. I never had used that before and didn't even know it existed and had lost the recipe by the time I got to rest. So I didn't know how much to use.

So now I know how much to use and I'll do them again next year. Wow. You're still cooking it up and making the homemade sweets there and good stuff? No, well, I don't make too many sweets. Oh, really? Oh, he makes soup. Okay. Yeah, we have the portion of the food here is excellent.

And I should put in a plug for the West, the Shenandoah Valley, Westminster Canterbury Senior Complex. It's a very friendly and welcoming place with good food. And the serving sizes are too big. So I'd always take half home, and they very often get mixed into a soup of some sort. one of their they're good soups here so anyway that's my cooking

oh okay all right well the let's see now do you still take classes on many things that you work oh yes oh yes oh that's a lifelong morning and we have them here

and the the last one was a couple weeks ago for the season and it was on the ancient art of the Neanderthals and the

prehistoric humans in France and Spain and it was fascinating because they have to because of modern technology they have been able to trace mankind back much further than they used to.

So is that one of the keys to keep to keep on getting to 95 and keep the brain sharp is to keep learning taking classes I don't know whether I don't know whether that's the key or not but it certainly has served me well

because I've taken classes all my life in various subjects from flower range and parapsychology accounting history you name it art history I avoid politics I do not like politics

So I tend to I do vote though And I keep up One of my My great aunts was a Militant Suffergette in England So we We learned about politics

At an early age That's kind of interesting Learn about them politics You're sorry Learn about them politics As they say Yeah Yeah

love it. You got to love it. All right. So let's see here. What else do we have we want to do? Is there any future books coming up maybe that you're working on? No, I belong to a group here called Frozen Porch. And they have several authors belong to it. And they're much, much better than I. I've written a couple of short stories for it and one poem. So I don't do it that. much writing, although I do keep journals, and I write haiku. Now, haiku has served me well throughout my life, because I have almost 900 of them now. Oh, really? There are snippets to memories of extraordinary things in nature.

So when, and I can, I have, they're handwritten in, well, I'm on my fifth little book now, but I have them in a database and I can sort them by subject matter if I ever get around to it but it's not high on my list at this point now you like watching birds evidently you're a bird watcher is that true well now that's my

that's my number one love of life at this point and even at 95 they're very nice here to take me out when they do the annual Audubon Christmas census, which is coming up this weekend, and we're assigned a section, and because we did it, I was with a couple that did it last year, we know where to go and know where we're apt to see the most birds, but I don't do the, I don't walk in the fields anymore, because I have to

walk with a roll later. So, but you can do a lot from a car, and a good pair of binoculars. What do you think is the key to living long and well? You say you try to keep a positive attitude, I believe. Well, that's it right there. It's keeping a positive attitude. And try and find something good in people you don't like.

So that's been a challenge. I've seen that challenge. Don't laugh. Don't laugh. That's a good thing to do. Yeah, I agree with you. Okay. So anyway, I've done, and then you have to take things as they come.

You just cannot sweat the small stuff. Is that one of your stings, don't sweat the small stuff? Yeah, that's, yeah, and everything is small stuff in the theme of the life. Oh, don't sweat the small stuff. And remember, it's all small stuff. And positive attitude There was a quote here that's on the PR page How one endures

What Must Be Endured Is more important than that Which must be endured Is that one of your Well yes And I picked that saying up When I was in the hospital I went through menopause on a Tuesday

Because I had a hysterectomy So I was in a hospital You're busy on Monday So while I was in the hospital I was reading Margaret Truman's book history of her father, Harry Truman, and that's what he lived by. And I admire Harry Truman. He was a common man, but he was, I think, a pretty good president

to have stepped in after FDR and World War II and so forth. That dates me, but it says, you know, when things are tough, the tough get going. So the same thing. And the times get tough. The tough get going. I think someone made a song about that. It was pretty good. Well, as we go out, give people a final pitch out to order up your book and find out more on your website.

Okay. Without a question. Yes, if you would, please. Say more about the book? Just give us a final pitch out for people to order up the book. where the phone books are sold. I'm not familiar with the word pitch out, but I figure you want

how to get it. It's a bad on Amazon and Barber's Barnes & Noble. And you probably can get used copies by now. So there's a sin paper bag and hard copy, and it's also in

was it e-book and audio. I don't know. But do you have a minute more? Yes, we do. Because how this book got published is a story in itself. I didn't want it published, but I had worked 40 years on this story because I wanted when I was 88, I figured I would have to finish, wrap up the projects in my life.

And I went to the Internet and just picked out of public. I knew how hard it was to get a book published, but you had to have an agent and all this. But I didn't want that. I wanted a nice rejection letter. and instead I got we are pleased to inform you that and I didn't know Austin McCauley from I didn't know

and never heard of them but anyway turns out they're an international company and they're in England this books have been selling in England and France and Germany and people in Italy saw it and took it to Seoul Korea so it's been around the way I have no

idea how well it's selling But anyway, it's an international for a tiny little insignificant book. It's been a lot of fun. Wow. Well, yeah, I mean, sharing and uplifting the world, getting people to enjoy what you've written and the experiences, it'd be great. It might be good if you did a bird watching book, maybe teach kids how to bird watch and the importance of. Well, well, you should say that because my. great-granddaughter has let me know that she's taken up burning and she would like to learn

how to burn so that's so that's they're going to be her Christmas present but she lives in the country and when she was little when she was only I think five or six she identified a bald eagle so I figured you know she's on her way she's now 14 so I'm looking forward to to helping her do that that is awesome that is awesome what a wonderful thing. Well, it's been wonderful to have you on the show, Ann, thank you very much for coming on. Well, thank you. And I'm sorry about the mix-up in the beginning, but computers. Yeah, we figured you would eventually show up, and so we got you. Now, give us your dot-com one last time so people can look you up on the interwebs. Oh, and wardcrocker.com.

All right, well, thank you very much, Ann. Thanks, John. It's for tuning in. Order up, Band's book, wherever fine books are sold, and bring back reading to children. Parents, it's a great way to raise smart kids. Order of the book, it's called Close Friends Cathedral Adventure, out December 6, 2024 by Ann Ward Crocker. Thanks for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortress Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress Chris Foss, Chris Voss, 1 on the TikTok, and all those crazy places on the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys.

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