Pulitzer Prize-Winner Powers Speaks at Friends of the Libraries Luncheon

MU Li b r a r i e s

Pulitzer Prize-winner Powers Speaks at Friends of the Libraries Luncheon University of Missouri Ron Powers, Doug Crews, Columbia r 1963 graduate of Friends of the Libraries the University of president, led the July 2007 Missouri School luncheon meeting and Volume 3, Number 2 of Journalism and announced the winners a Pulitzer-prize of the 2007 Robert J. winning journalist, Stuckey Essay Contest. told Friends of the Kelly Bouquet, St. MU Libraries about Louis, won first place Table of his childhood love of in the contest with a Contents reading at their 17th monetary award of annual luncheon Ron Powers, BJ ’63, author of $1,500 for her essay, Flags of our Fathers and other r April 14. “Bon Appètit.” Kristy books, described how libraries Powers said his Bass, Jefferson City, Fa c u l t y Le c t u r e Se r i e s influenced his life and career 2 hometown library at the Friends of the Libraries won second place in Hannibal, Mo., Luncheon April 14, 2007. with a $750 award for Th e “Fa r m e r s Wi f e ” 3 revealed a world of her essay, “Bound to stories to him and helped inspire him be Best Friends.” The teachers of En d o w m e n t Gi f t s to become a writer. He signed his two both students received $250 each for He l p St u d e n t s 4 recent books, Mark Twain: A Life and encouraging excellence in reading and Flags of Our Fathers, for the group. writing. Ab r a h a m Li n c o l n Ex h i b i t Flags of Our Fathers was recently made Read the award-winning essays on 7 into an award-winning movie directed the Web at mulibraries.missouri.edu/ Lo v i n g Cu p s Ge t by Clint Eastwood. His remarks are about/friends/ Ro y a l De d i c a t i o n included in this newsletter. 7 r Gift Buys Internet Books to Boost Library Research Sp e c i a l Se c t i o n : The Internet continues to “A single search can cover the revolutionize research, and MU complete contents of hundreds or Ro n Po w e r s Re m a r k s Libraries are keeping up with thousands of E-books,” Kevil says. “A technology, thanks to a little help from professor can also e-mail a link to a our friends. specific chapter to his class, and they This spring, Robert and Marlese can all access it at the same time.” Save the Date Gourley of Lee’s Summit, Mo., made One of the E-books purchased 22 “internet books,” or E-books, through the Gourley gift is Mark your calendar for available to Ellis Library users. the Springer Handbook of Nov. 3, 2007, a special Internet books are more expensive Nanotechnology, a useful reference fundraising event for to purchase than print volumes, on a topic that relates to medicine, MU Libraries. (page 6) according to Hunter Kevil, Collection engineering, chemistry, consumer Development librarian, but they have goods, the environment and many many advantages over print. other fields. “We select E-books based (Continued to page 6.) Library Donor Support Soars The “Farmer’s Wife” Dear Friends, In July 2005, I noted that the These statistics are proof that Nadezhda’s Round Dance completion of the James B. Nutter modern library facilities with up-to- I have wonderful Family Information Commons date technology result in greater news to share with in Ellis Library resulted in a 40 use by students and faculty. We By Alla Barabtarlo opera and the arts, and presented became one of the leaders of the you! Between July percent increase in use by students have been fortunate to have many Senior Librarian, Rare Books her to the Russian Imperial court. anti-Bolshevik Russian All-Military and Special Collections There she made a great impression, Union. Upon emigration, he and his Bill Stauffer 1, 2006 and June and faculty. Today, that figure is very generous friends. Thank you 30, 2007, the MU more like 60 percent. Ellis has for the gifts that have been used to Some time ago the MU Libraries and she became the highest paid famous wife became a very popular Libraries development program become so popular that its hours expand and improve MU Libraries. acquired a small collection Russian folk singer couple in Paris. enjoyed a record-breaking year, have been expanded to 2 a.m. We welcome all alumni and of rare Russian books. of her time. A series Russian expatriates in Europe raising over $2.8 million in planned Monday through Thursday to meet friends to visit the new, exciting Among them was one of romantic relations were understandably shocked when and cash gifts for Ellis Library and demand. This spring, a head count library improvements at MU. We whose English in 1938, Plevitskaia the eight branches. Over the course of Ellis Library users at 1 a.m. will be happy to explain the variety title might read: went to trial on charges of the “For All We Call Mizzou” recorded 200 students and faculty of opportunities still available to “Nadezhda’s Round of complicity, with Campaign, the Libraries have using that facility. Wow — this is help MU Libraries reach our goal: Dance — My Path to her husband, in the received more than $6.8 million in truly amazing! to become one of the country’s the Song”. The author, kidnapping and murder gifts from individual donors, private Another “wow” example of finest university library systems. Nadezhda Plevitskaia, of several leaders of foundations and corporations. how improved library facilities (1884-1940) was a the Russian White This puts us at 86 percent of our appeal to students is the renova- famous Russian folk movement under orders $8 million goal. tion of the Engineering Library singer. of the Soviet secret We spend a lot of time talking and Technology Commons. Its use Bill Stauffer, BJ ’52 Published in Berlin police. While she was about dollars and goals, so I want has increased by 150 percent since Chairman, MU Libraries campaign in 1925, this red convicted and sentenced you to know how your generous the fall 2005 semester. The hours steering committee paperback is very to 20 years in prison, gifts are transforming MU of access have been extended to elegant, with a book Skoblin vanished amidst Libraries. midnight to accommodate users. title hand-pasted and wild rumors spotting illustrated by the artist him everywhere from Disciplines Converge at MU Libraries Faculty Lecture Series Nikolai Zaretskii, and Barcelona to Khabarovsk, with several portraits of or reporting him being From crime fiction to water wars, series, Dr. Ron Harstad professor of English; the author. poisoned, drowned, or faculty from many disciplines shared his take on the and “Crime Fiction: The book tells an shot by his colleagues presented their original scholarship policy implications of Theory & Practice,” unusual tale of the life from the Soviet secret and creative work at the 2006-07 economics in a lecture by Richard B. and fate of Nadezhda police. Upon later MU Libraries Faculty Lecture titled “Devils in Details: Schwartz, professor of Plevitskaia. Born into examination, the KGB’s Series, which began October 2006 at A Game-Theoretic English. a peasant family, the secret files revealed Ellis Library. Approach to Public The series will girl had only two years both the sums paid to “MU Libraries is excited to Policy Analysis.” continue in 2007-08. of primary schooling the couple for services provide a forum for our faculty to Other lectures in the The coming year’s English Professor because her mother was rendered and their share their compelling and diverse series were “Technology series will include a Richard B. Schwartz fiercely opposed to her operatic code names “the research interests with the campus for Successful Aging,” traced the evolution of talk by Carol Lazzaro- education. However, Cover for the book “Nadezhda’s Round Dance”. Portrait of Farmer” and “Farmer’s and the community,” says Geoffrey by Marjorie Skubic, crime fiction during the Weis, professor of her uncommonly Nadezhda Plevitskaia in a Russian folk costume. Wife.” However the Swindells, coordinator of the lecture associate professor “Crime Fiction: Theory French and Italian, beautiful voice and love of singing led to a succession of marriages. dossiers revealed nothing of her series and government documents of electrical and & Practice” discussion tentatively titled on March 19. The lecture brought her to the Holy Trinity Her fourth and last came at the husband Skoblin’s fate. librarian. “This is the second year computer engineering; “Tixier’s Travels: The was part of the MU monastery choir, where she spent end of the Russian Civil War when In 1940, Plevitskaia mysteriously that the libraries have hosted this “International French and the Osage Libraries Faculty Lecture two years as a novice. Eventually she was captured during a cavalry died in a French prison just when series, which we feel is an important Conscience, the Cold Series. after the Louisiana she became a professional singer raid by Nikolai Skoblin along with intelligence officers from the venue for disseminating the War and Apartheid,” by Purchase.” For a and worked in provincial theatres, some soldiers, who immediately invading German army arrived to knowledge that is created on this Carol Anderson, associate professor complete list of lectures offered in where she was noticed by the recognized the singer in her Red interrogate her. campus.” of history; “Los Angeles vs. the the series, visit mulibraries.missouri. famous tenor Leonid Sobinov, who nurse’s uniform. An ambitious young This fascinating book is available At the first lecture of the 2006-07 Paiutes,” by Karen Piper, associate edu/about/faculty-lecture-series/ introduced her to the world of White Army general, Skoblin soon in Ellis Library Special Collections.

2 • University of Missouri-Columbia Library Connections • 3 Endowment gifts help students

U Libraries supporters Simpson, Geoffrey Peterson and Sherry live in Joplin, where Bill know their gifts help Christopher Pullen. is a retired mortician, and Sherry M students and others Jim Pinkerton, Midge Pinkerton, is payroll specialist for Employer benefit from all higher education Gary DeWeese and June DeWeese Advantage. Although neither of the has to offer: wisdom handed celebrated their endowment in McSpadden-Murrays graduated down by past generations, critical memory of friend and former from Mizzou, they are avid thinking skills, a better quality librarian, Alma A. Bennett, to Mizzou fans. Bill established this of life, and motivation to make support the social sciences. endowment in honor of Sherry, learning a lifelong endeavor. Sarah English Young and her whom he met when she was a Endowments to MU Libraries husband, John, established the librarian at the Carthage Public nurture higher education. We Elizabeth Minter English Library Library. are grateful for the thought and Endowment in memory of Sarah’s Margaret Leong established creativity that go into each one. mother, Elizabeth, who graduated the Margaret Leong MU Libraries Every year, we set aside time to from MU in 1951 and was a Poetry Collection Endowed Fund acknowledge endowments and what they represent to the University, the Every year, we set aside time to community and future generations. This year, 40 people attended the acknowledge endowments and what they Donor Appreciation ceremony April represent to the University, the community I Found It at 14 in the Ellis Library Colonnade to recognize endowment donors. and future generations. the Library Dr. Richard Wallace was the guest speaker. member of the Friends. to support the poetry collection in For the past 11 years, we have Chancellor Emeritus of the the MU Libraries. A 1942 graduate A talk to the Friends of the invited benefactors to affix their University of Missouri-Columbia, of the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Missouri Library bookplate to one of the books Dr. Richard Wallace established the she wrote and taught poetry in added to the collection through Chancellor’s Libraries collection Singapore and New York for more April 14, 2007 their generosity. The following endowment which grows every year than 40 years. She developed a by donors participated: through additional gifts. unique way of creating poetry Ron Powers Jessica Scriber and Shaina Shorr Seven new endowment plaques with children, using the Socratic represented the MU Student were also unveiled. method of posing questions to stir Foundation. Bill and Sherry McSpadden- their imaginations, then capturing Three members of the Sigma Murray established the William T. the kids’ colorful responses. This Chi Foundation were present at and Sherry L. McSpadden-Murray past year, Margaret donated her the ceremony — the President of Endowment for MU Libraries extensive poetry collection to the the local Sigma Chi chapter, Alan collection endowment. Bill and MU Libraries. It is housed in

4 • University of Missouri-Columbia t’s good to be back home in with me because it’s what I try to called “Forever Amber,” which my tracks and then the left-fi eld wall of my town but not quite of it. A place Atkins. And then I’d head back Missouri, and I’m so pleased do as a writer: I invite you in to the father read when my mother wasn’t Clemens Field, the town ballpark— that invited me in. A place that to those big oak doors, my shoes I to be here among people who universe of the stories I write—and looking. where the mighty Hannibal Pilots, connected Hannibal with a greater clicking on the marble, and I’d care about libraries. It is a special even nonfi ction, which is what I I was just a town kid. Kind propelled by the good right arm world. With history. And with the push my way outside and sit down privilege to have been invited do, works best when it is a story. I of a part-time crook, actually. I of their pitching ace “Six-Toes” very best that human beings are against one of those Grecian back home by the Friends of the invite you in to walk with me on a smuggled Hershey bars out of Mr. Echeveria, managed to fi nish last in capable of. columns with a universe in my lap University of Missouri Libraries. I journey. To see what I see, and hear Adams’s grocery store, though I the Tri-State League every season. I knew for sure that I had some and wait for my father’s Nash to hope you realize the full reach of what I hear, and to collaborate with think Mr. Adams was onto me all My father would let me out of friends waiting for me on a certain come back out of the night and take your friendship—how much farther me by fi ltering my evidence into the time…I went to see Hopalong the car and then go off to make his shelf back in the stacks: two heroes me back into the world. it extends beyond the magnifi cent your own font of memories and Cassidy and Superman with my nighttime deliveries. I might take a of a series of boys’ adventure books resource you’ve helped grow and dreams and convictions. In that way friends on Saturday afternoons at step or two toward the edge of that set in the Civil War—written by a Those library nights of my fl ourish here. With its more than we fi nish the story together. the Tom Sawyer theater… and I cliff. There I could watch the game now-obscure author named Joseph Hannibal childhood, and the 3 million volumes and its 35,000 Now, that may all sound a little tried to create my own Superman for free and see the play-by-play Altsheler, who died in 1919. books I found there, opened up my journal titles, its more than 10 cerebral to you, but it’s not. I began look by tying a dish towel around man up in the broadcast future. They gave me thousand manuscripts and archives, to learn this secret as a dumb my neck and wearing my Fruit- booth toss down a carton I left behind the Hannibal of ballparks an inkling of what I and so much more than that. little small-town kid. I learned it of-the-Loom undershorts outside of Lucky Strikes to every wanted to do—what In offering your time and by going to the public library and my bluejeans. Until my mother Pilot who hit a home and grocery stores and Nash sedans and I needed to do. Saul energy and ideas toward nurturing discovering books that invited caught me at it and practically went run—which, thankfully Bellow once observed this great system, you are part me in. Years later, I explored that hysterical. I was about to jump off for their health, was the movies, and walked into Byzantium. that writers are readers of an even greater system, one awareness and found my mission the garage roof. But I think Mom never—but usually I moved to imitation. that holds the culture together: in life right here at the University was more concerned about public would hesitate, then turn I wanted to imitate a culture that is whipsawed by of Missouri: at the School of opinion. and scamper up the eight curving “The Guns of Bull Run,” “The this guy Joseph Altsheler. Imitate rapid and disorienting change, Journalism, but also in the nooks But in the midst of these very concrete steps of the most inviting Guns of Shiloh,” “The Scouts of him, hell; I wanted to steal his with pressures and distractions on and crannies of a certain limestone ordinary and very happy kid-hood and beautiful building in Hannibal: Stonewall,” and the rest. I didn’t magic. (Those Hershey bars were our young people like no other building on a rise of ground at days, my Dad used to do one two stories of blond brick, a pair of read those books. I lived inside only for practice.) I wanted his time in history—and amplifi ed Ninth Street and Conley Avenue. important thing for me—and Grecian columns on either side of them. I lived beside the brave power to write stories that would to a deafening roar by the din I stand here as an example of that thing, to use the great poetic the front doors, which were made young Union soldier Dick Mason make readers want to step into of marketing and cynical pop how your library can change a line of Robert Frost, made all the of curved oak and were about three in his long buckskin gloves, trotting them. Walk around in the world entertainment. difference. times as tall as they needed to be. fearlessly on his powerful steed as I’d created for them on the page. Libraries invite A library invites the culture through On certain evenings I opened the doors by pulling cannon thundered to the right and What a fantastic super-power that people in. That’s after dinner, I would on their iron rings. And then I left left. And then in the next book I would be. And I wouldn’t even have a phrase you’ll be its doorways into a space that is more climb into Dad’s Nash behind the Hannibal of ballparks crouched alongside his incredibly to wear my Fruit of the Looms on hearing from me sedan, and dig out a place and grocery stores and Nash sedans clean-cut Confederate cousin Harry the outside. I wanted to transport again this afternoon— than the sum of its books. to sit amid all the mops and the movies, and walked into Kenton as he tiptoed through people from the everyday world inviting people in. A and brooms and cans Byzantium. A palace with high forests of magnolia and live oak into the transcendence of a story. library invites the culture through young life—by nourishing an eager of fl oor wax, and we would drive arching ceilings, an oil painting of and great stalks of sunfl ower, on The mystery was how to its doorways into a space that is but terribly naive young mind in from our little neighborhood house George Washington on the wall, the lookout for redoubtable foes. go about that. I was a clueless more than the sum of its books. A search of roadmaps to his future. into the center of Hannibal. We’d fl uorescent lights, a marble tiled I reveled in a romantic storybook 12-year-old. I fi gured you probably space that affi rms the best of who I grew up in Hannibal. Now, make a right turn off Broadway at fl oor that let you hear your own war in which the combatants yelled got it done the same way every kid we have been and who we can be. Hannibal is not a town that Fifth Street, near the park and the footsteps, and the wonderful heavy things like, “Ouch—he’s got his in the 1950s got everything done. And so you people here today are produces very many writers. (Only blind popcorn maker’s red wagon, scent of old glue on the bindings bayonet in my cheek,” and, “By You sent away breakfast cereal stewards of American culture at one other guy that I know of made and we’d come to a stop at the of books, some of which had been thunder, Bill, I hit that fellow fair boxtops. And then somebody in its civilizing best. And that’s why it.) My family was working-class: intersection of Fifth and Church, manufactured in Mark Twain’s and square. He’ll never trouble an Grand Rapids I say it’s a privilege to be in your Dad was a Fuller Brush man, and exactly halfway between the Tom lifetime. honest Yankee again.” Michigan would send you a book- company. a very good one. We didn’t have Sawyer Theater and Fifth Street’s This was the Public Library. I checked those Altsheler books writing kit by return mail. With a Let me speak some more about a lot of books around the house. I dead-end. There, on the other side Even as a dopey 12-year-old I out again and again. I would get secret synonym-seeking ring, prob- this concept, this civilizing gesture, remember seeing the Fuller Brush of a little guardrail, a cliff dropped a could sense that I was entering a them stamped by the head librarian ably. But if Wheaties made cereal of inviting people in. It resonates company songbook and a novel hundred feet or so to some railroad hallowed place; a place that was in herself, the terrifying Dorothy boxes that showed Joe Altsheler

2 • University of Missouri-Columbia Library Connections • 3 fl exing his muscles, they didn’t seem 1959, when I stepped out of Dad’s So I gravitated toward that the old cemeteries down there.” and permanent revolution in new America needed a new kind to be for sale in Hannibal. Nash into a realm even more limestone building on a rise of That was the beginning of American writing was taking shape of literature to make sense of it. A few years went by, and I took exotic and more awe-inspiring ground at Ninth and Conley [now Mitchell’s famous essay, “Mr. back then, in the pages of the New Grounded in journalistic fact, but on some sophistication. I realized than the Hannibal Public Library. known as Ellis Library]. Hunter’s Grave,” and I was with Yorker, and Esquire, and other wedded to the ancient storyteller’s that only a stupid little kid would The campus of the University of I went at fi rst because I felt safe him every step of the way. He had magazines and books, and I was art. With the goal of witnessing think the boxtop idea would work. Missouri. there. It reminded me of the public me when he put those sandwiches looking at the stirrings of it right the world as it is on behalf of the By this time I’d heard about New I was headed of course for the library back home, except it was in his pockets. You can’t make there in the Library reading room; reader. On behalf, ultimately, of York City and how everything School of Journalism. But you had about ten times as big. up putting sandwiches in your and typically of me, I wanted to community. important was located there. to complete two years of liberal-arts But pretty soon I discovered pockets; it’s too loopy, somehow, enlist. And eventually, I did. These new writers drew on Clearly the thing to do was just courses before you could enroll in an even better reason to hang to be fi ction. Too interesting. And It would be known by many assets not normally associated pick up the phone and call some the School. Meantime, I needed a out at the Library: a small room it promised more of the same. names: “literary nonfi ction,” with the writing life, or taught in Book Guy in New York City and safe haven: a place to take refuge on the fi rst fl oor where they kept I believed every word Joseph “literary journalism,” “the New rarifi ed literary seminars. Physical say, I’d like to newspapers and magazines. Mitchell told me. And he never let Journalism,” “the nonfi ction novel.” courage, for example. The courage write a book for The newspapers were me down. Rachel Carson brought out to cross boundaries from the safe you—how much do I stepped out of Dad’s Nash into a interesting, but it was the At some instinctive level, I “The Silent Spring” in 1962, when and sedentary world into unknown you charge? realm even more exotic and more magazines that knocked me probably recognized that these I was a junior in the School of territory: the mean urban streets But I didn’t out. were stories, after all. They met all Journalism. Truman Capote was in and hot Southeastern Asian know any Book awe-inspiring than the Hannibal They were magazines the requirements that we expect the fi nal stages of “In Cold Blood” battlefi elds and the inner circles Guy phone I’d never dreamed of in in fi ction, with its higher pedigree. then. The fi rst “nonfi ction novel.” of Mafi a crime families, and a numbers. And Public Library. The campus of the my Saturday Evening Post Something happens to set things in The New Yorker serialized it in small quiet room in Utah where besides, in our innocence. They had titles motion. Confl ict occurs; choices are 1965, and I cannot tell you the the electric chair awaited Gary household you University of Missouri. like “The New Yorker,” made that narrow the possibilities effect it had on young writers of my Gilmore. didn’t just pick and “Esquire.” Their pages for what happens next. More generation. This was literature from the up the phone were dense with fascinating confl ict, the choices grow more People nobody had ever heard bottom up, not the top down. and call anybody Long Distance. from this scary new universe of stories that went on for tens of critical. Dramatic tension rises. And of were about to burst on the scene Literature as social history, reported Long Distance was a luxury our snazzy creatures who looked to be thousands of words; except that moral tension. And things progress father reserved exclusively for about my age but who radiated a they were not stories, not in any until at some moment in the story, himself, and he would indulge it kind of adultness I’d never seen way I’d ever understood the term. something happens that changes The University of Missouri library only twice a year: at Thanksgiving in Hannibal kids. Hell, not even They were not made up. Every everything. was the best writing teacher I ever and Christmas, when with great in Hannibal adults! The boys word in them was true. It’s called the moment of ceremony he would lift the black who knew about things like sport And yet these pieces were never reversal. had. Because it introduced me to the receiver and, with the rest of us jackets and cologne and political dull, never tedious and diffi cult We surrender to it all; we see watching in a circle, place a call opinions and Jack Daniels; the like most of the textbooks I was and hear it as if we were there. We possibilities of Otherwise. to his deaf mother in Jacksonville, girls who wore pearls and could struggling with. They were like are there, inside what John Gardner Illinois. About 80 miles away. He sit on a sofa while maintaining journeys. The writers of them were called “the vivid and continuous and sweep aside the lofty novel at ground zero, with you the reader could have just yelled from the perfect posture, and who knew the crooking a fi nger at me, beckoning dream.” The state in which we as the gold standard for serious right there. Yet written with all the front porch and saved himself meaning of foreign phrases like me to come along. Inviting me in. forget we are reading words on a writing: people with names like discipline and elegance and passion some money. If my sister, Joyce, “C’est la vie.” (That one meant, The great Joseph Mitchell would page and start to live them. That is Joan Didion, and Gay Talese, and required of literature. or I had tried to do anything that “Sorry, Ron, I already have a date begin a piece in the New Yorker the narrator’s art, simply described: Tom Wolfe, and David Halberstam. What a great new model for extravagant on our own, Dad would for Homecoming.”) by draping his arm around my to get us into that dream. Whether And William Least Heat Moon. a kid like me, and for many kids have had the police come to our I felt a little shy and conspicuous, shoulder and confi ding to me—me, it’s fi ction or otherwise. And Hunter Thompson. Norman like me: working-class kids who house and take us away to reform especially after the morning when a Mister Fruit-of-the-Loom from Mailer became a convert. And ached to join the Big Conversation school. kid in the dorm room next to mine Hannibal Missouri—that, “When The University of Missouri others. out there. Kids who lacked any And so I had to wait several plugged in his electric shaver, and things get too much for me, I put library was the best writing teacher These writers sensed that a mentoring in the craft of fi ction— years before I could fi nd any real I mistook it for a fi re drill buzzer, a wild-fl ower book and a couple of I ever had. Because it introduced new America was stirring from making up stories—but whose roadmaps toward my dream of and staged a one-man evacuation of sandwiches in my pockets and go me to the possibilities of Otherwise. its post-war slumber, an America passion and hunger fortifi ed them being a writer. That discovery Johnson Hall in my Fruit-of-the- down to the South Shore of Staten Let me explain what I mean. of social revolution and new with the courage to go out and pry began to unfold in the fall of Looms. Island and wander around in one of I didn’t know it, but a profound international challenges; and this real stories out of the world as it

4 • University of Missouri-Columbia Library Connections • 5 stood. To fi nd in it what James Agee I wanted you to care about this Both were incarcerated at the University library. I remembered I came here. That’s why I call this Honorée, had dinner on the table. called “the cruel radiance of what violation. I wanted to make you a time—one of them in the federal what it was about their work that place the Dream Palace. It’s because I’ll fi nish now with just a few is.” citizen of Hannibal. So I invited penitentiary at Potosi, serving a life inspired me the most. And it was your old dreams come back to you thoughts about “Flags of Our I can tell you that I look on my you to inhabit Hannibal with sentence for the shotgun murder this: here. And your new ones die out.” Fathers.” career as a long apprenticeship me, past and present. The 1950s he’d committed. No matter the immediate topic Those were the two Hannibal Here was another journey into toward mastering the writing Hannibal of thriving storefront I asked myself the questions that of any given piece by them, the books. I’ll touch very briefl y on the unknown territory: the forgotten tradition I discovered right here businesses and safe neighborhoods most of you would probably ask ultimate topic was always the Mark Twain, a far happier book lives of the six fi gures in the famous so many years ago. In yourselves if you were same: America. How things are in that I loved writing. In “Mark photograph of that fl agraising on the library and at the I look on my career as a long in my shoes: What if America. What it’s like to live in Twain: a Life,” my goal was to Iwo Jima, on the fourth day of that School of Journalism. these wounded people certain corners of America. What interrupt nearly a century’s worth horrifi c battle in March of 1945. I’ve applied these apprenticeship toward mastering the don’t want to talk to me? one small corner—one grain of of biography and criticism that I worked in collaboration with ideals in books that on What if talking about sand—can tell us about the totality mostly told you what the writer James Bradley, whose father John the surface are quite writing tradition I discovered right here it broke them up, or of our country and our times. thought about Mark Twain. And was the big strapping fellow in the diverse. In “White so many years ago. In the library and at made them angry? And I believe that the people who let you spend some time in Sam’s middle of the photograph, with Town Drowsing” and fi nally, what business of told me their stories in “Tom & company—75 years or so—and his back to us: the medic, who later “Tom and Huck the School of Journalism. mine was it to go asking Huck Don’t Live Here Anymore” decide for yourself what he was like. ran around the fi re zone with no Don’t Live Here them questions anyway? rose above themselves—rose I found Sam, of all places, in the protection, ministering to the dying Anymore,” I invited you Weren’t they entitled above their personal grief library: the Bancroft Library at the and wounded. to come with me on to their privacy? How and remorse—and spoke with University of California, Berkeley. John Bradley died in 1994. He journeys to the unknown territory and Boy Scout troops and the could I claim that putting these eloquence and dignity about the He lives there, in the great archive was the last to go. Three of the that was Hannibal. A Hannibal grand annual autumn street interviews in a book was more than predicament of American other fi ve boys where I was now a stranger, and carnival known as the Fall Festival. mere sensationalism?—the kind of town life as it is threatened I looked back once again to those had been killed that was a stranger to me. And then back to the future, the slash-and-burn journalism we see with abandonment, the loss in action after the In “White Town,” we witnessed Hannibal of 1985, to watch the every night on television? of local economies, and the revolutionary new writers I’d discovered photo was taken. the attempted rape of a once- town suffer a nervous breakdown Well, answering the fi rst two spiritual confusion of the at the University library. I remembered The remaining two thriving community now desperate as it struggled, and failed, to sell its questions was easy. We tend to young people trapped in besides John lived for revenue. The perpetrators soul. forget how much people want to these circumstances. what it was about their work that rather tragic and were some cynical, economic- Twelve years later I came back talk about the pain and sorrow In “Tom & Huck Don’t shortened lives after development honchos who blew in to a hometown where things had in their hearts—and how seldom Live Here Anymore,” inspired me the most. the war. and tried to turn my beloved town gotten a lot worse. Two killings in they’re invited to do so. America I invited you to come When his father into a fi ve-million-dollar cartoon the late 1990s, six months apart— can be a very lonely place, and it’s along with me and stare into the known as the Mark Twain Project died, James embarked on a three- version of itself so it could cash in each committed by an adolescent getting lonelier as our communities human faces and hear the voices at Berkeley: 12 thousand letters year odyssey by telephone to track on Mark Twain’s Sesquicentennial boy. Boy killers in the town that break down and we grow ever-more of community decay. I wanted you written by him and to him, and 22 down and talk to as many surviving birthday by offering tourists has symbolized American boyhood isolated from one another. to think about what has been lost thousand pages of his notebooks Iwo veterans as he could. James was a gaudy ongoing “attraction” since 1876—the year Mark Twain Bottom line, I got plenty of through the grain of sand that is and journals. driven partly by frustration: he’d of fi reworks, parades, helium published “The Adventures of Tom conversation from each of these Zachary Wilson, the handsome, There he was—so I just pretty never been able to persuade his balloon races, music marathons, Sawyer.” The killings were the people. More than I ever expected. charming, deeply intelligent and much turned the book over to father to say one word to him about a “Good Golly Aunt Polly” rock starting-points for the book that Moving, raw, searching, candid. And utterly irreclaimable shotgun killer him, and his wife Olivia, and their his war experiences. ‘n’ roll revival, the world’s biggest became “Tom & Huck Don’t Live at times, unexpectedly poetic. A in this book. daughters, and his friends, and At the end of it, James had a ice-cream social, and the actual Here Anymore.” whole bagful of audiotapes to take I wanted you there with me his enemies, and the great fi gures great stack of powerful interview citizens running around every This was the hardest book I’ve with me back East. And now I had in the blankness of the prison at he met during his lifetime. Sam notes—but the notes lacked day in hoop skirts and straw hats ever written. The hardest because to struggle with the fi nal question: Potosi, looking at Zachary’s face Clemens himself became your a central story. And with no and paste-on freckles. And so on. the core of it would have to be built what purpose? What moral through the scarred Plexiglas as he companion and guide in this book. experience as a writer, he was Toward a pipe dream of $250 on certain interviews I really didn’t responsibility did I have toward the told me that he was reading Freud’s I just stood back and directed unable to devise one. A series million that would be spent by want to conduct: interviews with trust they placed in me? “Interpretation of Dreams” to try traffi c—and thoroughly enjoyed the of publishers turned him down. a projected one million visitors. the survivors of the victims; with For answers I looked back and fi gure out why he did what he three years I spent in his company. I Nobody needed one more bang- Things were going to get crowded the fathers of the two killers, and once again to those revolutionary had done, and then remarking: “I hated to come back to time present bang World War II story. And as at Hannibal’s lone Holiday Inn. ultimately with the boys themselves. new writers I’d discovered at the never remembered my dreams till when I’d fi nished. But my wife, one up-and-coming young editor

6 • University of Missouri-Columbia Library Connections • 7 put it, to his eventual regret, “I’m your distance from the ugly and sleep. They had to be kicked awake Special Collections on the fourth The endowment funds will be company. Nell is a retired first not interested in a book about a empty clichés of war-writing—the by their offi cers. floor of Ellis Library. used to purchase materials in grade teacher. Tom and Nell live bunch of old men crying into the reader will supply the emotion you I believe that the reason for Doug Crews is the president of the Engineering Library and in Brentwood, Tennessee, and are telephone.” want to evoke. the great success of “Flags of Our the Friends of the MU Libraries. Technology Commons. active supporters of Mizzou. Tom Well, I wouldn’t be either. It was a tough sell, and frankly, I Fathers”—and this belief gives me For more than 40 years, the Friends Tom and Nell Lafferre met serves on the Engineering Deans’ My literary agent, James didn’t always get my way. But it was more satisfaction than any pride of of the MU Libraries Advisory Board, and Hornfi scher, eventually put the two Mr. Bradley’s book, his story, and I authorship possibly could—is that have supported the MU Nell is a member of of us together. I did what I think had contracted to write in his voice, the book was cathartic. It inspired Libraries’ fundraising the Libraries Campaign anyone lucky enough to have had and so I accepted the compromises. aging World War II veterans all efforts, through projects Steering Committee. my training and background would Most of them. around the country to fi nally open such as the renovation of The Engineering have done: I suggested that we fi nd I’ll give you one example of what up after decades of silence, and the Friends Colonnade. Building is now out everything we could about each I was trying to do. This one stayed share with their wives and sons and This past year, they named after them. fl agraiser’s boyhood. Their families. in the book. It remains the most daughters and grandchildren the established the Friends of Groundbreaking for Their dreams. And take the reader dominant and troubling image I burdensome memories that they MU Libraries Endowment the south extension of there. Invite the reader in. So that have of the battle of Iwo Jima. And had kept locked inside themselves Fund to help provide Lafferre Hall began on by the time these six for so long. support for the general April 13. The Lafferres young men enlisted in I ﬁ nally accomplished something that With my work in library collections. recently established the Marines and got sent more than half a lifetime ago had “Flags of Our Fathers” Ben Cooper is a two endowments for to Iwo Jima, we knew I fi nally accomplished graduate of the College of the Libraries. The them. We were invested seemed a romantic, but impossibly something that more Engineering and is a retired first is the Tom and in them. They would not than half a lifetime Senior Project Manager Nell Lafferre Rare be stick-fi gures in one unattainable dream ago had seemed from Fred Weber, Inc. in Book and Special more book of, pardon the a romantic, but St. Louis. Norma Cooper Collection Preservation expression, war porn. it was all about quiet. impossibly unattainable dream for is a graduate of Southeast Endowment, to be used Working from James’s research The Marines had crossed the a small-town kid with not much Missouri State University for the preservation of notes, I built the story in that way. Pacifi c and landed on the small sophistication and some serious in Cape Girardeau. She the libraries’ rare books I’d never written about war before, beach—thousands of them in the Fruit-of-the-Loom issues: also attended St. Louis and special collections. but something told me that this fi rst wave—and it was so crowded I joined the Big Conversation. University, UMSL and The second endowment would have to be a quiet book. that when the Japanese opened up And all because I went to the Webster University. was established to At least the language in it would from inside the fortifi ed volcano, library. Your library. Our library. Norma’s career in support the purchase have to be quiet. And simple. And Suribachi, they didn’t even have to Thank you. education includes of materials in the intimate. Because you cannot aim. teaching 7th and 8th Tom and Nell Lafferre received plaques Engineering Library for creating endowments to benefit the out-write warfare. You cannot The boys tried to advance across grade for 18 years, and Technology assemble language violent enough the soft volcanic ash, but they kept engineering library and special collections. serving as an elementary school Sally Schilling received the endowment plaque for Commons. and grotesque enough to replicate slipping back. “It was like walking principal for 2 years and running the Don and Sally Schilling Government Documents Sally Schilling the realities of combat on the page. through shell corn,” remembered a preschool for 2 years. The Endowment Fund. is the former head Although many war books try to one veteran. “Like climbing in Coopers live at Lake St. Louis, of Government do exactly this. And they all sound talcum powder,” said another. “Like and both are active supporters of while attending Mizzou when he Documents in Ellis Library. She alike. a bin of wheat.” “Like deep snow.” Mizzou. Ben is a member of the was her blind date for a Halloween currently serves as one of two The secret is to go the other way. Quiet images. But here’s the College of Engineering Dean’s party. After Tom graduated from libraries’ liaisons for the faculty / To write away from the war and quietest one—and the one that Advisory Committee, and Norma MU with a bachelor’s degree in staff campaign. Her husband, Don, into the hearts of your characters. has troubled my sleep the most: is a member of the Libraries engineering in 1956, they moved is professor emeritus of economics To write with the grim confi dence some of the young Marines were Campaign Steering Committee. to St. Louis, where Tom worked and former chair of the Faculty that the war will follow you. It so traumatized by the fi restorm They established the Norma for Monsanto and Nell completed Library Committee. The Schillings will be on your heels. Inescapable. and annihilation going on around and Ben Cooper Engineering her bachelor’s degree in education established the Government And if you write with enough them—that they simply dropped Collection Endowment because from University of Missouri-St. Documents Endowed Fund to help restraint—if you supply the facts to the sand, curled into the fetal of their joint interests in Louis. He retired in 1993 as vice purchase materials in Government and the circumstances, but keep position, and went into a catatonic engineering and the libraries. president of operations for the Documents.

8 • University of Missouri-Columbia Library Connections • 5 Join The Friends for an Evening of Theater, Nov. 3 Abraham Lincoln Exhibit Explores Civil War Period

Three short plays inspired by followed by the plays in the audito- in New York. “This promises to be More than 126,000 visitors viewed research conducted at Ellis Library rium at 7 p.m. an evening of engaging theater.” the exhibit, Forever Free: Abraham and the Western Historical Solo portrayals of Jane Clemens Barile is president of the Friends Lincoln’s Journey to Emancipation, Manuscripts Collection will enter- (Mark Twain’s mother), Otto Frank of the MU Libraries and a grant during its March 8 – April 20 tain guests at a fundraising event (Anne Frank’s father) and actress writer at MU. engagement at Ellis Library. Nov. 3 at the Museum of Art and Joan Crawford will cast light on their Carver, an associate professor of The exhibit provided an Archaeology. The Friends of the characters. Mary Barile and Heather theater, wrote and performed the opportunity for the campus and MU Libraries and the Life and Carver will co-direct the plays. recent play, Booby Prize: A Comedy the community to explore one of Literature Series will co-sponsor “These pieces are about ordinary About Breast Cancer. She has guided the most cataclysmic periods in our the event, titled Look Who I Found people in extraordinary places and the development of several student nation’s history through a variety of in the Stacks: An Evening of Solo times,” says Barile, playwright and performance pieces that have been public programs: Performances. A wine and dessert theater historian whose plays have performed in the U.S. and Canada. • The Columbia Public Library reception will kick off the evening been performed in the U.S. and She and Barile have just completed hosted a tour of a local cemetery at 6 p.m. in the Cast Gallery, Canada, including the York Theater a screenplay. to view graves dating from the Tickets are $20 for the show Civil War and the reception and $8 for • Performances by locally students (show only). For more renowned artists featured Civil information, contact Sheila Voss at War stories and music [email protected] or 573-882- • Scholars discussed the “Lincoln Librarian Gwen Gray speaks to elementary students about the Forever Free 9168. Tickets will go on sale in Legacy in Missouri;” and traveling exhibit. October. • Janice Mullin, director of the wrote in the exhibit’s journal: The State Historical Society National Civil War Museum, Internet Books “Lincoln still inspires, nearly 150 of Missouri, Western Historical presented a lecture on Civil War (Continued from page 1.) years after his death, but he is also Manuscripts, the Office of Books have long been regarded by many people as Medicine. on current topics and balance as controversial as he was in life. Cultural Affairs and the Missouri friends, but as an old adage says, Proclamations from Missouri among the disciplines,” Kevil says. Some people want to judge him Humanities Council contributed Gov. Matt Blunt and Columbia “in order to have a friend, you have to be one.” Robert Gourley owns companies by 21st century values and not to the success of the exhibit, which Mayor Darwin Hindman launched supplying printing and graphics accept him as a 19th century man, was organized by the Huntington the exhibit, hailing it for casting industries, and Marlese, BES ’60, willing to change his views as he Library and the Gilder Lehrman Many books in the MU Libraries are fragile, others light on that dark period of U.S. is a former fourth-grade teacher. grew in knowledge, and trying to Institute of American History in need minor repairs, still others require extensive history. They toured Ellis Library recently bring people with very different cooperation with the ALA Public The 2009 bicentennial of help if they are to survive this century. By adopting and liked what they saw. Marlese views on slavery and race to a Programs Office and funded by Abraham Lincoln’s birth will a book, you will ensure that it gets the help it needs says, “We are very interested in common conscience. He was, after a major grant from the National continue to spark interest in his the libraries and think references all, changing history and America Endowment for the Humanities. to remain a "friend" for years to come. place in the panoply of American and books are essential not only to forever.” icons. One visitor to Forever Free For more information, contact Sheila Voss students, but to everyone, anytime.” [email protected] IN MEMORIAM University of Missouri, 104 Ellis Library, On March 30, Noble K. Columbia MO 65201-5149 Cunningham, Jr., age 80, died Loving Cups Get Royal Dedication (573) 882-9168 in Columbia. He was a Curators The 34 Royal Doulton loving cups behalf of her father and mother, or visit online at Professor Emeritus of history on display in the colonnade of Ellis who donated the loving cups to the at MU and was nationally http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/about/adoptabook.htm Library were dedicated on April 14. library. Ms. Heapes’ husband, Tom, recognized as a top scholar on Debbie Heapes, daughter of and daughter, Melissa, joined the Thomas Jefferson. Cunningham Jo Ann and the the late John ceremony to dedicate the cups in Sponsored by The Friends of the MU Libraries was a longtime member of the Schweitzer of Overland Park, their new home. Friends of the MU Libraries. He Kansas, made a few remarks on is survived by his wife, Dana. 6 • University of Missouri-Columbia Library Connections • 7 MU Libraries Development Staff

Jim Cogswell Director of Libraries MU Libraries Development Office [email protected] University of Missouri-Columbia (573) 882-4701 104 Ellis Library Gena Scott Columbia, MO 65201-5149 Director of Development [email protected] (573) 882-6371 Sheila Voss Library Development Coordinator [email protected] (573) 882-9168 Library Connections is a bi-annual publication of the MU Libraries. If you’d like to support the MU Libraries go to mulibraries.missouri.edu/give or at [email protected]

HONOR with BOOKS

elebrate a special occasion. • Favorite professor CHonor a friend, family member • Memorial tributes or favorite professor. Acknowledge an • Graduations accomplishment. An MU Libraries Honor with Books donation is the • Birthdays perfect way to provide a lasting tribute • Anniversaries to special people in your life. • Retirements

For as little as $100, you can Help strengthen the honor the person of your choice. collections of the MU Every $100 increment funds Libraries. Make a gift to the acquisition of one new book the Honor with Books selected by an MU Libraries’ program. subject specialist. Names of the honoree and the donor will For more information, appear on a bookplate inside the call Gena Scott at book’s front cover and in the 573-882-6371, Your participation in our Honor computer display of the Libraries’ online catalog. e-mail [email protected] with Books program enables We will endeavor to fulfill any preference regarding or write to Honor with Books, the MU Libraries to meet the subject matter for books purchased. All gifts are 104 Ellis Library, Columbia, ever-increasing demands placed MO 65201-5149 on Missouri’s8 • University largest ofpublic Missouri-Columbia tax-deductible, and notification of gifts can be sent research University. to the honoree or the honoree’s family.