University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for

Summer 2002

"Private" Lives And "Public" Writing Rhetorical Practices Of Western Nebraska Women

Charlotte Hogg Texas Christian University, [email protected]

Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly

Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons

Hogg, Charlotte, ""Private" Lives And "Public" Writing Rhetorical Practices Of Western Nebraska Women" (2002). Great Plains Quarterly. 2322. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/2322

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. "PRIVATE" LIVES AND "PUBLIC" WRITING RHETORICAL PRACTICES OF WESTERN NEBRASKA WOMEN

CHARLOTTE HOGG

The library in the western Nebraska town of for years, but here were her words in a newspa­ Paxton (population approximately 500) is per, which to me was identified as a place for small, and my grandmother was president of public consumption. This was one of the first the library board for many years. When I was examples I recall of the boundaries of public younger, I learned about the history of the and private writing converging. My own library from her research and writing published grandma was only one example. In the com­ in the local county newspaper. In write-ups munity in which I lived, older women con­ for both the library's twenty-fifth and fiftieth tributed memoirs to the town library, wrote anniversaries, she described how women "were for the newspaper, and wrote histories of the found to be very handy with hammer and saw" town, churches, and school. These women not when starting the library.! I saw my grandma only shaped my writing life but were respon­ frequently and had been hearing her stories sible for the rhetorical education of others in the community through these literacy prac­ tices. In my explication of the kinds of lit­ eracy practices of women in Paxton, I show that in this particular setting, their rhetorical p'ractices do not fit our definitions of the pri­ KEY WORDS: literacy, Paxton, public and private vate sphere so often used to situate women's spheres, rhetoric, rural women reading and writing lives, though that sphere does offer an important space where rhetori­ Charlotte Hogg is assistant professor of English at Texas cal education is undertaken.2 Christian University. This piece is part of a larger Scholars in the field of composition and project on the literacy practices of older women in rhetoric have long investigated the role of western Nebraska. Other work from this project has appeared in Western American Literature. public vs. private lives; the study of rhetorical figures from antiquity involved the Greek polis, and the legacy of the "separate spheres" is [GPQ 22 (Summer 2002): 183-98] traced from that historical period. However,

183 184 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2002

FIG. 1. Downtown Paxton Nebraska, May 2002. Photo courtesy of Todd Kerstetter.

as Kate Ronald points out, it is scholars' read­ literature: O. E. Rolvaag's Beret, Willa Cather's ing of history that created these binaries: Antonia, and Laura Ingalls Wilder. Of course, "[Cllassical rhetoric did indeed value personal adding to our understanding of what has be­ discourse, but finally .... the distinction be­ come the defining period in Plains history and tween personal and public discourse is one culture is critical; similarly, exploring the ways that would not have made sense to classical contemporary Plains women respond to and rhetoricians, nor is it useful to us today."3 She exist within the context of that history is nec­ explains that persuasion of the self was often essary. Studying the ways in which women's an integral part of persuading an audience; writing practices have been at work in the thus the personal and public were intertwined. Plains at any time in its history is one way to For women in Paxton, their merging of pub­ understand how the culture is shaped for and lic and private both creates and reflects Great by them. Plains culture-much of the reading and writ­ In this article, I show how women in Paxton, ing they did focused on the western Nebraska shaped by their rural Plains lifestyle, challenge region and can, I believe, tell us much about limited conceptions of "public" and "private" life for women on the Plains. Cary W. de Wit literacies in written rhetorical moves that pro­ notes in a study on women's sense of place vide them a kind of power in their patriarchal that few studies of contemporary Plains women communities. Their writings illuminate the of any ethnic background currently exist.4 ways in which the public and private spheres Over the past quarter century, while scholar­ can overlap and merge in real, literate lives ship on Great Plains women has greatly in­ that are messier than academic constructs creased, much of the work has focused on the sometimes make them out to be. After a brief experiences of 19th century white women and discussion of my ethnographic methodology, I their settlement and travel across the over­ provide an overview of the way the separate land trails.s Images from this time are rein­ spheres are described and sustained by many forced in the enduring prairie women from theorists and explain how the privileging of PRIVATE LIVES AND PUBLIC WRITING 185

t!.. , SOUTH DAKOTA

N E B R A

KANSAS

FIG. 2. Map of Nebraska showing Paxton in relation to the Platte River. Map by Tracy Ellen Smith, Mapsmith, etc.

the "public" leaves the two spheres not only conducted an ethnographic study of three separate but hierarchical. I then show how African American churches, including one she the rigid construct of dichotomous spheres had attended, explains that "while ethnogra­ doesn't apply in Paxton within local rhetori­ phy in general is concerned with describing cal contexts such as the newspaper and the and analyzing a culture, ethnography in com­ collection of memoirs housed at the village position studies is generally topic oriented and library. In their writings that meld public and concerned more narrowly with communica­ private, these women created a rhetorical space tive behavior or the interrelationship of lan­ that allowed them to negotiate their identi­ guage and culture."7 These nuances are of ties in an agrarian culture. particular relevance regarding women's rhe­ torical practices where much of their literacy METHODOLOGY AND ETHNOGRAPHIC work has been relegated as "extracurricular" CHOICES (i.e., social) because it is not produced in the "public" sphere. The kinds of literacy work In 1981 anthropologist John F. Szwed made the Paxton women engaged in would not ap­ the claim that "ethnographic methods ... are pear in the traditional data that quantifies the only means for finding out what literacy educational experience and other "measur­ really is and what can validly be measured."6 able" aspects of literacy knowledge. Part of To him, other methods of data collection and what brought me to this research in the first inquiry that are more broad and comprehen­ place was my resistance to the idea that there sive must rely on generalizations in ways that was nothing about Paxton women to study often do not account for the social and cul­ because they were "only" housewives. From tural nuances of people's lives. For composi­ living in the town, I knew these women led tion theorists, this kind of inquiry is the complex lives and that the locus of their work foundation of our ethnographic practices. and lives was through social and cultural en­ Beverly J. Moss, a composition scholar who gagement that shaped their writings. I also 186 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2002

FIG. 2: Paxton Public Library , March 1999. Photo courtesy of author.

knew that the best way to access the social so central to ethnographies and also from my and cultural facets of their lives was through own lived experience from when I resided in specific and local study-talking with them Paxton, Nebraska. By thinking of this study as about their literate lives and participating in ethnographic and essayistic-and by that word town activities as I did throughout my teens. I mean writing as searching for more compli­ In A Thrice-Told Tale, anthropologist and cated understanding-I am better able to fore­ ethnographer Margery Wolf calls into ques- ground my own biases and unique perspectives , tion assumptions made by many postmodern as a researcher and former member of the com­ theorists of ethnography and takes up the is­ munity. Those biases and perspectives playa sue of form. Her book raises issues about how key role in how I conducted my interviews reflexivity "has made a good many of us take and made my observations. In addition, my stock of who is now in our audience."8 As a purpose in constructing the text in such a feminist, Wolf claims that "if our writings are manner is meant not only to challenge the not easily accessible to those who share our often-unquestioned masculinist argumentative goals, we have failed. "9 The research I describe academic conventions but also to more closely below is best considered essayist-ethnographic embody the kinds of writing valued by the in that it employs many of the methodologies women in my study. of ethnography-thick description from im­ mersion, participant observation, and inquiry THE DATA into a specific site in order to help readers understand the rhetorical practices of a cul­ At the inception of my ethnographic ture. However, my immersion into a place project, I spoke with older women who con­ comes only partly by participant observation tributed to Early Paxton, a collection of mem- PRIVATE LIVES AND PUBLIC WRITING 187 oirs about life in Paxton before 1925, housed community clubs, organizations, and churches, at the place where rhetorical and literate prac­ and in addition to their Early Paxton pieces tices most thrived, the Paxton Public Library. many of them also wrote within these other The collection was edited by Joyce Lierley, a community contexts. The number of contribu­ farm woman who told me when I interviewed tors with whom I could speak was limited in her in July 1997 that she got the idea for the that quite a few of the authors of the memoirs anthology of memoirs from a book she saw on had passed away, and a few were male, which a friend's table on "ladies writing about their was beyond the scope of my study; some who past." She decided the book should consist of were still alive were not able to be interviewed people who lived in Paxton before 1925 so it due to their health. I eventually conducted wouldn't "become too modernized" and re­ individual interviews with nine older women called that "I think I maybe just went to the for my project, all of whom contributed to telephone book and reminded myself of what Early Paxton. Because of this small number, names, what ladies, have been here for quite a there are limitations to this research. Joyce while, and I went to see them. Actually I didn't selected contributors based on longevity as a care how many people were in the book or resident in and around Paxton, and often these even if men were too, it's just that that was a residents have some kind of privilege within starting point." Eventually twenty-nine the town from that longevity. These women women and four men shared their memoirs for cultivated a stature in the community and the Early Paxton collection, which Joyce put therefore may have been considered-and in a leather-covered binder so more authors or considered themselves-authorities in con­ more information could be added at a later structing histories of their families, churches, time. Individual authors' manuscripts range and organizations; initiating and participat­ from one to forty-four pages and describe ing in rhetorical activities reinforced, and of­ memories of being raised on the farm, social ten created, this authoritative space. Other activities in the country or in town, country voices, consequently, were left out, such as school, genealogical listing of relatives, and those who did not have generational ties to memories of the town, often reflecting deep the place, those who may have been over­ nostalgia. Contributor Ruth Burton, for ex­ looked in putting Early Paxton together, or ample, writes: those who may have chosen not to be involved. This sample of older women with enduring Then there were the winter bobsled parties ties to the community, while limited as any and the skating parties down the river. Al­ ethnographic project is in its generalizability, ways a Big Bonfire. How cozy after skating did enable me to consider the ways in which up and down the river to roast wienies and this particular group uses literacy to sustain marshmallows in the fire and drink hot and evoke a sense of place through their read­ chocolate that had been brought in gallon ing and writing lives. tin pails and heated in the bonfire. 10 . These older women in Paxton were between the ages of 76 and 100 when I began my re­ At the inception of my larger ethnographic search in 1997. They have lived all of their project from which this research is drawn, I lives in and around the town first settled by chose to interview older women who had made whites in the 1860s during the building of the this common literacy contribution to the town, railroad on land promised to Cheyennes and because it provided a distinct sample of women Arapahos in the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie. who, while perhaps not considering themselves Many of the women are second- or third-gen­ writers, fostered connections between their eration family members of the community; my place and their rhetorical practices. Many of grandma writes in her memoir that her grand­ the authors were also very visible members of father bought land sight unseen before he 188 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2002 moved from Wisconsin. Of the nine older Banquet (which any graduate of Paxton can women I spoke to, one never married and the attend). I traveled the four hours to Paxton on remainder are widowed. All who married had an average of five times a year. When I went children. All are white, some live on farms, to Paxton, I stayed with my aunt (my grandma's some on ranches, and each attends one of the daughter), and we informally discussed vari­ churches (Methodist, Lutheran, Catholic) in ous aspects of my research throughout this time or around Paxton. A few worked outside the in addition to the formal interview I conducted home as telephone operators or grocery store with her about her reading and writing life in clerks. I had known all but one long before I Paxton. I kept notes and research journals of began conducting interviews on their literate these informal and more explicit research lives for the purpose of research. moments. I also spoke with seven women from the I also conducted archival research at the next generation, those in their fifties and six­ Nebraska State Historical Society, reading ties, who have participated alongside the older newspapers from the Keith County area. In women in community work for years and are March 1999 I visited the Keith County school now carrying on that work in the Paxton area. superintendent's office to research school con­ I contacted every adult child of the women solidation records and to search county school (twenty-one people) to inform them of my records and enrollment for Keith County. This project and my interview and data collection article specifically draws upon archival re­ involving their mothers. I tried to interview search, interviews with older women in my at least one adult child of each older woman study, and literacy artifacts they had in their who had children, eventually interviewing six homes. adult children (some of whom I spoke to while they were visiting their mothers in Paxton from PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SPHERES out of town) and receiving a letter from a sev­ enth. The adult children range in age from As Jean Bethke Elshtain notes in her book their forties to their seventies. The majority Public Man, Private Woman, "to tell the full of interviews with all participants were con­ story of the public and the private would be ducted in July 1997 and March 1999 with some the work of a lifetime."12 Audience, or the sandwiched between when participants were absence of one, as well as the cause of that available. All interviews were recorded and absence, marks the basic distinction between later transcribed by me. Most names in this public and private. Generally, private writ­ article are pseudonyms. 11 ings by women are journals, diaries, and let­ Much of my participant observation took ters written for a very specific person or group place during frequent trips to Paxton, where of persons, while public writing is often com­ in addition to partaking in everyday activities posed with the intent to be published or pre­ such as walking to the grocery store or post sented in some form, such as magazine and office, I attended meetings and events that are newspaper articles or speeches for an unknown important to Paxton culture, such as funerals, and/or broader group of people. Sunday church services, Friends of the Library But the spheres of public and private also meetings, book club sessions, the Labor Day represent a complicated discussion of gender Weekend festival and parade {including a 10K and the activities and lifestyles available to run, a pancake feed put on by the Lion's Club, women. Throughout Western history, men sand volleyball tournament, a Brazilian em­ created and had access to the "public" sphere­ broidery display at the Community Center, simply put, that of political and civil action, and activities at the Paxton Park like a nickel­ speech, and writing-while women were posi­ scramble for children}, and the 1999 Paxton tioned in the "private" sphere-that of do­ Consolidated School All-School Reunion and mestic concerns, household and parental PRIVATE LIVES AND PUBLIC WRITING 189 duties-and denied a public voice on many the century," a move that "calls into question levels, from being withheld the right to vote the category of 'separate spheres' common in to being kept out of the workplace. Aristotle academic feminism, urging instead more com­ is just one rhetorical figure in a line of public plex interpenetrations of women's clubs and male voices who denied women access to the other social formations."16 And Anne Bower realm of politics or oral or textual spaces in acknowledges in Recipes for Reading: Commu­ public.13 The separate spheres of public and nity Cookbooks, Stories, Histories that "What private defined and described within scholar­ we may designate as fairly private activity or ship have become the markers to examine and discourse (sewing, the writing of letters, con­ critique the patriarchal constructs of our world. tributing to a cookbook) may actually have Within postmodernity the terms "public" and been seen by women of the past as forms of "private" have been unpacked and analyzed in public participation."ll various ways. Still, these terms for the most Similarly, in her article on correspondence part connote the "political" and the "domes­ between two women in the nineteenth cen­ tic" dichotomously to illustrate the ways tury, "Writing Themselves into Consciousness: women have been (and are still) denied ac­ Creating a Rhetorical Bridge Between the cess. As Seyla Benhabib explains, Public and Private Spheres," Lisa Gring­ Pemble defines what she calls "pre-genesis": Any theory of publicness, public space, and "a transitional space between private and pub­ public dialogue must presuppose some dis­ lic expression in which women, who were tinction between the private and the pub­ largely excluded from public discussion, lic. In the tradition of Western political shared, tested, and refined their ideas in a thought down to our own days, the way in manner that compelled them to articulate their which the distinction between the public views in a powerful public document."IB She and private spheres has been drawn has further argues that to discuss the few public served to confine women, and typically fe­ acts of courageous women in history only serves male spheres of activity like housework, re­ to "highlight an artificial dichotomy between production, nurturance, and care of the the public and the private and to ignore inter­ young, the sick and the elderly, to the 'pri­ mediary and highly significant processes of vate' domain, and to keep them off the pub­ transformation."19 I would contend that words lic agenda in the liberal state. These issues like "transitional" and "transformation" im­ have often been considered matters of the ply a hierarchy between the two spheres, that good life, of values, of non-generalizable to move from private into public suggests an interests. 14 evolution, and that the "private" work done to move to the "public" space is valued for its In relying on the terms "public" and "private" eventual public result, not for the rhetorical the academy sets up binaries that often sim­ processes and contexts that enabled that re­ plify the more complicated and nuanced rhe­ sult.20 To highlight women's moves toward torical contexts of people's lives. public spaces throughout history continually Other scholars have also called for research­ privileges that sphere, meaning that the pri­ ers to question assumptions about the "sepa­ vate is less valuable. As I studied the rhetori­ rate spheres" as they are known in academic cal practices of Paxton women, I searched for writing and the tendency to view "public" and theoretical models that applied to my research, "private" as monolithic ideas. IS In Intimate but things weren't matching up. The rural Practices: Literacy and Cultural Work in US women I grew up with dwelled in-and cre­ Women's Clubs, 1880-1920 Anne Ruggles ated through their writing-different spaces Gere explains that she identifies women's clubs and contexts than the spheres I read about. In as "one of the competing publics at the turn of her study of the women of Block, Kansas, Carol 190 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2002

K. Coburn has also noted the ways in which down at the grocery store. Her key to the li­ the spheres of public and private can oversim­ brary meant to me power. Yet she also typified plify culture in the rural Great Plains, noting what I now know is described as domestic­ "it is not always helpful in describing rural or ity-bragging about how often she made pies ethnic women's experiences because for many for her husband, tending to their household women a clear separation of worlds does not and yard, not working outside the home. All and never has existed."21 Instead, it seems the of the traditional markers of domestic ("pri­ women in Paxton, informed by their regional vate") activities were visible at my grandma's context, manipulate their own spaces for "pub­ house: sewing, cooking, and gardening. Since lic" and "private" discourse. she was, to me, both a definitive housewife and a public authority, I always assumed the RHETORICAL PRACTICES IN PAXTON identities conjoined. MERGE "PUBLIC" AND "PRIVATE" It was through my grandma's rhetorical practices that these identities were made vis­ NEWSPAPERS ible. Months before she went into the nursing home, my family went through her desk draw­ In the seven years I lived in Paxton­ ers to make sense of what was in them. Among through junior high and high school-my per­ the cards, letters, funeral programs, and quick ceptions shifted as I adjusted to the scale of jottings of notes, her drawers were largely filled small-town life. Later I understood that my with newspaper clippings from the two news­ hometown and particularly the women who papers in the area, the Keith County News (serv­ lived there did not match the abstract or ur­ ing all of Keith County including Ogallala, ban or often historical examples used to delin­ the county seat, Brule, Big Springs, and eate public and private. In my life in Paxton Paxton) and the Courier Times (serving the the terms did not really apply. There was an small towns of Sutherland, Hershey, and intimacy to living there that was unlike any­ Paxton).22 One day, before I had officially iden­ thing I'd experienced or seen in media repre­ tified myself as a researcher of these artifacts, sentations of small town life. And, conversely, she and I sat in the living room on the beige my life felt available and public to everyone; loveseat and put the clippings and other items walking downtown to get the mail at the post in manila folders. I labeled them, since at this office meant becoming involved in conversa­ point her eyesight was poor from macular de­ tion-there was none of the anonymity found generation. By the time we were done, there in suburban and urban areas. The owner of was an envelope of newspaper clippings about Hehnke's Grocery Store knew how much we my dad, one of me and my brother, one of charged for food each month, the bank presi­ cards from her friend who had died just a few dent knew how much money our family years before, and one filled with clippings about (nuclear and extended) had; before moving to her. In many of the clippings, she had previ­ Paxton from a larger city we were not used to ously highlighted names and key words so she also socializing with people privy to our family's and others who saw them could easily spot the more private affairs. reason the article had been cut, dated, and But nowhere is the blurring of "public" and saved. "private" more visible than in observations of During those few days I helped my grandma my grandma. When I visited Paxton as a young organize her clippings, I began to realize how girl, she seemed a celebrity to me, participat­ sifting through her articles was much like look­ ing in the Centennial Queen Pageant and, ing through a personal photo album or scrap­ when my granddad was still alive, riding to­ book. When I looked at the clippings of me gether in a convertible as Grand Marshals in and piled them on top of each other, it was the Labor Day Parade. She knew everyone like seeing a journal of my years in Paxton. PRIVATE LIVES AND PUBLIC WRITING 191

And yet, this was a newspaper, a document saved over the years, I am reminded that her that to me usually represented the public me­ collection and preservation of these clippings dia, the space that was supposed to be filled not only serve to demonstrate what is deemed with what was happening "out there" in the newsworthy in Paxton, but also highlight the rest of the country. In my experience, the rhetorical purpose the paper served in acting media didn't have much to say about my place. as a published timeline of activities and events But it was different with the Keith County News. for those who live there. These local papers exemplify the ways in My grandma not only collected and con­ which conventional distinctions of public and tributed to the information on the pages of private are blurred in a small town. Before I the newspaper, she produced it, sometimes moved to Paxton, my grandma would send me through giving information or write-ups to the small newspaper articles when I returned to newspapers from her work as the Methodist Fargo, North Dakota, after visiting her. The church historian or library board member. If article from her local paper told of my family's she didn't send the article herself, she and visit to her house for our vacation. During the other older women in the town would often years I lived in Paxton, I found my name in supply information to the current Paxton cor­ the paper frequently. A Courier Times article, respondent of the newspaper. Since these 24 February 1983, notes: "Charlotte Hogg, women organized and ran many of the clubs daughter of [Mr. and Mrs. Hogg], represented mentioned in the paper, like the Just-For­ Paxton sixth grade in the KNOP Spelling Bee. Fun Club or the Garden Club, they were re­ She went down on the word 'nacelle' when sponsible for reporting their news to the there were only three contestants remaining." papers and thus controlled the information Every time my brother and I made honor roll, conveyed. A typical Just-For-Fun Club meet­ performed in a play, became a class officer or ing was described in detail in the paper, as in member of the Honor Society, there was a this Courier Times article from 12 September dated, labeled, highlighted clipping. So in­ 1991: triguing it was to be in the newspaper that after one of my brother's friends visited, we Several members of the Just-For-Fun Club submitted the following to the 30 August 1984 gathered at the Community Center Wed­ Keith County News: "Mike --of Fargo, N.D., nesday morning to work on club scrapbooks was a visitor in the Hogg residence in Paxton started by [Clara] in 1974 when the club for four days. Mike is a very good friend ... was organized. At 1 p.m. President M-­ and a former schoolmate." called the members to order for the monthly Under the headline "Reception," the Keith business meeting. On behalf of the Garden County News of 11 June 1986 reported below Club, Dorlis Hogg thanked the Just-For­ my confirmation article that "[Mr. and Mrs.] Fun members who presided at the Silver Hogg served lunch at their home Sunday, June Tea table on Labor Day .... Hogg is the 9, in honor of the confirmation of their daugh­ .only member who belongs to the Garden ter, Charlotte, earlier in the day." In October Club and her beautiful entries rated awards. of 1989 the Keith County News announced the The quilt made by the Just-For-Fun Club many students who returned to Paxton for and donated to the Ambulance fund was homecoming from the various colleges around won by Stella ---. Charles --- re­ the state. Grandma had even cut out the ar­ cently sent the Club a gift of $100. The ticle that told of how I won a free bag of fertil­ members were surprised and delighted and izer from Kildare Lumber at a fundraiser. When made him an honorary member and urged my grandma moved into the nursing home I him to share their food and fellowship told her I would keep these artifacts; thumb­ whenever he wished. There was a discus­ ing through and unfolding these clippings she's sion of the need for some sturdy wooden 192 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2002

chairs for the members who have disabili­ therefore not important in the agrarian con­ ties that render the folding chairs un­ text. safe .... Convalescent cards were signed Nonetheless, Clara told me as we sat in her for Kathryn --- and Raymond ---. living room near her family's century-old book­ Fae Christensen has the box of new clip­ case that the editor of the Courier Times some­ pings left by the late Marie ---. Club times requested historical articles or facts that members voted to sort these and make scrap­ she indicated she was happy to write: books. Well, I felt flattered I was asked. Maybe Just-For-Fun was comprised of senior citizens that's the secret-that somebody would in town-couples and single women and think that I could write for publication, men-who opted to make their informal gath­ because Mr. and Mrs. M-- came and erings a designated group and met at the Com­ called on me to see if I would write the munity Center for potluck meals and to play Paxton page for the Courier Times, and I cards or Scrabble, in addition to the activities didn't think I'd last very long. I thought, described above. The information submitted 'What do I know!' But it suited them. to the paper, like this Just-For-Fun clipping, best demonstrates traditionally "private" in­ In some ways, the agrarian ideologies sub­ formation found in a "public" space, in which scribed to by people in Paxton reflect the the women made the assumption that the work lifestyle of separate spheres as they are com­ of their meeting should be described in detail monly known. Men run the largest businesses in the ways a village board meeting's business in town and they hold typical positions of might be shared. power, such as mayor. But through their "ex­ In the summer of 1997 I also interviewed tracurricular" activities involving writing, and recorded Clara, another older woman who older women in Paxton decided what Keith had contributed to the Early Paxton memoir, County residents read in the Paxton section and I asked her about writing for the paper of the newspaper, constructed histories of the and learned she was still writing articles to town, library, churches, and cemetery, and. send to the current correspondent for the Cou­ they began and maintained the public library. rier Times and Keith County News. She told me They believed the work of their lives warranted she planned to write an article for the newspa­ discussion and space in a forum often desig­ per about her recent birthday party and the nated for the "public arena." To them, there Sparkling White Grape Jell-O she served her was no question that the daily activities in guests (she and Jell-O were both turning 100). which women like my grandma and Clara took She explained during our interview that al­ part deserved attention. There was an assump­ though she was no longer officially a writer for tion among the older women in town that the paper, she composed pieces and gave them because they deemed stories from their child­ to the current correspondent to use, receiving hood, a lOOth birthday party, or the history of no byline or money for it. It should be noted a building or school significant and worthy of that this was not a new practice; past corre­ attention, it was worthy of attention, of read­ spondents to the Keith County News and Cou­ ership by an audience-and they literally knew rier Times (which often printed the same who made up that audience. With this assump­ articles each week) have been women, when tion came discernment, the power to selec­ the correspondent's name was listed as a by­ tively choose the kinds of materials submitted line at all. Often, the news from Paxton did to the paper (although with people sending in not list the contributor until more recent de­ items to the correspondent, this power was cades, signifying the way in which this work sometimes part of a larger collaborative effort was devalued as "only" women's work and to put the Paxton page together in the news- PRIVATE LIVES AND PUBLIC WRITING 193 papers). When I asked Clara whom she envi­ memories, [she is] less interested in a socio­ sioned as the audience for the paper, she said, logical analysis than in describing everyday "Well, I knew it was folks like me who didn't experiences."23 And like the women in Paxton, want every other paragraph about a bridge a number of the contributors to this anthol­ party." ogy composed their memoirs later in life, like Clara's dedication to the work she provided Jennie Stoughton Osborn, who in 1935 typed for the community disrupts the assumptions I her memories at age eighty-seven. bring from years of acquired scholarship. While To imagine the sense of audience these it seems unfair that Clara sometimes did not women writers maintained is difficult-Elinore receive credit for her work (though she told Pruitt Stewart's Letters of a Woman Homesteader me that when she had a byline she did receive (excerpted in the collection), for instance, is payment), in terms of the local rhetorical con­ framed as letters to Mrs. Coney back in Den­ text, most people knew it was Clara submit­ ver, yet Stewart may well have known that ting to the paper-they gave her their news Mrs. Coney was sending these pieces to The items and she was the person asking for infor­ Atlantic Monthly for publication, and most cer­ mation when attending events. Later, when tainly knew by the time she wrote her sequel, she was not the correspondent, she still wanted Letters of an Elk Hunt. The recipient of Hilda to participate in providing the news for Paxton Rose's letters reprinted in the anthology also and, in what could be interpreted as a collabo­ submitted them to The Atlantic Monthly. Were rative gesture, chose to do work for the cur­ these pieces, then, what has been tradition­ rent correspondent without receiving money. ally considered "private" correspondence? Was It seemed that for her what mattered most was part of their more public appeal the intimacy making news available for people, which, ac­ of the voice, even if the events told are not cording to her, is a powerful position to have. extremely revealing (e.g., pregnancies not being mentioned)? The pieces "describe both MEMOIRS the ordinary and extraordinary" while sustain­ ing a sense of nostalgia, going from the classic Many of the women involved in the news­ prairie hardship stories of fires and drought to paper-whether they wrote for it, submitted descriptions of chores and churchgoing.24 information, or were mentioned in the ar­ Jennie Stoughton Osborn writes: "Drought and ticles-were the same women who contrib­ hot winds did not seem to retard the crop of uted to Early Paxton in the library. The children that grew up here in those early days. memoirs in the collection, like the newspa­ They flourished like the Russian Thistles of per, demonstrate the intricacies existing within today."25 The women in the Fairbanks and "public" and "private" categories. Haakenson book seemed compelled to write During my study, I located two valuable their memories on the page, though the in­ books on writing done by rural women that tended audience is not clearly known. clarified the distinctive rhetorical context of The second edited anthology of women's the Early Paxton collection. Memoirs and his­ writings, Read This Only to Yourself: The Pri­ tories fill the pages of Writings of Farm Women, vate Writings of Midwestern Women, 1880-1910, 1840-1940, edited by Carol Fairbanks and focuses on letters and journals of North Da­ Bergine Haakenson, some by such well-known kota women. When the book was published in authors as Elinore Pruitt Stewart and Laura 1982, author Elizabeth Hampsten lamented Ingalls Wilder. Many of the women in the the lack of attention given to women's private anthology were previously published in maga­ writings: "If memorable events or notable per­ zines or books. The comment made about one sons are referred to, or if the writer partici­ author characterizes the writing in the whole pated in a public drama, then her papers will collection: "[L]ike most who recorded their pass for history .... If nothing else were to 194 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2002

older women who contributed to Early Paxton, I asked them about issues of audience in put­ ting together their memoir-whom they were writing for and to. During our interview at the nursing home I asked my grandma about the audience she had in mind when she wrote her forty-four pages for Early Paxton, pages filled with memories from her childhood ("The privy was also a place to secretly dispose of unwanted things, which I did with my portion of ba­ nanas"28) as well as of the town itself ("On the west end of the depot was the loading plat­ form. That's where we would take our large cans of cream to be shipped to the creamery and would pick up the empty cans"29). She, like the other women I interviewed, told me she didn't really have a specific audience in mind beyond wanting to share history, that in fact she wrote the ideas as they came to her, which she states explicitly in her text: "The memories I have of my first years are many, but I have no idea of the chronological order as they come rushing back."30 But contribu­ tors did know of Joyce's intent as editor to FIG. 3: Dorlis Hogg, Paxton, Nebraska, 1985. place the collection in the library and that the Photo courtesy of author. writing would not likely be read outside of Paxton. These texts were visible to a known readership-most of the contributors to the book could probably name who would read persuade me that reading private writings by Early Paxton, as they also served on the library ordinary women is not a whimsical exercise, it board. would be the seriousness with which these The memoirs themselves provide clues women took their own writing."26 Hampsten about the audience and purpose of the writ­ obtained texts from North Dakota archives ings. At first, when my conceptions of public and personal collections, writing more obvi­ and private were more static, I assumed that ously intended for self, family, or friends as its because the women in the Fairbanks and only audience. The journals and letters in this Haakenson book had been published that the anthology are more sparse with less attention manuscripts in Early Paxton would more match to detail and story, shown in a typical journal the North Dakota private writings. But the entry from Rosa Kately: "May 19, 1900. Came women in Paxton constructed their pieces in to the claim at 1 PM yesterday. Went to Erwin's ways that seem most similar to the published in the afternoon. Went to Mrs. Johnson's after works, perhaps because of their sense of in­ the milk and flOUr."27 The sense of audience is tended audience. clearer in these bare but important texts. Elsie Windel's piece in Early Paxton de­ When I think of these collections in rela­ scribed events that shaped her youth for what tion to Early Paxton, it again seems that the seems a general readership: "Helen and Ferne older women from my hometown were meld­ ... were our first callers. They were to become ing public and private. In my interviews with two of my dearest friends .... They gave a PRIVATE LIVES AND PUBLIC WRITING 195 party and introduced me to the eighth grade girls and all the girls who went to high school."3l Yet many of their memoirs are filled with what Deborah Brandt calls indexical ex­ pressions, "liberties that writers take by virtue of an intimate relationship with their read­ ers," that do make the Early Paxton writings distinct from the anthology of writing by farm womenY Like many Early Paxton contribu­ tors, Lucille, for example, uses a local context to frame her narrative: "I was born about one mile straight north of Paxton, Nebraska, in the first house on the east side of the road, where the Bruce --- family now lives."33 Though writing a memoir for the library, Lucille assumed a connection with those who would be reading her text-it was published, public, but not quite. And yet, it was possible FIG. 4: Early Paxton anthology, May 2002. Leather that people who didn't know her but knew cover made by Robert L. Jorgenson. Photo courtesy where Bruce's family lives would feel included of Todd Kerstetter. within the text. Other women, like Mary Rundback, referred to family cemetery plots, local names, and homesteads with little expli­ cation or context: "[My mother] is buried in little of the kind of clipped narrative in the the Glen Echo cemetery."34 My grandma and Hampsten collection, bare and filled with gaps. others noted specifics about land, such as "the Hampsten's guiding definition of journal or northeast quarter of Section 6, Township 12, letter writing for family and friends as "pri­ Range 36."35 While the Paxton women ap­ vate"-the thumbnail definition that pervades peared to be writing to an intimate audience, scholarship-does not adequately describe the Early Paxton is much more similar to the col­ memoirs in the Paxton library. But the Paxton lection of published writings by Fairbanks and writings are, nevertheless, specific and con­ Haakensen, rich with story. Hildred Oberg cerned with "private" or domestic matters, and Lammers writes: don't fit the basic descriptions of "public" writ­ ing. The characteristics of their memoirs­ The Diver's Store was where Virgil---'s indexical expressions combined with writing Grocery Store was. John ... had a soda containing stories and rich detail-intertwine fountain, also sold candy and tobacco. I public and private in ways that disrupt assump­ would go down in the afternoons and let tions about audience often associated with John take a nap and I would run the store. static conceptions of "private" writing. I was only ten and could hardly see over the The purpose of the manuscript, clarified by top of the counter, but I learned to make Joyce, was rendering Paxton life primarily be­ sodas, malted milks, and sundaes. Later, fore 1925, but I believe it is also meant to John died and willed the store to Mother teach residents-patrons of the library-the Oberg. She owned it when 3.2 beer came history, values, and culture of the town. The in. That sure helped the income for awhile. 36 stories and details of life in Paxton are told generously, if a bit nostalgically, reflecting Thus, even given the level of perceived inti­ deep pride in place while informing later gen­ macy with the reader, their writings contain erations of a rich history the older women 196 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2002

authoritatively knew firsthand. In a rural com­ Glenn makes similar claims in her study that munity, these women's stories embody the reexamines the silences of women in terms of space between public and private because they choice-that some women choose silence as a are some of the few who intimately know this kind of power. The warning I received from place, unlike the many outsiders with a more my aunt that day on my way to Clara's re­ public audience who have spoken for the minded me that although there is a unique Plains. kind of intimacy in Paxton, there exist the gaps and silences, the moments of self-censor­ SILENCES ship. The fact that Paxton women wrote their memoirs for the library with a closeness not One of the stereotypical facets of small­ found in other published writing by farm town life is the idea that everyone knows women does not necessarily mean that all was everyone's business-it is the most visible and revealed. Even if they are already known by the known marker that shows the comingling of community, family "secrets" are excluded. One public and private. But doing research in my contributor to Early Paxton who was also my hometown reminded me that within this inti­ granddad's niece, did not mention in her pages macy that seems both stigmatized and glori­ that her father killed himself, which my fam­ fied by our culture (the downside: everyone ily and I'm sure older residents were privy to. gossips about everyone's business; the upside: Sure enough, I checked Clara's memoir and people are always there to help in crisis) are the first husband is barely mentioned. Thus, more subtle nuances often unseen that illus­ through silences these women exert a control trate how these rural Great Plains women over their own histories in the town; what manipulate public and private literacies in may be "public" knowledge is not revealed their livesY When I began interviewing the (thus not recorded and passed down as "offi­ older women I became aware that my position cial history") and has the illusion of being kept as an insider in the community-though I'd private. been gone longer than I lived there-changed and complicated the ethnographic tenor of Anthropologist Deborah Fink contends interviewing, which in turn connected with that the hard work women did on the farm was issues of "public" and "private." When I was often considered merely helping out, since it about to leave my aunt's house with my tape was the male's farm; they define ( d) themselves recorder and interview questions to walk the and others define(d) them as "farm wives."38 block and a half to Clara's house on Highway We should acknowledge that Fink's ideas are 30, my aunt told me not to ask Clara about not only about people in rural areas but in­ what happened with her first husband. After clude opinions within the rural culture as well. telling me the story of that husband, my aunt As she reminds us, "rural people have con­ said, "It just wouldn't be good to bring that up curred in attributing greater importance to with her." men than to women."39 But through the rhe­ Scholars like Anne Ruggles Gere and torical choices made by women in Paxton they Cheryl Glenn are each currently exploring the were able to create for themselves a legitimate rhetorics of silence. In a talk given at the Uni­ space to share their wisdom of place and teach versity of Nebraska-Lincoln, Gere referred to others in the community through their writ­ deliberate silences in writing and its connec­ ing. In constructing texts that merged the tion to the writing we ask of our students. public and private spheres that are so tied to Gere pointed out that during a time when the gender, they were able to both sustain the media leaves nothing to be revealed, the choice agrarian ideologies they subscribe to but also to remain silent is an important part of how make sophisticated rhetorical choices-in we and our students construct texts. Cheryl terms of audience and deliberate silences, for PRIVATE LIVES AND PUBLIC WRITING 197 example-that demonstrate their deep local 8. Margery Wolf, A Thrice-Told Tale: Feminism, knowledge and thus demonstrate a level of Postmodernism, and Ethnographic Responsibility (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), p. 13 7. power in the community. Broader implications 9. Ibid., p. 119. are also possible, I believe, by examining how 10. Ruth Buchanan Burton, untitled essay in a community might be affected by the writing Early Paxton, ed. Joyce Lierly (unpublished anthol­ work being done in a rural community, and ogy, 1982), p. 12. could even inform some of the most pressing 11. For each interview I conducted, I obtained approval to research subjects from the University issues facing the Plains today, rural revitaliza­ of Nebraska-Lincoln's Institutional Review Board, tion being one example. More specifically, and each participant signed an informed consent looking closely at the ways place shaped rural form. At the time I began interviewing older women's reading and writing lives-and vice women, I used the standard Informed Consent Form versa-has the potential to enrich historical which states that names will be kept confidential. Later, I realized that the decision to keep people and contemporary representations of women anonymous is a complicated one-people then don't from the rural Great Plains. get credit for what they have said or done, as one example. Ultimately, I decided to have an adden­ NOTES dum to my original Informal Consent Form for par­ ticipants whose writing I cite in the text. For those 1. Dorlis Hogg, "History of Paxton Public Li­ who have passed away or who never signed consent brary is Listed," Courier Times (Sutherland, forms, I cited them for their written work as I would Hershey, and Paxton, Nebr.), 16 April 1992, 5. any author and wanted to keep that consistent with 2. This piece is part of a larger ethnographic those who were participants in my study. There­ research project on the literacies employed by older fore, the women whose written work I cite (my women in Paxton, Nebr., particularly how their grandma Dorlis and Joyce Lierley) have signed the sense of place on the Great Plains impacts their addendum and agreed to the use of their real names reading and writing lives. I discuss these issues fur­ so they will receive credit for their written work ther in "The Space Between Public and Private: (though they were given the choice of whether or Women's Literacy in Rural Nebraska," in the an­ not to remain confidential). All other participants/ thology Multiple Literacies in the Twenty-First Cen­ interviewees have pseudonyms. tury, forthcoming by Hampton Press, and in 12. Jean Bethke Elshtain, Public Man, Private "Settling Down' in Western Nebraska: Grounding Women: Women in Social and Political Thought, 2nd Local History through Memoir," Western American ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), Literature 37, no. 2 (summer 2002): 223-42. p.4. 3. Kate Ronald, "A Reexamination of Personal 13. See ibid.; Cheryl Glenn, Rhetoric Retold: and Public Discourse in Classical Rhetoric," Rheto­ Regendering the Tradition from Antiquity through the ric Review 9, no.1 (fa111990): 36-48. Renaissance (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Uni­ 4. Cary W. deWit, "Women's Sense of Place versity Press, 1997); and Mary Dietz, "Citizenship on the American High Plains," Great Plains Quar­ with a Feminist Face: The Problem with Maternal terly 21 (winter 2001): 29-44. Thinking," in Feminism: the Public and Private, ed. 5. Several important articles on Great Plains Joan B. Landes. (New York: Oxford University women can be found in Great Plains Quarterly, par­ Press, 1998), pp. 45-63. ticularly vol. 8 (spring and fa111988), vol. 9 (sum­ 14. Seyla Benhabib, "Models of Public Space: mer 1989), vol. 18, (fall 1998), and vol. 21, (winter Hannah Arendt, the Liberal Tradition, and Jiirgen 2001 ). Habermas," in Landes, ed., ibid., pp. 66-99. 6. John F. Szwed, "The Ehtnography of lit­ 15. See Christy Friend, "From the Contact Zone eracy," in Perspectives on Literacy, ed. Eugene R. to the City: Iris Marion Young and Compositional Kintgen, Barry M. Kroll, and Mike Rose (Carbon­ Theory," Journal of Advanced Composition 19, no. 4 dale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988), pp. (winter 1999): 657 -7 6, and Anne Ruggles Gere 303-11. and Aaron Schutz, "Service Learning and English 7. Beverly J. Moss, "Ethnography and Compo­ Studies: Rethinking 'Public' Service," College En­ sition: Studying Literacy at Home," in Methods and glish 69, no. 2 (February 1998): 129-49. Methodology in Composition Research ed. Gesa Kirsch 16. Anne Ruggles Gere, Intimate Practices: Literacy and Patricia Sullivan (Carbondale: Southern Illi­ and Cultural Work in US Women's Clubs, 1880-1920. nois University Press, 1992), pp. 153-71. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997), p. 13. 198 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 2002

17. Anne Bower, ed., Recipes for Reading: Com­ 27. Ibid., p. 45. munity Cookbooks, Stories, Histories (Amherst: Uni­ 28. Dorlis Hogg, untitled essay in Early Paxton, ed. versity of Massachusetts Press, 1997), p. 6. Joyce Lierley (unpublished anthology, 1982), p. 61. 18. Lisa M. Gring-Pemble, "Writing Themselves 29. Ibid., p. 92. into Consciousness: Creating a Rhetorical Bridge 30. Ibid., p. 59. Between the Public and Private Spheres," Quar­ 31. Elsie Lenore Holmdstedt Windels, untitled terly Journal of Speech 84 (1998): 44. essay in Early Paxton, p. 226. 19. Ibid. 32. Deborah Brandt, Literacy as Involvement: The 20. Charlotte Hogg, "The Space Between Pub­ Acts of Writers, Readers, and Texts (Carbondale: lic and Private: Women's Literacy in Rural Ne­ Southern Illinois University Press), p. 74. braska," Multiple Literacies in the Twenty-First 33. Lucille Sedlacek, untitled essay in Early Century (Melbourne: Hampton Press, forthcoming). Paxton, p. 196. 21. Carol K. Coburn, "Ethnicity, Religion, and 34. Mary Rundback, untitled essay in Early Gender: The Women of Block, Kansas, 1868-1940," Paxton, p. 183. Great Plains Quarterly 8 (fall 1988): 222-32. 35. Dorlis Hogg (note 28 above), p. 59. 22. The population of Ogallala is approximately 36. Hildred Harriet Oberg Lammers, untitled 5,000; the population of the additional villages essay in Early Paxton, p. 132. served by these newspapers range from a few hun­ 37. For more discussion on the insularity and dred to less than 2,000. rewards of rural life, see, for example, Gretel Ehrlich, 23. Carol Fairbanks and Bergine Haakenson, The Solace of Open Spaces (New York: Penguin, eds., Writings of Farm Women, 1840-1940: An An­ 1985); Linda Hasselstrom, Land Circle (Golden, thology (New York: Garland, 1990), p. 79. Colo.: Fulcrum, 1991); and Kathleen Norris, Da­ 24. Ibid., p. xi. kota: A Spiritual Geography (Boston: Houghton 25. Ibid., p. 68. Mifflin, 1993). 26. Elizabeth Hampsten, Read This Only to Your­ 38. Deborah Fink, Open Country, Iowa: Rural self: The Private Writings of Midwestern Women, Women, Tradition, and Change (Albany: State Uni­ 1880-1910 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, versity of New York Press, 1986), pp. 7-8. 1982), p. viii. 39. Ibid., p. 8.