IOWA WOMEN’S ARCHIVES
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA LIBRARIES
IOWA CITY, IOWA
PHILIP L. GERBER (1923- )
PAPERS, 1988,
1989
3.5 linear inches
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ACQUISITION: |
The papers (donor no. 190) were donated by Philip L. Gerber in 1993. |
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ACCESS: |
The papers are open for research. |
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COPYRIGHT: |
Copyright has been transferred to the University of Iowa. |
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PROCESSED BY: |
Margaret Richardson, 1998. |
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Biography
Philip Gerber, author of books on Theodore Dreiser, Robert
Frost, and Willa Cather, is professor of English at the State University of New
York College at Brockport, New York.
Gerber, a native South Dakotan, discovered the homesteading letters of
Elizabeth Corey in the South Dakota Historical Society in Pierre, South
Dakota. He edited them in a volume
published in 1990 by the University of Iowa Press entitled Bachelor BESS: The Homesteading Letters of Elizabeth Corey,
1909-1919. The letters, written to
Corey’s widowed mother and six siblings in Iowa, reflect Corey’s single-handed
staking of a claim and simultaneous school teaching experiences from 1909 to
1919. Corey, born in 1887, grew up on a
farm near Marne, Iowa, the second oldest in a family of seven children. Upon the sudden death of her father in 1905,
seventeen-year-old Bess Corey quit high school, attended a summer session of
normal school, and began teaching school in rural western Iowa. In 1909 she boarded a Northwestern Railway
train bound west, arriving in Midland, South Dakota, a town of 400
residents. Taking advantage of the 1862
Homestead Act, Corey took out papers on a 160-acre claim, vowing to prove
herself and her land in the requisite time.
To support herself and pay for the shack she had constructed, she taught
school. She maintained this routine for
ten years, writing a total of 180 letters to her family. Corey died in 1954 and is buried at Monroe
Church Cemetery in Marne, Iowa.
Scope and Content Note
The Gerber papers date from 1988 to 1989 and measure 3.5 linear inches.
The papers consist of the prospectus that Gerber sent to the publisher
of “A Girl Alone: The Homesteading
Letters of Elizabeth Corey,” and the subsequent manuscript of the edited
letters, entitled Bachelor BESS: The
Homesteading Letters of Elizabeth Corey, 1909-1919. The letters reside in the South Dakota
Historical Society, Pierre, South Dakota.
Related Collections
Elizabeth Corey papers, South Dakota Historical Society,
Pierre, South Dakota.
Papers of Paul Corey, University of Iowa Libraries,
Special Collections Department.
Box no. Description
Box 1
Prospectus: “A Girl Alone: The Homesteading Letters of Elizabeth
Corey”
Manuscript: Bachelor BESS: the Homesteading Letters of Elizabeth Corey