Category Archives: The Writing Life

Posted on

Unfolding Grandma’s Secret: An Antique World Map Journey

by

Today’s exciting find: a historical 103-year-old world map, hidden in Grandma’s steamship travel journal!

This 1922 antique world map (made by the George F. Cram company, Chicago; for Kiggins and Tooker CO, New York) reveals how far the British Empire and other ruling empires extended. (You can see the color-coding chart, bottom R on the map.)

The map also includes dashes showing steamship travel paths through the seas.

This helps me trace where Grandma’s ship sailed and stopped in 1926. The color-coding shows me who ruled the countries she passed through at that time (unless that changed shortly after the map was published.)

As a bonus, note also the solid lines marked in the seas, indicating submarine cable lines from World War 1.

(Later in this post you’ll see how the map unfolds from the journal.)

Sometimes I think my own home is a historical wonderland!

I have so many boxes of antique handwritten photos, letters, and other memorabilia, it’s easy to lose track of what I have. I joke that I came from a family of hoarders. But I DO relish items hoarded now for over a century which are now in my possession.

It’s a historical writer’s dream, right?

For the past year, I’ve searched for such a map online. In the meantime, I had this all along!

I’m finally working more earnestly on my narrative nonfiction book about the years Gladys Gose Pearce and John Kenneth Pearce lived in India (1923-1933.)

[My excuse for missing this map: I was temporarily derailed for a few years, assembling and editing a 1950s-1960s collection of vintage scifi short stories, written by yet another family member. See Gremmie’s Reef, now in print.]

It helps that I’ve now switched my office research piles from vintage science fiction manuscripts back to the India artifacts. So I now have more at my fingertips, including this travel journal.

Here’s how this antique world map physically unfolds:

When Gladys wrote in this journal, she’d just begun her steamship journey. It would last 51 days.

She noted that she boarded the S.S. President Garfield in San Francisco, California in August of 1926. She then had various stops in other countries and ship changes before finally landing in Madras, India to marry Grandpa Ken.

A bit of their romantic history:

Ken graduated from high school in Walla Walla, WA with Gladys in 1915. They then both attended the University of Washington in Seattle.

After college graduation, Gladys went to San Diego to teach.

In 1923, 25-year-old Ken (J. Kenneth Pearce) was sent to South India, to work as a Forest Engineer for the British Indian government.

In the fall of 1925, Ken got a short home leave to visit Washington State. He then proposed to Gladys. It was about time! For ten whole years they’d been close friends. But during that visit, sparks flew.

Gladys and Ken would live in India until 1933: first in South India, and later in the Andaman Islands.

The Andaman Islands

The Andamans are tiny specks on this world map, in the Bay of Bengal. The islands are east of the Indian mainland, near Burma (now Myanmar) and Siam (now Thailand.)

This particular map has the Americas in the center (being published in the USA.) So the R edge of this map shows the mainland of India, while the L edge has the Andaman Islands.

If you zoom in close you can see where Gladys put an arrow pointing to them. Seeing it on a globe or other-centered map might make it easier to visualize this.

Still, what a great find this is! I now have this map as my computer screensaver.

I’m sure the cartographers who drew it 103 years ago could have never imagined THAT.

What’s in your own attic, basement, or closet? What surprise about your own ancestors awaits you…or have you already found?

Please share your own discoveries in a comment, or email me via my Contact page. I’d love to hear from you.

Laurie

Posted on

A 1968 Letter from Damon Knight to Hayden Howard

by

I’m holding a letter typed 56 years ago, signed by Damon Knight (1922-2002.) It was sent from The Anchorage, in Milford PA, to author John Hayden Howard.

Image of Damon Knight’s home called The Anchorage. It burned down in 1979, according to the Times Herald-Record.

Damon Knight was a science fiction author who wrote over seventy stories and twenty novels. He edited the Orbit anthology series (see Knight in the Oregon Encyclopedia). Knight also founded the SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association) and was later inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

He and his sci-fi writing wife Kate Wilhelm co-founded the Milford Science Fiction Writer’s Conference, and hosted workshops in their big aging Victorian home, The Anchorage.

One of his Knight’s stories, written in 1950, became an episode of The Twilight Zone. In “To Serve Man,” men find an alien cookbook with a recipe titled by the same name. They think it’s about how to feed humans. Spoiler Alert: it becomes apparent that they are the meal. I’ve seen that episode, which makes it even more fun having his signature in front of me.

Knight also wrote for the Captain Video television show. (Incidentally, Hayden Howard was later asked by his agent Scott Meredith to audition to write for Captain Video. However, that would have involved a move to New York, so he didn’t go for that. He loved living in Santa Barbara!)

Back to Damon Knight’s letter:

At first glance, Knight’s letter to Hayden Howard looks like a simple a rejection letter. Those always sting for writers. Wrote Knight:

I return this one with regrets. I grok some of it, but am not sure what the story as a whole is intended to mean.”

Grok?  I see now that means grasped. Yay, a new fun word to use. You grok that?

But then Knight followed that comment up with thoughtful questions about Howard’s plot and characters in the story he was rejecting, The Brave Candidates.

I have an original copy of that. It’s interesting, yet agree that it’s not one of his best (unlike the other 17 stories I chose for the Reawakened Worlds anthologies). The Brave Candidates is a political story set on a planet where aliens (Earthmen) intrude.

Howard had better success throughout his writing career with publishing other politically themed stories, so remember authors: no writers bat a thousand! In 1971, Hayden Howard’s political story To Grab Power was published by Isaac Asimov in one of his anthologies. It’s now being included in Reawakened Worlds Book 2, coming soon. So that one hit it out of the ballpark.

On serialized stories vs. stand-alones:

Knight mentioned that the story felt incomplete, “. . . as if it were one of those segments of novels Fred Pohl keeps printing.”

Ironically, before Knight wrote this letter in August of ’68, Hayden Howard’s works had actually been serialized by Pohl, in Galaxy Science Fiction magazine. One novelette in that series was nominated for Hugo and Nebula awards. The resulting novel, The Eskimo Invasion (1967, Ballantine) was also nominated, for best novel.

Back to Fred Pohl: Frederick Pohl–in the same writing groups as Knight–was the 12th recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award, awarded by SFWA. Pohl also was later inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. So I suspect what Knight was saying (referring to Pohl’s segments of novels) was that he (Knight) was seeking standalone stories instead.

A redeeming final comment from Knight:

In Damon Knight’s letter to John, he revealed openness to more of Howard’s work:

If I have missed the point, please forgive–and send me some more.”

That makes this letter– in my opinion, one Holy Grail of a rejection! Any writer should feel fortunate to get such an intriguing and affirming rejection–as well as honest advice–from a future Hall-of-Famer.

Fast-forwarding to the future, you can now download some stories by both Knight and Howard for free here, to read online or via Kindle, at Project Gutenberg.

READ MORE ARTICLES ABOUT VINTAGE SCIENCE FICTION & HAYDEN HOWARD by Laurie Winslow Sargent

Posted on

In 1954, John Hayden Howard sold a story to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine for $400

by

The Dipping of the Candlemaker was one of 18 mystery and detective stories Hayden Howard had published in the US, UK, and Australia.

Later in the 1960s, he became a popular science fiction author.

In 1954, the average pay for teachers was around 4K per year. A short story author, selling at least ten stories a year, could at least earn the meager pay of a teacher. (Howard in his later years also became a teacher, in Santa Barbara CA.)

Scott Meredith was John’s literary agent at the time. Here’s a letter from Scott about the sale of John’s Candlemaker story.

Interesting facts: 1) Ellery Queen was a pseudonym for the writers/publishers Fred Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee. 2) It may interest science fiction fans that Scott Meredith also represented Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick.

In the letter above, written 70 years ago, Scott asked John to give the story more “stature” before publication. I haven’t the foggiest idea what that meant! But perhaps John did: it was published/republished five times.

Now I wonder even more what “stature” meant in 1954, so I can “get me some of that good stuff” for my own writing!

What’s especially interesting to me is that this particular story is a quirky one, compared to everything else Hayden Howard wrote. He set The Dipping of the Candlemaker in a 1600s colonial village. His characters spoke in 17th century English.

How did Hayden know how to write that? Back in ’54, did he peruse vintage documents in a library, to get the hang of 1600s lingo?

It’s especially hard to imagine the Candlemaker story was by the same author who wrote the sci-fi stories I compiled for the new Reawakened Worlds anthologies!

Then again, in his elder years, Hayden, AKA John, AKA Jack wrote poetry, including love poetry to his wife. So he was certainly a versatile writer, and full of surprises. He lived until his eighties, but was only in his twenties when he wrote The Dipping of the Candlemaker.

Here’s a list of 18 detective, mystery, and sea stories written by Hayden Howard.

Blood on the Medicine Arrows: The Saint Detective Magazine, December 1956; The Saint Detective Magazine, (Australia) July 1957; The Saint Detective Magazine (UK) September 1957

City in the Bottle: The Saint Mystery Magazine, April 1959; The Saint Detective Magazine, (Australia) June 1959; The Saint Detective Magazine (UK) August/September 1959; The Saint Mystery Library #2, 1959

Dead Beat: Manhunt, October 1960

Denny: Popular, 1954

Down Among the Rock Cod: Tales of the Sea, Spring 1953

Finger in the Trough: The Saint Mystery Magazine, April 1960; The Saint Mystery Magazine, (UK) June 1960

Hellwater Run: Adventure, March 1953

Murder on El Capitan: Keyhole Mystery Magazine, April 1960

Murder on San Afer: The Saint Detective Magazine, October/November 1953; The Saint Detective Magazine, (Australia) October 1954; The Saint Detective Magazine, (UK) December 1954

Murder Without Tears: Fifteen Detective Stories, August 1953

Pass the Bottle: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine #123, February 1954; Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (Australia) #82, April 1954

Shark: Jack London’s Adventure Magazine, December 1958

The Amateur Assassin: The Saint Detective Magazine June 1957, The Saint Detective Magazine (UK) April 1958; The Saint Mystery Library #1, 1959; Great American Publications, Inc. August 1959

The Big Word: Trapped Detective Story Magazine, June 1956

The Dipping of the Candlemaker: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, October 1954; Ellery Queen’s Awards: 9th Series ed. Ellery Queen, Little Brown, 1954; Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (UK) #21, October 1954; Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (Australia) #90, December 1954; the hardcover book Mystery and Murder in Boston, W.W. Norton and Company Inc. 1987

 The Dummy and the Death Web: New Detective Magazine, April 1953

 The Housemother Cometh: Manhunt, December 1954; Giant Manhunt #5, (var.1), #5 (var.2) 1955

The Old Man’s Last Case: Popular Magazine, abt1954.

The Wrong Man: The Pursuit Detective Story Magazine #4, July 1954; Pursuit—The Phantom Mystery Magazine, May 1955

With His Back Turned: The Saint Detective Magazine August/September 1953; The Saint Detective Magazine (Australia) March 1955; The Saint Detective Magazine (UK) May 1955

NOTE: Friends, if you come across copies of any of these magazine issues, let me know! I have collected some but not all. As for you fans of Hayden Howard’s sci-fi: does it surprise you that he wrote mysteries, too?

Posted on

Grandpa and the Maharaja of Jaipur

by

The book The Henna Artist (by Alka Joshi) includes scenes set in the Indian palace of the Maharaja of Jaipur. That brings alive a 1920s invitation in my possession–from that maharaja to my American grandfather, J.K. Pearce.

This is an invitation to my grandfather from His Highness the Maharaja of Jaipur. The location and time: At Home (the palace) June 1st at 4 P.M. (most likely a year between 1923 and 1926.) The event was a Gymkhana (featuring races and competitions) on the Horse Show Lawn.

While this seems a huge departure from my recent blog posts on vintage sci-fi and Reawakened Worlds, it’s not quite the stretch you imagine. Yes, 1920s historical nonfiction and 1960s science fiction are different genres. But what they have in common is the past.

The connection between the two genres is an abundance of artifacts inherited from my own family. They surround me in my home office.

On one hand, I possess vintage science fiction manuscripts, author-agent letters, and magazines (Galaxy, IF, and others) with short stories written by my stepfather in the ’60s.

Yet I’m also surrounded by 1920s ephemera. That includes photos, film reels, diaries, letters, and unusual objects from my maternal grandparents’ time in British Raj India (1923-1933.)

Sometimes I can’t recall which time period I’m in, particularly 2024!

But back to how Grandpa met the Maharaja of Jaipur, and why a young American man from Washington State was in India to begin with…

Grandpa studied Forest Engineering at the University of Washington, then as an associate professor attended the Pacific Logging Conference. There he met a man who was working in the logging industry in India. That man encouraged my grandfather Ken (J. Kenneth Pearce) to apply for, take over, and expand his position.

So at about age 26, Ken was hired by government of India (then under control of the British.) He assumed a position of high authority in South India which he held for ten years. His job was to oversee elephant logging camps, introduce machine power into the camps, and help establish sawmills. At times he also functioned as a district magistrate.

In India, Ken he was called Sahib and Master Pearce, and Grandma Gladys was his Memsahib.

That felt awkward to them at times. There was great pressure for them to hire many servants. Yet both of my grandparents were highly industrious, hard-working people. They often simply wanted to do the work themselves.

Grandpa worked from sunup to sundown, often shoulder-to-shoulder with his Indian laborers (most who were ex-convicts.) Grandma sewed clothes for herself and Ken. As a physical education teacher, she was hired to evaluate physical education programs in schools in Madras and other cities.

As for the Maharaja of Jaipur–I believe this particular invitation was for just Ken, before Grandma Gladys sailed to marry him in 1926. Then Ken and Gladys lived in Tamil Nadu region until 1929, primarily in Madras (Chennai) and Ooty. (1930-1933 they lived in the Andaman Islands.)

Ken managed logging camps throughout South and Southwest India. The University of Washington archives hold artifacts related to the forestry work of J.K. Pearce in India. However, I hold all his personal mementos from that time and place, plus additional logging ephemera.

Grandma also met a maharaja: the Maharaja of Mysore, who had a summer palace in Ooty (the Fernhills Palace.)

Gladys wrote of a funny (or disconcerting?) event that took place on the palace lawn. Before moving to India, she had saved money from her job as a junior high physical education teacher. On the steamship ride over, during a stop in Asia, she bought her first set of pearls and treasured them.

At the palace, a young child (one of the princes) approached her bedecked with jewels. He pointed at her pearls and demanded to have them. As you can imagine, she clutched them, and gave him a firm “No.” She had worked too hard for those!