A Daring Life: A Biography of Eudora Welty

FIVE: World War II: A Promising Career Interrupted

49 .5 World War II: A Promising Career Interrupted Do you think this at all—I am far from everything & mostly just think to myself—& I am no problem solver in my thoughts—instead I have mostly feelings & they are that the life, whatever it is for all of us, will in the end be the little, personal, everyday things—a personal matter, individual—I cherish that still & always—Moments will count, still, then—& be magical & colored, good & bad, as some little thing makes it—War & peace do not change that, do they? —Eudora Welty, 1944 letter to John Robinson, who was serving in Italy during WWII E udora had a large circle of friends, but her relationship with John Robinson seems to have become more intense during the years leading up to World War II. War was in the background of daily life now; Eudora writes to Diarmuid Russell that military maneuvers are becoming a distraction to writing: Are big bombers flying all over NewYork and do they fly low, in under your desk? They do here, they fly under my bed at night, all those in the Louisiana manuevers go over Jackson when they make a curve, and really one went under the Vicksburg bridge over the Mississippi River the other day, too lazy to clear it. I feel as if my bones are being ground to pieces but I suppose I will get used to it if I stay here for 50 World War II: A Promising Career Interrupted Jackson is filled with air bases, air schools, air fields, and barracks and tents, a changed little place, loud and crazy. Despite the noise, she managed to finish “The Wide Net,” a story about a young married couple based on anecdotes John Robinson had shared with her. She even dedicated the story to him, “a mark, perhaps ,” according to Suzanne Marrs,“of their growing closer to commitment .” The attack on Pearl Harbor stopped, for a time, the success Eudora was having with her writing. Eudora was at the wedding of John Robinson’s sister,Anna Belle, on December 7, and did not learn about Pearl Harbor until the festivities were over. Her life and writing were quickly disrupted as both her brothers and John enlisted following the attack. Worry about friends and loved ones consumed her, and writing fiction, says Marrs,“which had brought Eudora so much ful- fillment, came to seem more and more apart from what mattered.” War disrupted Eudora’s life in numerous ways. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in March 1942, but instead of being able to spend the year in Europe as many previous recipients had done and she had hoped to do when she had applied the year before, Eudora remained at home and wrote. She managed to write and publish“Livvie ” in the Atlantic Monthly during this difficult year, earning another O. Henry Award for her effort. The war was a very real distraction to her writing, however, as John Robinson had joined the army air corps, Hubert Creekmore had been sent to Corpus Christi by the navy, and she was fearful and uncertain as to what the military might have in mind for her brothers. Between August 1942 and December 1944, Marrs states, “Eudora would write very little out of her experience. Worry, omnipresent worry, left her unable to write.” Edward left Jackson first, then Walter a month later, for military training. The house and neighborhood suddenly became very quiet, and Eudora sought to distract herself from worry and anxiety with travel, painting, and writing letters. She did not begin any new works of fiction, only saw previous labors realized or revised works for certain publication. She volunteered for the Red Cross, and even sought employment at the Office of War Information in Jackson, but no job was to be had. In addition to Edward, Walter, and John having enlist- 51 World War II: A Promising Career Interrupted ed, all members of the Night-Blooming Cereus Club were in service. Because her loved ones were serving in distant locations,she befriended soldiers stationed in the Jackson area,“treat[ing] these men as she hoped her friends, family, and the man she loved were being treated.” Until the conclusion of the war and the knowledge that John, her brothers Edward and Walter, and her Night-Blooming Cereus Club friends were safe and out of danger, Eudora would continue to have dif...