Saturday, Aug. 17

 

William Maxwell plaque
to be dedicated Aug. 24

[AUG. 17, 2002]  Writer William Maxwell, a Lincoln native and winner of the American Book Award in 1980, will be honored with a historical marker to be dedicated at 11 a.m., Saturday, Aug. 24.

Maxwell’s boyhood home at 184 Ninth St. is the site for the marker, and the ceremony will take place there. David Welch of Lincoln, who did all the research and fund-raising, explained, "I always liked Maxwell’s writing and thought he was deserving of this. He put Lincoln on the literary map."

Maxwell is known as a "writer’s writer" for his spare, carefully crafted prose style. He has referred to Lincoln as his "imagination’s home."

Barbara Burkhardt of Springfield, whose critical biography of Maxwell is currently in press, will speak at the ceremony. Burkhardt interviewed Maxwell several times at his home in New York City. She teaches at the University of Illinois in Springfield.

Barbara Jones, rare-book librarian at the University of Illinois in Urbana/Champaign, has also expressed interest in attending. In 1997 Maxwell donated his papers to the U of I library. The collection includes many letters as well as manuscripts. For 40 years, from 1936 to 1976, Maxwell was a fiction editor for The New Yorker, working with such noted writers as John Updike, John Cheever, Eudora Welty, Vladimir Nabokov, Mary McCarthy, J.D. Salinger, William Carlos Williams, Tennessee Williams, John O’Hara and Frank O’Connor. His correspondence with them is included in the collection.

Tom Teague, executive director of the Illinois State Historical Society, will also speak at the dedication, and Welch will emcee. A reception will follow at The Restaurant at the Depot.

In an interview reprinted in "The Happiness of Getting it Down Right" (1996), Maxwell said of his wife, the former Emily Gilman Noyes: "The most important living reader I have is my wife. … Often she has said, when I was quite pleased with something, ‘I think this is going to be one of your best ones’ and so sent me back to the typewriter." They died just eight days apart in July 2000. William Maxwell was 16 days shy of his 92nd birthday.

Welch, who began the marker project in 1998, said the fact that the subject was still living created a roadblock. The Illinois State Historical Society has never erected a marker to a living person, Welch said, on the reasoning that "it is impossible to fully assess a person’s contribution" until his or her life is completed.

Maxwell lived his first 14 years in Lincoln, and here occurred the most shaping event of his life — his mother’s death from Spanish influenza when he was 10. Blossom Maxwell died shortly after giving birth to her third son, Blinn. Her death is incorporated into much of Maxwell’s fiction, including "They Came Like Swallows" (1937), "Time Will Darken It" (1948) and "So Long, See You Tomorrow" (1980), which won the American Book Award.

The marker was cast in 2001 and Welch has had it in his possession since November, but he delayed the dedication until members of the family could be present. Maxwell’s daughter Kate of Manhattan and his brother Blinn and his wife of Oxnard, Calif., plan to attend. A second daughter, Brookie, also lives in Manhattan.

Paid for by public donations, the marker is in the same style as two others erected in the last five years, to poet Langston Hughes at Central School and to the Niebuhr family of theologians at St. John United Church of Christ. However, unlike the others, the Maxwell marker will be in the smaller of the two sizes sanctioned by the Illinois State Historical Society. Welch said he chose the smaller version, with its limit of 100 words, because the marker is to be placed on residential property. "For a public building, I would have picked the larger size," he said. "But in the yard of a private home, the smaller is more appropriate."

 

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Tim and Tami Kennett have owned the home for 11 or 12 years. Their daughters Christina, Amanda and Amy were 6, 8 and 10 when they moved in. Only Christina still lives at home. Tami Kennett said she believes the house was built 25 to 30 years before the Maxwells moved there in 1910.

The Kennetts did not know about the Maxwell connection when they bought the house but learned of it soon after. Tami Kennett said she has since read Maxwell’s works. "It’s kind of eerie reading and picturing where he was and how he lived," she commented, noting references to the French doors, library and other features of the house. She added that she doesn’t have a maid as Maxwell’s mother did.

There is a bay window in the family room, once the library. "I picture him sitting on that bay window, reading," Kennett said. She hopes the marker will bring more readers to Maxwell’s works.

Welch said his research for composing the text of the marker included verifying the number of Maxwell’s books and interpreting his feelings about the house as the last place where he knew his mother. Welch based this interpretation on published interviews as well as narrations within the works.

In late 1999 Welch sent Maxwell the wording as he then planned it, and the writer made minor changes. That text was about 90 percent the same as the final wording, which reads:

WILLIAM MAXWELL
BOYHOOD HOME

WILLIAM MAXWELL (1908 - 2000), AUTHOR AND EDITOR, LIVED AT THIS HOME FROM 1910 TO 1920. MAXWELL OFTEN RETURNED TO THE HOME AND LINCOLN, ILLINOIS IN HIS NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES. HIS MIDWESTERN CHILDHOOD, PARTICULARLY THE LOSS OF HIS MOTHER IN THE SPANISH INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC OF 1918, INFLUENCED MUCH OF HIS WRITING.

MAXWELL GRADUATED FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, URBANA AND THEN SERVED AS FICTION EDITOR FOR THE NEW YORKER FROM 1936 TO 1976. HE AUTHORED FOURTEEN WORKS OF FICTION AND MEMOIR, WITH THE NOVEL, SO LONG, SEE YOU TOMORROW, EARNING THE AMERICAN BOOK AWARD IN 1980. HIS NAME IS ETCHED ON THE FRIEZE OF THE ILLINOIS STATE LIBRARY.

ERECTED BY FRIENDS OF WILLIAM MAXWELL AND

THE ILLINOIS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 2001

Welch said he investigated having the home placed on the National Registry of Historic Buildings, but the house has undergone too much renovation to qualify.

[Lynn Shearer Spellman]


New DARE ATV shouts style

[AUG. 17, 2002]  DARE officer Sgt. Ken Greenslate knows that when he pulls up in a flashy, new 2002 Jeep Liberty with matching trailer, the kids are going to take notice. The vehicle and trailer are covered with unique graphics and a brilliant lighting system that the kids will love. It will go to schools where the DARE program is being presented and will also go to special events.


[Photo by Jan Youngquist]

The vehicle is a gift from the Local Jeep Dealers Association. The process that led to the donation began when Lincoln Police Chief Rich Montcalm gave Dan Row, owner of Row Motors, 222 S. McLean St., Lincoln, a call inquiring about the possibility of a vehicle. Row put Tim Centers, warranty administrator at Row Motors, on the quest. Through lots of phone calls, including to the president of the Local Jeep Dealers Association, Steve Wilson of Wilson Chrysler Jeep in Clinton, it was decided that the association would donate the vehicle out of funds set aside for charity. Centers was pleased to make the presentation, saying the association chose Lincoln because of the strong organization the local DARE program has.

 

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Sgt. Greenslate explained that by offering three tiers, grade school, middle school and high school, that puts the Lincoln program in the top 10 percent in the state. They also do a VEGA (violence education and gang awareness) program. He and the chief are planning to expand the program even more in the future by offering a parents program that has been developed.

Chief Montcalm noted that he would like to thank Mayor Beth Davis and the council for being supportive of DARE and educating youth in the community on drug prevention and awareness.

 

The Local Jeep Dealers Association is made up of Jeep dealers from all of the 217 area code.

Lincoln IGA and Lincoln/Logan Crime Stoppers donated the funds to purchase the trailer. The trailer carries program literature, promotion materials and the remote-controlled, helium-fillable DARE balloon.

Anyone in the area and surrounding areas desiring the DARE officer and vehicle to make a presentation at their special event can call Sgt. Greenslate at (217) 732-2151.

[Jan Youngquist]


Astronaut will spend a day in Lincoln

[AUG. 17, 2002]  Astronaut Scott Altman will spend Wednesday, Aug. 21, in Lincoln to help raise funds for the First Baptist Church, according to his aunt, Joyce Seelye.

He will be at the Lincoln Park District Recreation Center from 9 to 11 a.m. talking to young people, answering questions and giving autographs. Donations for the youngsters will be $1 at the door.

He will also speak at a dinner at the Lincoln Community High School cafeteria set for 6 to 9 p.m. Donations for the dinner are $25, and tickets can be purchased from Seelye, 732-8664; the First Baptist Church, 732-7409; Xamis Ford; or Graue Chevrolet.

Altman, a commander in the U.S. Navy, was born in Lincoln and dedicated in the First Baptist Church as an infant. His parents, Fred and Sharon Altman, later moved to Pekin and still live there.

 

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[Photo provided by NASA]
[Scott Altman]

Altman has been in space three times, twice as a pilot and once as commander for the mission to fix the Hubble telescope. He lives in Houston.

The fund-raiser is to buy land on Connolley Road to build a larger church, Seelye said. The present site across from Central School has no room for expansion or parking, she said.

[Joan Crabb]

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Articles from the past week

Friday:

  • Union appealing IHFPB decision to close LDC

  • Most requests are moderate as county begins budget hearings

Thursday:

  • Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board unanimous on LDC vote: CLOSURE!

Wednesday:

  • City may change ordinance to permit CILAs

  • Illinois Virtual High School now more affordable

Tuesday:

  • Governor appoints new members to IHFPB before crucial LDC vote

  • Governor signs bill allowing cell phones in schools

  • ‘A Chain Reaction of Hope,’ says Miss Illinois

Monday:

  • Elkhart — Soup to nuts and archaeology too (Business)

  • Futures For Kids conference to highlight after-school programs

  • Gov. Ryan signs telephone solicitation bill into law

Saturday:

  • LDC employees get layoff notices

  • IOCC ‘race’ coming through Lincoln

  • Thompson craft awards presented to four Illinois artisans

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