Author Pearl Buck died in Vermont on March 6, 1973, at age 80. She was born in 1892 at her maternal grandparents’ home at Hillsboro in Pocahontas County. Buck grew up with Southern Presbyterian missionary parents who traveled around the world. To her, the family home at Hillsboro—now a museum—represented “security and peace.”
At an early age, she spent time with her parents in China and learned to speak Chinese almost as early as English. She later visited small Chinese farming villages, which would provide settings for her most popular novels.
Her literary career began with the book East Wind: West Wind in 1930, followed by The Good Earth, which won the 1932 Pulitzer Prize. Over the next four decades, Buck wrote more than 100 works of fiction and nonfiction and, in 1938, became the first American woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Perhaps her most lasting legacies are the Welcome House, which she founded in 1949 to oversee the adoption of mixed-race children, and the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, established in 1964 to care for Amerasian children in their home countries.
A grapevine clipping from the home of Pearl S. Buck, a world renowned author with West Virginia roots, just arrived in Michigan and soon will be planted at a high school literary garden.
It began as an idea last summer. Jennifer McQuillan teaches literature at West Bloomfield High School in Michigan, and she wanted to give her students something that would get them off their phones- and become better connected to the writing in decades old books.
“There are gardens that are devoted to Emily Dickinson or to Shakespeare, but there’s not been a garden in a secondary school setting that brings together important plants from American authors like this anywhere, to our knowledge,” said McQuillan.
Since last August, the garden has grown. Thirty-four plants have been sent from the homesteads of American authors, including Kurt Vonnegut, Ernest Hemingway and Alice Walker.
McQuillan says she wasn’t quite sure if the students would connect the garden with the literature she was teaching them.
“The turning point came around December, when we were reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Buds and Bird Voices”. And he writes about a lilac bush out of his window. And we had that lilac bush growing in the literary garden. And that was the moment when the kids went, ‘oh my gosh, we have something really special here.’”
Fast forward to this summer. McQuillan’s garden will soon include a clipping from a 120-year-old grapevine that drapes across the front entrance to the birthplace of writer Pearl S. Buck
Kirk Judd, a board member for the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace Foundation, says Buck wrote about the grapevine. “She remembers being 9 years old, sitting on the upper level porch, reading her Charles Dickens, and eating grapes from the grapevine.”
Grapevine at Stulting House, Pearl S. Buck’s grandparents’ home where she was born,
Judd says that even though she spent most of her childhood abroad, Pearl S. Buck always thought of West Virginia as home.
Born at her grandparents’ home in Hillsboro, West Virginia, Buck was the first American woman awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, and her bestselling novel The Good Earth won the Pulitzer Prize.
She passed away in 1973. But the grapevine that she remembered so vividly from her West Virginia birthplace is very much still alive.
Jennifer McQuillan says it’s the first plant they’ve received from West Virginia. She teaches Pearl Buck’s writing in both her American and World Literature classes. McQuillan says she’s really happy to add Buck to the literary garden- both as an American and a world author who wrote extensively about China, her other home away from West Virginia.
“Because she’s sought both as a native author and as an author who is making her mark in another country as well. So I think that’s a really compelling story and I’m really excited to share that story with my students this fall.”
McQuillan will be working with her students to connect Buck’s writing to the grapevine they’ll be planting this summer, with the help of master gardeners in Michigan. She hopes both the grapevine, and a love for literature, will take root and grow.
The West Virginia Humanities Council and West Virginia University say the first three-day “Living Gateway” conference will begin Sept. 11 at the Erickson Alumni Center at WVU.
The title of the conference refers to Buck’s Pocahontas County birthplace. In her book “My Mother’s House,” Buck called for the family home to live again and said it was her own “gateway to America.”
Buck was the first American woman to receive the Nobel Prize for literature in 1938. Her book “The Good Earth” won the 1932 Pulitzer Prize.
The West Virginia Humanities Council said in a statement that tours of Buck’s manuscript collection at WVU will be offered during the conference. There will also be panel discussions around her work.
West Virginia University announced a partnership with West Virginia Wesleyan College that will honor and celebrate, preserve and offer for research a collection of works by Pulitzer Prize winning author and Nobel Laureate Pearl S. Buck.
Message from WVU: In order to preserve and promote the legacy of Pearl S. Buck, West Virginia University and West Virginia Wesleyan College are collaborating with the Pearl S, Buck Birthplace Foundation to increase use of the Pearl S. Buck Collection and stimulate Pearl S. Buck studies in West Virginia and beyond. Goals of this partnership include archival preservation, the creation of a Pearl S. Buck Collection website, and the development of education and outreach initiatives including research grants, a biennial conference and award, and a new publication series through the WVU Press.
West Virginia’s Pearl
Pearl S. Buck was born in 1892 in Hillsboro, West Virginia. Three months later, her missionary parents moved with her to China where she spent the large majority of the first 40 years of her life. Can West Virginians claim her as one of their own? A resounding “yes” could be heard in the halls of the WVU library which will now be home to many of her writings.
WVU President Gordon Gee kicked off a recent event in Morgantown to celebrate the collection of the late author. Gee spoke about Buck’s connection to West Virginia.
Many of Pearl Buck’s life experiences and political views can be discovered in her writings. She covered a wide range of topics from immigration, adoption, and war, to women’s rights.
In fact, in a 1958 interview with Pearl Buck, Mike Wallace tried to pin her down as a militant, man-hating feminist. Buck was very reserved and rejected the title. She said she worried for men and women in a society trying to prepare them both for a manner of success defined in patriarchal terms. Then… she transcended the question completely and spoke on the lonely human condition in the West and the burdens of freedom:
A Rock Star
Buck began to write in the twenties and continued to write until her death in March of 1973, authoring some 100 works. Her first novel, East Wind, West Wind, appeared in 1930. Her second book The Good Earth stood on the American list of best sellers for a long time and earned her several awards, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1932. Then in 1938, Buck became the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature.
“She was sort of a rock star at that time, and so when she spoke there were always people listening,” said acting president of the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace Foundation, Kirk Judd. He said Pearl was truly a citizen of the globe. Armed with fame and considerable fortune, a global perspective, an education, and steeped in West Virginian morals, she became an outspoken humanitarian. Judd said she’s considered by many to have been wise beyond her years.
The Collection
The Buck collection of manuscripts and other documents which were housed for many years at WV Wesleyan found a new home at WVU. The collection is owned by the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace Foundation, and includes over 70 of her works including novels, short stories, and children’s books—all of which will also be made available online.
Jolie Lewis is a former board member of the foundation who came up to see the collection dedicated in Morgantown.
Lewis also echoed remarks uttered during the dedication, imparting that Pearl S. Buck’s work is a treasure and a source of inspiration for all West Virginians.
West Virginia University and West Virginia Wesleyan College are honoring award-winning author and Nobel laureate Pearl S. Buck.
The schools are hosting an event Thursday in Morgantown along with the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace Foundation.
The event is part of Mountaineer Week – a weeklong celebration of West Virginia’s heritage and culture.
Buck’s novel “The Good Earth” won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 and helped earn her the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938.
WVU President Gordon Gee says Buck’s worldwide fame as an author and her tireless work as a humanitarian took her far from Pocahontas County where she was born.
But Gee says Buck ways remained connected to her roots nestled in the Mountain State.
The West Virginia native died in 1973 at the age of 80.
