It’s been a hard working year, but luck came too. I wish both for you—and keep my wish going.
I hope you do take care of yourself as well as other people, and that new work & good health are yours. You’re dear in every way to me and I think of you in such concern and love.
Yours as always,
Eudora
On St. Patrick’s Day 1981, Herb Yellin, who had published limited editions of her work and Ken’s, wrote to tell Eudora of his recent meeting with Ken and Maggie. He described Margaret publicly “berating Ken and literally screaming at him,” Ken’s acknowledging his inability to write a letter, and Ken’s desire that Eudora be made to understand his plight. The man once so like his character Lew Archer, Yellin reported, was “literally holding my hand at one point, and asked us to stay.” “It must be like living in a lunatic asylum,” Yellin then declared.7
There seemed to be no way for Eudora to protect Ken, but when she made an April trip to New York City and the Algonquin Hotel, where she had first met him, Eudora wrote to offer her support, whether moral or otherwise.
Eudora Welty, New York City, to Kenneth Millar, [April 13, 1981]
Dear Ken,
This is my birthday, and I wanted to send you my love on it, and from here [Algonquin Hotel]. Of course I send it on the other days and from wherever I am. A work-job, short one, up the Hudson at Vassar brought me to N.Y. Flowering trees are out. I went up & spent a night with Rosie Russell, and I’ve seen other friends of yours & mine too. Joan Kahn being one—
Ken, if at any point you needed me or if I could just come a day to see you, you could say so to Ralph Sipper and he would give me the message, I know. In the deepest sense we could never be out of touch. In the daily, enduring way, I think of this too. It does me good. Please dear take care of yourself.
Love always,
Eudora
In May, Ralph Sipper sent word that Ken had gone into the hospital for a surgical procedure to remove excess fluid from his brain, a procedure doctors hoped would improve his memory. Three weeks later, though, Sipper reported that Ken was much as before, if not worse, and that the Millars found it more and more necessary for Ralph to handle Ken’s business and personal correspondence. “I am truly sorry to hurt you with [. . .] sad information,” he added, “but I know that you want to and must know what is happening to Ken. We have talked about you and it is clear that you are very dear to him. It occurs to me that you might want to think about visiting him.”8 Indeed she did, as she had for some months.
Eudora Welty to Kenneth Millar, c/o Ralph Sipper, June 15, 1981
Dear Ken—
I’ve been feeling for some time that I’d give anything to see you—Now some time has opened up for me—I’d be free to come out, if you found it a good time for you too. Would the last week in June be too near—I could come later, in July or August, if that’s easier. Just to walk or sit or ride by the sea and talk again. I would dearly love to see you.
Ralph has been so kind about letting me know how you’ve been getting along—It’s so rotten, the time they’ve been giving you—I hate it for you—I pray for it to change.
Ralph will give this to you, so whatever you think about our chance to see each other, you might just convey to him and he’ll pass the word along—If the time just doesn’t seem right at all, of course tell me—I think of you every day, wherever we are, you know that.
My hopes and love,
Eudora
Eudora Welty to Kenneth Millar, October 30, 1981
Dear Ken,
I was so happy to lay eyes on your book [Self-Portrait: Ceaselessly Into the Past]. What a good thing you’ve given us. I hold it dear. It will be valued by a great many people all around. And I want to thank you once again for the pleasure it gave me to write the little note in front—I wish I could have said more and more—and to tell you once again how lastingly I cherish the piece you did about me on my coming to Santa Barbara.
It was a splendid idea that Ralph made happen. His interview being there, and his own piece, make the publication event very special.
Lately I was riding through Ontario on a train and thinking so often of you. That sky you grew up under looked as big as all North America. They had been cutting the hay. Once, because of a derailment up ahead, we all got off the train and rode across country for two hours and saw it up even closer, and we saw deer, shadowy deer. We went from Swift Current to Medicine Hat on the Moose Mountain bus. I got off in Banff and stayed awhile. They’d told me I might see bears walking about the streets, and I pictured them upright. But all I saw was Japanese tourists walking around. It was beautiful there but I felt closer to the gentle mountains of Santa Barbara than I did to the Rockies, all hardness and ice. The magpies in Banff were the first I’d ever seen, feeding as big as chickens on the front yard of the post office.
Then in New York, I had the pleasure of meeting your friends Julian and Kathleen Symons. We of course spoke of you—they said they hoped to see you when they got to the West Coast, and promised to give you my love.
I’m always sending it to you myself. You are in my thoughts every day and dear to my heart.
As always, Eudora
“I need words,” Eudora had written to Ken a year earlier. Now she had more of Ken’s words in book form to give her comfort. And she sought to find her own words to describe his situation. She shifted from a long story she had called “The Shadow Club,” keeping parts of it for use in “Henry,” a new story with a title character whose life is blighted by Alzheimer’s disease.
Eudora Welty to Kenneth Millar, December 25, 1981. Christmas card.
Dear Ken,
I’ve been reading your pieces in “Self Portrait” over again all afternoon and I have the finest feeling of having had a long visit and talk with you. They say so much! My love to you as always. Many strong wishes for the New Year to you and Margaret and all good hopes,
Yours,
Eudora
As 1982 began, Margaret Millar’s twenty-third novel was published. The Los Angeles Times sent Assistant Arts Editor Wayne Warga to interview her and Ken, and during the course of the interview Maggie made Ken’s battle with Alzheimer’s a matter of public record: “He knows what is happening to him some of the time, but he doesn’t really feel things. It’s something I think about, nightmarelike, all the time. I needed the help first and then everything changed and all the responsibility came to me. [. . .] I’ve faced my own problem pretty well. I haven’t faced his well, at least not as well as I think I should.” Later in the interview, Maggie told Warga, “Mostly we have these long, silent nights now. I never leave him.”
But not always silent. “I lose my temper,” she conceded, “and then I go on guilt trips. The trips aren’t as big as they used to be, but the temper remains the same.”9
Ralph Sipper and Dorothy Olding both sent Eudora copies of the article. Sipper also sent somewhat comforting words, given the situation: “Ken does seem cheerful, is cheerful. He couldn’t fake that in my opinion.”10 Eudora would seek through letters to abet that good cheer.
Eudora Welty to Kenneth Millar, c/o Ralph Sipper, March 16, 1982
Dear Ken,
I think of you every time I see the wonderful “Life on Earth” program on public television—Tonight we heard the singing of the whales, deep down in the sea. All the whales sing the same song, and the song is a new song every year. There are so many wonders.
Dear Ken, I have all your letters to keep me company. Every day of my life I think of you with love. Yours always, Eudora
Eudora Welty to Kenneth Millar, June 1, 1982
Dear Ken,
I’ve been sending you love from one place after another—travelling around. In Knoxville, Tennessee, Reynolds and I had a meeting to be on the Today Show and discuss Southern Literature, for 2 ½ minutes—lucky we agreed as there wouldn’t have been time to argue. Then we had all day to wander around the World’s Fair, and be on our own, and we were talking about our good meet
ings with you and how we think of you so much and we found we were both reading all your novels again. Then I was in New York, where I did some readings, and Columbia gave me an honorary degree. I thought of you on the platform, how you would be amused to know that my citation was written by the member of the Columbia faculty who writes mysteries under the name of Amanda Cross.11 Then I went to visit my editor [John Ferrone] on his farm in rural Pennsylvania, where over the weekend everything was bursting out in spring. A cardinal nest by the porch popped up with baby birds, a mother Mallard duck was just about to give birth, sitting all day on her nest with that very intelligent bright eye on us, only she never did—the father Mallard came to pay half-hour visits in the vicinity, which he spent standing on the deck into the pond, and once he just fell down! Have you ever seen a duck just fall down? His mate just watched imperturbably. In an old apple tree you could hear, standing close to the trunk, a flicker’s nest deep inside, and a steady whirr, whirr, whirr sounding from within. I guess those babies had come. There were a lot of Mennonites and Amish living around there—we saw their peaceful farms, and saw their buggies. I thought of our ancestors, yours and mine both.
I have been reading the novels of Robertson Davies—full of mystery and humor and of Ontario as he knew it growing up.12 He’s probably your old familiar.
My love to you as always, dear Ken
Eudora
Nona Balakian sent you greetings too.
Even as Eudora was writing to Ken, Ralph Sipper was sending her “Good news!” “When I telephoned the Millars this morning,” Sipper reported, “Ken sounded particularly alert. I remarked on this to Maggie after she came on the phone and she told me that Ken had had a very good two weeks, the best she could remember in recent months. She conjectured that perhaps Ken did not have Alzheimer’s after all (you will remember that the disease is diagnosed by a process of elimination) and that the doctors could be wrong.”13 Eudora had long cherished that very hope, and it was reinforced when on August 26 Ken and Margaret phoned her. Such hope would soon be chastened.
Eudora Welty to Kenneth Millar, August 26, 1982
Dear Ken—
I was so grateful for the call—Thank you and Margaret—I hold those moments dear when we were hearing each other’s voices—It was like a wonderful and unexpected present, one I would rather have had than any other I can think of—
It came on a hot afternoon—the cicadas singing from the tree in the yard in long choruses—when it starts getting dark, hundreds of lightning-bugs will begin signaling, high & low—Dear Ken, I think of you every day, but today was when I heard your voice on the telephone—
With dearest love,
Eudora
Margaret Millar to Eudora Welty, September 5, 1982
Dear Eudora,
It was very good of you to write so quickly and fondly. Ken appreciates it very much. By an odd coincidence, and a happy one, the following day while going through some of my papers I came across this wonderful picture of you and Don Freeman and Ken. I’ve forgotten whether I sent you one at the time or not. I have not exactly reached the forgetful stage, but I have so many details to remember now that Ken is totally unable to help with any.
Last night was kind of a low point in his condition which fluctuates so much that I am continually off balance. He decided to take a walk with the two dogs. We had just come in from dinner and when he went down the hall I assumed he was simply going to rest. The police found him almost all the way down to the beach, walking in traffic, on the wrong side, walking very rapidly, they reported. This was quite a switch, as his usual gait is very slow though he’s physically in good shape. Anyway, one of the dogs had sense enough to come home by himself: the smaller one stuck with Ken. He asked me if I had a room for him, he didn’t know who I was or my name. He had never done such a thing before, and of course has no memory of it. I wish I could forget as easily.
A long cold summer. Some of the locals are blaming Reagan which is meteorologically unsound but psychologically tempting.
Much love & admiration,
Margaret
Eudora Welty to Margaret Millar, [September 1982]
Dear Margaret,
Thank you for writing to me, and under such difficulties. I appreciated it very much, for I think and wonder and hope every day about the way things go. And I realize how every day is its own story.
What I would like to do is come. I have been hoping for a long time that it would be all right, would not give any kind of worry or inconvenience, if I came out briefly to see Ken—just whatever would seem to him natural and easy. I could get a room at the Hotel Miramar and take my chances on its being a time there that [would] be all right on the day. If there would prove to be some way I could be useful to you—I would try my best. It seems possible to me soon, if there is nothing at that end to keep me from it. I think Ralph would help in any way, though I haven’t mentioned it to him lately.
Thank you so much for sending me the Coral Casino photograph of that happy time. I cherish having it.
Thank you again for writing to me and for that phone call—I’ll write again and I’ll be writing to Ken, though without mentioning coming to Santa Barbara. I would like to know how this seems to you. I send my love today and every day. It isn’t the same thing as help, but it wants to be.
With love and hope,
Eudora
P.S. I’m sending a note to Ken today—plus a picture—if he’d like to see it—
“What I would like to do is come,” Eudora had written to Margaret, and in October Margaret sent word that she might. As Eudora told Reynolds Price, “Ralph Sipper called up, saying Margaret asked him to do so for her. It would be OK there ‘if I was up to it’ she said, I ‘didn’t need to get permission from her,’ and that the sooner the better because of the weather, which will be the rainy season before long. She also said she had a car if I wanted to use it. (But I can’t drive in S.B.—the Freeway!) Ralph is going to be out of town at the beginning of November for about a week, and what I think is that I’ll go out on Nov. 11 and stay till the 20th—I very much would like any element of rush or strain to be out of it so Ken would feel it was an easy time, & we could meet without anything pressing. If Ralph is in town (I pray I’m right on his dates—I’ll check to be sure) he will help make things easy.”14 Eudora knew that Reynolds could accompany her once his faculty responsibilities for the fall semester ended, but she felt the situation was too urgent for delay. So she wrote separately to Margaret and to Ken, confirming her solo arrangements.
Eudora Welty to Margaret Millar, November 9, 1982
Dear Margaret,
Ralph gave me your message that it will be all right at that end for me to come—I want very much to come. I’ll be flying out on the 15th, and will telephone the next morning—we can see then when’s a good time for me to come out, or whatever. It turns out that Ralph and I are to be coming in on the same plane, both taking it at Denver, and Carol will meet us both. I made a reservation at the Miramar, where I feel at home, and brought work along too—so it will be easy for me just to be there and to see Ken when it’s a good, relaxed time for him and no burden on you. I look forward very much to the time, and our meeting. And I’m so happy the time coincides with the L.A. Times Award to Ken—which I hope to see you accept, I’ll be there too.15
Love,
Eudora
Eudora Welty to Kenneth Millar, November 9, 1982
Dear Ken,
My news is that I’m flying out to Santa Barbara to see you—something I’ve wished to do for a long time. I’ll telephone you and Margaret next Tuesday (November 16), my first morning after I get in. I hope to be in town for several days—it will be so good to spend a little time together whenever it’s good and easy there. It will make me so happy to see you. Till then,
My love to you,
Eudora
In Santa Barbara Eudora was for the first time in five years able to see Ken face to face. He was still handsome, still with the
build of an athlete, but there was a bitter irony in that fact. As Eudora told Ken’s biographer, “He remembered how to swim, and he had someone to go swimming with him every day [. . .] he just looked wonderful, right at the last. All of that, it did him no good.”16
Eudora felt his situation was made even more dire by Margaret. Eudora could overlook thoughtless, or perhaps barbed, comments that came her way—Margaret reported that Ken, when asked if he remembered Eudora, had replied, “Sure, he’s a fellow I used to do business with.” But she was distressed by remarks that wounded Ken himself. She told Ken’s biographer of a particularly hurtful pronouncement that came out of the blue during a lunchtime conversation.
Margaret said, “Well, of course I had to poison the dogs. [. . .] I didn’t have any time left to attend to those dogs [. . .]. ” She tells this to Ken. You know: the loves of his heart. [. . .] It doesn’t matter whether it was true or not, it was just [. . .] Punishing him all the time. She loved those dogs too. It was terribly difficult, the whole situation, of course, just terrible. No telling what she did go through. She was probably at her wit’s end about everything and just flew out with that, I don’t know why. I couldn’t see into her mind, at all. 17
Eudora’s time alone with Ken proved a blessing to them both, though a poignant one for Eudora. Ralph Sipper believed Eudora “could reach” Ken as others could not. And Eudora, as she confided to Mary Lou, felt that connection: “He did know me, smiled that same big smile, and put his arms around me and kissed me, as indeed he did every time he saw me. We spoke back and forth in perfectly clear conversation, only there was a lot of silence too, but it was Ken. At one point somebody said it was nice I’d come so far to see him, and when I said that he’d come just that far to see me, he looked delighted and recognizing of that [. . .] He was as always gentle and courteous and sweet. The loss of abstract thought and all the wonderful workings of his mind was terrible, but even the non sequitur of his thinking didn’t keep his character from its firmness and kindheartedness.”18
Meanwhile There Are Letters Page 49