26
Tribute to Nebraska
For 35 years the pupils who attended district school near a small New England village have been holding an annual reunion. This same school building has been standing there for over a century, and so strong is the memory of school days at this old school that it has drawn to these reunions former pupils from almost every state in the union.
It was the writer's privilege and pleasure to be present this year at this reunion and to meet her besides many relative and friends, her first teacher, now a snowy haired, dear old lady.
It is the custom of each prodigal to boast of the state of his or her adoption and when it came this member's turn, she paid the flowing tribute to Nebraska:
"As I stepped from the train at the little city of K - last evening. I said to myself, "This is my own, my native land, and I am very proud and happy to be a native of New England, but if I had not been born here, I had rather have been born in Nebraska than in any other state in the union."
As a child I was taught, along with the catechism, that "Boston is the hub of the universe," but as a matter of fact if a great wheel were drawn upon the map of this "America, the beautiful" with one edge of the rim on the Atlantic and one on the Pacific, and the spokes drawn in at right angles, the center or axle, around which the rest of the world revolves, would be in the very heart of Nebraska, the wonderful.
Nebraska with its great fields of golden grain and purple alfalfa, and emerald leafed sugar beets; its flocks of sheep and herds of swine; its great dairy and poultry farms and packing houses.
Nebraska that has on its eastern edge the largest smelting works in the world and on its western border the most marvelous deposits of fossil remains of prehistoric animals in existence.
Nebraska, whose new state capitol building is a marvel of modern architecture and whose stately tower will soon be kissed by fleecy clouds and greeted by airplanes only.
Nebraska, the home of that great orator and statesman, William Jennings Bryan: J. Sterling Morton, the founder of Arbor day; of General John J. Pershing; of Colonel Cody (Buffalo Bill); of John Neihart, poet laureate and author of"Hugh Glass" and "Songs of Indian Wars;" of Robert F. Glider, whose busy brush as immortalled the landscape of our state; of Willa Cather and Bess Streeter Aldrich; of Grace Abbott; of Dt. Olga Stastny: of Minnie Freeman Penny, heroine of the blizzard of 1888, and of Francis Ford and Elia Peattie, past presidents and charter members of the Omaha Women's club.
Nebraska, The state that has furnished these United States more near presidents than any other state in the union, and the only flying grandmothers; and Nebraska that defeated the daylight saving law.
E.W.H.
'Modern' Influence Govern Literature (Continued From Page 17.)
plane of life, the glorification of view of life it presents is false the book forfeits its claim to a permanent place in literature.
The right of an author to present
Health can be Purchased
If you would visit any one of the greater water works plants in cities the size of Omaha, Lincoln or Sioux City, you would be amazed to see all machinery and work done to make your drinking water safe. In all of these plants you would find a Chlorinator similar to the one shown here.
The Chlorinator automatically adds chlorine to city water. Seventy-five per cent of the people of North America drink water that has been sterilized by such a method.
When Americans travel in foreign countries, they are in constant fear of the drinking water. In American cities everywhere the price of safety has been paid. Typhoid fever deaths are but a fraction of what they were fifteen years ago.
What does it cost to have chlorinated water? ...about one cent a year for each person.
Milk goes into as many homes as does water. Pasteurization of milk is just as scientific, just as necessary as is the sterilization of water. And though it costs us about fifty cents a year for each person in the city to pasteurize our product, the volume of business done permits us to give you this added protection without its costing you a single cent.
Dr. Bundesen, Health Commissioner of Chicago says-
"Since the institution of an order in 1916 that all milk except certified be pasteurized, there has not been a single case of contagion traced to the milk supply, a record which speaks volumes for the efficiency of pasteurization as a public health measure."
27
Mrs. Peattie to Be Entertained by Mrs. Doorly and Mrs. Howell
Mrs. Elia W. Peattie, novelist critic and dramatist who comes to Omaha to give readings of her original plays Friday, February 16, at 4 p.m. at the Fontenelle under auspices of Woman's Press club, will be honor guest at a dinner which Mr. and Mrs. R. B. Howell will give at the Blackstone hotel that night. She will again be honor guest at a tea which Mrs. Henry Doorly will give for the Press club, of which she is a member, the afternoon of Saturday, February 17, at her home.
Mrs. Peattie, who was a member of the World-Herald editorial staff a number of years ago and who after leaving here, was for sixteen years literary critic on the Chicago Tribune, is a personal friend of Mrs. Howell. She was also an intimate friend of Mrs. Gilber M. Hitchcock, and her daughter, the late Mrs. Barbara Erskine, was a girlhood friend of Mrs. Henry Doorly.
Literary ability seems to be the natural heritage of the Peattie family. Both Mrs. Peattie and her husband, Robert Burns Peattie, have always been newspaper people. After leaving the Chicago Tribune, they both tried to retire and built themselves a little home at Tryon, N.C., which they called "Dunwaudrin." They immediately, however, began wandering again, Mr. Peattie being called forth by insistent editors as a special correspondent and Mrs. Peattie to lecture and give readings of her original plays, many of which have this North Carolina country for their local. Mrs. Peattie has always been a contributor to Scribners, Harpers, Century and other publications. She is the author of "The Shape of Fear," "The Edge of Things," "The Precipice" and other novels.
A son, Donald Peattie, a government expert who has been sent on many expeditions in the study of plants, has his parents' ability and last year won the first prize offered by the New York Poetry society. Mrs. Erskine had also published a book of verse before her death. There are two other sons, both of whom lived here. Edward is a New York business mand and Roderick a member of the faculty of the University of Ohio at Columbus.
Mrs. Peattie has chosen for her readings in Omaha two original plays "The Wander Weed" and "Family Reunion." She will also give a short talk and will read from her collection of poems entitled "Poems From a Southern Garden."
Tickets for Mrs. Peattie's lecture will be sold at the door.
28
Drama League Bulletins Mrs. Peattie's Coming
Miss Kate McHugh, president of the Drama League and a friend of Mrs. Elia W. Peattie, novelist and dramatist, who gives a reading of her plays here Friday at 4 p.m., at the Fontenelle hotel, has had this event bulletined to members of the league. Throughout the country the Drama League lends its support to dramatic offerings of all kinds that meet with their approval.
Mrs. Peattie, who comes under auspices of the Woman's Press club, is to read her two original plays "Family Reunion," and "The Wander Weed." She will also read from her collection "Poems from a Southern Garden."
29
Chairman Peattie Lecture
(IMAGE) --Heyn Photo.
Miss Irene McKnight.
Miss Irene Mcknight is chairman of the lecture committee of the Woman's Press club which is sponsoring the dramatic and poetic readings to be given by Mrs. Elia W. Peattie at the Fontenelle at 4 p. m. Friday. Proceeds from this lecture go to defray expenses of awards made in the annual writing contests conducted by the Woman's Press club.
Mrs. Peattie, who was formerly an Omaha newspaper woman, later went to Chicago where she and her husband, Robert Peattie, were with the Tribune for sixteen years, Mrs. Peattie was the literary critic and as such attained national reputation in the field of literature. She has contributed stories, poems and es says to leading periodicals; is the author of many books, and of recent years has written a number of short plays. She will read two fo these plays, "The Wander Weed" and "The Family Reunion." She will also give a talk on folk plays and will read from her poems book, "Poems from a Southern Garden." She has given these readings with marked success throughout the country.
As a recognition of her literary attainments, the Northwestern university recently conferred an honorary degree in Phi Beta Kappa upon Mrs. Peattie.
Tickets for this lecture Friday will be sold at the door.
The West Sisters' String quartet will give a fifteen-minute program at 3:45 p. m., preceding the lecture.
Mrs. Peattie arrives Friday morning from Chicago and will be at the Fontenelle, Mr. and Mrs. R. Beecher Howell entertain at dinner in her honor Friday evening. Mrs. Henry Doorly entertains the members of the Press club at a tea in her honor at home Saturday afternoon. Mrs. Peattie helped organize the Omaha Women's club, of which she is a charter members. These other charter members have also been invited to be guests Saturday at Mrs. Doorly's tea: Mesdames Edgar Allen E. M. Axtell, Irving Baxter, C. C. Belden, Ellis Blerbower, T. R. Braden, F, B. Bryant, F. II, Cole Neeley Cooke, D. W. Covell, C. N. Dietz, J. II. Dumont, Fred Engel, J. W. Griffith, W. W. Marsh, Phillip Potter, E. L. Stone, C. H. Townsend, Harriet S. MacMurphy, Draper Smith, G. L. Fisher, A. J. Love and Mrs. J. M. Metacalfe.
30
Modern Realists Telling Only Half of Life Says Mrs. Peattie
"The modern realist whose work contains all realism and no ideality is only telling half of her life," declared Mrs. Elia W. Peattie, dramatist and novelist, and former Omaha newspaperwoman, who read two of her one act plays, "Family Reunion," and " Wander Weed,' ' to 500 persons yesterday before the Omaha Woman's Press club at the Fontenelle.
Mrs. Peattie reviewed books for the Chicago Tribune for twenty years, during which time she read on an average of eight to twelve books a week. "My reading covered a wide variety of work and during that time I never took a real vacation as I took my books with me whenever I left Chicago," Mrs. Peattie said.
Discussing A. S. M. Hutchinson's novel, "This Freedom," Mrs. Peattie said she believed the woman in the story used no sense in her efforts to rear her family and devote herself to a business career.
"I believe a woman can devote herself to the arts and still successfully raise a family," she said, " but I am not so sure about a business career. I brought up four children and worked on a newspaper and I am sure my worst enemies would admit that I was a pretty good housekeeper.
Mrs. Peattie said she liked Sinclair Lewis' "Babbit" much better thanhis "Main Street." "It's a book with realism while at the same time it has some ideally," Mrs. Peattie said, "Babbitt had some idealism in him."
Mrs. Peattie is very fond of Willa Cather's work and she characterized "One of Ours," as a tremendous work. " The young man in the book who has searched in vain for the beauty in life in a commonplace environment finally finds it in death on a European battlefield.
"I am not a sentimentalist nor romanticist," Mrs. Peattie said, "but I do not believe in overlooking the ideality in life that we can all see in our friends about us."
R. L. Metcalfe, advertising manager of Brandels store, recalled today a story written by Mrs. Peattie when she was employed by the World-Herald in the '90's. Mr. Metcalfe, at that time, was associate editor.
"Mrs. Peattie wrote a serial called "The Judge," which won a $900 prize from the Detroit Free Press," he said. "It was the scariest, wierdest story I ever read. For three months after I read it, I couldn't go to bed without a light in my room."
Mrs. Peattie was introduced at her appearance yesterday by Miss Eva Mahoney, president of the Press blub. Miss Mahoney is woman's department editor of the World-Herald. Mrs. Peattie, at the time she was with the World-Herald, was the entire department.