Alabama Book: Thoughts of a Man Called Boozer

As the downsizing of my book collection continues, I'm even letting go of volumes that have Alabama connections. Can you believe it? This post is about such a book and its author.

The book collects the musings that John Emmett "Boozer" Pitts wrote during three hospital stays, primarily at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., from 1958 until 1963. You can read the details below. Pitts was born in Russell County on November 25, 1893 and died on February 10, 1971. He is buried in Auburn Memorial Park Cemetery along with his wife Martha, who died in 1952, and their two sons.

Pitts attended Auburn before World War I and played football as a lineman for two years. He was the center on the 1913 undefeated team that went 8-0 under legendary coach Mike Donahue. Pitts himself coached football there during the 1923 and 1924 seasons, as well as the final seven games in 1927. His record was 7-11-6. Pitts served as an assistant coach in the 1919-1922 seasons and 1925-1927. He also taught mathematics at the university from 1930 until 1940. He served in the U.S. Army in World War II, and retired at the rank of colonel. 

Both sons also entered the military. John, Jr. [1924-1977] went to West Point, served in Korea and Vietnam and by the time he retired in 1976 had risen to the rank of brigadier general. You can read more about his life and career here and here. Younger son William [1932-1964] was a captain in the Air Force when he died in an F-101 crash in Oregon.

The forward below by Mabel Yerby Lawson gives more details about Pitts' life. The nickname is mentioned, but not really explained.  

Take a book off the shelf, and you never know where you'll end up....

Photo of Pitts from the 1925 Auburn yearbook

Source: Wikipedia

Yes, this copy is signed by the author.

Alabama Book Covers: Tom Roan

In September 2016 I posted an item on this blog about Tom Roan's 1935 short story "Loot Island" which is set in Alabama. Let me quote myself from the beginning of that post about Roan's life; more comments follow. 

Although he wrote novels and other types of stories, Tom Roan is best known as the author of hundreds of stories published in the western pulp magazines from the late 1920's until the early 1950's. He's also one of those authors whose life is more unbelievable than most of his fiction.

Roan was born in Snead on Sand Mountain in December 1892. His poor family moved frequently as the men sought jobs. At one point the family lived in Cardiff near Birmingham where his father William worked in a coal mine. Roan left Alabama on a freight train when he was fifteen and headed west.

He ended up in San Francisco, but that was only one of many stops during the next two decades. He served in the U.S. Army from 1913 until 1917, much of the time in Hawaii. Around that period Roan fought for Pancho Villa in Mexico, and worked in a circus, as a private detective and a marshal in various western towns. He was said to have killed five bad men during those days.

Roan returned to Alabama in 1930 with his first wife Marjorie. Soon they were living in Collinsville in DeKalb County. The following year Roan shot Dr. William Preston Hicks several times during a drunken brawl at Roan's home. Three trials later, in 1933, he was finally acquitted. During his time in jail he requested a typewriter so he could keep writing stories. Dr. Hicks, born in 1889, was a 1913 graduate of the Birmingham Medical College.

Marjorie and their daughter left Alabama during the trials, and she divorced Roan. The daughter was later killed in a car wreck in California. Roan would marry again, but they had no children. He died on July 1, 1958, in Sea Bright, New Jersey. He is buried in Fair View Cemetery in Middletown, New Jersey. 

Two early novels are autobiographical portraits of Roan's young days in Alabama. Stormy Road was published in 1934 and set in Attalla where Tom spent part of his youth. Black Earth came out the following year and is set in the coal mines around Birmingham. 

We probably need to take self-described events in Roan's life before his return to Alabama with a grain of salt. So far researchers such as Bill Plott have found little evidence to support much of it. He notes in a May 2022 email to me:

Roan research is so frustrating because of the difficulty in documenting any of the wild stuff. It is indeed possible that he was with Pancho Villa at one of the battles of Juarez, but where is the documentation and which of the three battles was it? Did he really know Jack London while he was in Hawaii? Possible, but nothing in any of the London biographies I checked suggests that Jack was paling around with any military personnel.  And it's a short window, maybe 18 months that London was in Hawaii. Was Roan involved in capturing a notorious killer while working at as a deputy in Bannock County, Idaho? Again, possibly, but the sheriff's department personnel records do not list a Roan or Rowan during that time period. You see the dilemma.

As far as I can determine, these items below, along with one not listed-- The Rio Kid [Godwin, 1935]-- are the only novels Roan published. Life events and the hundreds of stories he turned out in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s probably kept him from writing more. 

Roan also wrote an occasional article, such as "Alabama Divorce—Cafeteria Style," published in Bluebook May 1953. At that time the state was a mecca for quickie divorces. Even famous people came to the Heart of Dixie. Too bad the state had no casinos to entertain them while they were here.

A.L. Burt, 1936
Burt was a New York publishing firm operating from 1883, until 1937, when the company was bought by Blue Ribbon Books. Doubleday purchased them two years later. 

1943 [in London]. This "abridged" paperback came later

Nicholson and Watson, 1935

Godwin, 1935

Stark realism! Swamplands! Deep South!
Published by Falcon Books [no. 31], 1952

For some reason Roan published this novel as by "Adam Rebel". Published in 1954, the cover art is by Walter Popp 

Nicholson & Watson, 1935; published in London by the same publisher also 1935

Dell, 1955; published in Denmark [in Danish] in 1957

Thanks to Bill Plott for the three images below.

Zenith Books, 1958 

An autobiographical novel published under Roan's real name

I. Washburn, 1934

End papers for Black Earth, also published as by Thomas Roan. Apparently one of the publisher's earliest titles, since the company was founded in 1935. The firm published a number of mysteries over the next four years. 

Hillman-Curl, Inc., 1935

Alabama History & Culture News: May 24 edition

 

Here's the latest batch of links to just-published Alabama history and culture articles. Most of these items are from newspapers, with others from magazines and TV and radio station websites. Some articles may be behind a paywall. Enjoy!

Author offers insight on new book 'Alabama v. King' | FOX 2

FOX 2

Dan Abrams is the author of the book, “Alabama v. King: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Criminal Trial That Launched the Civil Rights Movement.

Biggest cities in Alabama 150 years ago - WHNT WHNT Eleven southern states seceded from the Union in 1861, instigating four bloody years of the Civil War and fundamentally altering the social history of ...

Alabama author Marlin Barton believes in the power of storytelling Alabama NewsCenter Barton: The husband and wife in the novel are based loosely on my great-great-grandparents and I've drawn from a lot of family stories, history ...

Remember When: A child's history stories of Alabama - The Andalusia Star-News The Andalusia Star-News An elementary school book, “History Stories of Alabama,” by Mrs. Pitt Lamar Matthews was passed along to me recently. It is dated 1929 and the ...

Historical society in Alabama finds a new location | State News | moultonadvertiser.com

Moulton Advertiser

GADSDEN, Ala. (AP) — The Etowah Historical Society will move to a new location in Rainbow City as plans are in place to tear down its most recent ...

Alabama historic Black church seeks a more secure future

Alabama NewsCenter

Alabama historic Black church seeks a more secure future After 135 years, Homewood's Union Missionary Baptist Church is in need or renovation and ...

Preserving the Past, Building a Future - Opelika Observer Opelika Observer May is Historic Preservation Month, and with it came a continued fight to preserve and protect the historically designated George and Addie Giddens ...

Sun Ra House in Germantown gets historic landmark designation - PhillyVoice PhillyVoice The 19th century Germantown row home that served as the home of late jazz musician Sun Ra and his Arkestra collective has been designated a ...

Unlocking the Secrets of the 'Clotilda,' the Last Known Slave Ship | Smart News Smithsonian Magazine Archaeological divers spent 10 days evaluating the sunken ship in the Mobile River, and took samples for possible traces of DNA.

Historic Huntsville to open free 'Rooted in History' exhibit honoring historical local women WHNT.com Historic Huntsville Foundation will honor the city's women leaders of the 20th century in a new, free exhibit.

Mrs. Ora Lee Park, was a notable Alabamian - The Troy Messenger The Troy Messenger The book was written and prepared by Dr. Frank L. Grove of Montgomery, who for 28 years served as executive secretary of the Alabama Education ...

Museum of East Alabama celebrates mural painted by Auburn University class Office of Communications and Marketing - Auburn University The Museum of East Alabama celebrated the creativity of Auburn ... celebrates local agricultural history and features imagery of historic ...

$3.6 million in federal funding split for Alabama civil rights preservation projects - al.com AL.com The money comes from the National Park Service's African American Civil Rights Grant Program and is funded by the Historic Preservation Fund. This ...

Exploring the History of Alabama's Gulf Coast Gulf Shores Check out these historic sites and museums found throughout Alabama's Gulf Coast while visiting Gulf Shores & Orange Beach.

An Alabama Author & A Polar Explorer

On March 5 the shipwreck of the Endurance was located more than 100 years after Captain Ernest Shackleton and his crew abandoned the vessel during their 1915 expedition to the Antarctic. In January of that year the ship became frozen in ice; the crew remained with the Endurance until November when it sank. That event began even more incredible efforts by the crew. A recent account is Alfred Lansing and Nathaniel Philbrick's 2015 book Endurance. Incredibly, all members of the crew survived the ordeal. 

A photograph of Captain Shackleton's cabin on the ship reveals a few shelves of books he took on the expedition to help him pass the downtime. This article reprints the inventory of that personal library. The books include an encyclopedia, various dictionaries, collections of poetry, accounts of other polar expeditions, and wait--what's that? Why, it's a novel by an author with Alabama connections!

Let's investigate.

Over the course of her writing career, Amelie Rives Troubetzkoy published more than 20 novels between 1888 and 1930. One of those was World's-End, published in 1914. A copy of that book, probably with the cover and title page as shown below, ended up on a shelf in Shackleton's cabin. Also below is a contemporary review. You can read the novel online at the Internet Archive. So who was Amelie Louise Rives, later to become Princess Troubetzkoy?

Rives was born August 23, 1863, in Richmond, Virginia. Her parents were Alfred and Sarah; Alfred was an engineer. Amelie was the oldest of three daughters. At some point in the 1870's Alfred accepted a position as chief superintendent & general manager of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad in Mobile. Amelie--and probably her sisters--continued the study of music and drawing under tutors and governesses. She also studied music under Miss Evy, who operated a private school in the city, and drawing at the Mobile Academy of Design.

The Rives family can be found in Mobile in the 1880 U.S. census. Patriarch Alfred L. Rives was fifty years old, a civil engineer and born in France around 1830. His wife Sarah was from Virginia. The children were Amelia, 16; Gertrude, 13; and Daisy, 5. Their home was 87 Government Street, near the current location of the Exploreum Science Center and a couple of blocks from Bienville Square.

Amelia's first publication, the romantic short story "A Brother to Dragons" appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1886. Two years later her first novel The Quick or the Dead? created a scandal with its daring--immoral!--content as it quickly sold 300,000 copies. The book featured a new widow attracted to her late husband's cousin. Rives career was off to an impressive start; she published many novels, poems, and plays until 1930 and her final novel, Firedamp. Poetry publication continued into the 1940s. She died June 15, 1945. 

In June 1888 Rives married her first husband, a wealthy New Yorker named John Armstrong Chaloner, who led a fascinating life himself. The marriage was tumultuous and by 1895 the couple divorced. The following year she wed a Russian prince, Pierre Troubetzkoy, an established portrait painter. The two were introduced to each other in England by Oscar Wilde. That union lasted until his death in 1936. The couple lived in her ancestral home Castle Hill in Virginia. You can see the prince's 1904 photograph of his wife here. 

Despite her many publications and fame during her lifetime, Rives has fallen into obscurity since her death. Little has been written about her life or critical evaluation of her work. All of which is a shame. She mixed with some of the best known authors of the day, ranging from Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Ellen Glasgow and Mark Twain. Author James Branch Cabell was a cousin. She was an enthusiastic supporter of women's suffrage. Her work was parodied, surely a sign of her acclaim. Newspapers published anecdotes about her. 

Some reviews were positive, but many not. Her novels were long, stuffed with characters and events and included racial stereotypes of the day. Her heroines and heroes felt intensely, but spoke in the overheated dialog characteristic of so much literature at that time. Yet modern topics crept into them. In her 1915 novel Shadows of Flames a wife discovers the hiding place of her morphine-addicted husband--in his cigarettes. 

See Leila Christenbury's essay linked below for many more details of Rives' life and work. A search of the Library of Congress' Chronicling America newspaper database for 1880-1945 will turn up numerous articles about Rives published in her lifetime. 

Further Reading

Louis Auchincloss, A Writer's Capital Houghton Mifflin, 1979. [Includes a chapter on Rives]

Leila Christenbury, "Amélie Louise Rives Chanler Troubetzkoy 1863–1945," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2021 

Welford Dunaway Taylor.  Amelie Rives (Princess Troubetzkoy Twayne, 1973 [info on Rives' time in Mobile is on p. 21]

Amelie Rives [1863-1945]

Source: The Bookman via Wikimedia Commons

This photo of Shackleton's cabin was taken in early March 1915 by Australian photographer Frank Hurley. 

Source: BBC.com

These two illustrations in World's End were reproduced from paintings by Alonzo Myron Kimball; one is seen on the cover of Collier's below.

Source: Wikipedia

Prior to book publication the novel was serialized in Collier's November 29, 1913-April 11, 1914

Source: FictionMags Index

Findlay Weaver, editor of the Canadian publication Maclean's, discussed the book in the October 1, 1914, issue: 

To get back to the particular book to be considered this month, “World’s End” gets its name from the estate in Virginia where the greater part of the action of the story takes place. The novel can scarcely evade the charge of sentimentalism, yet it has an appealing quality which will endear it to the lovers of romance.

The principal characters of the tale are Phoebe Nelson, a heroine who blooms with all the charm of the South, her cousin Richard Bryce and his uncle Owen Randolph.

Richard is a fascinating young man, an abnormally clever artist with untold faith in himself as such and as a poet as well. But he has a twisted view of life, which, in the influence exerted on the girl with her rich and romantic nature, all but wrecks her prospects of true happiness and would have done so but for quiet strength in body, mind, and emotion of Richard’s uncle, Owen Randolph, who, stirred to the depth of his compassion and love for her, employs the force of his big character to reconstruct her life. Through deeply pathetic circumstances, by Owen’s assistance, she finally wins to triumphant happiness and the telling is lightened along the way by a charming humor and fine descriptive pasages making “World’s End” a most realistic place indeed, with warmly pictured characters, including funny and lovable negro servants.

Richard had peculiar views as to religion and marriage. He considered them “inartistic.” The universe was to him a vast studio. At twenty-six his enthusiasms gave him keener delight than they did to those about him. He did not restrict his attention to painting, for besides that he was, at the time of the opening of the story, engaged in writing a one-act opera in accordance with the Chinese laws of music which he maintained constituted the only real tonic-scale; and was also writing a volume of poems, the latest of his poems being “The Daughter of Ypocras.” Expounding this poem, he said: “Ypocras was a lovely girl who had been changed into a dragon and doomed to retain this fearful shape until some lover, knowing her plight, should be bold enough to kiss her on the mouth. The lover comes and, being often mirrored in the beautiful eyes which are all that remain to her of her woman’s form, is drawn gradually into doting on the rare sinuosities of her dragon-shape, and the play of the light along her scales of gold and violet. So that when at last his kiss transforms her again to woman, his artist heart breaks at the loss of his exquisite dragon, and he sinks dying at the feet of the sweetly normal maiden who has taken her place.” Richard further explained that he had endeavored in the poem to reveal some of the dark yet radiant magic lurking in the mysterious perversities of femininity, as opposed to the common-place attraction of what he called “the daylight charm of the uncomplex woman.”

Such twisted views were characteristic of Richard. For instance, when he came suddenly upon Phoebe in her garden, helpet crow “Jimmy Toots” was perched on her shoulder and as she caught sight of Richard she tried with both hands to tear “Jimmy Toots” from his perch but Richard, seeing “a picture of a young woman in an April garden with a bird of ill-omen on her shoulder,” urged her not to take it down.

“You with that crow are like a poem by Baudelaire” and forthwith “Jimmy Toots” became “M. Baudelaire” to Richard. How could one of his intensely artistic nature possibly employ such an inelegant term as “Jimmy Toots.”

Richard paints her picture in the garden with “M. Baudelaire,” calling the painting “Pandore et le Genie du Coffre.” In the painting he exaggerated a likeness he saw in her to a Botticelli, so that the head seemed a little small for the long nymphean limbs. “But the translation of Jimmy Crow into a bird of sombre presage was wholly a masterpiece.

Far more than any serpent he seemed fitted to whisper of honeyed sins in the ear of this virginal Eve-Pandore.

When Phoebe was permitted to see the painting her first words were, “Are my . . . am I quite as ... as long as that?” Her father, while admitting that the treatment was certainly original, considered that his living Phoebe was far prettier than Richard’s “Pandore.”

The reader can well imagine the effect of an attractive yet wholly self-centred young man in his influence upon the young woman who saw in him the ideal for whom she waited and will realize something of the possibilities which this situation opens to the author in working out the story and it is like getting into God’s clear sunshine when the influence of Owen Randolph eventually gains precedence.

The sinking of the Endurance 1 November 1915

Source: Wikipedia