Home Front Girl

In 2010, my mother, Joan Wehlen Morrison, died, leaving behind her grieving family. Additionally, she left behind her journals, poetry, and diaries from the late 1930s-early 1940s from when she was ages 14-20. As an oral historian, writer, and professor, she would have appreciated the editing of these materials into Home Front Girl and Another Troy, which have been edited by  me and published by Chicago Review Press and Finishing Line Press.

Time marches on. These materials, the original papers and notebooks, have been at my home in Austin, TX, for over a decade. But my husband and I plan to retire in the near future to a home on the seaside in Massachusetts.

It’s a charming Victorian house which has long been in his family. But as it sits twenty feet from a salty shore and has been known to house more than one silverfish, it would not be the ideal place for such vulnerable materials. I’ve long wanted to have mom’s collection archived at a professional library.

My dream was to have them housed at the University of Chicago which she graduated from in 1944. She talks about the university many times in her journals.

I reached out to Kathleen Feeney, Head of Archives Processing and Digital Access, at the Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center. I originally wrote in March 2023. Ms. Feeney was interested but as they had a staffing shortage could not take new donations at that time. So she suggested writing again in the fall. I did so and this time they could take mom’s papers! I am thrilled!

While I was fully prepared to drive them up there and hand them over in person, Ms. Feeney patiently walked me through how they could be sent via FedEx at their expense. On January 4, 2024, the boxes arrived at their destination in Chicago. I breathed a sigh of relief.

My original cover letter: why the materials would be of interest to researchers

As I explained in my original cover letter, my mom’s “materials would be of great interest and importance to your institution and city….What I am calling the Joan Wehlen Morrison Collection provides primary historical documentation of a teenager’s and later a young woman’s account and reaction to war as it is coming and then arrives, University of Chicago Lab School (“U-High”) and University of Chicago history and events, as well as the city of Chicago itself. Among other specialties, Joan’s diaries, journals, and notes would add to some key areas of interest in the Manuscript Collections, including “the history of the Hyde Park-Kenwood neighborhood,” “history of the University of Chicago,” “UChicago student life,” and “poetry.” It would contribute to interests in the history of children, teenagers, and young women; World War II; Chicago history; and education from the mid-1930s to 1944 in Chicago.

           In addition to Joan’s original diaries (only a portion of which appear in the published volumes edited by her daughter–me), the collection includes journals with school essays, poetry, and reading lists (of interest to juvenile education and reading researchers), as well as a few annotated textbooks from the time period. Joan’s writings tell a unique – and true — story as she loses her innocence due to the impending war and its violent arrival. She often mentions events of the day in her journals and reflects on them. Along the way she goes on dates, reflects on politics and art, and ends up falling in love with the man who would become her husband.  Joan offers us more than mere historical color as she muses on poetry, literature, education, nature, God, the meaning of life, romance, boyfriends, history, and World War II.  Joan’s doodles and sketches are also present in the papers.“

Additionally, I included mom’s biography and information on where her historical work is housed at two other archives.

Biography of Joan Wehlen Morrison: She was born in Chicago in December of 1922. After attending the University of Chicago Lab School and then the University of Chicago, she lived in New York City and Morristown, New Jersey.  She was the co-author of American Mosaic: The Immigrant Experience in the Words of Those Who Lived It (1980), recognized as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Dramatic readings from the book have been performed on Ellis Island, at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, and in an In Performance at the White Houseprogram broadcast nationally on PBS.  The archives for that book are housed at the Bob Hope Memorial Library at the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration [National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior] as the American Mosaic Collection 1972-1980 (bulk dates: 1975-1978) [Catalog Number: STLI 45574].

Her second book, From Camelot to Kent State: The Sixties Experience in the Words of Those Who Lived It (1987), became the basis for her popular course on the 1960’s at the New School for Social Research in New York City.  The archives for that book, the Joan and Robert K. Morrison Collection, are housed at the Smithsonian [https://sova.si.edu/record/NMAH.AC.0359].

What the Joan Wehlen Morrison Collection contains

As I explained in my original letter, “Most recently Joan is the (posthumous) author of Home Front Girl: A Diary of Love, Literature, and Growing Up in Wartime America, edited by her daughter, Susan Signe Morrison (Chicago Review Press, 2012/2018).  It draws on Joan’s diaries and journals, focusing on the pre-war period and into 1942. These diaries and journals comprise the bulk of my proposed donation to your archive. Home Front Girl was named by the Children’s Book Committee of the Bank Street College of Education to the Best Children’s Book of the Year 2013 list (Memoir: Ages 14 & up). It won two additional awards:

1. Gold Medal in Historical Young Adult (Literary Classics)
2. Words on Wings Book Award (only four books get a Top Honors, which this is).

Some of Joan’s poetry from this archive I wish to donate has been published in the chapbook, Another Troy (Finishing Line Press, 2020) which won the Gold Medal for the 2021 Human Relations Indie Book Awards in the category of Wisdom Poetry.”

Once the materials are available and digitized, I’ll let you all know. It may take a while. I hope you can read the original materials one day! Thanks to Ms. Feeney for facilitating this collection being archived!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today is Joan’s 101st birthday. What better way to honor her memory than to share two bits of news. First, here’s an image. Where’s Joan?

A dear friend was visiting the National World War II Museum in New Orleans and sent me this picture taken in the Book Store there. Mom’s beautiful face is looking out among a bevy of other women who likewise experienced WWII in various ways. I’m so grateful to our friend for sharing this!

The other news I’ll write more about in the coming months. Here’s a teaser: the Joan Wehlen Morrison Collection will be housed at the University of Chicago in the near future! My parents studied at and met at the U of C and so it is all too fitting that Joan’s archive will be safely stored there and made available to scholars.

So… Happy Birthday, Mommy! We love you!

My parents married 75 years ago today: June 19, 1943. Here is a poem Joan wrote on Tuesday, February 2, 1943, when she was only 20.

I remember the clear cold day we met

All ice and shining snow and sun dazzling but chill.

The trees black and lacy against the snow-hills

And the figures of people standing out clear on the landscape.

You, with your green changing eyes turning to look at me

As I stood on the hill . . .

War, even the war is beautiful, because it is so expected.

This world could not exist if there were not the undertone of tragedy.

The black shape is always moving

Across the face of the bright moon.

The songs that are trite to us now

May make us weep sometime because they bring back

Days that were when everything was yet to be done

And the world lay far below us—

Still to be ventured.

“I don’t want to walk without you, baby” . . .

“I left my heart at a stage-door canteen” . . .

“This is worth fighting for. . . .” [1]                   

We may even cry because we remember

That “Mr. Five by Five”[2] made us smile once

And the “Strip Polka”[3] will seem quaint and old-fashioned.

Maybe we’ll remember then

The day we first met

On a hill, while the world lay below us

Painted with black trees on snow

Traced with the steaming breath of cows

And black wisps of smoke from chimneys

And hills beyond and a white road—

And the world—

Still to be ventured.

Darling, if we come to nothing

Let’s not forget that.

Let’s not forget

We stood on top of the world once.

And here they are about 40 years later, so happy at the beloved home they rented in Wickham Market, England, called Thorpell House. Thanks to my brother Jim for the picture!

[1] These are all lines from popular songs of the time.

[2] A song from 1942 about a man “five feet tall and five feet wide.” Harry James and others made it popular.

[3] A song by Johnny Mercer, including the immortal lines often intoned by my father: “‘Take it off, take it off,’ cries a voice from the rear.” The song was made popular by the Andrews Sisters in 1942.

December 20, 2022 would have been my mom’s 100th birthday. Joan was born on the (almost) shortest and the darkest day of the year. Yet she shed light on all those she met through her kindness and empathy. In the image I choose here for her–as the Virgin Mary in a church pageant when she was just 16 years old–her beatific face gazes at a doll or flashlight depicting the baby Jesus. She was a precocious writer, compassionately considering His birth in this poem from Mary’s perspective written the previous Christmas of 1937 when she was only 15.

Christmas 1937                                                                                                       

                 Mary’s son was not cold

                 When the Wise Men came with gold

                 Mary’s son was newly born

                 When the shepherds came with morn.

                 Mary bore her son alone

                 While above the wonder shone

                 Of the star on just that night

                 Led the shepherds there aright.

                 All the years since then have passed

                 Stars that shine will ever last.

                 Why did that star only then

                 Shine and never once again?

                 Only once He came to Earth

                 Only once proclaim His birth,

                 But each year at Christmastide

                 Yet we think of Him who died,

                 And was born in that small town

                 While the Wonder Star looked down.

                 Let all the heavens still proclaim                        

                 Honor to His Holy Name.

May all of us consider those who are vulnerable this holiday season!

 

It’s been a hard year. First, our dear corgi, Gwen, died after a difficult illness.

Most tragically, my oldest beloved brother, Bob, died of cancer two months later.

My son broke his tibia in two places. Not a tragedy, but a challenge for a young man who loves to walk.

In sum: a difficult time. I’m an optimist by nature, but this year has challenged me mightily.

Then in December, my daughter asked if we had any books that needed to be bound properly as she was to attend a workshop on bookbinding and conservation. Did we ever! Coming from a family nick-named “the Morrison writing factory” by my mom Joan, we had books galore–many tattered, with spines falling off and pages torn and ripped. I pulled a number out, assuring her, “There are more, if you like!”

I flipped through the pages of one book, Approaches to Poetry (1935), and– lo and behold–a loose notebook page fell out. It had writing on it. A poem. Of Joan’s? Yes! She must have been about 16 or 17 when she wrote this.

Found December 2, 2021 in Approaches to Poetry

I will make you brooches and toys for your delight

Of bird song at morning and starfire at at night

I will make a palace fit for you and me

Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.

 

I will make my kitchen and you shall keep your room

Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom

And you shall work your linen and keep your body white

In rainfall at morning and dewfall at nite.

 

And this shall be for music when no one else is ware

The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear

That only I remember, that only you admire

Of the broad road that stretches and roadside fire.

Later, as I told my husband Jim about all this, I lifted up yet another book–World Literature (edited by E. A. Cross, also 1935)–of my mother’s I had held numerous times. I opened it to gaze within, seeing her inscription: “Joan Wehlen October 26, 1938 U-High.” In the Table of Contents, she had transcribed this famous quote from Anatole France: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” Coming from a family with socialist leanings in the wake of the Depression, this sentiment must have resonated. She also had transcribed the word “Hrunting”–the name of the sword loaned to Beowulf by Unferth.

I flipped through and this fell out from among the pages of Cicero:

How could this be? I had heard my parents joke about this poem many times. “Cavalier Poet to his Lady” was inspired by the metaphysical poets and Carpe Diem poems from the early 17th century. In fact, I had transcribed a slightly different version years ago. This one seems to have been edited with a date included–maybe 11-24-78 (?)–though my earlier transcription dates it as December 13, 1941. She clearly returned to this poem, perhaps in hopes of publishing it late in life.

Since it was originally written 6 days after Pearl Harbor, Carpe Diem must have been on everyone’s minds. Here is this newly discovered version, in all its humorous glory.      

     Cavalier Poet to his Lady

         And why so great a fuss about a thing

         So quickly done and soon forgotten?

         Indeed, you set upon yourself a price

         That others will not thereon set.

         You in your grave when you are lying sweetly rotten

         May gloat o’er your preserved virginity

         But none will want it yet.

 

         Yea, sweetheart, if thou canst not love

         Yet in humility do what you can

         To light the path from birth to grave

         And cheer the heart of man.

My mom has certainly cheered my heart! And I hope this story has cheered yours. I feel that Joan knew I needed her consoling words at this, her 99th birthday and the day before the darkest day of the year. May it only get brighter from now on.

 

 

The Song of the Lark was one of my mother’s favorite paintings. This poem in The Ekphrastic Review is inspired by both my mother and that beautiful work of art at The Art Institute in Chicago. She even writes about it in her diary on Sunday, May 30, 1938 (age 15):

. . . Friday night Mom and I went to Lake View to see Il Trovatore—given by American Opera Company. Mom went to sleep during it and I had to hold my eyelids up! Are we cultural!

Mom and I went downtown and I got me a new peasant—dusty pink—dress. I look like the Song of the Lark or something. It’s a dirndl and awfully cute.

 

I’m so delighted that Another Troy has been recognized yet again, chosen as a finalist for the 2021 Eric Hoffer Award! Congratulations to my mother Joan, whose verse I edited in this chapbook published by Finishing Line Press.

I’m delighted to announce that Another Troy won the Gold Medal for the 2021 Human Relations Indie Book Awards. The book won in the category of Wisdom Poetry. Despite her youth, my mother, Joan Wehlen Morrison, wrote wise poetry. As she ponders shortly after the start of World War II, “Did I Make the World?”

         Here are we two and the night is white clouded

         And the dream-music drifting out the window

         Punctuated at the hour by themes broadcast

         And we return to Träumerei.

         I can hardly believe

         Even now the pulp of flesh is draining white

         In Poland, that there is any life anywhere

         Save this dream life of ours.

         Perhaps all this world is only ‘I imagine.’

         All mine.  I made it.

         (September 25, 1939)

My mother, Joan, wrote poetry starting at an early age. Her mature verse has recently been published in Another Troy. For holiday fun, here is one from when she was aged 10 in 1932. Enjoy!

Christmas

Christmas is a happy day,

Everyone so glad and gay.

Toys and dolls and boxes, too,

 A Merry Christmas to you and you!

My mother grew up in Chicago and frequented the Art Institute of Chicago. She often wrote about the art there in her diary and poetry. The Song of the Lark, the painting by Jules Breton, was one of Joan’s favorites. Today, on what would have been her 98th birthday, I would like to share a moment from her diary and a brief interview with Bill Murray. This interview is one my husband shared with me today and brought a tear to my eye. Please give it a listen–Bill Murray is quite moving. And my mom’s diary entry belongs to a different mode of thought–still, the painting is very familiar to her!

Sunday, May 30, 1938 [age 15]

. . . Friday night Mom and I went to Lake View to see Il Trovatore—given by American Opera Company. Mom went to sleep during it and I had to hold my eyelids up! Are we cultural!

Mom and I went downtown and I got me a new peasant—dusty pink—dress. I look like the Song of the Lark or something. It’s a dirndl and awfully cute.

B.B.B.B. [Beautiful blue-eyed boy in Biology class] didn’t come Saturday as I told him not to. Vera got walked out on by a boy again. She’s going to start using Lifebuoy soap.