About a year ago while performing my routine web searches on Agnes, I came across a listing of an author's university-based archive who had written a short story titled My Adventures as Agnes Moorehead's Sister. The story was not available to read online from what I could tell, nor from anywhere other than at that university. I wondered if the author, Clarence Major, might have known Agnes' sister Margaret and had written a first-person story about her.
Then a few months later I found that the story had been published in a west coast literary Journal named Zyzzyva, which has a web site and even an open online archive of past issues. However, this story had appeared in their Summer 1991 issue and their online archive stopped at 1996. I emailed the editor and he very kindly shipped me a free copy of the issue.
The story is three and a half pages and is written in an unconventional, perhaps experimental style. The first person narrator has no relation to the real Agnes nor her sister Margaret (that I can tell) and aside from the title there is just one brief passage that mentions Agnes -- I do hope Mr. Major wouldn't mind if I quote it here:
Being the concrete thinker that I am it's difficult for me to understand this type of writing and the meanings behind it. Probably about as difficult as to understand Agnes' real sister.
There is little information publicly available about Margaret Ann Moorehead beyond what is written in the second edition of Tranberg's biography of Agnes, but I have found a little bit more. Peggy, as she was called, was born 23 April 1906 in Hamilton, Ohio -- not in Clinton, Mass before the family relocated as Tranberg reported. This means she was five years younger than Agnes, not two years younger, and that when Agnes would eventually begin to state the year of her own birth as 1906 she was actually using her sister's year.
Peggy was twenty-three years of age when she died on 14 July 1929 -- not twenty-six and dying on 15 July as Tranberg reported. This means that the telegram he found dated the 14th asking Agnes to come home (her family was living in Columbus, Ohio at this time) was not sent the day before Peggy died but on the day itself, and so Agnes would not have had time to see her sister again before her passing. [In fact, in the letter to Margaret that Agnes wrote in her AADA notebook after the funeral, where she was trying to deal with her feelings, when Agnes writes: "How I wanted to see you -- and yet the thought of seeing you . . . was beyond my strength" -- it is easy to see that this refers to Agnes as unable to bring herself to view her sister's remains.]
It appears that Peggy had been hospitalized a few days before her death, at the Miami Valley facility in Dayton, which has led some to believe that she died of a heart ailment, but the second edition of the book notes that Tranberg received subsequent reports that Peggy had died by suicide. Her action was taken from a broken heart, of a failed romance with a man she had loved.
Little else is known about Peggy. Agnes spoke rarely about her sister in public, and when she did it would be a quick reference to when they were both children and getting into some mischief. As far as I know there are no publicly-available photos of Peggy, from any time of her life; the couple of photos I've found of Agnes as a child are of her alone, not with family. It is believed Peggy may have worked as a nurse. She did not marry and had no children.
The will of Agnes' and Peggy's mother Mollie contains bequests to various churches and religious institutions. Her bequest to the United Presbyterian Church in Clinton, Mass. had been "in memory of Rev. and Mrs. John Moorehead and Agnes Moorehead, their daughter," while her bequest to the United Presbyterian Church in Hamilton, Ohio had been "in memory of Rev. and Mrs. John Moorehead, and their two daughters, Agnes Moorehead and Margaret Ann Moorehead." Margaret hadn't been born yet while the family was living in Clinton, so she is not named in that memorial.
I wonder sometimes how different Agnes' life might have been if her sister had lived and had been there to share in her adult life; and if Agnes had come to have nieces and nephews from her. As it was, once her father had passed in 1938 the only immediate family Agnes had was her mother. Agnes loved her little sister very much.
Then a few months later I found that the story had been published in a west coast literary Journal named Zyzzyva, which has a web site and even an open online archive of past issues. However, this story had appeared in their Summer 1991 issue and their online archive stopped at 1996. I emailed the editor and he very kindly shipped me a free copy of the issue.
The story is three and a half pages and is written in an unconventional, perhaps experimental style. The first person narrator has no relation to the real Agnes nor her sister Margaret (that I can tell) and aside from the title there is just one brief passage that mentions Agnes -- I do hope Mr. Major wouldn't mind if I quote it here:
____________
"Agnes Moorehead arrives at the door. She's my long-lost sister, she's just arrived from the Orient. She, too, wants to know about the failure of my fiction, the success of my venture in the fur trade.
Agnes and I watched the late show together. She was in it, it was Citizen Kane. We ate Hershey bars and she told me stories about sweet Charlotte and showboat people she met while away on a summer holiday. I told her about Charles and the success of Dixieapple. Then I whispered, 'The body has caved in on itself, yet the person in it goes on seeing and understanding certain facts about the trees outside.'
This scared her. She jumped up and ran from the room and I never saw her again, except on the late show."
____________
Being the concrete thinker that I am it's difficult for me to understand this type of writing and the meanings behind it. Probably about as difficult as to understand Agnes' real sister.
There is little information publicly available about Margaret Ann Moorehead beyond what is written in the second edition of Tranberg's biography of Agnes, but I have found a little bit more. Peggy, as she was called, was born 23 April 1906 in Hamilton, Ohio -- not in Clinton, Mass before the family relocated as Tranberg reported. This means she was five years younger than Agnes, not two years younger, and that when Agnes would eventually begin to state the year of her own birth as 1906 she was actually using her sister's year.
Peggy was twenty-three years of age when she died on 14 July 1929 -- not twenty-six and dying on 15 July as Tranberg reported. This means that the telegram he found dated the 14th asking Agnes to come home (her family was living in Columbus, Ohio at this time) was not sent the day before Peggy died but on the day itself, and so Agnes would not have had time to see her sister again before her passing. [In fact, in the letter to Margaret that Agnes wrote in her AADA notebook after the funeral, where she was trying to deal with her feelings, when Agnes writes: "How I wanted to see you -- and yet the thought of seeing you . . . was beyond my strength" -- it is easy to see that this refers to Agnes as unable to bring herself to view her sister's remains.]
It appears that Peggy had been hospitalized a few days before her death, at the Miami Valley facility in Dayton, which has led some to believe that she died of a heart ailment, but the second edition of the book notes that Tranberg received subsequent reports that Peggy had died by suicide. Her action was taken from a broken heart, of a failed romance with a man she had loved.
Little else is known about Peggy. Agnes spoke rarely about her sister in public, and when she did it would be a quick reference to when they were both children and getting into some mischief. As far as I know there are no publicly-available photos of Peggy, from any time of her life; the couple of photos I've found of Agnes as a child are of her alone, not with family. It is believed Peggy may have worked as a nurse. She did not marry and had no children.
The will of Agnes' and Peggy's mother Mollie contains bequests to various churches and religious institutions. Her bequest to the United Presbyterian Church in Clinton, Mass. had been "in memory of Rev. and Mrs. John Moorehead and Agnes Moorehead, their daughter," while her bequest to the United Presbyterian Church in Hamilton, Ohio had been "in memory of Rev. and Mrs. John Moorehead, and their two daughters, Agnes Moorehead and Margaret Ann Moorehead." Margaret hadn't been born yet while the family was living in Clinton, so she is not named in that memorial.
I wonder sometimes how different Agnes' life might have been if her sister had lived and had been there to share in her adult life; and if Agnes had come to have nieces and nephews from her. As it was, once her father had passed in 1938 the only immediate family Agnes had was her mother. Agnes loved her little sister very much.
1 comments:
Patty Griffin
kite song lyrics
"Little sister just remember
As you wander through the blue
The little kite that you sent flying
On a sunny afternoon
Made of something light as nothing
Made of joy that matters too
How the little dreams we dream
Are all we can really do"
This song reminds me of sisters and how precious they are, and I hope wherever Agnes
is now she is with Margaret too. :)
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