Helen Hooven Santmyer is now 88 years old, crippled
and half-blind. She also suffers from emphysema.
Because of her infirmity, she resides permanently in a
nursing-home in Xenia, Ohio, U.S.A.
Over fifty years ago, when Helen Hooven Santyer
was working as a reference librarian, she started to
write a book. At first she worked on it in her spare
time. Then, when ill-health forced her to retire, she
continued her work in the nursing-home where she
now lives.
She wrote the whole book out herself, in longhand,
on a ledger. In 1982, her work complete, she
presented it to the Ohio State University Press for
publication. The final manuscript filled 11 boxes. A
handful of copies were printed, but the book met
with no initial success. It seemed as if Helen
Hooven Santmyer’s name would vanish without
trace from the American literary scene.
But at least one person who bought the book read it
and liked it. He was praising it in an Ohio library
one day when the librarian overheard his
conversation. The word was passed on to a
producer, then an agent, then the American BookClub.
Each party found the book entrancing and
worthy of a greater audience.
Finally Helen Hooven Santmyer’s book, entitled “ ...
And Ladies of the Club,” was nominated for the Book
Club Award in January 1984. It won the Award,
and with it a sum of over 1 million dollars.
Helen Hooven Santmyer did not seek fame or
wealth from her novel. Its topic—the story of two
Ohio families in the period between the American
Civil War and the great depression of the early
1930’s is obviously not aimed at the commercial
market. The author believed that Sinclair Lewis had
painted a false portrait of the American dream in
his novel of the 1920’s, “Main Street”. She wanted to
correct that picture. As Haynes Johnson writes in
the Washington Post:
The author was clearly not in the market for big
bucks. She obviously was motivated by saying
something in which she believed. The bare account
of how she produced the work over the years, in her
spare time, in sickness and in health, in it self
provides an astonishing testament of her
perseverance. (Guardian Weekly, January 29,1984)
Strong belief in something makes one rise above
one’s worldly situation. It makes one concentrate on
one’s end in life. No matter what hindrances and
obstacles lie in one’s path, one soldiers on until one
reaches one’s final destination.
The conviction that spurs a true believer on is faith
in the life to come. He bears all forms of hardships,
suffering and adversity in this world. He realizes
that this ephemeral world is for the trial of man; in
the next eternal world of God he will be rewarded
for his efforts. As Helen Hooven Santmyer laboured
for over half a century in the compilation of her
book bearing all forms of adversity in her
determination to attain her goal in life, so the
believer labours all his life for the attainment of
reward in the hereafter. And, as Helen Hooven
Santmyer’s sustained effort bore her due reward in
this world, so the believer’s sustained effort will
bear him due reward in the next world: he will be
made to enter a paradise of eternal repose and bliss.
Ref - The Moral Vision
- by Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
