photo by Cristian Boboia
| photo by Cristian Boboia |
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LSA NewsNo. 63, March 2005A Visit with Elizabeth Orton Jones(story continued)Over a three-day period and eight hours of audio and video recordings of our “formal” oral history interview, our diligently prepared questions sometimes became more hurdle than springboard, as Twig vigorously narrated a life passionately and richly lived. This short, thin woman with a shock of white hair and spirited brown eyes behind oversized glasses welcomed us into her home (literally with open arms), and after the third day of interviews, we did not want to leave and she did not want us to go! We learned a great deal about Twig’s life in that three-day period, and the interviews are particularly rich in detail. She told us the story of winning the Caldecott Medal in 1945, just two years after settling into her house “Misty Meadow” in Mason. The award ceremony took place in Manhattan, where Twig was put up in the Waldorf-Astoria hotel for several days and was treated like royalty. Every morning she was served breakfast in her suite on a breakfast tray with side pockets that were full of congratulatory letters from well-wishers. And each day, among all the fan letters there was a letter from Lucille Ogle, founder and editor of Golden Books, inviting Twig to write and illustrate a Golden Book. Ogle really didn’t care what the book would be about or how it would be illustrated, just as long as Twig—a Caldecott winner—wrote and illustrated it. Twig wasn’t really all that interested. But the letters continued to come, begging and cajoling, and finally a letter came with a check for $2,000 ($21,826 in today’s dollars). Suddenly Twig thought of all the repairs that were needed at Misty Meadow—a new well to be dug, new siding to be put on, and many other looming maintenance jobs. So Twig agreed and produced her retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, which came out in 1948. Twig used her friend’s house (now a restaurant called Pickety Place) and the interior of Misty Meadow as settings for some of the illustrations.
During the first interview session, one of the most exciting moments happened when Twig walked over to a bookcase and brought back the actual Caldecott Medal for us to look at. Not only did she let us hold it, but she told us to take it and put it in her collection in the library. Linda kept it safe and hand-carried it all the way back to Oregon. The Caldecott was not going to be packed in luggage! In addition to doing the oral history interview, we packed up and shipped back many documents in her house, including literary manuscripts and original drawings. These items will be processed into the Elizabeth Orton Jones Papers, and the oral history interview—the audio cassettes and video recordings—will constitute a separate collection that eventually will be made available through a catalog record and an encoded finding aid. Our visit to New England was so much fun for many reasons. Because there are no motels in the Mason area, we stayed at the Birchwood Inn, a lovely colonial inn in the tiny village of Temple. And when we say “colonial” we really mean colonial. The Birchwood Inn was built in 1775. We enjoyed the innkeepers, Nick and Andrew, who came to America from England and, as they say, have brought “a bit of old England to New England.” The English breakfasts and gourmet dinners were delicious. We also made a couple of side trips, including a jaunt over to Jaffrey so Linda could see Willa Cather’s grave (a beautiful setting at the base of Mt. Monadnock) and then a drive up to Maine for a couple of days before we flew back to Oregon (from Portland to Portland!). While in Maine we stayed at a lovely old Victorian inn, the Beachmere Inn, situated right on the ocean. A vigorous walk on a paved path along the beach took us to a lovely restaurant where we had a lobster dinner. When we got to hold the Caldecott in hand, we thought of Twig’s acceptance speech, in which she said, “Drawing is very like a prayer. Drawing is a reaching for something away beyond you. As you sit down to work in the morning, you feel as if you were on top of a hill. Every child in the world has a hill, with a top to it. Every child—black, white, rich, poor, handicapped, unhandicapped. And singing is what the top of each hill is for. Singing-drawing-thinking-dreaming-sitting in silence . . .saying a prayer. I should like every child in the world to know that he has a hill, that that hill is his no matter what happens, his and his only, forever.” We thoroughly enjoyed our visit with Twig, and it was clear that Twig enjoyed her visit with us. We pledged to keep in touch and laughingly called ourselves the “Cross-Country Clan.” As a memento of the occasion, one night Twig wrote a little poem and gave a copy to each of us (along with a gold necklace): The Cross-Country Clan |
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