1909-1921 Wallace Stegner: Frontier Childhood Wallace Earl Stegner was born into a family that roamed the West in a restless search for the good life. His frontier childhood shaped his writing for the rest of his life. Jim Foley British CANADA Columbia Alberta Saskatchewan Ontario Eastend THROWING Redmond/Seattle Washington Great Falls Grand Forks A North Dakota Minnesota Oregon Montana LONG Idaho South Wisconsin Dakota SHADOW Wyoming Industry & History of Museum Seattle Lake Mills Nebraska Then to Seattle, where the boys lived briefly in an Iowa orphanage like this Seattle Children’s Home. Nevada Pictured from L to R: Wallace, age 3 (a sickly child), Illinois mother Hilda, brother Cecil, age 5 (a robust and California Utah Colorado athletic child), and Aunt Mina (Hilda’s sister). Kansas “Being reared on the tail end of the Not pictured: father George. Seattle, 1912. Missouri Wallace (second from the right) and Eastend friends American frontier over a span on the bank of the White Mud River in town. Wallace was born near Lake Mills, Iowa New Jim Foley of time from the horse-drawn plow on February 18, 1909. His warm and loving Arizona Mexico Oklahoma Arkansas “I never returned to town in early September mother, Hilda Paulson, had married hard- without a surge of joy—back to safety to the information age gave Stegner living, risk-taking, self-centered vagabond, and shelter, back to friends, games, Sunday what he called an ‘overweening George Stegner. His father unsuccessfully The family moved often: “My first five years school parties, back to school, where I were in constant motion, and what I retain could shine.” tried farming, gambling, prospecting, and Ken Bloomquist www.runnerduck.com at 7 sense of place; almost a pathological bootlegging. of them is no more than flits and flashes: —wallace stegner rare sun on the roof of our tent in the deep In 1990, the Stegner house in town was restored and established as a Residence for Artists. sensitivity to the colors, smells, light, “My father was a boomer, a gambler, a woods where now stands Redmond, Then by horse and wagon to Eastend, Washington; the musty, buttery odor of the Next back to Iowa and Wallace’s strict grandfather’s Saskatchewan. land, and life forms of the segments rainbow-chaser, as footloose as a tumble- “After two years [in Eastend], my father bread crusts distributed from a dishpan home. This is a typical Midwestern Norwegian weed in a windstorm. My mother was farmhouse built about 1908. built a house and a small barn down in Jim Foley of earth on which I’ve lived.’ ” at mid-morning in the Seattle orphanage “We lived the first winter in the dining car The original Stegner homestead site. always hopefully, hopelessly, trying to nest. the west end.” where my desperate mother stashed my [such as the living quarters pictured above]. 448 Fourth Avenue North was the Stegner’s —james thalman1 Like many western Americans, especially —wallace stegner4 the poorer kinds, I was born on wheels.” brother and me for a while; the foreign Later we lived in a rented shack.” The Stegner’s isolated farm on the prairie new address. 3 —wallace stegner1 smells and sounds of my grandfather’s Congress of Library —wallace stegner was 50 miles outside of town. In the Norwegian-speaking house in Lake Mills From North Dakota to Redmond, Washington, where summers George and the boys tried to Six years later, after several seasons of when we retreated there in the winter the Stegner family lived in a tent camp like this one. grow wheat. crop failure, George moved his family to of 1913….” Great Falls, Montana into a house in an —wallace stegner2 “We plowed our first field, and dammed established community, a first for Wallace. our coulee, and built our shack, in the summer of 1915, and thereafter we spent “On my first day there I made the the summers on the homestead, the acquaintance of things that I had read winters in town.” about but never seen: lawns, cement —wallace stegner5 sidewalks, streetcars, streets with names, houses with numbers… hardwood floors “You become acutely aware of yourself. and a flush toilet.” The world is very large, the sky even larger, —wallace stegner8 and you are very small.” —wallace stegner6 1921-1930 A Sense of Belonging Nine years in Salt Lake City gave Wallace the sense of community and belonging that his early nomadic childhood had lacked. Utah State Historical Society Utah State Historical Society Temple Block, 1920’s. The old Saltair resort pavilion on the Great Salt A Salt Lake City library in the 1920’s. At age 15 while in his senior year of high Lake, 1925. It was built to provide “a wholesome school, a miracle happened. Wallace grew “By his second year Wallace was in a place of recreation” under church control for 6 inches to slightly over 6 feet tall. fraternity [Sigma Nu], dating, and George Stegner again wanted a new business Mormons and others. “My long-term addiction to books had been “His friendship with Jack Irvine and his opportunity, so in the summer of 1921 he intensified by access to the Carnegie Library family led to a job [at the family’s flooring having a wonderful time, hanging out drove his family to Salt Lake City. on State Street. I was always down at the “Suddenly I was big enough to hold my own company], a job which gave Wallace the with the jocks in various beer joints “If I have a home town, a place where a part library taking books out four and six at in sports. Suddenly I had friends who looked money to buy his own clothes and pay his near campus.” of my heart is, it is Salt Lake City…. The “How it is dignified with monuments and a time.” on me as an equal and not as a mascot.” own way.” —jackson j. benson12 Mormons who built it and lived in it had 6 steeped in sun tempered with shade, and —wallace stegner4 —wallace stegner —jackson j. benson10 a strong sense of family and community, how it lies protected behind its rampart He continued getting A’s and was something the Stegners were notably mountains.” Wallace (right) and good friend Jack Irvine were included in the literary salons held for short of.” Wallace stated his novel Recapitulation co-captains of the University tennis team. —wallace stegner1 the brighter young English majors. At —wallace stegner2 portrays the relationship between himself school, Wallace found the acceptance and Jack Irvine: “Lead character Joe Mulder he so craved. He graduated from the [Jack] taught protagonist Bruce Mason Boise State University Library University State Boise Utah State Historical Society University of Utah in 1930, having grown [Wallace] not only tennis but confidence, Main building, University of Deseret, 1884. Name was Wallace took freshman English from a intellectually, athletically, and socially. changed in 1894 to University of Utah. radical young atheist professor, Vardis Fisher. and not only confidence but friendship. Joe rescued Bruce’s summer and perhaps After graduating from high school in 1925, “[Vardis Fisher] was one of those teachers his life.” 11 Wallace entered the University of Utah at who liked to take can openers to unopened —wallace stegner the tender age of 16. minds…. It was thrilling, in a way, to be treated almost like an adult.” Utah State Historical Society University of Utah Archives “That was the first chance any of us had to —wallace stegner9 East High School, Salt Lake City, 1920. Wallace in his tennis whites. see minds at work at all. My teachers were very kind to me and they opened up a lot “Between my 12th and 21st years [our family] Wallace declared that it was tennis that of doors. must have lived in 20 different houses, [so I really saved him from the army of the —wallace stegner8 trekked to school] across lots from many estranged and disaffected. different directions.” May 1922 issue of Boys’ Life, the official Boy —wallace stegner5 “I was fully a part of East High School and Scout magazine. the city, contented with myself and my Fortunately the family’s numerous homes place in the world.” “What I wanted most was to belong to were all within the attendance area for East —wallace stegner7 something. Once in the Boy Scouts, I went High. It was there that Wallace first pursued up through the ranks from tenderfoot to sports and joined the tennis team. Eagle like smoke up a chimney.” —wallace stegner3 1930-1939 From Grad Student to Professor With no clear-cut career in mind, Wallace was saved by a Utah professor who negotiated a teaching assistantship for him at the University of Iowa in a Master’s program in English. Wallace survived the Depression in graduate school earning his masters and doctorate. During these years, Older brother Cecil at age 5. he weathered the loss of his childhood family but In his first year at Iowa, tragedy struck the family back in Salt Lake City when Cecil died discovered joy in starting a new family. He got his first unexpectedly at age 23. As young children, University of Iowa the brothers had been very close, and Wallace taste of teaching and published his first book. In September 1930, Wallace arrived at the often recalled how Cecil had defended and University of Iowa. protected him. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— “[Cecil’s death] made me realize how tight a I took the one I was pushed into.” cluster [the Stegner family was], knotted —wallace stegner1 against respectable society, our own sole resource, our own prison.” “During an endless rainy fall, [I realized] —wallace stegner4 that I came from the arid lands, and liked where I came from.