FOR MOST OF THE CENTURY; LIFE TAKES A NEW TURN

Jean Bell Mosley's new autobiography, "For Most of the Century," is available in serialized form in the Southeast Missourian. Return each week for her continuing story.

When Stephen was off to kindergarten, I began to wonder if there was any way I could supplement our income while staying at home. I did not ever want to go back to the public work place.

An A&P store had opened on North Spanish Street and I was buying groceries there now, always picking up, along with the groceries, a magazine A&P sold for 2 cents per copy, Woman's Day.

Della Lutes, a writer who had grown up in southern Michigan, was having monthly articles in this magazine about things that were so familiar to me -- hay lofts, pastures, root cellars, etc.

I wondered -- hummm -- could I write something like that? How did one go about sending a story to a publication? Did you have to inquire? Did you have to know someone? Was there a fee for consideration? What would I write about?

At the same time, Reader's Digest was running articles in categories called First Person Award and Drama In Real Life. I had never forgotten the "carbide light" incident nor the time the cream stayed sweet on its trip to St. Louis, enabling us to buy those two pairs of shoes for one person at the same time.

It seemed, at that time, that the "light incident" was a secret between me and God and I did not think I could call up the just-right words to tell about without sounding, well -- pious?

I settled on the sweet cream shoes, writing only one draft, single-spaced, rubbed-out errors corrected in ink. I thought I would send it around at Christmas time first to my parents and sisters to see how they would like it. I didn't. I put it into a desk drawer where it remained for some time. Edward read it and said, "Why don't you send it somewhere?" So, back to the question, how did one go about it? I folded it three times and stuffed it into a 4x9 envelope. I looked at the list of editors on an inside page of Woman's Day and saw that Betty Finnin was fiction editor. My story wasn't fiction but I addressed the envelope to her anyway.

It was gone, gone, gone for six weeks. So, unsolicited manuscripts were just thrown away?

Eventually a letter dated Sept. 30, 1947 came which stated:

Dear Mrs. Mosley:

I would like to have "The Stono Mountain, Sweet Cream Shoes" for our magazine now if our offer of $400 is acceptable to you. We would, of course, want the privilege of cutting and editing as we deem advisable.

If this is agreeable to you, we would like to have a short biographical sketch and an informal snapshot or two, to use in the front of the book -- if space permits.

Meanwhile, we're holding your script until we hear from you.

Sincerely,

Betty Finnin,

Fiction Editor

I answer by return mail. Uh, yes, I would consider $400.00 Betty didn't have a decimal point. I looked hard for it, thinking it might be $4.00. So I added the decimal point, just to be sure!

It was the beginning of a long and satisfying new career.

Jimmy Durante, a comedian, often said, after telling a joke and getting a good response, "I gotta million of 'em, folks." I thought that if my little tales were what editors wanted, "I have a million of 'em."

Ben Hibbs at Saturday Evening Post, Betty Finnin at Woman's Day, Maude Longwell at Farm Journal, Bill Birnie at Reader's Digest, Arthur Gordon at Guideposts, Eugene Butler at Progressive Farmer and many others were very helpful to me. They seemed to detect a tiny spark and blew on it the breath of encouragement to keep it alive.

By 1953 I had published in various magazines enough stories with the same setting and same characters (the farmstead, family and neighbors) to make a book. I added a theme to run through it, giving it a sense of oneness and thus The Mockingbird Piano, my first book, was published in March of that year, by The Westminster Press. I had no agent, just sent it in "cold" as they say in the writing world. I signed the contract and the overhead light reflected especially bright on the gold point of my pen. "Hello, God. Thank you. Use me."

The Mockingbird Piano won the Missouri Writers Guild Award for that year. This award precipitated a journey to Columbia, Missouri during Missouri School of Journalism's special week, the first of several such weeks I attended in succession.

A few days after returning home from this pleasant ceremony, I received a letter from the Saturday Evening Post. It arrived after dark by special delivery. "I think I'll sit down to read this," I told Edward for I knew I had just recently sent them a story. I sat on the floor just in case I might fall out of a chair.

It read:

May 25, 1953

Dear Mrs. Mosley:

I am very happy to be able to report that we are buying "Whittlin' Man." We all like it very much and feel that it's a sweet story.

When we buy material from new writers, it is our custom to ask them to have two business acquaintances send us letters of reference for our files. We also would like to have biographical material and a picture of yourself, if you have one, in case our Keeping Posted editor wants to use it in the issue in which your story appears. When all this has been received, a check fo $850 will go out to you on the following Tuesday, our regular payment day.

Congratulations on your first sale to the Post, and I hope you are as well pleased as we all are here.

With best wishes, I am,

Sincerely,

Patricia Walsh

I read it aloud and rocked back and forth like someone doing a modern-day aerobic exercise.

The title of this story was changed by the Post to "Primitive Young man." The two business acquaintances I picked to send letters of reference were Fred Naeter, co-owner of The Southeast Missourian newspaper at that time and Homer George, a pharmacist, owner of the Broadway Prescription Shop.

In the 1950s I wrote seven more stories for the Post. When the magazine sold, but kept the same name, I sold one more story to them, "Biglow Baily Day," which I consider one of my best stories.

My longest running adventure in writing has been a newspaper column. This was started in 1955 when a co-writer friend, Thomza Zimmerman, and I thought we might start a small syndicated column for weekly newspapers in Southeast Missouri. It was to be an exchange of letters, she writing one week and I the next. The title of the column was "From Dawn to Dusk," a title Thomza had been using for her column in her local home town's newspaper.

We wrote of the little things in our daily lives. Our purpose was to try to help others find joy in the simple things of life. It caught on. At one time we had ten weekly newspapers subscribing.

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.