Texas Week, Volume 1, Number 3, August 24, 1946 Page: 31
34 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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which had cost DeGolyer $3,500 in New
York. But last week, the cost of rare
Texas writings concerned bibliolater De-
Golyer far less than the intrinsic worth
of contemporary Texas writers.
Tries for Texas Oil
But even as DeGolyer sought the
answer of Texas writers' deficiencies,
more than one Texas scrivener, two in
his own city of Dallas, hotly wooed the
muse as the thermometer hit 106 de-
grees.
In her airless den in "Millermore," 91-
year-old family homestead situated on
the highest eminence in Dallas, Evelyn
Miller Crowell pounded out the one-
hundredth page of a new book on the
same typewriter that had already weath-
ered two other books on Texas.* This
time, Mrs. Crowell sought to capture
the dramatic "flavor"' of Texas oil and
its hysterical development in Ranger
and elsewhere throughout the state.
Apart from the experience she had
gained from her early training as a
newspaperwoman, through production of
her quondam novels and countless con-
tributions about Texas to the national
slicks, Mrs. Crowell had other reasons
to believe that once finished, her book
on oil would contain a solid foundation
of fact.
From early childhood she had listened
to fascinating Texas oil stories at the
knee of her father, Barry Miller, one-
time lieutenant governor of Texas and
attorney for James R. Sharp, pioneer
Texas oilman and one of the founders
of the Texas Company.
Had Fantastic Career
In 1919, when the Ranger boom was
at its peak and people were paying
Ritz-Carlton prices to sleep in cots in
the halls of Ranger's McCleskey Hotel,
Mrs. Crowell, then Evelyn Miller, was
staying up all night instead of sleeping,
observing the fey proceedings at the
nearby dance hall and on the unpaved
Ranger streets, which were so muddy
that to cross them, one chartered a
"mud sled," at five cents a ride. Then,
in 1930, when her father ran for gover-
nor, she toured more than 10,000 miles
of the state with him. And she was in
east Texas when oil operators angled
successfully for oil leases for as little
as one dollar per acre.
Last week, Mrs. Crowell paused in her
mammoth task of weaving these and
other early recollections, plus a roomful
of research, into a fiction-fact novel,
lamented: "It will always be a deep
source of regret to me that I did not
stop campaigning with my father and
take up instead with the oil promoters
but at that time oil in east Texas
seemed fantastic. However, in October,
1930, 'Dad' Joiner, veteran 'wildcatter,'
brought in a well in Rusk County that
was the beginning of the biggest oil
fields in the world."' She glanced at
the thermometer, at her typewriter,
*"A Texas Childhood" and "Hill Top"finished: "It's a pity that writers who
so frequently deal in fantasy can't have
a little more faith in the fantastic!"
Murchison Biography Shaping
Some seven hot miles removed from
Mrs. Crowell's "Millermore," Julian
Stag, another Dallasite, he, by way of
Boston, St. Louis and New York, sat
at another well-used typewriter. Veteran
newsman Stag, a contributing editor of
TEXAS WEEK, was shaping up a pri-
vately commissioned biography of Clint
W. Murchison, prominent Texas oilman
and outdoorsman.
Meanwhile, several promising com-
pleted literary products of other Texas
authors in various parts of the state
were being announced for early release
to the reading public. Among them was,
"The Fabulous Empire," story of Zack
Miller and his famed 101 Ranch, by
Fred Gipson, 38-year-old former news-
paperman of Mason.
Gipson Calls Writing 'Agony'
A University of Texas alumnus who,
among other things, has skinned mules,
swung a sledgehammer all day and kept
books for a grocer, Gipson started writ-
ing, (which he calls "agony,") as a re-
porter for the Corpus Christi Caller-
Times and the San Angelo Standard-
Times.
He won minor accolades in 1944, when
his fine short story, "My Kind of Man,"
about coon dogs and coon hunting, was
published first in content-solid South-
west Review and later condensed in
Reader's Digest. While "The Fabulous
Empire" will not be released until the
last week in September, Holiday Maga-
zine for that month will carry a con-
densation.
Gipson gathered material for his book
A.-777!7NOVELIST CROWELL
Seeks Oil Flavorby living with Colonel Zack Miller for
'several months on a Texas ranch. When
he had amassed more than a thousand
typewritten pages of the colonel's rich
experiences, (Zack bought and sold an
entire army, his Wild West Circus gave
the world Will Rogers and Tom Mix)
Gipson retired to Mason to fit together
his history of Zack, and the Poncas,
cowmen, bushwackers, and politicoes
who thrived when the 101 Ranch was
making Oklahoma history. Last week,
Gipson, "agonizing" over new works in
Mason, could look up from his portable
and see the bright, new jacket of his
first, full-length ($3.) novel-his ad-
vance copy had arrived from his old-line
Boston publishers, Houghton Mifflin
Company.
"Joshua Beene and God"
A Texas school teacher, Jewel Gibson
of Spring has also written a first novel
that soon will be in the book stores.
This one, called "Joshua teene and
God," is about a fanatic, opinionated,
old-time Texas religious leader and his
lifelong battle with "the forces of wick-
edness." Random House, the New York
publishers, assure us it is, "folksy, hu-
morous and as American as a flapjack."
Many Awards Dangle
Also, as the week ended, more than
the usual number of literary awards
were being dangled before the weary
eyes of Texas writers. Houghton Miffin
Company, in cooperation with the South-
west Review, offered a $1,000 prize, ex-
clusive of royalties, for the best book
manuscript or book project submitted
by a writer of fiction or non-fiction
whose work has previously appeared in
the Southwest Review. Either completed
manuscripts or work in progress may
be submitted but where the work is
incomplete, a full synopsis must accom-
pany the finished chapters. Closing date
for this contest is December 15, 1946.
Manuscripts should be mailed to 2 Park
Street, Boston 7, Massachusetts.
Almost simultaneously, the Texas In=
stitute of Letters announced that Carr
P. Collins of Dallas, through Baylor
University of Waco, will present a
$1,000 award for the best prose work
published between October 1, 1945 and
September 30, 1946, either on a Texas
theme or by a Texas author. The award
will be made during Book Week in
November, when the institute meets in
Dallas. Single-bound entrance copies
should be addressed to Crate Dalton,
6703 Avalon Avenue, Dallas
Books in Brief
GATEWAYS TO CORRECT SPELLING,
by Fred C. Ayer, $1.25, Steck Company.
A practical shortcut to spelling based
on psychological principles. University
of Texas discards the old spelling bee
'method of syllable pronunciation for an
emphasis on memory aids and visual
drills.TEXAS WEEK 31
24 AUGUST 46
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Texas Week, Inc. Texas Week, Volume 1, Number 3, August 24, 1946, periodical, August 24, 1946; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth586553/m1/31/: accessed June 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Private Collection of the Raymond B. Holbrook Family.