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August 5, 2004

Boise State Library Receives Collection of Idaho Authors' Letters

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Jackie Brooks (right), who preserved the scrapbook, on a fishing trip with her friend Lela McCreight. click on image for larger view A cartoon from the letterhead of H.H. Miller, author of �Democracy in Idaho�     A scrapbook of autobiographical letters written in 1947 by more than 20 Idaho authors has been donated to the Idaho Writers Archive in Boise State University�s Albertsons Library. Placed in the scrapbook along with photos, poems, and essays about Idaho, the letters were written in response to an inquiry from the Payette Lakes Progressive Club of McCall, asking �Who are all of you and what made you into authors and poets? And what has Idaho to do with it?� The project�s organizer, Mrs. William Reitmeier, described the Payette Lakes Progressive Club as �a handful of women in a community civic club� who were �making an effort to acquaint ourselves with this, our state of Idaho.� Some authors responded with short notes offering little more than a listing of their works, but others answered with more detailed accounts of their lives and inspiration. Among the authors responding to the club�s inquiry were Vardis Fisher, Sister M. Alfreda Elsensohn, Agnes Just Reid and Ruth Gipson Plowhead. �What has Idaho to do with me and my writings?� wrote Plowhead. �Everything. If I have any mission at all in my books, all of which are juvenile, it is to express my admiration of and love for Idaho.� Irene Puckett McEwen of Wendell, author of �So This is Ranching,� wrote of her homesickness while in California. �I dreamed of returning to the blue distances and the black drama of lava of Idaho.� She described herself as a woman having �dishwater blond hair, green eyes, and a funny nose� married to �an Irishman with incredibly long eyelashes.� The Payette Lakes Progressive Club scrapbook was preserved over the years by Frances Elizabeth �Jackie� Brooks, whose husband, Orville Perry Brooks, operated Brooks Hardware in McCall. They later lived in Caldwell where Jackie Brooks was a teacher. She died in January at the age of 95 and the scrapbook was presented to Boise State University by her daughters, Cynthia Webster of Payette and Mary K. Ballard of Boise. It will be housed in the Special Collections Department in Albertsons Library. -30- Contact Alan Virta Albertsons Library Special Collections 208 426-3958 Media Contact Kathleen Craven communications and marketing 208 426-3275

Last reviewed on Thursday, July 21, 2005