Salt Lake Telegram | 1929-06-09 | Page 5 | Lonely Hours Fruitful

I I. I Lonely Hours Fruitful Julia Peterkin Author of Prize Novel Scarlet Sister Mary Wrote to toj Fill Idle Hours I j FORT FonT MOTTE s S. S c C. C AP AD Because it a boy grew up and went off oft to school his mother turned to writing as a means ol ot passing the lie lonc lonely y hours And because this mo mother het lived on a Carolina plantation where life Is placid and strangers arc aro few teW she wrote ol ot what she saw and specifically she wrote of the negroes she sho saw Mrs ill Julia possibly would never have written had she not felt the lie need to do with the time tinie suddenly given a mother whose child no lon longer er needed needed needed need need- ed her hel care She tried music but buther buther buther her heart was It not In music The suggestion that she write came from flom her teacher H Henry nry Bellaman of at Columbia S. S C. C And out of ot that suggestion came Green Thursday y and and Black Dlack April and finally Scarlet Sister Mary tary which won the Pulitzer Prize ALL NEGRO TALES All 11 are arc tales of the same ame same sea seacoast seacoast coast plantation ot the negroes who live as they have lived since slavery da days s 's Black April has its counterpart counterpart coun COun- and the Magdalene who gave her favors but bur kept her heart lives as ns surely as Mrs Peterkin made her hr live In her prize novel Mrs Peterkin started to write because the placid existence in this little lilUe township was not enough to keep alive her Intense Interest in inthe inthe the lie world outside her door Music failed and because she was disaPpointed disappointed dis dis- appointed with her progress she tried to divert rt her teachers teacher's attention at- at by telling him incidents of her plantation lICe life He lie urged her herto herto herto to write themI them I 1 told him I couldn't write a a. ade de decent decent de- de cent letter Mrs Peterkin says sas He lie insisted and I tried several sketches Then Carl Cart Sandburg Sandburg- camo canio to Charleston on a visit and ad Mr Bellaman brou brought ht him up to Fort lort J There was the lie turning point Sandburg was enthusiastic and the lie southern woman was won over I asked them for the severest critic In America and they told inot in- in of ot Henry I sent him my ray sketches and he lie wrote that he liked them VIVID ATMOSPHERE These sketches appeared and then came her first book Green Thursday and In a measure Black April were well rounded sketches but sketches s none the lie less Scarlet Sister Mary l was a. a novel breathing the aroma ot of damp soil and laughter and a II code oC or morals which are peculiarly ne nero ne- ne ro roid d Before I s sent nt the first sketches away Mrs Irs Peterkin confesses laughingly I called In an old re regress sic sic- gress grass who is supposed to be able able- to cast spells I asked her ller if sh sho could cast a spell on them so that those who read would like them T I suppose she did arid and maybe marbe the tho spell is working still Mrs Peterkin and another Caro linian hinian DuBose Heyward are re cre cred credited 1 ted with writing the most Intelligent Intelli gent literature of the southern ne sic sic- groes And as Heywoods Heywood's Porgy captured the Pulitzer award as as a a- play last year ear s so so Scarlet Sister Mary Iary carries on the tradition this year