The poet with his grandchildren, Karen Paula and John Carl, who are named for their grandparents. Found "Only in America," Sandburg and Golden, whose "Carl Sandburg" will appear next month. The Sandburgs - she was Paula Steichen - who was married 53 years ago, on June 15, 1908. but there were misgivings among other members of the family. Victor Berger did some whispering, and to Paula, too: "Do you know he's a poet?" Paula said she knew he was a poet, and twenty years before Carl became famous she repeated to Berger the lines from Robert Browning: Ah, did you once see Shelley plain, And did he stop and speak to you, And did you speak to him again? How strange it seems and new! They were married in June, 1908, six months after their first meeting. There was no ring ceremony, the word "obey" was eliminated with a solemn agreement that one of the parties could call it quits any time he or she decided. A few years later, after a half-serious argument, Paula wondered whether they should invoke the agreement and Carl said, "I'll be damned if I'll go through all that courtin' again." Carl and Paula set up housekeeping in Appleton where they paid four dollars a month rent for three rooms upstairs in a one-and-a-half-story house. They bought a bed, a mattress, and some bedding; Paula made muslin curtains, and several store cartons served as dresser and shelves. In 1909, they moved to Milwaukee. The first child, Margaret, was born in 1911 in Milwaukee about the time Carl became secretary to Emil Seidel, the mayor of that city. At the age of nine, totally without warning, Margaret had an epileptic spasm accompanied by convulsions. The Sandburgs had no money and were not to have any until years later, but they strained their financial resources as well as their thoughts and energies for Margaret. Nerve specialists diagnosed her case as nocturnal epilepsy, as her seizures occurred only during sleep. They advised diet and drugs to relieve the number and severity of attacks. YEARS LATER, after the Sandburgs had moved from Chicago to Michigan, Janet, the second daughter, was hit by a car while crossing the street in front of the Three Oaks High School in Harbert. She was unconscious for a week and lingered many weeks thereafter between life and death. X rays revealed innumerable fine fractures at the base of the skull. When she returned home, a many-windowed upper porch was set aside for her recuperation. After two years, she recovered enough to return to school but has been afflicted ever since with severe recurrent headaches. Despite this handicap, Janet is an active farmer and a fervent fan of both baseball and politics. The girls were the Spink and Skabootch to whom "Rootabaga Stories" were dedicated. The youngest daughter, Helga, Carl calls Swipes. Helga writes poetry and won a short story prize in 1958. She has also published two novels. When "The Prairie Years" was sold for $30,000, the world did not know the tears Carl and Paula Sandburg shed that evening because of their concern about the future of Margaret and Janet. They felt that both girls, who would never really be able to earn their own livelihoods, were at last assured a fair chance of happiness. This is what has concerned Carl through all his productive years and explains his great care in handling of money. Under the most rigid rules, daughter Margaret may be called an expert bibliophile. Newly developed medication and drugs have overcome her disability. She has inherited from both her parents a love of books and a mind capable of absorbing and analyzing great literature. Those who have worked around Carl have come to value Margaret's exceptional abilities. Sandburg refuses to have his library catalogued, which numbers 15,000 volumes (this after the sale of a huge library, along with manuscripts of his Lincoln biography, to the University of Illinois). "I know where everything is," he says, "and I don't want it touched." I've discovered, however, that his confidence is based on Margaret, who can unerringly walk to a shelf or a sealed box and pull out the book or document he is looking for. Carl Sandburg rarely spends money on himself and at the height of his career looks as unpressed as he did when he was a $27.50 newspaperman. When he goes out to make a speech, he'll put on a white shirt and his usual bow tie and Sunday suit, but when he is home he wears old pants and a lumberjack shirt, his favorite costume. He can not get himself to throw anything away, including several pairs of shoes ranging in age from ten to thirty years. He calls his throat the voice box and has all sorts of mufflers that he wraps around his neck when he goes out of the house to take his evening walks. Of recent years he has grown accustomed to having a blanket over his knees as he sits and writes or reads. At eighty-three, if he has such a thing as an ailment of any kind, perhaps his eyes are not as good as they were twenty years ago, but he watches them carefully and rests them as often as possible. He has thirty or forty walking sticks, but for his long walks along the mountain trails of Connemara he carries an axe and chops away at branches and dead wood along the way. The friends and tourists keep winding up that long trail from the highway to the Connemara house. Sometimes he "can't see anyone today." On occasion, Carl will sit and talk for an hour or two with these strangers. About a year or so ago a couple from Pennsylvania "dropped in" on the way home from Florida. They talked, got their autographs, and as they were leaving the porch the woman impulsively walked over to Carl and kissed him. The woman immediately stepped back embarrassed and started to apologize to Paula, who laughed and said: "That's all right, he belongs to the world." I have seen Carl go into a towering Viking rage if a letter or book has been misplaced. When Mrs. Sandburg or Margaret hands it to him, along with the evidence that it was exactly where he had hidden it himself, Carl always buries his face in his hands, and they laugh with him as he says, "Please forgive me, please forgive me." UNLESS there's a heavy rain or snow, Carl, Paula, and Margaret take an evening walk. When I visit Connemara I join them. Janet, who helps her mother with the goat herd, keeps the regular hours of a farmer; she is at the barns at sunrise and usually says "good-night" after supper. The three Sandburgs walk a measured mile along the dark path, each one armed with a flashlight. The return is slower because it is uphill, and they stop every few yards to look at the stars and talk. To avoid using the flashlight unless it is absolutely necessary, they always walk holding hands, "a good habit to get into," says Carl. When Sandburg is home his laughter rings through the entire house; and when he is off on a trip, Mrs. Sandburg and the girls laugh at every letter he writes. Since they have three telephone extensions, all join in laughing during his daily telephone call. "I'll be home in February," he wrote from Hollywood to Paula, "we'll take our walks again, holding hands." Excerpted from "Carl Sandburg" by Harry Golden. Copyright © 1961 by Harry Golden. To be published November 20th by The World Publishing Co. Suburbia Today, October 1961 13
Coral Gables Historical Archive