[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 104 (Tuesday, July 24, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8113-S8115]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     EUDORA WELTY: REMEMBERING THE LIFE OF A GREAT SOUTHERN WRITER

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, yesterday, writer Eudora Welty, a native of 
Mississippi, passed away at the age of 92. Miss Welty was best known 
for her short stories and the way they captured the life of the 
American South. Miss Welty had a gift in telling of the traditions and 
the relationships of her native south, and she received worldwide 
recognition for her work which helped make Southern writing a focus in 
20th century literature. Many people do not know that she was also an 
accomplished photographer.
  Miss Welty is considered by many literary authorities to be the 
greatest American writer of our time. She grew up in Jackson, 
Mississippi, and attended public schools. She often recalled trips to 
the Jackson library with her mother that began her love for literature. 
She attended Mississippi University for Women, where she was first 
published in the school newspaper, and went on to graduate from the 
University of Wisconsin. She returned to her native state in 1923 to 
live and write in the Belhaven neighborhood of Jackson, Mississippi, 
the remainder of her life.
  Miss Welty began her career with the publishing of her first short 
story, ``Death of a Traveling Salesman'', which appeared in 1936. The 
Optimist's Daughter, published in 1972, earned Miss Welty the 1973 
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Her 1984 autobiography, One Writer's 
Beginnings, was a New York Times bestseller. Her stories are primarily 
set in Mississippi, and she had a special knack for writing about the 
people and places of home.
  Mr. President, Miss Welty received numerous literary awards during 
her lifetime, including four O. Henry Prizes, the National Book 
Foundation Medal, and the American Academy of Arts' and Letters' 
William Dean Howells Medal. Her work has been adapted to Broadway 
stages, television, and movies. She received the Freedom Medal of Honor 
from Presidents Carter and Reagan, as well as Lifetime Achievement 
Awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, National 
Governors Association, and

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American Association of University Women.
  Miss Welty's writing had an influence on the lives of Mississippians 
and Southerners alike. Her gift of capturing the human spirit made her 
beloved by the nation and the world, as well. She was a great 
Mississippian who gave back to her community, and she will be missed by 
the entire literary world.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I am sure most Senators have heard by 
now, or read in the newspapers, that Eudora Welty died yesterday in 
Jackson, MS. She was 92.
  Miss Welty was a wonderful person and one of America's best writers. 
She was well known around the world for the excellent quality of her 
stories, and she was also appreciated in Mississippi for her 
generosity, warmth and good humor.
  For several years my wife and I lived in her neighborhood, the 
Belhaven section of Jackson, and when we would see her she was always 
gracious and friendly. Everyone I knew loved her. So, it is not an 
exaggeration to say that the entire State of Mississippi is in mourning 
today.
  She may have been every writer's idol, but she was every 
Mississippian's friend.
  When I was a student in Europe in 1963 and was introduced to one of 
Dublin's leading artists, he said, ``If you are from Jackson, 
Mississippi, then you must know Eudora Welty.'' At that time I really 
didn't know her very well, and I admitted it. Then he said, ``Well, you 
must get to know her. She is, you know, the greatest living writer in 
the world today.''
  ``Goodness,'' I thought. I didn't know she was that great. I had read 
``Delta Wedding'' and a few of her short stories, but I didn't 
appreciate her widespread popularity and reputation until I spent a 
year abroad.
  Her writings of course are widely read, well known and respected 
everywhere, including Mississippi. She has been honored at home and 
throughout the world. But it is in Mississippi that she was loved for 
her personal qualities as well as for her talent as a writer.
  Tomorrow her body will lie in state at the old State capitol and on 
Thursday a memorial service will be held at Galloway Memorial Methodist 
Church where she was a member.
  I ask unanimous consent that articles from today's Jackson daily 
newspaper, The Clarion-Ledger, which chronicle her writing, photography 
and the numerous awards she received be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the articles were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

        Author Gone, But Words Live On, Eudora Welty Remembered

                           (By Billy Watkins)

       She would quietly slip into Lemuria Book Store and head 
     straight for the mystery section. No fanfare, no attention 
     drawn to herself.
       ``I can still see her, dressed in her beige trench coat, 
     standing over in a little nook of the store and browsing 
     through the books like any other customer,'' said Lemuria 
     owner John Evans. ``She loved books, and she loved book 
     stores. And I used to just sit and watch her and think how 
     cool it was that Eudora Welty was in my book store.
       ``It doesn't get much better than that.''
       Welty, a world-renowned writer who was born in Jackson and 
     lived here most of her life, died Monday at 12:25 p.m. at 
     Baptist Medical Center. She was 92.
       Welty was hospitalized Saturday suffering from pneumonia.
       Welty will lie in state at the Old Capitol Museum from 2-5 
     p.m. Wednesday. It is open to the public.
       On Thursday, visitation is set for 1 p.m. at Galloway 
     Memorial United Methodist Church followed by a memorial 
     service at 2:30 p.m.
       Burial arrangements are incomplete.
       Patti Carr Black, a long-time friend and one of Welty's 
     editors, was in Welty's hospital room a half-hour before she 
     died.
       ``She was not apparently conscious,'' Black said, ``but 
     doctors say that people who are in that situation know when 
     others are in the room with them. I hope that's true.''
       Welty was famous for her short stories, novels and essays. 
     Among her most notable works: The Ponder Heart; Why I Live at 
     the P.O.; One Writer's Beginnings, her autobiography that was 
     the longest-running book on the New York Times bestseller 
     list in 1984; and The Optimist's Daughter, which won her a 
     Pulitzer Prize in 1973.
       Her literary career spanned eight decades, beginning in 
     1936 with the publication of her first short story, Death of 
     a Traveling Salesman. In 2000, University Press of 
     Mississippi published Church Courtyards, a collection of 
     photographs.
       Welty had three books of black-and-white photographs 
     published. Some of the pictures were exhibited originally in 
     small New York galleries in 1936 and '37. The photos are now 
     high-priced collector's items.
       Welty's work always focused on people--their simplicities 
     and complexities.
       ``One of the things that made her great was her ability to 
     get inside people's heads,'' Evans said. ``Her eyes and ears 
     picked up everything about people, and it was her softness 
     and gentleness as a person that allowed her to do so.
       ``She was so non-threatening that people dropped their 
     guard and let her inside them. And it carried over into every 
     story she ever wrote, every photograph she ever took.''
       Welty wrote in 1980: ``I have been told, both in approval 
     and in accusation, that I seem to love all my characters. 
     What I do in writing of any character is try to enter into 
     the mind, heart and skin of a human being who is not 
     myself.''
       She later said: ``To me, the details tell everything. One 
     detail can tell more than any descriptive passage in general, 
     you know. That's the way my eye sees, so I just use it.''
       Welty always deflected any notion that she was famous, even 
     though she was the recipient of honorary degrees from both 
     Harvard and Yale, and she was knighted by France in 1987.
       ``I'm not any kind of prophet,'' she said in 1991. ``I 
     think you write about whatever's current . . . They won't be 
     the same kind of stories but they'll be about human beings.''
       Black was one of the few people who had the opportunity to 
     work closely with Welty.
       ``In times like these, we always react personally instead 
     of thinking of the world's loss,'' Black said. ``I guess the 
     thing I'll miss about her most is her laughter. She had the 
     greatest wit. We celebrated her birthday together for the 
     past couple of decades. She loved a party.
       ``But she never wanted to be the center of attention--but 
     she was because she's one of the nation's geniuses.''
       Larry Brown, an award-winning author from Oxford, said: ``I 
     remember reading some of her short stories in high school and 
     really enjoying them. I met her one time, in 1989 when they 
     gave me the Mississippi Arts and Literature Award, and had my 
     picture taken with her. She really devoted her whole life to 
     writing.''
       Willie Morris, the late Mississippi author wrote a 4,000-
     word essay for Vanity Fair magazine on the occasion of 
     Welty's 90th birthday. In an April 1999 interview with The 
     Clarion-Ledger, Morris called the article ``a toast to 
     Eudora.''
       Morris added: ``I call her Eudora because she's been my 
     friend since I was a little boy. I very strongly support the 
     idea that she is the greatest living American writer. She's 
     full of wackiness and humor and loyalty to her friends. She's 
     just so generous. Always has been.''
       Shelby Foote, fellow Mississippi writer and longtime 
     friend, said: ``No one who ever spent as much as five minutes 
     in her presence avoided being extremely fond of her. She had 
     a childlike wonder she never lost.''
       Welty was born in her family home at 741 N. Congress St. on 
     April 13, 1909. In 1923, the Welty family moved to the 
     Belhaven-area home that her father built. She lived and wrote 
     there most of her life. She never married.
       The Tudor-style home on Pinehurst Street now becomes the 
     property of the Mississippi Department of Archives & History, 
     per Welty's wish.
       In 10 years, Welty's portrait will permanently enter 
     Washington's National Portrait Gallery, joining the likes of 
     George Washington, Pocahontas, Mark Twain and Albert 
     Einstein.
       As her health declined in recent years. Welty rarely left 
     her Jackson home. Only close friends and relatives were 
     allowed to visit, but loyal readers continued to knock on her 
     front door.
       ``She influenced every Southern writer because she taught 
     us to write in our own voice,'' said Ellen Gilchrist, a 
     Mississippi author who once studied under Welty at Millsaps 
     College. ``When I first read her, my mouth was hanging open 
     because she wrote the way I and people I knew talked. It was 
     a revelation to me.
       ``She was a beautiful lady, like my mother and my aunts. 
     You didn't have to be a drunk living in Paris--you could be a 
     nice lady and be writing books.
       ``It was an honor to know her.''
                                  ____


                  `Grand Lady' Admired for Pure Voice

                            (By Gary Petius)

       The death of Eudora Welty, whose mind and heart pondered 
     the separation between human beings, brought many together 
     Monday in mutual grief and regard for the Pulitzer Prize-
     winning author.
       ``A giant tree has fallen,'' said David Sansing, historian 
     and professor emeritus of history at Ole Miss in Oxford.
       ``William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Richard Wright, 
     Eudora Welty: Who would think that this little state, with 
     such a high rate of illiteracy, would produce these giants of 
     literature, and all of the same generation?
       ``Eudora Welty was the last of those, the great four.''
       Dean Faulkner Wells of Oxford, niece of perhaps the 
     greatest of those four, William Faulkner, said, ``A grand 
     lady of letters is gone. We will always revere her words, as 
     will coming generations.''
       Wells' husband, author Larry Wells, said Welty ``spoke to 
     all generations. It was that

[[Page S8115]]

     pure voice, that humanity. You can't afford to lose people 
     like Eudora Welty.
       ``In matters of the heart, she was never wrong.''
       One of the people who knew her heart best is Suzanne Marrs, 
     a noted Welty scholar and an English professor at Millsaps 
     College in Jackson. In a Monday news conference, she was 
     reminded of the famous Lou Gehrig farewell speech that echoed 
     in Yankee Stadium decades ago. ``Today,'' Marrs said, ``I 
     think I'm the luckiest English teacher on the face of the 
     earth: I had Eudora Welty as a great friend.''
       Marrs recalled a crowed elevator ride she took long ago 
     with her friend, who was surrounded by a bevy of starry-eyed 
     writers attending a seminar in Chattanooga. When Welty noted 
     that everyone else in the car wore an ID, she said, ``Oh, 
     I've forgotten my nametag.''
       ``She was that modest to believe she needed a nametag among 
     all those people who knew her greatness,'' Marrs said.
       Her humility and talent connected with people on both sides 
     of the political and philosophical aisle. Mississippi Gov. 
     Ronnie Musgrove, a Democrat, and U.S. Rep. Roger Wicker, a 
     Republican, honored Welty on Monday.
       ``Not only will Mississippians miss her,'' Musgrove said, 
     ``but people literally around the world will miss her 
     wisdom.''
       In remarks made on the floor of the House, Wicker said, 
     ``Eudora Welty understood not only the South, but the complex 
     family relationships and individual struggles that have 
     combined to give America its rich texture. Her works of 
     fantasy and tall tale narration included two of my favorites, 
     The Robber Bridegroom and The Ponder Heart . . ., which are 
     still read aloud frequently at the Wicker household.''
       A statement from Mississippi native William Ferris, 
     chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, read 
     in part: ``She chronicled the power of place in small towns 
     and in rural areas with an intimacy and eloquence that was 
     unique.''
       That eloquence charmed and inspired writers of various 
     generations, including Elizabeth Spencer of Chapel Hill, 
     N.C., who wrote the introduction to Welty's Country 
     Churchyards. ``. . . Her work will live on as the presence 
     that we will miss so much,'' Spencer said.
       In spite of that void, Sansing said, Welty leaves behind a 
     wealth of literary heirs in Mississippi, including Larry 
     Brown, Barry Hannah, Richard Ford and Greg Iles.
       ``There's no other geographic region in the world, on a per 
     capita basis, that has produced so many really fine 
     writers,'' Sansing said. ``And there's no end in sight.
       ``(The late author) Willie Morris and I used to talk all 
     the time about why this is so. And he always came back to one 
     thing: It's the caliber of the whiskey we drink.' '' Sansing 
     paused.
       ``But I don't think Miss Welty drank much whiskey.''

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