Michigan Authors
Over the years the library has attempted to collect comprehensively works of authors who either lived in Michigan or have written about Michigan. Books written by Michigan authors run the gamut from the serious to frivolous. The range of this material makes finding typical examples of this wonderful collection very difficult, but one author the staff often is asked about is Della Thompson Lutes, whose books and personal papers are found in the library.
Born in 1872, Della Thompson grew up near Jackson, Michigan. At sixteen she became a rural "school ma'am." After several years of teaching in rural schools near Jackson, she accepted a teaching position in Detroit, and there married. While in Detroit, Lutes began to write articles for magazines.
In 1905 she published her first article and in 1907 she joined the editorial staff of a magazine. When the magazine went bankrupt in the depression, Lutes became a free-lance writer. In March 1935 she began a series of articles in The Atlantic Monthly that mixed in more or less equal portion her childhood remem- brances and her mother's home recipes, a "gastronomical autobiography," as one critic described it. What set the articles apart was a sentimental but realistic view of late nineteenth century Michigan farm life. For example, after recounting with much warmth an autumn day spent making apple butter, Lutes could conclude:
To be out of doors on an October day with a blue sky overhead, sun on your back, and only the gentle llp! with which an autumn leaf breaks its loose hold upon a parent stem to mar the silence, would be a joy under any circumstances almost. To have to stand and stir, stir, stir, for five, six, or more hours well I do not like apple butter anyway.
This mix of nostalgia and realism made the articles tremendously successful and in 1936 The Atlantic Monthly in conjunction with Little, Brown brought the material together in book form, printing The Country Kitchen. The book was as successful as the articles, going through eight printings in its first five months in book stores and fifteen printings before the outbreak of World War II.
Eventually Lutes would write six volumes of "gastronomical autobiography," publishing at a pace of one book per year until her death in 1942. Although these were her most successful volumes, they were preceded by fifteen other books and at least forty-five published articles, poems, and short stories. Her works were important because she chose to write about "country-folk" before it was fully acceptable to do so. Her eye for detail and ear for dialect made these renderings of country life particularly solid and poignant.
Della Thompson Lutes' works are but one example of the many Michigan authors, some famous and others little known, whose thoughts and insights are preserved in the Clarke Library.