Katherine Anne Porter Remembered

Richard Scowcroft

26 / richard scowcroft richard P. scowcroft (1916–2001) was an influential member of the creative Writing faculty in the program founded by Wallace stegner at stanford University . After earning a b.A. from the University of Utah and a Ph.d. from Harvard , scowcroft published the novels First Family (1950), AView of the Bay (1955), Wherever She Goes (1966), The Ordeal of Dudley Dean (1969), and Back to Fire Mountain (1973). the youngest member of the stanford english department in 1948, scowcroft and his wife, Anne Kendall scowcroft, enjoyed entertaining stanford’s visiting writers. source: richard scowcroft, telephone interview with darlene Harbour Unrue, 9 July 1995. i’m not sure that anyone really came to know Katherine Anne Porter well during the academic year she was at stanford. in the spring of 1947 she had come to stanford to give a talk that was part of a college lecture tour. in her fifties, she was charming and very beautiful, and for her talk she wore a dramatic black cape. she talked about a book she was writing and could finish if she had two or three weeks of freedom.25 At a party in her honor afterwards, she dazzled the old fogies in the department , many of whom were fromtexas, including the department chairman, r. f. Jones, and they began to talk about how wonderful it would be to have her at stanford for a year. eventually, with some creative financing and money from an outside source, Jones and Wallace stegner, the director of the creative Writing Program, worked out a year for her that included minimum teaching with significant time for her own writing. Although she accepted the position for 1948–49, she was offended that the course she taught carried no credit, and she blamed Jones, to whom she wouldn’t speak during the time she was here, although she was friendly with his wife. i doubt that she got any writing done during the year. Although my wife, Anne, and i offered to help her find a suitable place to live, she impulsively rented a mountain cabin in La Honda that a student had told her about. the primitive 122 / Katherine Anne Porter remembered cabin didn’t have heat, and it took her four hours on a sequence of buses to get to campus. she told me she was going to have a nervous breakdown. she finally found a cottage in back of a professor’s house. it was charming and private, but she didn’t like it. she called it a cave and a black hole. frustration with her living accommodations wasn’t the only reason she failed to find the solitude and peace of mind necessary for her writing. she was so friendly with students that they felt welcome to drop in anytime they wanted. neither could she say no to any social invitation, whether it was a cocktail party at a faculty member’s home or a tea held by a group of texas women. Anne and i, who were young and recently married, had her to our house several times for dinner. she talked and talked, mostly about her earlier life, especially her childhood. We got the impression of an impoverished but elegant old home with a great library. there was no money, but there were former slaves around. she was very witty. Oncetruman capote’s name came up in the conversation, and she said she had known him at yaddo and had seen him in Hollywood a few years earlier. suddenly she stood up and did a very funny, albeit ungracious, imitation of him. in the spring of 1948, Katherine Anne vanished from the stanford campus for a month or so. i went by her cottage and left messages, but i had no word from her for several weeks. she had gone to north carolina to accept an honorary degree and hadn’t told anyone she was going.26 When she returned, she had an academic robe and mortarboard and seemed cheerful and happy. she asked Janet Winters, the wife of yvor Winters, who was also on the stanford faculty, where she could wear her “costume.” Janet told her, “At commencement.” she showed up in her academic regalia at the spring commencement. Jones was surprised to see her in the procession in front of him. since she continued to hold him responsible for the no-credit status of her class, she still refused to speak to him. she left the campus quietly...