The Capers Papers

Charlotte Capers

Univ. Press of Mississippi, 1992 - Biography & Autobiography - 122 pages

"When we read the collection here we want still more." -Eudora Welty A pleasure jaunt through the irrepressibly funny world of a gifted raconteur All who know Charlotte Capers treasure her wit and her charismatic storytelling. Here a selection of her amusing narratives moves from conversation to the page as she takes the ordinary and makes it refreshing and fascinating. Clever, sophisticated, and entertaining, she ranges over many subjects-dogs, tenants, travels, an operation, babies, a car wreck, and small-town life at its ordinary gait. Those who read these witty essays written by a fabulous raconteur will feel included in a close and special circle. Charlotte Capers, former director of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, lives in Jackson, Mississippi.

Contents

• Foreword: 9
• Authors Note: 12
• God and My Grandmother: 13
• God and My Grandmother: 15
• Pass the Pesticide Pappy: 29
• Pass the Pesticide Pappy: 31
• Ivy League: 34
• My Dog Holly: 36
• Moving Day: 42
• Wreck: 44
• Not Speaking of Operations: 48
• The Pain of It All: 53
• The Pain of It All: 55
• Be It Ever So: 58
• Queen of the May: 62
• Tell Me About Your Trip: 64
• Good Sport: 66
• Planning to Build?: 68
• There Go the Joneses: 70
• Apartment for Rent: 73
• Apartment for Rent: 75
• The Tiny Tenant: 80
• By the Dawns Early Light: 81
• How to Get a Baby: 83
• The Little Wrecker: 84
• La Mere Goose: 86
• Out of the Nowhere: 88
• Summer is for Children: 91
• Fasten Your Seat Belts: 95
• What la Peste?: 97
• Fasten Your Seat Belts: 98
• Westward the Women: 107
• Pawleys Island: 110
• Allisons Wells: 117
• Autumn Light: 120

About the author

Charlotte Capers (1913?1996) was director of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) from 1955 to 1969 and was the first woman to become the head of a state agency in Mississippi. Her tenure in various staff positions at MDAH spanned forty-five years (1938?1983). Eudora Welty was born in Jackson, Mississippi on April 13, 1909. She was educated at the Mississippi State College for Women in Columbus, Mississippi, and at the University of Wisconsin. She moved to New York in 1930 to study advertising at the Columbia University business school. After her father's death, she moved back to Jackson in 1931. She held various jobs on local newspapers and at a radio station before becoming a publicity agent for the Works Progress Administration (WPA), part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal program. Travelling through the state of Mississippi opened her eyes to the misery of the great depression and resulted in a series of photographs, which were exhibited in a one-women show in New York in 1936 and were eventually published as One Time, One Place: Mississippi in the Depression in 1971. She stopped working for the WPA in 1936. Her first stories, Magic and Death of a Travelling Salesman, were published in small magazines in 1936. Some of her better-known short stories are Why I Live at the P.O., Petrified Man, and A Worn Path. Her short story collections include A Curtain of Green, The Golden Apples, The Wide Net and Other Stories, and The Bride of Innisfallen and Other Stories. Her first novel, The Robber Bridegroom, was published in 1942. Her other novels include Delta Wedding, The Ponder Heart, Losing Battles, and The Optimist's Daughter, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972. She received the gold medal for fiction from the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1972. Her nonfiction works include A Snapshot Album, The Eye of the Storm: Selected Essays and Reviews, and One Writer's Beginnings. She died from complications following pneumonia on July 23, 2001 at the age of 92.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Capers Papers; Muscadine Books Series
• Author: Charlotte Capers
• Contributor: Eudora Welty
• Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi, 1992
• ISBN: 0878056017, 9780878056019
• Length: 122 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Women; Literary Collections / American / General; Literary Collections / Essays; Literary Collections / General; Literary Collections / Women Authors