The Role of Digitized Newspapers in the Ella Higginson Recovery Project: Dr. Laura Laffrado for the Readex Report

Dr. Laura Laffrado's recent essay about the role of digitized newspaper databases in literary recovery projects in the Readex Report.

Dr. Laura Laffrado, Director of the Ella Higginson Recovery Project, has been featured in the latest issue of the Readex Report. Readex is a publisher of primary sources and works to increase access to those sources through online databases. After using Readex's Early American Newspapers database, a digital archive featuring national and local newspapers, Dr. Laffrado found two poems by Ella Higginson that she had never heard of. The poems were written early in Higginson's career and were not widely circulated.

In the Readex Report, Dr. Laffrado explains her work with resources like the Early American Newspapers database in tracking down Higginson's writing. Dr. Laffrado has catalogued over 800 Higginson pieces from physical and digital archives. Laffrado writes, "This recent availability of digitized American newspapers with varying circulations and from all U.S. geographical regions has opened unique possibilities for discovering lost works and references."

The earlier published of the two new poems is "Just Once," which appears in the Daily Nebraska State Journal on October 21, 1888.

If we, who never met, should meet,
        And, after meeting, come to know
That, if we had but sooner met,
        We might have loved each other so;

If, after meeting many times,
        The thought should swell into regret
That God had not ordained it so,
        That we in freedom could have met;

If, looking in each other's eyes—
        The while both knew the same sweet care,
And all but passion—conquered—we
        Should read the same thought written there;

If, knowing, then, that we must walk
        Henceforth in ways as far apart
As sea to sea, because we saw
        What trembled in each other's heart;

Then, if but for one single time,
        Well knowing, too, that it was wrong,
Our lips should meet in one last kiss,
        Replete with passion, tender, long;

Would this, I say, be sin so black—
        Let those all sinless cast the stone—
That a whole blameless after life
        Could never for it quite atone?


The second poem is "O, Puget Sound" which appears in the Tacoma publication Every Sunday on September 13, 1890.

O, Puget sound that sparkles at my feet,
How soft thou art! How pure, and cool, and sweet!
        One great, red poppy in the sunset's sheen,
        The sky above, the golden haze between—
Sunbeams and moonbeams on they bosom meet.

Thou proudly bearest many a white-winged fleet
Upon thy channel's quiet, peaceful street,
        And purple skies to kiss thee ever lean—
                O, Puget sound!

Care that would rack my bosom canst cheat
Canst cool and quiet passion's restless heat:
        And when I stoop to thy arms, soft and green,
        I feel thy kisses thrill with rapture keen,
And my sad heart with thy heart, passionate beat
                O, Puget sound!


To read about Dr. Laffrado fascinating work on the Ella Higginson Recovery Project in digital newspaper archives, follow this link:
https://www.readex.com/readex-report/value-digitized-newspaper-collections-researching-neglected-womens-writing-two-newly?cmpid=RDX.RDXRPT

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Ella Higginson Grove in the Federation Forest State Park

Photo credit: Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission #35.0.2010.2.2 Date: currently undetermined.

In Federation Forest State Park in Enumclaw, Washington, there is a special grove of trees dedicated to Ella Higginson. The Ella Higginson Grove is on land that was donated by Ella Higginson’s closest friend, Catherine Montgomery, in 1952.

Photo credit: Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission #35.0.2010.2.3 Date: currently undetermined.

Two photos of the grove were sent to Dr. Laura Laffrado, Director of the Ella Higginson Recovery Project, after her op-ed piece about Ella Higginson's thoughts on the over-development of the Pacific Northwest was published in the Seattle Times a few weeks ago. To read Dr. Laffrado's op-ed, click this link: https://ellahigginson.blogspot.com/2019/02/laments-over-unbridled-growth-in-our.html

An unidentified newspaper reports in January 1952 on the grove's establishment, "This transaction has been completed recently by the way of a gift from Miss Catherine Montgomery, a retired faculty member of the Western Washington College of Education. One of the factors of a close friendship between these two distinguished women was their shared love of the Northwest's beautiful outdoors."

The article continues, "The newly acquired Ella Higginson Grove adjoins the Federation Forest on the east side, and has some frontage on the transcontinental highway, with close proximity to the White river which borders the south side of the whole park. This grove will prove a valuable and important addition to the park, not only in its beauty, but from an historic standpoint, as the old Naches Trail, a favorite of early pioneers, enters the park at the Higginson Grove boundary."

Catherine Montgomery. Image courtesy of the Pacific Crest Trail Association. Source: https://www.pcta.org/2017/mother-pacific-crest-trail-catherine-montgomery-48060/

Catherine Montgomery was born on Prince Edward Island in 1867. She moved to Bellingham, Washington in 1899 to accept a position of one of the founding faculty members of what would become Western Washington University. Higginson and Montgomery were close friends until Higginson's death in 1940. When Montgomery died in 1957, she donated her entire estate to the Federation Forest park, which was eventually used to construct the Catherine Montgomery Interpretive Center.

Montgomery is best remembered for proposing the idea of the Pacific Crest Trail in 1926. To read more about her involvement in the Pacific Crest Trail's beginnings, read the Pacific Crest Trail Association's article "Meet the mother of the Pacific Crest Trail" by following this link: https://www.pcta.org/2017/mother-pacific-crest-trail-catherine-montgomery-48060/

Federation Forest State Park exists today because of the admirable efforts of members of the General Federation of Women's Clubs of Washington, formerly known as the Washington State Federation of Women's Clubs. Jeanne Caithness Greenlees, former president of the Snohomish district of the Federation, was a timber conservationist who proposed the idea of the park to Esther Maltby, the sixteenth state presidents of the Federation. Maltby and Helen Sutton, who also served as a state president, worked together on the park's dedication, which took place in 1949. To learn more about the history of Federation Forest State Park, watch this video produced by the Federation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG5z__oU5Yc

To more about the General Federation of Women's Clubs of Washington State and how to get involved, visit their site at: https://www.gfwcws.org/

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