Texas Woman of Letters, Karle Wilson Baker

Notes

notes Abbreviations CAH-UT: Center for American History, University of Texas–Austin CBM: Charlotte Baker Montgomery CBM Collection: Charlotte Baker Montgomery Collection HRHRC: Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas–Austin KWB: Karle Wilson Baker KWB Papers: Karle Wilson Baker Papers PCBE: Private collection, Baker estate SLSFASU: Steen Library, Stephen F. Austin State University SWTSU: South West Texas State University TEB: Thomas Ellis Baker TIL: Texas Institute of Letters TWB: Thomas Wilson Baker Chapter 1 1. Karle Wilson Baker Papers, box 22/13, Steen Library, Stephen F. Austin State University , Nacogdoches, Texas (hereafter cited as KWB Papers). 2. 2102 Louisiana Street. 3. Karle Wilson Baker, unpublished manuscript, “In Search of Myself” (1922), private collection, Baker estate (hereafter cited as PCBE), folder 19. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Karle Wilson Baker unpublished manuscript, n.d., PCBE, folder 27. 7. Karle Wilson, Ledger Journal, April 22, 1903, PCBE. This diary entry was made when KWB was twenty-five years old. (Baker’s family refers to her as “KWB,” and she often signed with those initials.) 8. Karle Wilson Baker letter of biographical data to an unidentified student, n.d., KWB Papers, box 44/9. Charlotte Baker Montgomery has shown the author photographs of KWB with her violin. Charlotte has said that her uncle’s name was Benjamin Taylor Wilson, but everyone called him “Ben T.” Even his tombstone reads Ben T. Wilson. Dr. Ed Gaston commented in an interview that Ben T. Wilson built a tennis court at his home on Mound Street across from Tanglewood, the Bakers’ home. Ben and KWB often played tennis together there. 9. PCBE, folder 35. 10. Karle Wilson to Kate Floy Montgomery Wilson, 1898, PCBE. The letters also reflect KWB’s general frugality and her consciousness of saving money for her education. The Wilsons were in San Antonio, where W. T.’s brothers lived. 11. Charlotte Baker Montgomery (hereafter cited as CBM), interview with Sarah Jackson, May 23, 1997. CBM does not recall the exact date when her grandfather first stopped alone in Nacogdoches. According to Ben T. Wilson’s daughter, Florence (Toncie ), when the Wilsons moved to Nacogdoches, Ben T. helped his father with the new business. For this reason, he was not able to continue his education. She wrote, “Ben Wilson should have been a professor—a scholar—not a business man. He had a lot of intellectual curiosity, and because he had read widely on many subjects, I considered him to be well educated—though he had no degree.” Florence Wilson Reavley to the author, September 8, 1997. Judge Thomas M. Reavley, Florence’s husband, expressed similar feelings to the author in a letter dated September 11, 1997. 12. Karle Wilson, Ledger Journal, June 26, 1905, PCBE. Harper’s published the poem in 1903. 13. Karle Wilson, University of Chicago Weekly, March 14, 1901, PCBE. The poem appeared after KWB left the university. KWB’s poem in the Weekly was untitled, but its subject, trees, continued to be a favorite throughout her career as a poet. The poem appears as a single sentence superimposed over of a drawing of barren trees in winter (the illustrator’s initials are “E. B.”): “A line of gray trees soft as mist, still as phantoms, a background of unbroken white, —the Midway snow covered,—and like a curtain stretched across a window, gathering darkness and falling snow.” Her short story published in the same issue, “A Man Without a Purpose,” is set at the university, as was the poem. The young woman in the story “has a purpose in life.” Most likely the piece is partly autobiographical, which was typical in KWB’s early stories. 14. PCBE, folder 14. The letter, written in 1957, identifies the young man as Bertram Griffith Nelson, who became a teacher in the speech department at the University of Chicago. While Karle was teaching in Little Rock, he tried to renew the relationship, but by that time she was no longer interested and never answered his letter. 15. Personal essay, written between 1924–28, KWB Papers, box 44/8. 16. KWB, “In Search of Myself,” PCBE. 17. KWB Papers, box 22/13. 18. Ledger Journal, April 4, 1903, PCBE. 19. Ledger Journal, June 3, 1903, PCBE. 20. April 1903, PCBE, folder 5. 21. PCBE, folder 38. 22. Ledger Journal, May 2, 1903, PCBE. 23. Ledger Journal, August 30, 1903, PCBE. 24. Ledger Journal, February 11, 1905, PCBE. 25. Ledger Journal, December 29, 1903, PCBE. 26. Kate Floy Montgomery Wilson journal...