Sinclair Lewis Remembered

1. Hazel Palmer Lynam

1 / Hazel Palmer Lynam Hazel Palmer Lynam (1890–1963), an acquaintance of Lewis in his adolescence, attended Oberlin College and later taught school in Duluth. Source: Hazel Palmer Lynam, “The Earliest Lewis,” Saturday Review of Literature , April 14, 1934, 628. Dr. Lewis was our family physician while we lived in Sauk Centre, and one summer arranged for Harry to work as night clerk in my father’s hotel, the Palmer House. I imagine this must have been his first hotel experience and must have been about the time he finished high school or early in his college career. Our small hotel circle and their friends found a great deal of amusement in the “fool” things Harry did, as it was generally recognized by this time that he would never amount to very much. They liked to recount how he called a traveling man at five-­ thirty in the morning to tell him that he had forgotten to call him for the five o’clock train. I remember once he fell through the glass top of a cigar case for no good rea­ son at all. He was standing by it and, I suppose, strayed so far away mentally that he neglected to maintain his center of gravity in a practical position. My younger brother discovered him as a storyteller. He used to sit up on the desk behind the glass partition, where the bookkeeping was done, and listen to the stories Harry would tell. Sometimes I joined them. He would ask us what we would have, and no matter what subject we chose, he would start immediately and go on and on. My brother, by right of prior discovery, insisted on doing most of the selecting, so the stories were usually a little bloodthirsty for my taste. The only fragment of these tales that remains in my memory at all is one about a man tied in a cave and driven mad by the constant slow drip of water on the back of his hand. I can remember once Harry spent a long time urging me to study and be vale­ dictorian of my high school class. He was distressed because I was not taking a 14 / Sinclair Lewis Remembered proper interest in my work. I was quite stimulated about the idea for three or four days, so he must have been rather convincing. He was willing to put himself out, more than most adults, to amuse us; and we liked him very much in spite of the mild contempt with which he was viewed by our elders. ...