by Brad Gooch
76 “Herman’s HENRIETTA”: FOC, “Mistaken Identity,” GCSU.
76 “Peabodite Reveals Strange Hobby”: Peabody Palladium 5, no. 3 (December 16, 1941): 2.
76 “The Good”: Alice Alexander, “The Memory of Milledgeville’s Flannery O’Connor Is Still Green,” Atlanta Journal, March 28, 1979.
76 “We were always told”: Elizabeth Shreve Ryan, in discussion with the author, February 10, 2004.
76 “The teacher did run”: Cash, Flannery O’Connor, 37.
76 “I went to a progressive”: FOC to Betty Hester, August 28, 1955, CW, 950.
77 “Mr. English”: FOC, fragment of an early version of Wise Blood, GCSU.
77 “hello”: Georgia A. Newman, “A ‘Contrary Kinship’: The Correspondence of Flannery O’Connor and Maryat Lee — Early Years, 1957–1959” (PhD dissertation, University of South Florida), 7.
77 “I can see her plodding”: Charlotte Conn Ferris, in discussion with the author, November 4, 2003.
77 “I am the only one”: “Peabodite,” Peabody Palladium (December 16, 1941): 2.
77 “the way the halls”: Gerald E. Sherry, “An Interview with Flannery O’Connor,” Critic 21 (June–July 1963): 29–31.
77 “Now next Wednesday”: Barbara Beiswanger, “Flannery O’Connor,” unpublished memoir, GCSU.
78 “The topical is poison”: FOC to Betty Hester, September 1, 1963, HB, 537.
78 “Here, Adolph!” “Peabodite,” Peabody Palladium (December 16, 1941): 2.
78 “From 15 to 18”: FOC to Dr. T. R. Spivey, August 19, 1959, CW, 1103.
78 “Senior, Senior”: MFOC, cartoon, Peabody Palladium (March 2, 1941): 2.
78 “In Hopes That a Jimmie”: MFOC, cartoon, Peabody Palladium (December 14, 1941): 2.
79 “She just thought”: Elizabeth Shreve Ryan, in discussion with the author, February 10, 2004.
79 “How she looked”: William Ivey Hair, with James C. Bonner, Edward B. Dawson, and Robert J. Wilson III, A Centennial History of Georgia College (Milledgeville: Georgia College, 1979), 211.
79 “Being in a creative”: Elizabeth Shreve Ryan, in discussion with the author, February 10, 2004.
80 “My dad-gum foot’s”: Cash, Flannery O’Connor, 47.
80 “integrate English”: FOC, “The Teaching of Literature,” MM, 127.
80 “At that time they said”: Dr. Floride Gardner, in discussion with the author, June 16, 2006.
80 “terribly disappointed”: Cash, Flannery O’Connor, 36.
80 “At Long Last”: MFOC, cartoon, Peabody Palladium (May 23, 1941): 2.
80 “When our schooldays”: Alexander, “Memory,” Atlanta Journal, March 28, 1979.
81 “our mothers”: Mary Virginia Harrison, “Mary Virginia Harrison Collection,” GCSU.
81 party at the Cline Mansion: The description of the graduation party is taken mostly from the Union-Recorder, May 28, 1942.
81 “I recollect Mrs. O’Connor”: Elizabeth Shreve Ryan, in discussion with the author, February 10, 2004.
CHAPTER THREE: “MFOC”
82 “Lucy Gains College”: FOC, Folder 199-e, GCSU.
82 “the most progressive”: FOC, Folder 15b, GCSU.
82 “I enjoyed college”: FOC to Janet McKane, July 9, 1963, HB, 530.
83 “I first met Flannery”: Betty Boyd Love, draft of “Recollections of Flannery O’Connor,” GCSU.
83 “twining over”: Betty Boyd, “Reflection,” Corinthian (Fall 1942): 12.
83 “Some new, unheard-of”: M. F. O’Connor, “Pffft,” Corinthian (Fall 1944): 16.
83 “pretty terrible poems”: Love, “Recollections” draft, GCSU.
84 “have not written anything”: FOC to Betty Boyd, November 5, 1949, HB, 19.
84 “horribly serious”: Love, “Recollections” draft, GCSU.
84 “Betty Boyd was”: Jane Sparks Willingham, in discussion with the author, November 29, 2004.
84 “the two people”: Betty Boyd, “My First Impression of GSCW,” Corinthian (Fall 1942): 8.
84 “a great many hours”: Love, “Recollections” draft, GSCU.
84 “I soon became”: Betty Boyd Love, “Recollections of Flannery O’Connor,” Flannery O’Connor Bulletin 14 (1985): 65.
85 “Miss Mary was a businessman”: Jean Cash, Flannery O’Connor: A Life (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002) 28.
85 “Miss Mary . . . inherited”: Helen I. Greene, “Mary Flannery O’Connor: One Teacher’s Happy Memory,” Flannery O’Connor Bulletin 19 (1990): 45.
85 “She and Dr. Boeson”: Lou Ann Hardigne, in discussion with the author, November 1, 2004.
86 “When I sit down”: FOC, “The Grotesque in Southern Fiction,” GCSU, 9.
86 “poetic and romantic”: “Miss Katherine Scott Reads Paper to D.A.R.,” Union-Recorder, October 21, 1943.
86 “They would not have been”: Mary Barbara Tate, in discussion with the author, March 6, 2004.
86 “They would start talking”: Cash, Flannery O’Connor, 57.
87 “Even then, it was obvious”: William Schemmel, “Southern Comfort,” Travel-Holiday (June 1988): 72.
87 “I found my ideal”: Boyd, “My First Impression.”
87 “Girls were crying”: Louise Simmons Allen, in discussion with the author, November 2, 2004.
88 “Sugar was scarce”: Virginia Wood Alexander, e-mail to the author, October 23, 2005.
88 “This war is making us think”: Colonnade, April 11, 1942.
88 “calling attention to the prejudice”: Colonnade, April 18, 1932.
88 “foreign ideas”: William Ivy Hair, with James Bonner, Edward B. Dawson, and Robert J. Wilson III, A Centennial History of Georgia College (Milledgeville: Georgia College, 1979), 201.
89 “Palace Beauty Salon”: MFOC, “Two Fragments,” GCSU.
89 “I grew up in Madison”: Gladys Baldwin Wallace, letter to the author, October 22, 2004.
89 “People find it odd”: Helen Matthews Lewis, in discussion with the author, January 29, 2004.
89 “older spinster-suffragette”: Helen Matthews Lewis, “GSCW in the 1940s: Mary Flannery Was There Too,” Flannery O’Connor Review 3 (2005): 50.
90 “Ours are girls”: Ibid., 51.
90 “Most of the time”: Zell Barnes Grant, letter to the author, October 25, 2004.
90 “They were so close”: Jane Sparks Willingham, in discussion with the author, November 29, 2004.
91 “She was very fond”: Cash, Flannery O’Connor, 55.
91 “Now let me see”: FOC, unpublished portion of letter to Betty Boyd, November 5, 1949, GCSU.
91 “This should reassure”: Ibid., November 17, 1949.
91 “shortly, probably asking”: FOC to Betty Boyd Love, April 24, 1951, HB, 24.
91 “We kept trying”: Helen Matthews Lewis, in discussion with the author, January 29, 2004.
91–92 “country bumpkin”: Ibid.
92 “she did write”: FOC to Betty Hester, November 25, 1955, CW, 972.
92 “kept ducks”: Love, “Recollections” draft, GCSU.
92 “Flannery did not want”: Harriet Thorp Hendricks, letter to the author, November 1, 2004.
93 “Connie Howell”: Colonnade, November 9, 1943.
93 “I will not”: Alice Alexander, “The Memory of Milledgeville’s Flannery O’Connor Is Still Green,” Atlanta Journal, March 28, 1979.
93 “Dr. Wynn was a gentleman”: Cash, Flannery O’Connor, 58.
93 “He was a laughingstock”: Mary Barbara Tate, in discussion with the author, March 6, 2004.
93 “A few days later”: MFOC, “Going to the Dogs,” Corinthian (Fall 1942): 14.
94 “Unusual Occupations”: Kelly Suzanne Gerald, “Flannery O’Connor: Toward a Visual Hermeneutics” (PhD dissertation, Auburn University), footnote 14: 32.
94 “It may look like”: Betty Boyd Love, “Recollections,” Flannery O’Connor Bulletin, 66.
94 “The Immediate Results”: MFOC, cartoon, Colonnade (October 9,
1942): 4.
95 “I thought of her then”: Gertrude Ehrlich, e-mail to the author, October 6, 2004.
95 “Aw, nuts!”: MFOC, cartoon, Colonnade (October 24, 1942): 4.
95 “It seemed to rain”: Virginia Wood Alexander, e-mail to the author, October 23, 2005.
95 “I remember her being”: Frances Lane Poole, letter to the author, October 17, 2004.
96 “Doggone”: MFOC, cartoon, Colonnade (November 14, 1942): 4.
96 “fast making a name”: Nelle Womack Hines, “Mary O’Connor Shows Talent as Cartoonist,” Macon Telegraph and News, June 13, 1943.
97 Waves: The description of the Waves at GSCW is taken largely from Hair et al., Centennial History, 215–18.
97 “They’d get out every morning”: Jane Sparks Willingham, in discussion with the author, November 29, 2004.
97 “We had very little contact”: Hair et al., Centennial History, 216.
98 “They were always in the way”: Helen Matthews Lewis, in discussion with the author, January 29, 2004.
98 “Officer or no officer”: Colonnade (January 23, 1943): 4.
98 “When convoys passed”: Charmet Garrett, letter to the author, November 10, 2004.
99 “two of the soldiers”: Gertrude Treanor, letter to Agnes Florencourt, May 11, 1941, private collection.
99 “Miss Katie used to sit”: Love, “Recollections” draft, GCSU.
99 “I can still remember”: Johnny Marko, letter to Katherine Cline, undated, “Special Collections,” GCSU.
99 “About this time of day”: Jim Bird, letter to Katherine Cline, undated, “Special Collections,” GCSU.
100 “a handsome Marine”: Sally Fitzgerald, “Flannery O’Connor: Patterns of Friendship, Patterns of Love,” Georgia Review 52, no. 3 (Fall 1998): 409.
100 “tin leg”: FOC to Betty Hester, March 10, 1956, HB, 145.
100 “Oh, well”: MFOC, cartoon, Colonnade (April 3, 1943): 2.
100 “a close comradeship”: Sally Fitzgerald, “Patterns,” 410.
101 priesthood: Sally Fitzgerald writes that “he asked her to continue to write to him, which she did until she apparently decided that it was inappropriate to continue, and they drifted out of contact.” Sullivan eventually left the seminary to pursue a career in business and later married. “Patterns,” 411.
102 “womanpower in this war”: “D.A.R. Endorses Aid for Liberty,” Union-Recorder, March 18, 1943.
102 “Miss Hallie required”: Marion Peterman Page, letter to the author, October 17, 2004.
102 “a twang”: Karen Owens Smith, letter to the author, November 3, 2004.
102 “six, tall grey”: FOC, “Exercise A,” GCSU.
102 “The other houses”: James Joyce, “Araby,” Dubliners, edited by Robert Scholes and A. Walton Litz (New York: Penguin Books, Viking Critical Library, 1996), 29.
102 “Nine out of Every Ten”: FOC, Folder 4-b, GCSU.
103 “highly recommendable”: MFOC, [Review of The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf], Corinthian 18, no. 2 (Winter 1943): 14.
103 “translucent mush”: FOC, “Five Titled Exercises,” GCSU.
103 “loud-labeled tin cans”: FOC, “Exercise,” GCSU.
103 “tin cans”: William Faulkner, “Barn Burning,” Selected Short Stories of William Faulkner (New York: Modern Library, 1993), 1.
103 “Excellent”: Folder 4-c, GCSU.
103 “plain looking”: Karen Owens Smith, letter to the author, November 3, 2004.
103 “At the time it seemed”: Marion Peterman Page, letter to the author, October 17, 2004.
103 “zuit-suited”: FOC, “A Place of Action,” GCSU.
104 “belligerent”: MFOC, “Home of the Brave,” Corinthian (Fall 1943): 5.
104 “When I went to Iowa”: FOC to Betty Hester, August 28, 1955, CW, 950.
105 Alka-Seltzer: Alexander, “Memory,” Atlanta Journal.
105 “I had a course”: FOC to Betty Hester, August 3, 1963, HB, 533.
105 “Think twice”: FOC, a draft of a speech delivered at GCSU; Frances Poole, letter to the author, October 17, 2004.
105 “In college I read works”: FOC to Betty Hester, August 28, 1955, CW, 950.
105 “She was considered dangerous”: Cash, Flannery O’Connor, 66.
105 “My introduction to her”: Ana Pinkston Phillips, letter to the author, October 21, 2004.
106 “Could I interest”: MFOC, cartoon, Colonnade (November 9, 1943): 2.
106 “I had 3”: FOC to Janet McKane, January 27, 1964, HB, 564.
106 “I remember Flannery as outstanding”: Jane Strozier Smith, e-mail to the author, October 28, 2004.
106 “Master of Rotating Tops”: MFOC, “Doctors of Delinquency,” Corinthian (Fall 1943): 13.
106 “Tums and Ex-Lax”: MFOC, “Biologic Endeavor,” Corinthian (Spring 1944): 7, 8.
106 “until students quit school”: MFOC, “Education’s Only Hope,” Corinthian (Spring 1945): 15.
107 “old fashion wardrobe”: Elizabeth Wansley Gazdick, letter to the author, October 22, 2004.
107 “I was an art major”: Joan DeWitt Yoe, letter to the author, October 21, 2004.
107 “She was one of the most”: Helen Matthews Lewis, in discussion with the author, January 29, 2004.
107 “Well I know”: Mary Barbara Tate, “Flannery O’Connor: At Home in Milledgeville,” Studies in Literary Imagination 20, no. 2 (1987): 34.
107 “the smartest woman”: FOC to Betty Boyd, November 5, 1949, HB, 19.
107 “very carefully brought up”: Cash, Flannery O’Connor, 65.
107–108 “My survey of European History”: Helen I. Greene, “Mary Flannery O’Connor,” 44.
108 “Elms form a stately avenue”: Spectrum, 1943.
108 “Oh, what is so effervescent”: MFOC, “Effervescence,” Corinthian 18, no. 2 (Spring 1943): 16.
109 “My roommate and I”: Mary Elizabeth Anderson Bogle, letter to the author, October 17, 2004.
109 “Although the majority”: The Editor, “Excuse Us While We Don’t Apologize,” Corinthian (Fall 1944): 4.
110 “a lot of encouragin’”: Jean Wylder, “Flannery O’Connor, A Reminiscence and Some Letters,” North American Review 225, no. 1 (Spring 1970): 59.
110 “I thought then”: Bee McCormack, e-mail to the author, March 3, 2005.
110 “I like cartoons”: FOC to Janet McKane, August 27, 1963, CW, 1191.
110 “You can go jump”: Robert Fitzgerald, “Introduction,” Everything That Rises Must Converge (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1965), xii.
110 “wonderful, merry cartoons”: Margaret Inman Meaders, “Flannery O’Connor: ‘Literary Witch,’” Colorado Quarterly 10, no. 4 (Spring 1962): 377.
111 “In the linoleum cuts”: Robert Fitzgerald, “Introduction,” Everything That Rises, xii.
111 “Mary Flannery decorated”: Greene, “Mary Flannery O’Connor,” 45–46.
111 “We were laughing”: Peggy George Sammons, e-mail to the author, October 25, 2004.
112 “Your quoting of a poem”: FOC to Janet McKane, December 13, 1963, HB, 554.
112 “a bit breathlessly”: Meaders, Flannery O’Connor, 381. Betty Boyd Love remembers FOC asking the question, in her briefer account in her “Recollections” draft, GCSU.
113 “humanizing the machine”: George W. Beiswanger, “The Dance and Today’s Needs,” Theatre Arts Monthly 19, no. 6 (June 1935): 440.
113 “I understand she says”: MFOC, cartoon, Colonnade (February 7, 1945): 4.
113The Making of the Modern Mind: The full title of this book by John Herman Randall, Jr., was The Making of the Modern Mind: A Survey of the Intellectual Background of the Present Age (Boston: Houghton, 1926).
113 “an academic best-seller”: Cash, Flannery O’Connor, 67.
114 “What kept me a sceptic”: FOC to Alfred Corn, May 30, 1962, CW, 1164–65.
114 “[He] is the one”: FOC to Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, Tuesday [Summer 1952], HB, 41.
&nbs
p; 114 “Philosophy class”: Helen Matthews Lewis, in discussion with the author, January 29, 2004.
114 “It was philosophical modernism”: Cash, Flannery O’Connor, 67.
115 “the hope for lasting peace”: “G.S.C. Graduates Hooded Monday,” Union-Recorder, June 14, 1945.
116 “The usual bunk”: Cash, Flannery O’Connor, 57.
116 “the realm of further study”: Colonnade (June 6, 1945): 2.
116 “Humph!”: Sally Fitzgerald, “Rooms with a View,” Flannery O’Connor Bulletin 10 (1981): 12.
CHAPTER FOUR: IOWA
117 Iowa Writers’ Workshop: The Workshop began in 1936, under the direction of Wilbur Schramm. Paul Engle assumed the directorship in 1941 and held it for twenty-five years.
117 “one of the most”: The account of the meeting is drawn from two sources: Colman McCarthy, “Servant of Literature in the Heart of Iowa,” Washington Post, March 27, 1983; and Paul Engle, letter to Robert Giroux, July 13, 1971, “Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc. Records,” New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. In the Post piece, Engle gives a slightly different version of the note as: “My name is Flannery O’Connor. I’m from Milledgeville, Georgia. I’m a writer.”
118 State University of Iowa: The name of the university was shortened, in 1964, to the University of Iowa.
118 “naturally blank”: FOC to Elizabeth Hardwick and Robert Lowell, March 17, 1953, CW, 910.
119 “Iowa City was a bustling place”: John Gruen, in discussion with the author, October 5, 2006.
119 “hick”: James B. Hall, e-mail to the author, September 14, 2006.
120 “a new Bohemia”: James B. Hall, Contemporary Authors: Autobiography Series 12 (Detroit: Gale Research Series, 1990), 132; Hall went on to write about twenty books of fiction and nonfiction, and was the founding provost of the Arts College of the University of California at Santa Cruz.
120 “I did know what it meant”: FOC to Maryat Lee, February 24, 1957, CW, 1023.
120 Currier House: O’Connor did form a friendship with one roommate, Louise Trovato.
120 “I went to St. Mary’s”: FOC to Roslyn Barnes, December 12, 1960, HB, 422.
121 “shom storrowies”: James B. Hall, Seems Like Old Times, edited by Ed Dinger (Iowa City: Iowa Writers’ Workshop, 1986), 13.
121 “Who was likely”: Richard Gilman, “On Flannery O’Connor,” New York Review of Books 13, no. 3 (August 21, 1969): 24.