March 4 - October 30, 1940
(Box 5/Folder 3)
March 4, 1940
I have been reading the diary of an eight-year-old. It deals with trivial things, but because those things loomed large in the experience of a child it has a certain elemental integrity. The child was named Angie Debo, but she is as far gone from the living world as the brother who lies in the cemetery. I can easily understand why she stopped her writing, for I know how lazy was that little girl of long ago. The nightly composition – even the uncensored sketchy writing that made up each day’s entry – became a chore. The deterioration in penmanship is eloquent of an enthusiasm that faded. But when I read it again after all these years I do so wish she had kept it up. I wonder if it would be possible for me to keep faith with that little girl of long ago and write a sequel.
March 5, 1940
Yesterday I decided to copy the little diary, and today I finished it. Nobody but me would ever care to read it, but I have worked so much with historical documents that I have a mania for preserving every word written on yellowed paper. Following the pattern set by the little Angie Debo of long ago I hasten to record that it was a lovely spring day, that the town’s children were swarming, and that we were visited by Sadie Goodnight, Mrs. Adams, Mrs. Payne, and a most persistent soap salesman. I myself called on Mrs. Griffin and Mrs. Rogers and I am ready to commit myself to the effect that Mrs. Rogers is the sort of person I should like for a friend. Perhaps I may in time mark this page with red letters.
March 11, 1940
I took a trip to the City [Oklahoma City] to see Miss Eula Fullerton in regard to some work they are about to offer me on the WPA writers’ project. I hope they do not find out how desperately I need the work. I borrowed money for railroad fare, spent fifty cents for a bed in the Y. W. C. A. dormitory, and used various expedients to keep anyone from seeing me eat sandwiches from my bag. I spent a pleasant evening with lovely young Bertha Lee Darling, who is rejoicing over her first job, and with my practical-minded square-shooting friend, Marie Garland. (The last visit cost ten cents of my precious capital for street car fare, but I could hardly refuse to go out there when she knew I was in town.)
March 13, 1940
I spent most of the day filling out the intricate application required by the WPA regulations. I did not sleep much last night; I am so distressed about the fate of Finland. There is nothing I can do, but there were so many things that could have been done by those who will now join in the funeral orations.
March 23, 1940
I got a letter from my literary agent saying he had read THE ROAD TO DISAPPEARANCE and is enthusiastic about it. I have been floating on air ever since. My father – bless him! – made a special trip from down town to bring the blue envelope when he found it in the mail.
March 25, 1940
Mother and I washed this morning, and this afternoon I finished all the sewing I could find to do. I am as ready as I shall ever be to undertake that work in Oklahoma City, but I have never heard a word since I took that fruitless trip down there, not even an acknowledgement of my application.
March 27, 1940
I finally got my letter from the WPA office at Oklahoma City this morning. They are waiting on word from Washington. Perhaps they are as tired of waiting as I am. . . .
April 5, 1940
Another day wasted in waiting. Two book MSS on which nobody is trying to decide and that WPA job of which the papers are collecting dust on somebody’s desk in Washington.
April 13, 1940
I have been under an increasing strain, waiting on my two manuscripts and the promised job at Oklahoma City. There has been nothing but strain for more than a year (and nothing but drudgery and worry for eight years before that), and it had become unbearable. But I faced the thing and thought it through this morning, and perhaps I can accept it and go on. I feel a release of the tension at least. . . .
April 19, 1940
I got a letter from my literary agent saying the MacMillan people have rejected my Creek history. I have been suffering seriously from crushed wormery. . . .
April 20, 1940
. . . I got a letter from the WPA office in Oklahoma City calling me down there for a conference Monday. I think something is really going to develop there. I was beginning to think nothing would ever happen.
April 21, 1940
. . . I came down here [Oklahoma City] on the train. . . . I came to the YWCA because I can get a comfortable bed in a room with three other women for fifty cents. (I am going on borrowed money anyhow.)
April 22, 1940
I went to the WPA office which I found in a bad case of too much busyness. They managed to take time off from running around in circles to tell me I am starting to work today though they were too rushed to tell me what the work is. I am at the head of the Federal Writers’ Project for Oklahoma, and I have a vague indication that I am supposed to prepare a guide book. There is a good bit of material that was stirred up by former workers and apparently failed to jell. It is in a garret covered with dust and I spent the day harmlessly examining it. I can put in my time there to good advantage till they can take time to get my project set up. It was, of course, a surprise to me to learn that my work starts today, but I can use the money. I will go home Saturday after my clothes. . . .
April 23, 1940
I got me a room today. It is with a Mrs. Newlin at 428 NE 14th. Mrs. Newlin is an elderly widow, intelligent and alert and friendly. I know I shall like her, and my room is everything a room should be.
I talked today with Mr. Lookabaugh, my immediate superior, and I like him very much. He is modest and sincere and with a certain sensitivity that should give him the low-down on a good many things.
April 24, 1940
I moved in my room today. I like it, and Mrs. Newlin better than ever.
April 25, 1940
I spent the day at Norman in a meeting of the heads of all the projects sponsored by the university. Dr. Wardell presided and a better job I never saw done. All the employment heads were there, and there was much mutual clarification of personnel problems. I have never seen an organization at work that impressed me as favorably as this one does. . . .
April 26, 1940
I went home this afternoon, AND THE CONTRACT WAS THERE FROM THE PRINCETON PRESS. I pinch myself but I do not seem to wake up. It has been four years since I almost killed myself trying to get that book done in a hurry so it could be published and perhaps do a little good.
April 27, 1940
It rained nearly all day today. I was a little troubled about how I would make it to the station, but it cleared off just in time. Everything is lovely, so clean and washed. It is the best rain we have had since the drought set in last fall.
I was so glad to be at home I thought I had a good excuse not to go to S. S., but thirteen-year-old Harold Congdon came to inquire whether we were going to have it. I almost said, “I hardly think anyone will be there,” but my guardian angel punched me just in time, and I said, “Why I think you and I can have it. We can mark our attendance on the register and take our collection. You can be the superintendent and I can be the teacher and we will have our lesson.” I saw his face begin to light up at the prospect of marking ourselves as THE SUNDAY SCHOOL. So we went over there, and he lighted the fire and rang the bell and changed the record on the board and got out the lesson leaves, feeling so important. He selected a song and I played it and we read the responses. When he was out of the room Mr. McCall came in, glanced around and prepared to leave since “nobody was there,” but I told him I hated to disappoint the kid. He rose nobly to the occasion and entered into the service with as much zest as though his life depended upon it. So now the bulletin board shows an attendance of 3 and a collection of 15 cents, and young Harold goes around an inch taller than he was. He stopped in on the way home and carried on intensive research as to what makes a typewriter go and how one mounts a coyote skin. Boys are such friendly animals.
April 30, 1940
I attended a meeting in the Black Hotel where a big-wig from Washington came out to tell us about training our workers. His name is Black and he is a moron who has been to college. I could win a bet that he majored in education and that his alma mater was Peabody or Teachers College, Columbia. He could use more big words with no meaning than anybody I have heard since the dear days of attending teachers’ meetings. After being tortured a good share of the day I am more tired than I should be if I had worked. (I wonder what Mr. Lookabaugh thinks of him.)
May 1, 1940
Nothing in particular happened today. Oh, yes, I met Mrs. Zoe Tilghman. I had often heard of her, but had never met her before. She strikes me as a rather futile person with a faint literary aura in no way related to serious writing.
May 2, 1940
I learned that it is verboten to write any letter from my office except to Mr. Lottinville about technical details of publishing the guide book, and to my own workers. I cannot correspond with the Washington office of the Federal Writers’ Project and I cannot ask Bob Goodman, for instance, about oil field slang. I know that I cannot work effectively with the director of my project at Washington if everything has to go through this endless relaying system, and I know I cannot get people in the state to contribute the information I need for the Guide if it comes from Ron Stephens in a form so stiff it creaks. Such is red tape!
I attended another meeting of heads of projects who met to discuss employment problems with Mr. Spivey. Again I was impressed with the high quality of those who are directing these projects. If they do not accomplish effective work it is not their fault. I hope they do not become smothered in red tape.
May 3, 1940
I am still going in circles trying to discover and keep up with the technical requirements of my job. I am thoroughly disgusted. All these people are industrious and they all seem pleasant and courteous, but it seems to me all their time and strength is frittered away in satisfying formalities. As much work as I have done in Indian Office records (and some War Department material) I never actually realized until I got on the inside what the word bureaucracy meant. Probably it was something like this that made the British fail so miserably in Norway. These poor things seem to think if they are everlastingly scratching around to get forms filled out and sent to Washington they have been creatively employed. I have been here almost two weeks, and everybody has been willing to help me, but not once has anybody sat down and given me an intelligent description of what I am supposed to do. I am beginning to wonder if I shall be allowed to work at the thing I was hired for. I am a writer and a scholar, but if I am going to spend my time chasing forms they can have my job; a moron – or a bureaucrat – could do it just as well. I finally decided to be patient until I get my secretary. It may be possible she can relive me of this detail; if she cannot, I do not need money badly enough to spend my life in this way.
May 4, 1940
Today I got my secretary, and if I had hand-picked her myself she could not have suited me better. She is a Mrs. Schwalbe, a widow with a grown daughter, and she is putting herself through high school. She is intelligent and industrious and refined. She has a voice as sweet as Ruth Lowes and the most willing and beautiful spirit. Best of all she is familiar with this all-important red tape and will be able to take that off my shoulders. She is the best thing that ever happened to me.
Another worker presented herself, though she is not due till Monday. She is a Miss Allen. She is very feeble and has worlds of trouble and a vast desire to waste people’s time. I told her shortly that the fewer things of that sort we discussed the better, and that if she would come Monday I would give her the necessary instructions to carry out her job. After she left I realized I had hardly been fair to her in not explaining how very bad are the personality traits she is so eager to drag forth. She will never get a job in private employment if she keeps on like this, and if there is even one chance in a million that she can be taught it is my duty to teach her. I resolved to take her off by herself when she comes Monday and remove all her skin in small pieces and hang it all up on the fence to dry.
May 5, 1940
Mrs. Newlin asked me down to breakfast this morning and then I went to church with her. (It is the Campbellite Church, and I have foresworn Campbellites because they are so intolerant.) I visited a very wonderful Sunday School class and listened to an excellent sermon. I think probably I shall attend here while I am in the City if they will stay off their favorite tirades against other more religious bodies. I think perhaps in a large church like this they will. At least their pastor and his wife both show every sign of having been to college.
May 6-10, 1940
Nothing much happened except getting started with my workers. We had a welcome rain, on Wednesday I think it was.
May 11, 1940
I went home today. I know I can not enjoy myself so much again for at least a year. Mother came down town to meet me, looking so lovely and sweet. She took me around to the flower garden, and there just weren’t any words. Great heavy white and pink peonies, prim little pinks, rich glowing snapdragons, and roses everywhere, and all the mocking birds and orioles singing at once. We talked a little while and then I worked in the garden till night. The soil was just right, warm and moist and rich. I set out a petunia, a rich purple blooming one, and the cannas and the dahlias, which we had set out in boxes to let them get a good start this cold spring. Fortunately some tamaracks we had ordered to replace some that failed to grow happened to come in today and so we planted them. It was all so pleasant. I never saw my father look so happy and sturdy and my mother so sweet and lovely. I am sorry there are so many wars in the world, but I cannot help them, and when I work in the garden they seem unreal.
May 12, 1940
I enjoyed Sunday School so much today. Della Clark – bless her! – is going to teach my class, and she did it so well. I feel that I shall not be missed at all. The girls were nice enough to give me a handkerchief shower, too. I am not going to use any till I learn each one so I can remember who gave it to me.
Edith Zoellner Hardaway and her husband were nice enough to bring me back to the City. It was a very pleasant drive, it kept me from having to leave so early in the evening, and incidentally it saved me some money. I hope I shall soon be at the point where the last will not loom so important as it does now.
May 13, 1940
I still am not sure whether I can make this job work or not. I should enjoy it so much if only I could get to it, but there are so many meetings and so much red tape that I have so little time for the work I was hired to do. And there is no justification for the project at all, if I cannot prepare a guide book.
Today I spent the morning in a meeting – Mrs. Spofford came up from the regional office in New Orleans – and this afternoon we were supposed to go visit two other projects – the nursery school and a sewing project. I stood around and champed and frothed until I wore myself out. There was so much at my office I wanted to do. I hope I may work tomorrow unmolested.
October 7, 1940
I quit this for good cause – had to do some last minute revision on AND STILL THE WATERS RUN, and just about worked my head off. Then after a little breathing spell it was proofs, and last – and worst – the index. But the index went off by air mail yesterday and tonight for the first time in many weary weeks I can relax.
Mrs. Stella Hanau from Washington came today to advise me on the guide book. I think her visit is going to be very helpful.
October 8, 1940
I spent the morning with Mrs. Hanau at the office, and the afternoon at a conference in Miss Fullerton’s room. The conference revealed to me how many former instructions I had received – some of them in writing – were wrong. The trouble with this organization is that nobody on earth is smart enough to make it work, and if he happens to want to do something else – like writing a Guide Book – it is still more hopeless. . . .
October 9, 1940
Mr. John Oskison came today to be my assistant. It is his job to do the remainder of the writing while I take care of the employees and the red tape. I hope it works out. He is a great writer, but his writing has been of a little different type. But since the powers above have ruled it so, I am going to take a lot of relaxation in not having to do the drudgery of writing.
October 10, 1940
I have been doing my best to benefit from Mrs. Hanau, but today she wore me down. I am so disgusted I am not in condition to do anything but count the minutes until she gets back to Washington so I can settle down to work.
She is one of these tense, unquiet people, not stupid and not vicious, but living in a strain and putting everybody else in a strain. She probably thinks when she gets people into that condition she has them working. She talks loud and hammers every word into one’s ear drums, she puts her face right up against her victim’s, and she pounds the air with both hands so close to one’s face one wants to dodge. When she has a cigarette in her hand it is worse. Today, after listening in that tense and unnatural manner all the forenoon, I suddenly wilted. I pushed my chair back and put the corner of a desk between us, and just tried to get away. The worst of it is that I have no possible relaxation at lunch time for she hammers every minute with hands and voice when we try to eat. I thought today I would try to pick out a large table so I might be protected a little, but only a small one was left. I actually erected a barrier with my arm, but she hammered around it. And she says she is going to stay another week.
I guess there just isn’t any such thing as a Government project that can operate efficiently. It just naturally puts the wrong kind of people in power.
October 11, 1940
I woke up about three o’clock in the night, and that woman’s hands and voice were still hammering into my head. But after a while I went to sleep and by morning the hammering had gone. But it is going on again now. I wish I could be her boss for a few minutes. She poked me with her fingers today as she hammered. She hadn’t actually laid hands on me before. All the time under the other things I am doing I am feeling her poke me. . . .
October 19, 1940
Mrs. Hanau has gone back to Washington. I am so glad to be rid of her, but strangely enough I was beginning to like her before she left. She is really a lovable person. BUT I SINCERELY HOPE I MAY NEVER SEE HER AGAIN.
I actually went down town and bought me a pair of dress shoes and a pretty winter dress, the first of either I have bought for three years. It will be nice wearing something new, though I managed to keep my old clothes patched up until I wasn’t seriously shabby when I had to go out among people with incomes. I also got a gift for Laurine Thomas, who is soon to be a bride. I really got it for her mother, whom I love. I scarcely know Laurine.
October 29, 1940
I bought a new typewriter yesterday, and I am using it for the first time this evening. It runs so smoothly, and the lines are so nice and straight. I wrote two books on my old one. Somehow I feel a strong attachment for a typewriter on which I have written books. There is no machine with which one enters into such apparent companionship. It is almost like the horse one rides, and of course every rider loves his pony. If I could afford to be sentimental and if I had the place to store it, I should never trade in an old typewriter. But I let Pegasus go after I had finished the CHOCTAW REPUBLIC, and now after AND STILL THE WATERS RUN and THE ROAD TO DISAPPEARNCE I have parted with the faithful Blitzen. I hope my association with my new friend, Ananias, will be as fruitful.
I went to Norman today to see Mr. Lottinville and straighten out one of the tangles into which any WPA project is always knotting itself. I keep thinking all the time I can do something real, but always I am balked. I do not suppose I ever thought state socialism or any other kind of socialism would work, but the more I see a Government organization trying to function the more I think as many things as possible should stay in private hands. It is inevitable in this age that the Government multiply its functions, but until it can develop a better technique it had better go as easy as possible.
October 30, 1940
I am reading Cherokee Cavaliers, which I bought at Norman yesterday. What a joy it is to buy a book when I need it! It takes a good bit of resourcefulness to be happy without any money at all.
I worked harder and left more on my desk when I left than I have for a long time – the penalty of my few hours at Norman yesterday.