Pauline Bernice Cagle Presley
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1925-2012
My mother. Her letters and "Dash of Gab."
From the late 1940s to the late 1950s, my mother wrote a column for her hometown paper, THE COBDEN (ILL.) REVIEW. Her column, "Dash of Gab," is not an advice column; it's too reflective for that niche, though advice sometimes radiates from it. My mother loved her column but wanted to publish a novel. She read for hours everyday and worked on her fiction hours into the nights, over decades. She wrote a play that was performed by a local theatre troupe, but none of her novels were ever published.
In the late 1940s, my mother befriended two other writers, women who, being from Cobden, had just read a particular "Dash of Gab" about the challenges of writing and publishing. These women, Delores and Shirley, wanted to get to know Mom. I know she loved getting to know them; they bonded through a common need to write, and friendship flourished. When Shirley, Delores, Pauline and their families could not visit each other, they wrote letters. Delores wrote from Hannibal, Missouri; Shirley from Cobden; and Pauline wrote from various towns in northern and midwest Illinois (we moved every two years because of my father's job). For twenty years, the envelopes arrived carrying drafts, comments on other drafts, and news of family joys and drudgeries.
I don't have Pauline's letters to Delores and Shirley, but I am finding letters Delores and Shirley each sent to Pauline. Along with some of Pauline's "Dash of Gab" columns, I will be sharing the letters here, out of love for her friends and their families, and for anyone else who might be interested.
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A Dash of Gab
By Pauline Presley
Now I know how people who drill
oil wells feel when they hit a dry hole. I’ve been bragging to my friends about my book. I bragged about sending it to a publisher. But I didn’t brag when it came back.
I keep telling myself I’m a coward. So, now I’ve told about getting it back, I’m no good, I can’t write, so I hope my conscience is satisfied and will let me rest for a while.
The people who know these things, the big guys who buy and sell so much wordage that my little bit looked like a peck of corn on the cob to the, told me to finish this book, for practice (practice, mind you!) and write a couple more and I might be a pretty good novelist. Ha! It’s like telling a person to swim the English Channel, then he can swim the English Channel.
I’ve been going around in a vacuum for days. I look longingly at cemeteries and the quiet river. My husband views me with something like alarm in his eyes. But Jan and Bob haven’t noticed. Bob always yells and asks what time it is and Jan lets me know her needs and wants. They don’t give a darn for Mama’s ego. They don’t care if it disappears entirely.
I found it today. My ego, I mean. My friend Shirley Bauer wrote, telling me she liked my last “Dash of Gab.” I’m among the living again. It’s good to have a friend like Shirley who likes to write, too; someone who knows you’re not nuts entirely. Just a little balmy, maybe.
But then I have some new ideas and I’ll start writing again. Shooting at the moon, no less. Gotta get some ammo for my space gun, podnah. (Do space people call each other “Podnah”?)
Edna St. Vincent Millet once wrote, “I burn my candle at both ends, I cannot last the night . . .”
Friend, I can’t even get mine lit.
But someday I’ll find a match, and then look out!
THE COBDEN (ILL) REVIEW
1955