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- Publisher
- University of Nebraska Press
- Copyright
- Copyright © University of Nebraska Press
- ISSN
- 0043-3462
- Publisher site
- See Article on Publisher Site
Abstract
Gustave Baumann. ESTES PARK, COLORADO (MOUNTAIN LAKE). 1930. Tempera over graphite on oatmeal paper. 10¼" × 9 ¼ ". Indianapolis Museum of Art, gift of Ann Baumann. 2008.60. Cathryn Halverson Jean Stafford's first publication was an essay titled "Disenchantment" that she submitted to a Colorado state writing competition for high school students. The text--featured in local newspapers after winning first prize--describes the crushing disappointment Jean and her siblings felt when they moved from southern California to Colorado. Primed by Tom Mix and Zane Grey, the Stafford children had been keen to go west to "that land of adventure, that storied country where life and death hung in the balance," only to find, on arrival, "something far more stupid and dusty" than their home state (qtd. in Hulbert 1718). A backstory of betrayal and downward class mobility drives the tale. Jean's father, John, had lost the whole of his inherited fortune to stock speculation, and the family consequently moved to Colorado--first Pueblo, then Colorado Springs, and finally Boulder--where John Stafford continued a long, mostly fruitless struggle to establish a career as a writer of popular Westerns (growing increasingly cranky and eccentric), while his wife, Ethel, took in paying boarders.
Journal
Western American Literature – University of Nebraska Press
Published: Feb 20, 2013