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newspaper clipping with marginal hand-written comments
Old Hitch Lot Rich Source for Conroy Stories, Author Says
A brief biographical sketch and picture of Jack Conroy of Chicago, who began his underlined: extensive marginal comment: how about that? your Press agent, mainly me, knows writing career in Moberly appears in the May-June supplement of Chicago Schools Journal, an educational magazine for Chicago teachers. Conroy's brief biography tells: "I was born in Moberly Missouri, just late enough to bid the nineteenth century goodby. My memories of that mining and farming town and my experiences in or near it have gone into much of my writing, including the juveniles I wrote in collaboration with Arna Bontemps; "The Fast Sooner Hound' 1942; 'Slappy Hooper, the Wonderful Sigh [sic] Painter,' 1946; and 'Sam Patch--the High, Wide and Handsome Jumper,' 1951. "A rich source of material was the old hitching lot behind the Merchants Hotel, where farmers on Saturday would hitch their nags and swap yarns while the womenfolk shopped. "The farmers usually chawed on hanks of homegrown tobacco as, to quote Kipling, 'regally they spat and smoked and fearsomely they lied' some of their tales went into my stories in B. A. Botkin's "A Treasury of American Folklore" and with Arna Bontemps' [[marginal comment: enjoyed his sketch, [?] pic]] help some of them have emerged as books for children. Other tall-tale books are on the way. "There's something of Moberly, too, in my two novels, "The Disinherited,' 1033, and 'A World to Win,' 1935, as well as in my anthology, 'Midland Humor: A Harvest of Fun and Folklore'. "My years of circled word: wondering marginal comment: well? as an itinerant worker helped me add to my collection of stories, if not to my material wealth. Lately I've been leading a underlined word: sedate marginal comment: hmmm life in Chicago as associate editor of the Standard Education Society. "Last Summer I visited Moberly, which also is the hometown of General Omar Bradley and of Elizabeth Seifert, underlined: novelist, marginal comment: note editing and found the hitching lot replaced by a cold and austere municipal auditorium. "I wonder where the yarn-spinners congregate now." marginal comment: Tannehill Park