Katherine Anne Porter Remembered

Charlotte Laughlin

48 / Charlotte laughlin charlotte Laughlin (1951–) was born in brownwood, texas, and received her Ph.d. in english literature from the University of texas, Austin, in 1975. from 1975 to 1983 she taught english at Howard Payne University in brownwood, texas, leaving as an associate professor in 1983 in order to be a full-time mother, including home-schooling both her children from kindergarten through high school. she returned to adjunct teaching at Howard Payne from 1999 to 2002 before assuming a teaching position at mcLennan community college in Waco, texas. in 1990 she spoke at the dedication of the texas state Historical marker erected in brown county in Porter’s honor. roger brooks, president of Howard Payne University from 1973 to 1979, corresponded with Katherine Anne Porter several years before he broached to her the idea of bringing her to Howard Payne to receive an honorary degree at the commencement that coincided with the week of her eighty-sixth birthday. When she accepted, he also planned a birthday party and an excursion with a faculty entourage to the indian creek cemetery, where Porter’s mother, mary Alice Jones Porter, is buried. brooks sent charlotte Laughlin and Alta Ada schoner, two young english professors, to the dallas–fort Worth airport to pick up Porter and deliver her to his office on the Howard Payne campus.1 source: charlotte Laughlin, “How i Accompanied Katherine Anne Porter on the Last Great Pilgrimage of Her Life.” this essay, written specifically for this volume , is published here for the first time. in may 1976 airline security allowed those greeting travelers to wait on the concourse directly in front of the door to the plane. Accompanied by another Howard Payne University english professor, dr. Alta Ada schoner, i stood holding a bouquet of roses as we anxiously awaited the arrival of eighty-six-year-old Katherine Anne Porter. We were nervous because we’d been told that she was temperamental , even self-centered and demanding. We knew a bit about her changeability. in the preceding weeks, she had promised to attend a seminar dedicated to her works, only to back out, and then, once again, promise to attend. 232 / Katherine Anne Porter remembered Her earlier decision not to attend had sent the seminar planners into a state of near panic, and i had jokingly volunteered to have my grandmother masquerade in her place. As we waited, i wondered whether our trip to dallas would prove futile , whether miss Porter would not be on board the plane after all. At that moment the doors opened. A stewardess emerged and saw us waiting with roses in hand. she said, “you must be here to greet miss Porter. you are certainly in for a treat!” And we were. miss Porter emerged with a smile meant for the runway and the pop of flashbulbs. “for me!” she exclaimed, dipping her face into the roses and proclaiming them “heavenly.” We needn’t have worried about making conversation because she carried on with non-stop expressions of gratitude and delight, regaling us with the story of her flight. the stewardess whispered, “see what i mean?” We did, indeed. miss Porter was in her element: a gracious lady, a grande dame, an actress, a creator, a storyteller.twenty-four, a first-year assistant professor with newly minted Ph.d. in hand but very little life experience, i was in awe. We used a wheelchair to take miss Porter to baggage claims and then to Alta Ada’s car, which awaited for our nearly three-hour journey from the dallas–fort Worth airport to brownwood. All the while, miss Porter laughed merrily about the advantages of age and how nice it was to ride in her chariot attended by two such lovely ladies in waiting, who had come all this way and gone to all this trouble for her, sounding as surprised and in awe as i felt. if she momentarily faltered for something else to praise, she again inhaled her roses and proclaimed them “divine, heavenly, so wonderful, and all this for me!” On the drive to brownwood, she talked about many subjects, the landscape, the expanse of blue sky, how it had looked just that way when she was a child. A little over halfway into our journey, she began to tire, and we stopped in stephenville at a restaurant where we were the only mid-afternoon patrons. After being seated at a table, sipping some water, and perusing the menu...