MY MOTHER WAS A WRITER IN 1924

I was born, 13 September 1924, in Greenwood County Kansas. My folks lived on Star Route, out in the beautiful Flint Hills, near Teterville. Daddy was an oil-field pumper for the Phillips 66 Petroleum Co. Six months before I was born my Mother, twenty six year old Ruth Mc Ghee, won second place in a writing contest for The Palmer Photoplay Corporation of Hollywood, California.

The contest was put on by the Wichita Beacon in connection with the Palace Theater in Wichita. Mother received fifteen dollars, her returned typewritten manuscript with the promised critiques and a glowing letter of acceptance.

My sisters and I found out about this after our folks were gone, and it is still a mystery why Mother didn't write more and where in her isolated circumstances did she find a typewriter?

Her hand-written drafts even show good grammar and are written on ledger style paper. We also found a novel and a short, short story. I don't recall her ever talking about writing or the contest. When my younger sister was writing short stories for children, I remember Mother was her best supporter.

I was always writing stories in study hall at school, but I never shared my writings with Mother. I never thought anyone would want to read them. I threw them all away, now I wish I hadn't. Do you Suppose, if I had shared with Mother, we could have been a writing team? It is hard to think of my gentle Mother, who wiped away my childish tears with the corner of her apron, as a writer of "When Dreams Come True."

Out in those hills Mother cared for a big garden and preserved a lot of the produce for winter meals. She always had lovely flower beds, in spite of the shortage of water. A few years ago I returned to the site of our home on the prairie, where we lived while she was writing for the contest. Just barren plains with abandoned oil wells scattered all around..

Mother had told us about their life there, in an unpainted, 'shot-gun', oil field house with no neighbors in sight. My oldest sister was three years old then so when did Mother find time to write? But I certainly can understand her title and hope I helped make her dreams come true with my writing.

In the May,1992 issue of the Kanhistique magazine, my story, “My Mother Was a Writer in 1924” was published and I received fifteen dollars for my Mother's Day story. Do my genes from my mother make me want to write? It doesn't matter, I just love to write.

Story ID:	352
Written by:	Gail Lee Martin (bio, contact, other stories)
Organization:	Kansas Authors Club
Story type:	Family History
Location:	Greenwood County Kansas USA
Year:	1924
Person:	my mother, Ruth McGhee