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Adelia M. Hoyt memoir and photographs
Page 48
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48, UNFOLDING YEARS superior being and richly deserved any and all honors which could come to her, and I was sure of her love and understanding. We had kept up the practice begun when she left school of writing to each other every other week-- and oh, what a joy and inspiration it had been ! Literature was still my chief ambition. I had kept up quite a regular correspondence with Joel W. Smith, blind editor of "The Mentor", and had contributed a number of articles to the magazine. I longed to express in some new and telling way the problems of the blind which began to wweigh more and more heavily on my heart. So one day I sat down and wrote out the first chapter of a story depiciting the ambitions, struggles and heart-breaking experiences of a blind girl just out of school. I called it "After Graduation" I sent it to Mr. Smith to get his reaction. Imagine my surprise when I received the January number of "The Mentor" to find my first chapter already in print. Along with it came a letter from the editor praising my effort and asking me to have the next installment ready in time for the February number. I was thrilled and a little frightened! The story ran for six months. Each installment reached the magazine in time and was written with little real knowledge of what the next chapter was to be. It seemed as if the story just wrote itself and rarely with any revision. Some of the incidents were drawn from my own experience, but more from those of my school friends who had confided in me. The original Miss Lane, the teacher whom I rather glorified in the story, was of course Miss Lorana Mattice, my blind friend and first teacher. I closed the story with the sixth chapter, greatly to the regret of many. Words of praise and commendation came to me from the limited circle wherein the magazine was read. At my old school, Professor McCune read the story aloud to the students and when in that spring, 1895 Emma and I returned to Vinton for Commencement and the Grand Reunion. I received quite an ovation and was hailed as a promising author. "After Graduation" was not my only literary venture. I had by this time contributed several short
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48, UNFOLDING YEARS superior being and richly deserved any and all honors which could come to her, and I was sure of her love and understanding. We had kept up the practice begun when she left school of writing to each other every other week-- and oh, what a joy and inspiration it had been ! Literature was still my chief ambition. I had kept up quite a regular correspondence with Joel W. Smith, blind editor of "The Mentor", and had contributed a number of articles to the magazine. I longed to express in some new and telling way the problems of the blind which began to wweigh more and more heavily on my heart. So one day I sat down and wrote out the first chapter of a story depiciting the ambitions, struggles and heart-breaking experiences of a blind girl just out of school. I called it "After Graduation" I sent it to Mr. Smith to get his reaction. Imagine my surprise when I received the January number of "The Mentor" to find my first chapter already in print. Along with it came a letter from the editor praising my effort and asking me to have the next installment ready in time for the February number. I was thrilled and a little frightened! The story ran for six months. Each installment reached the magazine in time and was written with little real knowledge of what the next chapter was to be. It seemed as if the story just wrote itself and rarely with any revision. Some of the incidents were drawn from my own experience, but more from those of my school friends who had confided in me. The original Miss Lane, the teacher whom I rather glorified in the story, was of course Miss Lorana Mattice, my blind friend and first teacher. I closed the story with the sixth chapter, greatly to the regret of many. Words of praise and commendation came to me from the limited circle wherein the magazine was read. At my old school, Professor McCune read the story aloud to the students and when in that spring, 1895 Emma and I returned to Vinton for Commencement and the Grand Reunion. I received quite an ovation and was hailed as a promising author. "After Graduation" was not my only literary venture. I had by this time contributed several short
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