April 3 library luncheon features singer/songwriter Tricia Walker
OXFORD, Miss. Early registrants for the Oxford Conference
for the Book on opening day April 3 have an opportunity to
attend a luncheon at 11:30 a..m. in the J.D. Williams
Library’s Department of Archives and Special Collections.
Hosted by Julia Rholes, dean of libraries, the event
includes a tour of the library’s ongoing exhibit “In her
Own Words: An Exhibition of Mississippi Women” and
entertainment by singer/songwriter Tricia Walker. A native
of Jackson, Walker lives and works in Nashville, where her
songs have been recorded by top artists such as Faith Hill,
Alison Kraus and Patty Loveless.
Besides singing songs of native female Mississippians for
luncheon guests, Walker also plans to talk about her
experiences growing up in the state and about the women who
inspired her, said Jennifer Ford, director of Archives and
Special Collections.
Like the Mississippi women close to Walker, the women
highlighted in the library exhibit undoubtedly inspired
those whose lives they touched.
“The exhibition chronicles the lives of Mississippi women
from the antebellum period through the present,” Ford said.
“It focuses on the lives of famous women such as Eudora
Welty, Ellen Douglas, Beth Henley, Theora Hamblett and
others, but it also focuses on the daily lives of ordinary
women whose voices may have been heard only as a whisper,
if at all.”
The book conference is dedicated to Zora Neale Hurston, who
might fit well into the latter category of women had she
been from Mississippi. Hurston, an African-American born in
Alabama, was a writer, folklorist and anthropologist whose
work remained relatively unread until after her death in
1960. The conference, runs through April 5 with regular
conference sessions free and open to the public. For a
complete conference schedule, visit
http://oxfordconferenceforthebook.com/.
“The library has been a great supporter of the book
conference over the years; its annual exhibition and lunch
program is always a highlight of the conference,” said Ann
Abadie, associate director of the UM Center for the Study
of Southern Culture. “I am delighted with Jennifer Ford’s
In Her Own Words’ exhibit and with the special program she
has arranged.”
The library exhibit runs through July 31 and is free and
open to the public 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday. It
includes numerous artifacts from the library’s permanent
collections exhibited in 18 display cases in the Faulkner
Room on the library’s third floor.
Items in the exhibit highlighting lesser-known Mississippi
women include:
- From the yellowed pages of a pocket diary, Belle
Edmondson tells about spying during the Civil War gathering
information to aid the Confederate troops. - Correspondence from the pen of Roxana Chapin Gerdine,
wife of a Southern plantation owner during the mid-1800s,
to her family in Chicopee, Mass., reveals her struggle
facing the reality of having slaves in her household after
leaving her birth relatives who were so opposed to
slavery. - A paper titled “The Forgotten Negro Woman,” written
around 1950 by Mary McGuire who proclaimed herself as “an
American Negro woman born in the state of Mississippi,”
offers a unique perspective on race, feminism and related
problems of the day. - Magazines showcase heart-warming children’s stories by
Roane Fleming Byrnes, who also was an activist closely
allied with founding the Natchez Trace. - A personal journal, written by unmarried 25-year-old Mary
Edmondson in the 1850s, expresses discontent with her
romantic prospects and reflects the tremendous societal
pressure to marry, which was a common dilemma that many
single, Southern white women faced during that era. - Letters written by Virginia Nelson during World War I
record her journey traveling as a nurse with the American
YMCA to France in 1918 only to have her request to assist
surgeons denied because they thought she would be “too
distracting” in an operating room.
Artifacts highlighting the lives of well-known Mississippi
women include the following:
- Handwritten notes by Ellen Douglas, a pseudonym for
Natchez native Josephine Haxton, offer insight into her
composing the tale “Rapunzel” for her short story
collection “The Magic Carpet.” - A pre-production folder for the 1981 Palaemon Press
edition of “Retreat” by Eudora Welty contains the writer’s
notes and suggestions. - An original drawing by Beth Henley demonstrates the
spirit she was seeking for the final cover of her 1991 book
“The Debutante Ball,” illustrated by artist Lynn Green
Root. - A letter written by Katherine Sherwood Bonner, whose
books include “Dialect Tales” (1883) and “Sewanee River
Tales” (1884), describes her new life and explains her
difficulties upon returning home to Holly Springs after
leaving her husband to live and write for a number of years
in Boston, a land she thought more conducive to her writing
than the life of a socialite in the South.
For more information about the library or for assistance
related to a disability, call 662-915-7408. To learn more
about the J.D. Williams Library, visit