[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 141 (Tuesday, November 18, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6082-S6083]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRIBUTE TO KATHERINE PATERSON
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, Katherine Paterson is a treasure to
Vermont. She is also a close friend to Marcelle and me. And today, at
the age of 82, she continues to write with the grace and talent that
has made her a two-time National Book Award winner and twice a Newbery
medalist.
I have had the honor and good fortune to know Katherine for many
years. Her humble and soft-spoken nature belie the power of her writing
and her myriad contributions to children's literature.
In announcing that she would be last year's winner of the Laura
Ingalls Wilder Medal, the committee noted: ``Katherine Paterson has
been writing books that have made a profound difference in children's
lives for 40 years. Her work acknowledges life's challenges and
difficulties, yet she always leaves her readers with hope.''
I ask that this recent profile of Katherine Paterson, from the
Burlington Free Press, be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From The Burlington Free Press, Nov. 16, 2014]
Katherine Paterson's Life in Stories
(By Sally Pollak)
Montpelier Author's Memoir is a Set of Stories, Many Could
Serve as a Manual for Loving and Raising Kids
In her new book, ``Stories of my Life,'' Katherine Paterson
tells a set of wonderful stories that span her eight decades.
She writes about her young childhood in China, where she
was born, and the mountain resort where she stayed with her
mother and siblings (including a newborn sister) during
wartime in the summer of 1937. Paterson tells about a family
friend who was kissed by Robert E. Lee, and her distant
cousin named Mark Twain. Yes, that Mark Twain. Paterson
writes about taking her sixthgrade class on a field trip to
the Washington zoo; the widow she lived with when she worked
as a missionary in Japan, and her sons' adventures in places
unknown to their mother.
Paterson doesn't write about her first fall in Barre, where
she and her husband moved 28 years ago. The youngest of
Paterson's four children went off to college, and Paterson
had left behind friends in Virginia and Maryland.
``It rained a lot,'' Paterson said. ``I ate Ben and Jerry's
Coffee Heath Bar Crunch, and read.''
Paterson, who turned 82 on Halloween, is an awardwinning
author who started to write books in the bits of time when
her young children were all asleep. She was able to devote
more time to writing when her four kids were old enough for
school. Paterson's books have won the most prominent honors
in literature, including two Newbery Medals (``Bridge to
Terabithia'' and ``Jacob Have I Loved'') and two National
Book Awards (``The Master Puppeteer'' and ``The Great Gilly
Hopkins.'') Before the Patersons moved to Vermont for John
Paterson's work as a minister, the Patersons knew Vermont as
the place they celebrated their wedding anniversary. They
would drive north from New York's Lake George, where they
spend summers, to eat at Dog Team Tavern. The restaurant in
Middlebury, known for its sticky buns, burned down in 2006.
The ice-cream eating phase in the big brick house in Barre
would give way to book-writing, including books set in
Vermont. Paterson had barely unpacked when she met a woman at
a book signing in Shelburne who began a conversation: ``Now
that you're a Vermonter. . . . '' The woman went on to
inquire if Paterson had an interest in writing a book that
would be meaningful for children of Vermont migrant farm
workers.
This involved getting to know her new home state by
visiting farms and homes, and completing a book on a six-
month deadline (a first). In order to meet the deadline,
Paterson proposed writing an I Can Read Book. ``The Smallest
Cow in the World,'' with illustrations by Burlington native
Jane Clark Brown, was Paterson's first book for new readers.
Decades later Paterson attempted another genre for the
first time: memoir, or memoir-ish.
``Stories of my Life'' is lively, interesting and generous
of spirit. Its stories are warm and humorous, and connected
to a larger sphere: literature, religion, history. Certain
stories could serve as a manual, a valuable one, for loving
and raising kids.
Still, writing a memoir wasn't part of Paterson's plan.
``It just seems like such a me, me, me thing to do,''
Paterson said recently at her home in Montpelier, where she
moved last spring. ``I didn't think people nearest and
dearest to me would want to play minor roles in the stories
of my life.''
kitchen sink stories
The illness of Paterson's late husband, John Paterson, was
a kind of catalyst for Paterson's recently published book.
During his sickness, Katherine Paterson was somehow unable to
start a novel, she said. Instead, she began to write down
stories drawn from her life, what she calls in her book
``kitchen sink stories.''
These are stories she heard from her mother as a child,
when she washed, dried and put away dishes with her mother
and sister. Paterson's children grew up in a house with a
dishwasher, and some stories went untold in the absence of
that evening chore.
``I realized there were family stories that my children
didn't know and I should write them down,'' Paterson said.
``It would be a good thing for the kids and for the
grandchildren.''
The stories are a fascinating collection that take in
family history (great uncles who died in the Civil War);
Paterson's work and travel in Asia; her chance meeting while
at graduate school with the man she would marry; raising a
family with accompanying menagerie--and writing books.
In ``Stories of my Life'' Paterson draws connections
between significant events and people in her own life, and
aspects of her books: a story line, a character, a scene.
She explains that she discovered the ``emotional heart'' of
her first novel, ``The Sign of the Chrysanthemum'' in a
conversation with her oldest daughter, Lin.
Lin was born in Hong Kong; she was two years old when the
Patersons adopted her. There were times when Lin was young
that it was difficult for her parents to get through a
``curtain'' and reach their daughter, Paterson writes.
From her memoir: ``Lin,'' I yelled, ``how can I help you if
you won't tell me what's the matter?''
She jerked to life, her eyes wide open. ``Why did that
woman give me away?''
Paterson would go on to write a novel built around this
question: ``What must it be like, I wondered, to have a
parent somewhere whom you do not know?''
Later, at a time she was idea-less for a book, she asked
her four children what to write about.
The kids voted for a mystery. Paterson was certain she
wasn't capable of writing one. She describes this in her
memoir: ``Do you think,'' I asked my eager children, ``that
anyone who is regularly beaten at chess by a six year-old has
the kind of brain it takes to plot a mystery story?''
Yet her kids' choice helped Paterson find her way to a
story that involved Japanese puppet theater.
``So the children and I compromised,'' Paterson wrote. ``I
would try to write an adventure story with as much suspense
as possible.'' The resulting book, ``The Master Puppeteer,''
won the 1977 National Book Award.
[[Page S6083]]
Her beloved novel, ``Bridge to Terabithia,'' grew out of
the accidental death of her son David's close friend at age
8. In ``Stories of my Life,'' Paterson discloses that
confronting a different death--her own--made writing
``Terabithia'' a particular challenge.
a love story
The story of a strong and loving marriage runs through
Paterson's new book, a partnership that formed in a matter of
months. When John Paterson proposed to Katherine Womeldorf,
he made a promise to always help and support her.
``John said that he knew I was a strong woman with many
gifts, and he wanted to promise me that he would never stand
in the way of my exercising those gifts,'' Paterson writes in
her new book.
``It was very memorable,'' Paterson said of the proposal,
talking about the conversation more than half a century
later.
``I had no idea that I was going to be a writer,'' she
said. ``I had no idea what I was going to do. John thought I
was going to be something.''
John Paterson was a Presbyterian minister who collected
art, played tennis and co-wrote books with his wife. His
death at age 80 in September, 2013, was the central aspect of
the ``most extraordinary'' story of Paterson's life, she
wrote.
The experience, including conversations with
``compassionate and honest doctors,'' suggested to the
Patersons that a person needn't fight death with the full
arsenal of modern medicine, Paterson said. John Paterson
sought the advice of his wife, and chose to die at home.
``In our society we have to come to it,'' Paterson said.
``Death is not the enemy.''
The artist that John Paterson saw in his future wife is
still at work. Paterson is writing a play with a friend, and
awaiting the 2015 release of the film adaptation of ``The
Great Gilly Hopkins.'' The screenplay was written by her son
David Paterson.
``I had a good life,'' Paterson said. ``Let's face it.''
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