...There were two important stages on the road from Clifton [TN]
to Gravelly Springs [AL], my cousin John Y. Parker's place and my cousin
Joe Stribling's place....by noon we reached Cousin John Y. Parker's house
where we ate dinner....
...On our first night from home, our family always stayed at
Uncle Joe Stribling's on Weatherford's Fork.... He had a round, cheerful
wife, Lucinda... about midafternoon of the second day, we arrived at my
uncle Lee Waits' home at Gravelly Springs, Alabama.... My aunt Etta was
an energetic, cheerful woman, who did endless cooking and washing dishes
and sweeping...
...The solitary task that beset me and my uncle Lee and his other
nephew, Will Turner, was getting in the stove wood.... [pp. 69-70]

Chapter VI -

...The Christian Church, it was clearly understood in the family,
was my aunt Etta's church. She was the prime mover who got Will Turner
and Uncle Lee and, finally, me and my mother in Clifton and my sister
into it....
...When my uncle Lee and aunt Etta moved to Florence I went with
them. The house he rented... was... the old Burtwell Mansion on Pine
Street... [pp. 72-73]

Chapter XII -

...What was worse, we couldn't follow pleasant country roads,
because in those days before the advent of the motor, country roads led
into cities but not out of them. I mean by that that all the roads
around a city were built primarily to convey farmers into town. But they
were not designed to go from one city to another. They lost themselves
in a myriad of ramifications among farms and villages. Also, there was a
great dearth of signboards, so it was almost impossible for a traveler to
pick his way through the country to anywhere.... [p. 116]

Chapter XXIII -

There was a girl in Clifton to whom I had been reading THE FORGE
chapter by chapter. When I finished the last installment, we sat
thinking about the story, and she asked me what I was going to do next.
I said that I didn't know; I was very tired, I didn't want to stay in
Clifton, and there was nowhere I wanted to go. She suggested that I
would feel all right pretty soon and start my next novel. I said, "Let's
get married and go on a wedding tour." She said that she didn't want to
interfere with my work. I told her that I didn't think she would. Then
she talked on, and I discovered that that wasn't her real point at all;
her real point was that she didn't want me to interfere with her work;
she was a public-school music supervisor and was very much enraptured
with orchestras and large choruses.
We talked the matter over for some time. If we were married, we
were to live down in South Florida where she had her position. I didn't
know whether or not I could write seriously down in South Florida. We
pondered the matter for several days, and, finally, we drove over to
Corinth, Mississippi, and were married by the county court clerk.
We arrived in Corinth late in the afternoon, and as we drove up
to the courthouse, neither of us knew whether the clerk would be in at
that hour. We were both dubious as to whether we really wanted the clerk
to be in his office. We entered the heavy, grimy building in this
equivocal mood, and when we learned that the clerk was in, whether we
were disappointed or appointed, neither of us knew.
The clerk of the court was a very businesslike fellow. He wrote
out the license in no time and then said the ceremony. As he repeated
words which evidently he had used many, many times, I was amazed at the
brevity and simplicity of the wedding compared with the overwhelming
influence it would have on our lives. If ours had been the first
wedding, if custom had not proved over and over the permeating force of
weddings, nobody in the world would have believed that the writing of a
slip of paper, joining hands and repeating a word or two, would really
have united two human beings for life. I wondered through how many
millennia and through what endless quirks and changes the form and
potency of the clerk's simple ceremony had developed. And I realized
that I was a far more nearly-civilized being than I had ever fancied
myself. The clerk's fee was two dollars, neither more nor less. It was
like buying a sack of flour. [See Note 1 below]
Louella and I drove back in the evening to Shiloh Battlefield,
and we intended to stay overnight in the big, log tourist hotel in the
park. We did indeed eat supper there, but the feeling of being married
was so strange and unnatural to us that we decided to drive after supper
back to Clifton, and she would stay at her home and I in mine, which we
did.
Nobody knew we were married. We continued like that for a day or
two, and then we decided that we would go on the honeymoon we had
originally planned.
We left Clifton early one morning, and we learned afterwards that
we were hardly out of town before all the villagers knew that we were
married. However, we did not learn that until months later. We motored
up through the Carolinas and Virginia, and stopped at Harper's Ferry,
which was then one of the quaintest old towns in the United States, but
which unhappily the WPA painted up and furbished up, until now it is
about like any other old town. We also saw with amazement Copper City,
Tennessee.... [pp. 199-200]
...Louella and I drove on to New York....They were delighted with
Louella, a Southern girl. All Northern people are delighted with
Southern girls. They love to listen to them talk and see if they can
understand anything they say. What they say makes no difference; just
to comprehend the actual words themselves, that's their
pleasure.... [p. 201]

CHAPTER XXIV -

...While the railroad did not win in Clifton, I made it win in my
story ["Railroad" published in six parts in Argosy Magazine, July to
September, 1933] because it really was winning everywhere else. And at
the very last of the tale, I introduced a character with one of the first
automobiles, one of those old chain-driven affairs that sounded like a
mowing machine cutting down a brake of dried canes. One of the
characters surmised that just as the railroad had put the boats out of
business, so the automobile would vanquish the railroads, and all of his
neighbors laughed at the absurdity. That is the great beauty about
writing semi-historical novels. The author knows so far in advance what
is going to happen, and he can make his characters vent such amusing
speculations on the theme.... [pp. 205-206]

1917 THE CRUISE OF THE DRY DOCK. Chicago: Reilly and Britton.
1922 BIRTHRIGHT. New York: Century. First published as a
serial in CENTURY MAGAZINE, 1921
1922 EAST IS EAST. New York: Frank A. Munsey Company.
1923 FOMBOMBO. New York: Century.
1924 RED SAND. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
1926 TEEFTALLOW. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page.
1928 BRIGHT METAL. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran.
1929 CLUES OF THE CARIBEES. Garden City, New York:
Doubleday, Doran. A collection of short stories.
1929 STRANGE MOON. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran.
1930 BACKWATER. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran.
1931 THE FORGE. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran.
1932 * THE STORE. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran.
1934 UNFINISHED CATHEDRAL. Garden City, New York: Doubleday,
Doran.
1935 THE SOUND WAGON. Garden City, New York: Doubleday,
Doran.
1938 THESE BARS OF FLESH. Garden City, New York: Doubleday,
Doran.

* Won Pulitzer Prize in 1933

Source: T.S.Stribling, Edited by R.K. Cross and J.T.McMillan.
LAUGHING STOCK. Memphis, Tennessee: St. Luke's Press,
Suite 401, Mid-Memphis Tower, 1407 Union, Memphis, TN
38104, 1982.

Note 1: Alcorn County, Mississippi Marriage Book H, p. 382:

Mr. Thomas S. Stribling and Miss Lou Ella Kloss
Married: 6 Aug 1930 by J. S. Henderson, J.P.
License Issued: 06 Aug 1930 by Edw. K. McEachin,
Clerk, Circuit Court of Alcorn Co., Miss. Mrs.
U. C. McEachin, D.C. [possibly Deputy Clerk]

Note 2: I spoke with Dr. Randy K. Cross [Calhoun Junior College,
319 Oak St., NE, Decatur, AL 35601] , one of the editors of
Stribling's autobiography about the meeting of Roscoe
Turner and T.S.Stribling. He was not aware of any aviation
inspired characters in Stribling's works but said Stribling
wrote hundreds of short stories, many of which have not
been cataloged. He will do further research on the question
for me- mls 11/30/1993.

Note 3: Mary Emma Turner Whitaker told me tonight that Roscoe's
brother Abe Turner's second wife, Juanita Howard, was from
Clifton, Tennessee. Juanita Howard dated Tom Stribling
before she was married. Everyone thought Tom Stribling was
a very smart man. Abe Turner often kidded her about Tom
Stribling, who was considered the bachelor to "catch" in
Clifton, Tennessee- mls 11/30/1993.

Note 4: I found the following letter in the Thomas Sigismund
Stribling Papers -- Addition, 1911-1979, Box 4, Folder 4,
ID # 1 213 02 0131, Tennessee State Library & Archives, 403
Seventh Avenue North, Nashville, TN 37243-0312. Note the L
refers to Lou Ella Kloss, Stribling's future wife and T was
his signature ---

"Dearest L,
I did not receive any letter from you Sat night
and was put out about it. Honey please try to write me
often as twice a week even if you have to send just a note.
Oh say, I rode in an airplane from here to Corinth.
A wonderful trip, you can be sure. Sailing off through the
air for 85 minutes, nearly an hour and a half.
I took notes all the way over and am going to write up
an article about it and get my money back-- it cost $20.00
both ways-- I mean return train fare, hotels etc.
I sure did wish you were with me, Honey, it would have
been such a wonderful trip for you. You would have been
thrilled to death. When we got to Corinth, the fellow
did nose dives and spirals to give me a thrill and it really
was great. He ran it sideways for a while-- My, that was
thrilly. But the nose dive was the zoomiest thing of all,
you felt just like you were falling a mile high.
I am so anxious to get a letter from you, sweetheart.
It is Tuesday now, and I should have rec. one Sunday or
Monday.
It is so warm here now I am in my room without a fire.
Well, sweetheart, all good wishes, lots of love and forty
kisses. T.

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