With deepest love
Eudora
Once more Ken turned his thoughts and will toward new fiction. He had managed this year to write some promising story fragments that drew on his youthful stay in Winnipeg, circa 1929. Millar, betting on his own unspent potential, this December did what he’d never done before in his writing career: signed a contract for a book not yet finished. Knopf agreed to pay Ross Macdonald an advance of forty thousand dollars for an untitled mystery novel due December 1, 1981.
Kenneth Millar to Eudora Welty, December 9, 1979
Dear Eudora:
I believe your wonderful letter is coming true. I hesitate to spell out what that may mean, but I think I can say with truth that Margaret can accept whatever comes. What has come is not as bad as she had feared it might be. One of her eyes is virtually useless, but the other has somewhat improved in this past week. And her morale is steady, and if you asked her she would tell you, truly, that she is enjoying her life and looking forward to Christmas, and Jimmie’s visit.
We had a couple of most enjoyable visitors the past week in Santa Barbara. As no doubt all the world knows by now, Kurt Vonnegut and his bride12 came to Santa Barbara to get married, and I had a chance to get to know him—a really gentle man, perhaps matching Jill in her watchful gentleness. They helped us through what might have been a difficult week, and made us feel like lucky people, which we are.
Now I hope I can write a novel worthy of your expectations but if I can’t I’ll rest content with your vision of my ships. I was a sailor, you know, and so was my dad.
All my love, as ever,
Ken
Eudora Welty to Kenneth Millar, December 31, 1979
(a white throated sparrow is singing)
Dear Ken,
So many wishes to you for a Happy New Year—My feeling is strong that it’s already begun for you. I was so glad to get your last letter.
Christmas was good I feel sure with Jim there to make it full measure. I was thinking of you,—my Christmas was good too, with 5 little children all over the place—I’m glad though when this time of year has been left behind and we can think of what’s to do ahead. I’m glad when that longest night of the year has passed—(Do you know what I was doing, I was reading “The Woman in White” again.) What I hope is that new books come out of us all in this year—at least that they start. That healths get better and better for sure—
Your friend Mr. Yellin, who brought out your beautiful book, wrote & asked me for something if I had anything that would do—I wondered if he might be interested in that early story of mine somebody found in the Archives, “Acrobats in a Park”—I remember you liked it all right—it was in a French mag. & a South Carolina one, no book—I sent it to him to see—Thank you for putting him in touch—13 And the Mystery Writers of America asked me to their New York dinner, in the spring!
Dear Ken, Happy New Year to you both, and I send you my thoughts and hopes and love all through the days of it—Yours as always, Eudora
CHAPTER TEN
“Every day of my life I think of you with love.”
1980–1982
DESPITE his hopes at the end of 1979, by the spring of 1980 Ken Millar would be almost unable to write at all. The man who lived by and for words would no longer have words to share. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. But before silence might overtake him, he sought to tell Eudora of the change that was approaching and to assure her of their ongoing love.
Kenneth Millar to Eudora Welty, January 9, 1980
Dear Eudora:
It’s generous of you to keep me in touch as you have been, even at times when I haven’t written you. There seem to be times when one doesn’t want to talk much, simply rest in the quiet security of love and friendship. This may sound ominous, but it really isn’t meant that way. Our days are happier, Margaret is holding her own and is very much her old self and so, may I say, am I.
Glad to hear, too, about your projected book for Mr. Jellin. I’m looking forward to seeing it again, and having a chance to see it in a new physical setting.1 I’m only now beginning to grasp the importance of these matters. I hope, with so much still to learn, that I can go on learning.
My love, as ever,
Ken
P.S.—I enclose a letter from a Chicago teacher which I enjoyed.
Ken.
[enclosed letter from Douglas D. Martin]
Eudora Welty, New York City, to Kenneth Millar, [Late January 1980]
Dear Ken,
I’m sitting in LaGuardia Airport on a bright cold afternoon, looking out on water, long stretches of skyline, planes & birds—soon to take off for Jackson—I just ran up for 3 days, for a meeting. And was glad I came,—an interruption to work was the way I first saw it, but it turned out a refreshment—The best form of rest, isn’t it? I’m glad about your own.
Just before this trip came up, there was another day’s interruption that was a fine occasion—Mississippi inaugurated a new governor who is a good, first-rate, vigorously thoughtful and firmly spoken man. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t prove himself to be one of the best governors in the nation. His third try—This time he beat the disgraceful redneck scoundrel who beat him before, & who has outraged everybody so, that our man won this time by a landslide. He used the inaugural occasion to invite leaders in various fields of science, economics, history, arts & letters (this was me) who are of or from Miss., to a symposium called “Mississippi and the Nation, 1980.”—connecting us with the rest of the world is his strong intention. At the Inauguration, Leontyne Price (from Laurel, Miss.) flew here from Toronto to sing. As you know, I don’t often feel personally enthusiastic about political figures, to the point of working for them—I believe the last was Adlai Stevenson—but I am proud & excited that we have William Winter for Governor for the next 4 years. I thought you’d be glad we had that much sense at last, our record is so sorry in politics. While we are not bad at all in other things.2
Saw Joan & Olivia Kahn, eating supper with them—Went to dinner & a show with Walter Clemons. (Read the forthcoming Newsweek with his report on a plaigerized novel.) (Can that be misspelled? I have a bad writing these days, as it is, from arthritis in my working-hand.)—It lightens my life for yours to be lighter. With love,
Eudora
Kenneth Millar to Eudora Welty, February 7, 1980
Dear Eudora:
Your recent letters made me happy, the more so because I can answer them in confidence and good faith. For a while I was left among possibilities with nothing quite certain to say. But the possibilities have become more certain, at least for the present, and for several weeks there has been some remission in M’s eye trouble. She’s been drawing long breaths of relief, and talking a good deal between them. This isn’t merely a psychological change, though it’s certainly important in that way, but an actual improvement in the condition of her retinas—an unexpected but actual physical change, in the right direction. We made the most of the situation by getting M. a new television set for her sixty-fifth birthday, just passed. I haven’t reached that age just yet, and won’t until next year, but it appears to be not a bad time of life, when we turn our backs at last on the lost hopes of the past, and find new reasons for hope.
And though I am not touched by it as deeply as I’d like to be—as you are—I feel that I’m living in the same world, one I’d lost and may soon recover. At least I can’t and won’t turn away,
Love,
Ken
P.S.—Every now and then I get out OLD SARUM and take a look.
This was the last letter Eudora would receive from Ken. She continued to set a busy pace, lecturing, traveling to see friends, and trying to write fiction, but there was now a huge gap in her life. Still she sent letters to Ken.
Eudora Welty, Chicago, to Kenneth Millar, April 14, 1980
Dear Ken,
I’m in Chicago for this week, working at the University—the last of my springtime visits. I’m always hoping all is going
well there—better all the time.
Yesterday in Charleston, South Carolina, all was coming into bloom almost under your eyes & azaleas & dogwood full & bright—and it was 80°—I woke up this morning and Chicago was white with snow—I really am a Southerner—At home, though we had a very slow, mixed-up spring—the blooms kept being slapped back by untimely cold spells, and some flowering trees just skipped flowers & resigned themselves to just go ahead and leaf out. It was as if confusion was all over the world.
In Charleston I was reading for The Citadel, a very old military college—never dreamed I’d be inside The Citadel. This was built, all in white, all with battlements, all inside big iron gates with real swords worked into the grillwork, around a large green quadrangle (no connection with the Quadrangle Club where I’m writing from!), lined with ancient live oaks—I coincided with the annual parade of the troops before some general, & viewed it from the seat behind him (where the English Dept. was put). We first faced this wide flat (seacoast flat) empty green, the white buildings across from us seen full front & 2-dimensional, strangely like papier-maché in the waiting silence, then from behind us, through one arch after another, poured the cadets, streaming to the drums as the band struck up—onto the huge field, and surrounded it. The general rose, was driven all around the field and then a dreadful thing, the cannons were fired in a 19-gun salute. I’d never been close to any fire-arms. Not only deafening but the earth under your feet seemed to rock, and the shock went right up you. Terrible. Then there was a lot of marching and wonderful music, and bagpipes & Scots in their plaids—we got up time after time (like in the Episcopal church) & laid our hands over our hearts at the playing of various tunes, as they marched, ending of course with Dixie, which whenever I hear it makes the tears jump out of my eyes—They say Gen. Mark Clark (who lives there) started the Scots troops & the bagpipes, & usually comes but didn’t this time. Prince Charles, they say, loved coming, I’m not sure if he didn’t take part.3
While I’m on the Confederacy, I wonder if you read the long historical essay by Robert Penn Warren on Jefferson Davis in The New Yorker recently—it’s really a wonderful piece—So many of the historical facts in it I never knew before—such as that Davis after the surrender was kept for a time in chains—& given no light—and that they had hoped to get Robert E. Lee to testify against him by offering him a pardon! The essay is beautifully controlled & plain & eloquent out of both mind and heart.4 Love, Eudora
On May 4, 1980, Ken made what seems to be his last attempt to contact Eudora via letter. Evidently, this letter was never mailed, but it survived as part of his estate and is now in the private archival collection of Lucius M. Lampton.
Kenneth Millar to Eudora Welty, May 4, 1980
Dear Eudora:
It’s a barbarously long time since I’ve written but I have been in a long non-writing state. I think you may understand better than most, perhaps better than anyone, how hard it can become to speak after a lapse into silence. But I couldn’t stay quiet long in the midst of your good news and the pleasure it must have brought you, the expressions of good will from all over the world which I hope I may join.
With all my love, dear Eudora, as ever,
Ken
The “good news” that Ken mentions seems likely to have been the selection of Eudora as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to be presented on June 10, 1980, by President Jimmy Carter to her, Robert Penn Warren, Tennessee Williams, ornithologist Roger Tory Peterson, and nine others. Perhaps sensing Ken’s keen interest in this high honor, she wrote to him as if in direct response.
Eudora Welty to Kenneth Millar, July 11, 1980
Dear Ken,
I hope that rest and serenity and abundance of work and play have attended your house all summer, and that all news is good—particularly in respect to Margaret’s eyes.
It’s hot here, as in the rest of the South and Southwest—I don’t mind—since I can hole in with an air conditioner and live on tomato sandwiches, and work in the insulation that such heat really is. At night the lightning bugs fly very low & slow—and above the trees the heat (I guess) makes a constant sheet-lightning—Even the telephone book is blood-heat to the touch.
I saw Reynolds recently and his news is that he’s within 4 or 5 pages of the end of his new novel. He sent me a snapshot taken of him when he went to Rome at Easter and I thought you might like to have it.
Reynolds came to Washington when Pres. Carter gave me one of his Medals for Freedom. This was a gracious, hard-to-believe occasion, which stirred me as you can imagine—One of the others who received the Medal was Roger Tory Peterson, I thought it might interest you to know. (A totally humorless man he appeared to be.) (But humor may not be necessary around birds.) I came home to the page-proofs of my Collected Stories, coming out in October. It was a strange experience, reading them all at one blow and most of them read again for the first time since I wrote them. All in 6 days time passing before my eyes—They’re not in any literal way autobiographical, but they showed me my life—I guess they are my life.
I hope it was all bright, the whole summer for you & keeping on—
Love,
Eudora
In the fall of 1980, Eudora was interviewed by novelist Anne Tyler in conjunction with the imminent publication of her Collected Stories. She traveled to New York to help publicize the new book. Then, after returning home, she flew to Baltimore. Old friend Katherine Anne Porter had died, and Eudora went for the memorial service. Back home again, she at last received word from Ken, though indirectly. Santa Barbara book dealer Ralph Sipper, as an act of concern, friendship, and admiration during a difficult time for Ken, proposed to publish a collection of his autobiographical pieces with an introduction by Eudora. Sipper had made the request at Ken’s suggestion, and Eudora responded first to Ken. He could not write to her, but she needed to write to him.
Eudora Welty to Kenneth Millar, October 20, 1980
Dear Ken,
Today a letter came from Ralph Sipper about a proposed book of yours, but before I answer it I wanted to write and say I was glad of it as a sort of communication from you to me, that you thought his idea of my doing a bit at the beginning was a good one. I know you said the last time you wrote that sometimes things go better without letters, and I wanted to follow your wish with this but it has been such a long time. My understanding I would keep questioning, but I did not want to risk what might break in in any way or what was so necessary to you then—respecting that wish for just being quiet and serene without needing words. I need words so much myself that it measured for me what this meant for you. But the truth is it’s been so long without knowing how you are that I am writing, as you see, on the basis (excuse) of Ralph’s letter. And I would love to do the little piece for anything of yours, or do anything ever that I could, as you know. The book is a fine good idea. It would help me to be allowed a chance to say a word in it.
I hope it was not a bad time to write. It’s always seemed to me nothing but a good time when we are in touch. My love and wishes as always,
Eudora
I pray things go well with you. I know how serious they are.
At the end of October, Eudora went to New York for the publication of her Collected Stories by Harcourt. There she was feted royally at a publication day reception and also managed to see many old friends. Before she left New York, the reviewers of her life’s work as a story writer were waxing ecstatic. Mary Lee Settle in the Saturday Review and Maureen Howard in the New York Times Book Review compared her to Chekhov, the writer Eudora herself considered the master of the short story. Their paeans were echoed by many others, including Anne Tyler and Reynolds Price. And Hortense Calisher, concluded her Washington Post review with a fervent wish: “May readers swarm.” They did.5
But news was not all good. On October 28, Ralph Sipper sent sad tidings: “[Ken] has not, to the best of my knowledge, written much if at all within the last year. Not only has he been distracted as I wrote to you
, but he seems not able to remember or focus on those little mundane details necessary for communication with friends and acquaintances. Perhaps he’s just going through a bad period. I fervently hope so.”6 So did Eudora, but that hope seemed increasingly faint. All the more reason, she must have felt, to write to Ken.
Eudora Welty to Kenneth Millar, December 13, 1980. Christmas card.
Dear Ken,
I wonder what the day is like there. You wrote once that you call it winter when it rains a bit. But I hope you get your sun and your swim. It’s cold here, but some camellias bloom. White-throated sparrows are all over the yard today.
Meanwhile There Are Letters Page 48