Postcards from the Vatican, remarks by Christopher Corbally

Postcards from the Vatican

So Jeannette kept a number of the postcards that I sent her while on my
summer travels – how lovely to know this! The cards helped confirm the
dates of my stay with her before I headed for the IRAS conferences on
Star Island. But they had a mischievous element since, when I wrote
them, I was often at the Vatican Observatory’s headquarters in Castel
Gandolfo and so could find a picture with a Papal theme to grace
Jeannette’s home. That a Jesuit priest in the Pope’s service could have
such a deep friendship with so solid a Unitarian might be one of the
world’s wonders, but on reflection it is not so surprising. Jeannette
was devoted to the truth in whatever form it can be found, and this was
the basis of our conversations which I shall always treasure. Yes,
Jeannette’s large spirit lives on in all of us who knew and continue to
love her dearly.

Christopher Corbally, S.J.
Vice Director
Vatican Observatory




Here's a photo of Jeannette and Chris Corbally as he was on his way to or from Star Island.  

Poem about death bookmarked by Jeannette

The book next to Jeannette's bed  was Richard Wilbur's Anterooms which Jeannette had told her neighbor was "all about death."  Here is the poem that Jeannette had marked with her business card at the time she died, one she had clearly been reading recently.

The House

by Richard Wilbur August 31, 2009

Sometimes, on waking, she would close her eyes

For a last look at that white house she knew

In sleep alone, and held no title to,

And had not entered yet, for all her sighs.

What did she tell me of that house of hers?

White gatepost; terrace; fanlight of the door;

A widow’s walk above the bouldered shore;

Salt winds that ruffle the surrounding firs.

Is she now there, wherever there may be?

Only a foolish man would hope to find

That haven fashioned by her dreaming mind.

Night after night, my love, I put to sea.

Here's a link to the Richard Wilber reading his poems, with the second one being "The House."
http://www.kwls.org/podcasts/richard_wilbur_2010/



Remarks of Author Matthew Klingle at Jeannette's Memorial Service

Author Matthew Klingle's remarks:

The day I met Jeannette six-plus years ago, sheets of snow fell sideways as I tried to keep from sliding off the Maine Turnpike.  It was February, yet more than chilling than the weather was the prospect of meeting my future editor.  I already knew of her formidable reputation; a senior colleague and friend, Anne Whiston Spirn, had recommended her with ample warning.  Plus, thanks to Google, I saw the distinguished list of authors she had advised.  I thought I knew what I had agreed to until Jeannette opened the door.  Then, I slipped off the road completely.

As we sat in her sitting room, with her Tibetan spaniel, Star, sniffing my ankles and finding me most uninteresting, Jeannette briefly praised my very rough manuscript before saying: “You can write very well, even beautifully, and you are a prodigious researcher but you are often an undisciplined thinker and the entire manuscript lacks any form.”  Ouch.  And the criticisms only got more incisive from there. Non-stop. At least I took some comfort when she said I was one of the few authors who cooked eggs properly (if scrambled, soft and slightly runny with not too much butter) or made a martini correctly (dry, but not banishing vermouth completely).  On most days with Jeannette, I was completely lost.

As I recounted my experiences to colleagues at Bowdoin and beyond, most thought I was a masochist.  A few, however, realized what a gift I had received.  Soon, I realized it, too.  In every criticism of metaphors overextended, assertions unsupported, grammar forgotten, or storylines neglected there was a constant stream of support.  She was tough because she thought I could take it; more accurately, she believed absolutely that what I had to say mattered.  Every critique, every marked-up page was confirmation of that even when doubts gnawed at my confidence.

In Jeannette, I had more than an editor; I had a mentor in the original sense in Homeric myth.  Between discussions over my manuscript, she listened patiently to my anxieties as a young professor and new father.  Just as readily, she offered advice (Jeannette always had an opinion) but she offered something else, too: courage tempered by wisdom.  When I worried that my final book might be too political and interdisciplinary for an untenured historian, she parried my angst by saying: buck up and have the guts to stand by what you write.  I did and I continue to reap the benefits of my courage.

Over time, I discovered the foundation of her own strong convictions: her work.  Listening to adventures in journalism or many years in publishing, I was reminded that Google cannot yet tell us everything about a person’s life.  Every visit revealed an extraordinary woman committed to justice, to equality, to scholarship and to good books.  Each anecdote she told about an author or social activist or editor emboldened me because I saw that each encounter she recounted had emboldened her. 

In the end, it was the privilege of joining Jeannette’s life that I treasure most.  On my last visit earlier this spring, between conversations and eating, I looked again at her shelves.  There, on the wall, sandwiched between some of the greatest men and women of postwar American letters.  Later, she remarked that she recently used me as an example for another nervous first-time author of great promise who was reluctant to believe in their work.  At that moment, I realized I had become a true scholar and author.  Jeannette had helped to make me into the person I had wanted to become.

I’m forever grateful that a path I never anticipated traveling brought me to Portsmouth today to honor this singular human being. I grieve that I cannot work with her on another book, yet my gratitude toward her is boundless.  She may be gone, but the work remains.  There are more roads yet to travel and she has pointed the way.

Letter from Author Eugene Genovese

September 4, 2011

Jeannette was the greatest editor I ever met or hoped to meet.   I thought  I wrote well, at least for a historian, but she taught me more about English than even Miss Omelia, my grammar school teacher, who was  almost as cantankerous, no nonsense and withering in her criticism as J. herself.

We argued a lot.  Usually she won, even if she were wrong.  I somehow doubt that anyone won an argument with J.  My first beating occurred when she became editor of my book Roll Jordon Roll and suggested that we have a get acquainted lunch.  I immediately sized her up as a formidable woman I did not want for an enemy.  Then she dropped the hammer.  She insisted on paying for lunch.  I was appalled and tried to argue.  No woman had ever picked up the check for me.  I stood  on my male prerogatives, my adherence to the chivalrous code and on the proper order of the universe.    Jeannette who  knew I was a Marxist, harrumphed “You men are all alike.  You are my guest.  Get used to it.”

I thought this partnership wouldn’t work.  We’ll be at each other’s throats over every page I write.   And indeed we often argued, not only about the book but about politics and religion.  What could I do.  How do you out argue Jeannette?

Jeannette was a great editor for a reason that transcended her extraordinary skills.  What drew me to her especially, what made it easy to accept her in your face toughness was her integrity.  Her integrity manifested itself in an admirable ability to concede your premises and then make sure your argument flowed logically from those premises and that you put forth evidence.

She often disagreed with my premises and my politics.  I was well to her left in my early days and to her right in my later years.  When I returned to the Catholic church, she received the news graciously, but I could imagine her saying sotte voce, of course you’re wrong as usual.   But never did our disagreements weaken our mutual respect and affection.   And now I finally win the biggest of all battles.  I can easily imagine her mashing her teeth when she hears that I am praying to my triune god to have mercy on a great woman, even as a Unitarian, and to welcome her into the kingdom of heaven.

The father, the son, the holy ghost and the blessed mother will not have an easy time arguing with her, but in the deepest recess of my heart, I know they will find some way to cope. 

Letter from author Claire Lyu

Remarks of Claire Lyu, author of A Sun within a Sun: the Power and Elegance of Poetry- (2006, University of Pittsburgh Press). 

In gratitude to Jeannette Hopkins

-- Jeannette Hopkins has held every single page, and more, being with me every step of the way.  Without her clarity, exactitude, and generosity, this book simply would not be.  I thank her for seeing the book I was yet to write and for helping me see it myself and bring it into being for others to see.

I had written these words in 2006 in the acknowledgment of my book and feel that they resonate as true as ever now.  Back then, there was no doubt that I was going to work with Jeannette on my second book; now I know that I won't be doing so.  But when I think of it, what she has taught me continues to live in me, so I have been, and will be, writing with Jeannette always.  She has opened the possibility of writing the best book I possibly could as first time author racing with the tenure clock.  

Fearless writing -- in the sense of not compromising with external pressure, staying true to the thoughts and words that arise, writing the book that wants to be written -- this is what Jeannette taught me.  It is the best gift any writer could ever hope for.

Thank you so much Jeannette.  I love you.

Claire 
(I received tenure in the French Department at the University of Virginia in 2005 thanks to the book which I worked on with Jeanette and which came out in 2006)

Remarks of Jeannette's cousin, Jeanne Bustard

I am Jeanne Bustard, one of Jeannette’s cousins. She and my mother were first cousins. I didn’t really know her when I was young, but I did know how much my family admired her. Probably everyone here is aware of Jeannette’s accomplishments: as an editor, a political and social activist, and as a leader of the Unitarian church.

But I’ve been thinking of her recently, as someone who had a deep and abiding interest in people. Now, Jeannette’s love of people was not what I would think of as gentle and nurturing. Jeannette challenged those she loved. Anyone who knew her knew she was a woman of strong opinions, who saw issues in black and white with few grays.  Now I’m a person who sees a lot of gray areas in most issues.  In a typical exchange with Jeannette, she would ask me about my views on something. Usually, she seemed to see it as a simple question to be answered in a word or two.   “What grade would you give Obama’s presidency?” or “Do you see yourself as a real Liberal or (a mere) Moderate?”  My mind, however, was saying, “Well, on the one hand…but on the other hand…” And while I was beginning to formulate my complicated response, Jeannette would usually go on to something else entirely different, leaving me frustrated at not getting to give my answer. 

Jeannette had long, lasting friendships with people from all aspects of her life, and she made new friends constantly, even in recent years when she could barely get out at all.  I think one reason that she was such a fine editor, aside from her consummate skill and intelligence, was that she cared deeply about the authors with whom she worked.  She was interested in who they were, their interests, their experiences and their goals.  A few months ago, when my husband and I visited her, she was brimming with excitement about the current group of authors and the new topics that she was learning about as she worked with them.  People who knew her well felt her interest in them and her caring.

Jeannette loved her family.  Both her mother and sister, Sue, lived with her during their last years of life.  She adored each of her nieces and nephews.  I hope the five of you know how much you were loved and how much you meant to her.  I came to know Jeannette well because of the kindness and caring that she, Sue, and the whole Gray family showed my mother when she was dying of cancer.  I am forever grateful to all of them.

Jeannette had high standards for herself and for those she loved, and she challenged us all to live up to those standards.  While I didn’t always agree with her or with what she was quite sure was best for me, she made me think long and hard about my ideas and choices and she made me strive to be the best person I could be in my own light, even if not always in hers.  That was one of her gifts to me. She made me a better person, and her caring for me meant a lot. I loved her and will miss her presence in my life.

Letter from Book Designer, Joyce Kachergis

Shortly after Jeannette became director of Wesleyan University Press, she called me and asked
me to come to Middletown to discuss designing Wes Press books.  That was the first of many
visits that I made to Middletown to see Jeannette and discuss books and schedules. Whether Jeannette was in her office on campus, sitting on the couch in her living room, or in a chaise lounge on the screened in porch at the side of her big house, Jeannette was always surrounded by manuscripts. In fact at the office, she was sometimes barely visible!

We would often go to a Chinese Restaurant that Jeannette favored. This particular Chinese Restaurant had fortune cookies that sometimes contained unpoetic, straight-forward, even rather grim messages. Once after opening her fortune cookie, Jeannette tossed the message across the table and said “this is yours”. It read, “you have a happy marriage”,  I handed Jeannette mine to open, and she tossed that message to me too, and said, “their both yours”. The second message stated, “you talk too much”.

Kachergis Book Design’s home is a Victorian house that was built right after the Civil War.
We had just had a new phone system installed, and Jeannette called, I told her I would have to call her back because every phone was on some kind of loud speaker and her voice was being  projected into every room. Jeannette said “that is great, I can talk to you all at once”.

We had many funny wonderful times. But when I think of Jeannette Hopkins, I think of a truly talented editor and publisher.  I think of a woman who cared so intently about her craft, I am quite sure she read every manuscript she published and edited many of them too.
I know that she checked each design carefully, and would discuss with me details like the size of the credits for the quotes on the back ad of a book jacket. 

She once said to me, you know we are doing truly important books. And we were. Jeannette 
procured splendid manuscripts from noteworthy scholars. She made the Wesleyan University Press Poetry series one of the very best amongst University Presses. I attended the 25th anniversary of the Wesleyan University Press poetry series and I met the many of the great poets whose poems I had designed, for example, James Tate, Charles Wright, David Ignatow, & Coleen McElroy.

Even though I had been designing books for many years, Jeannette taught me so much.

Thank you, Jeannette.

Joyce Kachergis

Letter from Author Daniel Aaron

I’ve known Jeannette more than 20 years.  I think I met her when I sent my manuscript into Harcourt Brace.  We never lost contact.  Every so often we would call.  I stopped off in Portsmouth a number of times to visit usually working on books.   In recent years, I sent her poems that she edited.  She and I were very, very close.    She was a dear friend.   

She edited three books of mine.  The big book she edited was called Writers on the Left.  That was about communism in the literary movement up until 1939 from the beginning.    Then she edited The Unwritten War.  It was about American writers in the civil war.  I wrote a memoir of myself and she went over that manuscript the University of Michigan press.

She was a good editor, going over a manuscript and aspects that could be developed further or suggesting ideas that would help an episode.. make it more dramatic, make it more interesting and asking questions.

She was very good at asking questions, planning the book and detecting small flaws.

She was a real editor in short, rather than the perfunctory editing that happens these days which isn’t editing at all. 

She was involved with her clients.  It was never perfunctory.  It was something she took seriously.  If she wasn’t interested in it, she wouldn’t do it.

She was very plain spoken.  She knew a great many people and edited very many important books.

She was very blunt, very direct, completely candid.  That’s what I think I liked about her best.  You always knew where you stood... it was always very clear.

She got into trouble sometimes… I remember on one occasion.  I remember we were at a conference in New York, the American Historical Society session.   One of her writers had published a book, maybe it was Kennedy…  A well-known historian  was there and was I think a little drunk.  This historian came storming up and attacked her for publishing this book.  We sat there together, speechless, stunned.   She sat there as I did open-mouthed while this tirade went on.  I’d known him for years and he didn’t address me.   She was good-humored ,  and cool, a real professional.   That was part of her business. 

She was very good with people…, never deferential but always polite and direct.  She was always self-confident… professional in the very best sense.

She was always encouraging too.  She never really criticized me or made me lose confidence in what I was doing. She was always encouraging.  She had an eye for detail… little details that you wouldn’t pick up.

She had a protective feeling about the people she worked with.  Once she chose you, once she accepted you, there was a certain sense of responsibility on her part, not to get you good reviews, not like that.

She regarded her authors as a kind of family with certain privileges.

To be respected, to be given straight answers, not to be deluded by false assurances… simply to be respected as HER author. 

Daniel Aaron

Department of English,

Harvard University

Barker Center

Cambridge, MA  02138

Letter from Author Annie Dillard

     Jeannette was a force of nature. To outsiders, she could seem like a tsunami. She didn’t waste time. Thoreau said, “You cannot waste time without injuring eternity.” This seemed to be her view. She did not waste time on chit-chat. When she concluded her business, on the phone, she hung up. This habit offended her interlocutors; they thought she was furious. I never saw her furious. Well, she was pretty miffed at the acquaintance who asked “Why would YOU have a Christmas tree?” Otherwise she had the mystic calm of a Quaker. She was a committed Unitarian-Universalist—meaning, as the old joke has it, that she believed in “at most, one god.”

     I loved her for giving advice freely. She was patient with her life at Wesleyan University Press, although that life required her every year to educate a new group of clucks, undergraduate workers. The student workers were always misplacing things—letters and typescripts. Everything in the office stopped. Jeannette pressed everyone into searching for that vital, missing thing. Over years, she learned where missing things go. They go RIGHT NEXT to where they are supposed to be.

     She gave this to me as a helpful hint, and I gave it to my husband. We have lived by it ever since.

     Remember Jeannette as the sweetheart she was, who helped freely and loved fully and brought her formidable brain to every task. I beg you also to remember her as the person who noticed that missing things are RIGHT NEXT to where they are supposed to be.

Annie Dillard

9/2/’11

Letter from Author Magda Teter

Here is a letter from Magda Teter, author of Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland: A Beleaguered Church in the Post-Reformation Era, Cambridge University Press, 2006; Sinners on Trial: Jews and Sacrilege after the Reformation, Harvard University Press, 2011).

Jeannette has been one of the most important people in my life, and I say it without exaggeration. Since our first meeting, she has been present and near even when we were apart.  My students and colleagues can feel her presence when I comment on their papers, articles, and book manuscripts.  I cannot pretend I can imitate her – no one can – but she taught me more about writing than anyone else in my entire life.  And while I still have ways to go and improve – which is why she will be missed so sorely – from Jeannette I have learned skills and writing techniques I had not known before.  But that was not all she taught me over the last nine years.

During our first meeting, after Jeannette amazingly read everything scholarly I had written until then – published and unpublished papers, versions of chapters—she told me that my writing was boring. “If you taught the way you write, students would be bored and walk out of your classes,” she said and urged me to find my voice.  And so, I began to look for it. I did find it – apparently to Jeannette’s satisfaction – but not just in my prose.  “Finding my voice” was more than just finding it in writing, I found it also more broadly by gaining more self-confidence as a scholar, teacher, and a colleague. I worked with Jeannette on two books and began working on the third one, but her impact has been much greater and I am grateful for that.

In my first book, I called Jeannette an “academic therapist,” for she was tough. Working with her was sometimes painful, but always rewarding, if one was willing to open up,acknowledge problems, and work through them.  Her frequent barrage of pointed questions was sometimes infuriating but always resulting in a much stronger piece of scholarship and better prose. Thanks to Jeannette I found my voice and learned to use words more effectively.   She will live on as I continue to work on my writing and pass what I learned from her on to my students and colleagues.  I will always be grateful to her. I am grateful for having known her.

Letter from Hermann Giliomee, Prof. Emeritus from the University of Capetown, South Africa

September 3, 2011

Thanks to Richard Elphick interceding I was blessed to have her as editor of my book The Afrikaners: Biography of a People, which was published in 2003 by the University of Virginia Press. She taught me more about writing and using the difficult English language properly than I could ever imagine when we started to work together. For a start she put a thick pencil through all my abstract generalisations and told me in no uncertain terms to proceed with telling the the story. She also gave me the invaluable advice of using sub-divisions and building up the  story.

We had one major disagreement: dealing with apartheid.  When her work was completed she wrote to me  She criticized what she called  my inability to go as far as she would have liked ‘in acknowledging with greater candour and power the evils of apartheid.'

Twenty five-years earlier she had edited Eugene Genovese’s Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaveholders made, a book on the American South that rates among those books I most admire. She was at that point busy editing ‘The Mind of the Master Class’ co-authored by Genovese and his wife Elizabeth Fox-Genovese.

Her message reads as follows:

"The danger few historians are able wholly to resist who write of events close to the present or of issues that dominate the present and about which they care deeply and have so immersed themselves in studying the history, in both your cases of oppressors, that they run the risk of some loss of detachment…For such historians it becomes a daunting task to achieve perfect objectivity and perspective, to understand and describe but not to yield to identification with the subjects of their study that in some degree affects the outcome in their books. It is a tribute to you, and to them [the Genoveses] that they have, most of the time, seldom let personal feelings determine what they write, and even more important, what they omit or fail to focus on. I would say of your book what Orlando Patterson wrote in a review of one of Genovese’s books back in the 1970s, with which he took issue on some questions.  He said that Genovese’s intellectual integrity and vivid research was such that he provided the evidence on the basis of which others could arrive at wholly different conclusions."

It is a comment I shall always treasure.

I am very glad I was able to work with her.  Although I never met her I almost regard her as a friend and teacher. I am sure you will miss her very much.  I am sure you have many fond memories that will sustain you in your loss.

Yours sincerely

Hermann Giliomee

Professor Emeritus in Political Studies

University of Cape Town

 

Jeannette's Library of Books She Edited and/or Published

Every room of Jeannette's house, including the hallways, has at least one full wall, sometimes more, of solid books.  Her dining room is dedicated to all the books that she edited and/or published.  Jeff and I spent a couple hours typing titles, authors and inscriptions this evening, but we only completed the top shelf (of 5 shelves total).   Here's the list so far, title followed by author.  We will try to complete this list of all Jeannette's books before this entire wall of books is sent to Vassar College where she has already sent her personal papers and many important manuscripts.


Top Shelf Only

Out of the Wilderness, John Canup

Peace Games, Theadore Caplow

Mob intent on Death, Courtner

Walter Lipman and his times, edited by Marquis Childs and James Reston

The Peacemakers, Marquis Childs

Taint of Innocence, Marquis Childs

Fatal Glory, Tom Chaffin

Witness to Power, Marquis Childs

Eisenhower, Captive, Hero, Marquis Childs

Thunder on the Right, Allan Crawford

Theft of the Nation, Donald R. Cressey

Arguing with Historians, Richard Nelson Current

Up from Communism, John P. Diggins

Rise and Fall of the American Left, John P. Diggins

Encounters with Chinese Writers, Annie Dillard

Children, Race and Power: Kenneth and Maime Clark’s North Side Center, Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner

The Vanishing American, Brian W. Dippie

Land Without Justice, Milovan Djilas

Heredity and the Nature of Man, Theodosius Dobzhansky

The Evolving Constitution,  Norman Dorsen

Serving Women, Faye E. Dudden

Operation Deep Freeze, Rear Admiral George Dufek:

Note in book:   “To Jeannette Hopkins:  I lived it, told it to Jeannette and she wrote it.  What more can I say, George Dufek.”  (A book about a polar expedition to Antarctica.)

John Foster Dulles:  The last year, Eleanor Lancing Dulles

Psyche as Hero, Lee R. Edwards

The Republican Establishment:  the present and future of the GOP, Stephen Hess and David S. Broder

Symbol, Status and Personality, by S. I. Hayakawa

Anger and Beyond, Herbert Hill

Race and the Steel Workers Union, Herbert Hill

Freedom and Reform:  Essays in Honor of Henry Steel Commager, Harold M. Hyman and Leonard W. Levy

A Certain Climate, Paul Horgan

Fire This Time, Gerald Horne

No Greater Love:  The James Reeb Story, Duncan Howlett

Man Against the Church, Duncan Howlett

“To Jeannette:  whose perception and honest criticism made this a better book than it otherwise would have been.”

The One in the Many, David Ignatow

Idles of the Tribe:  Group Identity and Political Change, Harold R. Isaacs

Which Side Were You On:  The American Communist Party During the Second World War, Maurice Isserman

Justice Delayed:  The Record of the Japanese Internment Cases, Peter Irons

The Communists and the Schools:  How the Communists Tried to Infiltrate the Schools and How the Schools Fought Back, Robert W. Iverson

Discrimination USA, Jacob K. Javits

Children of the Ashes:  The Story of a Rebirth, Robert Jungk

Born a Child of Freedom, Yet a Slave:  Mechanisms of Control and Strategies of Resistance in Antebellum South Carolina, Norece T. Jones, Jr.

“With enormous appreciation for your brilliant direction, stern guidance and rich friendship, with love and admiration, Norice T. Jones.”

One Great Society:  Humane Learning in the United States, Howard Mumford Jones

Brighter than 1,000 Suns:  The story of the men who made the bomb, Robert Jungk

Giant Among Nations:  Problems of U.S. Foreign Economic Policy, Peter B. Kennen

The necessary revolution in American Education, Francis Keppel

“To Jeannette, who performed the miracle of making the makings of a rich piece out of a sow’s ear, with affection and patience, Francis Keppel”

 A Nation of Immigrants, John F. Kennedy (note in it says JH wrote the captions and illustrations)

Emerald City:  An Environmental History of Seattle, Matthew Klingle

“To Jeannette, who helped to open the gates to the city and pointed the way to follow, with gratitude and love, Matthew”

Patty and the Republic:  Ethnicity and Nationality in Antebellum American, Dale T. Knobel

Chief Executive, Lewis W. Koenig

“To Jeannette Hopkins, without whose encouragement, this book would not have been undertaken and who has paid me the highest complement of reading my material more closely than anyone ever has, with deep appreciation, Lewis Koenig”

Reforming Urban Labor:  Roots to the City, Roots in the Country, Janet L. Polasky

                “To Jeannette, with deep gratitude for helping me uncover my argument.  Janet”

Stealing the Fire:  The Art and Protest of James Baldwin, Horace A. Porter

“ To Jeannette, who wrought a near transformation, put another way, this book would not exist without you.  Horace”

Jazz Country: Ralph Ellison in America, Horace A. Porter

“To Jeannette Hopkins, many thanks for your sharp eye, stern discipline and no nonsense advice.  You made this a much better book, and yes, you made me a much better writer.  Horace”

The Making of a Black Scholar:  From Georgia to the Ivy League, Horace A. Porter

                “To Ms. Jeannette Hopkins, a suburb editor and beautiful mind.  Thank you my friend.  Horace”

Hunger in America, the Growing Epidemic, by the Physician Task Force on Hunger in America

Off Camera:  Leveling About Themselves, Leonard Proust

In the acknowledgements:

“Without Jeannette Hopkins who edited this book there would be no book.  Her literary talents are spectacular.  Her sense of fairness, especially for women, never failing.  And her willingness to work far into the day, night or week, remarkable.”

                Different copy of same book:

                “To Jeannette, who was spectacular in every way.  Leonard Proust”

Civic Engagement:  Social Science and Progressive Era Reform in New York City, John Lewis Recchiuti

                “Jeannette, it’s a book!  Most heartfelt thanks.  John”

Three American Originals:  John Ford, William Faulkner, and Charles Ives, Joseph W. Reed

                “My thanks, a wonderful author to a splendid editor.”

American Scenarios:  The Uses of Film Genre, Joseph W. Reed

                Acknowledgements:

“This is the second book to be edited by Jeannette Hopkins.  In the first, I did not know how to thank her properly.  For this book to say enough would be to suggest how much of it is hers or how much of its errors are hers.  Much of it is, they are not, they are surely mine.  I will only add I cannot imagine a better editor.  Joseph W. Reed”

Old Faces of 1976:  A few Thousand Fairly Well Chosen Words on Jerry Ford, Nelson Rockefeller, Teddy Kennedy, George Wallace, Hubert Humphrey, Ronald Reagan, Ed Musky, Scoop Jackson, George McGovern, Hugh Carey, Abe Beame, Jack Javits, Jerry Brown, and some other men you probably wouldn’t want your daughter to marry, by Richard Reeves

The Micro-society School:  A Real World in Miniature, George Richmond

Acknowledgement:

“I owe a special debt to Jeannette Hopkins.  She saw possibilities in this manuscript that others did not and did more than anyone else to see that they bloomed.”

Bitter Fruits of Bondage:  The Demise of Slavery and the Collapse of Slavery, 1861-1865, Armstead L. Robinson

Civilizing Argentina:  Science, Medicine and the Modern State, Julia Rodriguez

                “For Jeannette- the most amazing editor in the world.  All my best.  Julia”

South Atlantic Crossing:  Fingerprints, Science and the State in Turn of the Century Argentina, Julia Rodriguez

Letters of Elizabeth Palmer Peabody:  American Renaissance Woman, edited by Bruce A. Ronda

McCarthy and the Communists,  James Rorty and Moshe Decter

Writing of Women, Essays in a Renaissance, Phyllis Rose

Portrait of a Philosopher:  Morris R. Cohen in Life and Letters, Leanora Cohen Rosenfield

The Park and the People:  A History of Central Park, Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar

                “For Jeannette, this wouldn’t have been possible without your help.  Warmly, Roy and Betsy”

The American Presidency, Clinton Rossiter

Marxism:  The View from America, Clinton Rossiter

Alexander Hamilton and the Constitution, Clinton Rossiter

Final Reports:  Personal Reflections on Politics and History in Our Time, Richard Rovere with forward by Arthur Schlesinger

Arrivals and Departures:  A Journalists Memoirs, Richard R. Rovere

Apostles of Discord:  Protestant Fringe Groups Promoting Hate and Destruction, Ralph Lord Roy

“My appreciation, more than I can weigh or express, for your help on this one, the first.  May it achieve its goals and may you achieve your goals too.  All best wishes, Ralph”

Communism and the Churches, Ralph Lord Roy

“For Jeannette, with heartfelt appreciation for the encouragement, patience and endless hours of labor you have invested in this book.  You have been its co-author and I regret that Harcourt-Brace’s policy did not permit me to acknowledge this publicly on page 10 until our third book together, another seven years hence.  Best wishes, Ralph”

Standing Room Only:  The challenge of overpopulation, Karl Sax

Sermons by Jeannette Hopkins

When Jeannette was in her 70's, she was a lay preacher at South Church, the Unitarian church in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.   Thanks to the computer skills of my husband, Jeff Lee, you can listen to three of those sermons by clicking on the links listed below.

On Attaining Seventy

This sermon can also be listened to at the following link:  http://JeannetteHopkins.sermon.net/da/2761347/play

The Purpose of a Garden

The tape of this sermon is also available at this link: http://JeannetteHopkins.sermon.net/da/2761342/play

Life Expectancy (Martin Luther King, Jr. Service)

The audio of this sermon can also be listened to at the following link:
http://JeannetteHopkins.sermon.net/da/2761353/play

Obituary posted to Wesleyan University Press's blog

Jeanette Hopkins, press director (1980-89), dies

Aug. 12, 2011 by selliott

The literary world suffered a great loss last week when Jeannette Hopkins, renowned book editor, died unexpectedly at the age of 88. Hopkins died while in the hospital due to complications from a medical condition on Aug. 4, according to her niece, Carol Gray.

Hopkins was director and editor-in-chief for the Wesleyan University Press and an Adjunct Professor of English at Wesleyan University from 1980 until her retirement in 1989.  Cynthia Miller, now Director of University of Pittsburgh Press, worked closely with Hopkins at Wesleyan and recollects: “Jeannette was the best editor I’ve ever known, bar none, with a wide-ranging intellectual curiosity that informed her taste in books combined with a sophisticated sense of language and book structure.  Jeannette was a tough task-master, always putting her authors and their manuscripts first and expecting hard work and exceptionally high-quality work from herself and her staff.  I probably learned more in the two years I worked for her than I would have learned in five years with any other publisher.  It is hard to believe that she is gone.”

Known for her extraordinary intellectual toughness—Hopkins forced authors to clarify and rethink their ideas, spending days with them at her home helping them shape their books through rigorous rewrites. Her commitment to her craft was evident up until the hours before her death, said Gray, who called her aunt one of the most influential and iconic book editors of the post-World War II era. “The latest manuscript she was editing lay on the table next to her bed,” Gray said.

Hopkins was highly respected in her field. The list of authors and editors she worked with included James MacGregor Burns, Kenneth Clark, Eugene Genovese, Jaques Barzun, Frank Mankiewicz, Edwin Newman, Annie Dillard, Edwin Newman, Richard Rovere, C.S. Lewis and many more. Also among Hopkins’s clients were many Wesleyan faculty and alumni. In her last years she and Richard Elphick of the Wesleyan History Department prepared for publication Cradock: How Segregation and Apartheid Came to a Small South African Town, a volume written but not completed at the time of his death by Wesleyan’s Jeffrey Butler.

“Jeannette was one of the great mentors of the publishing business. She loved having young people on staff, working in positions where they could make real contributions to the operation,” said Peter Potter, Editor in Chief at Cornell University Press, who began his career as an editor at Wesleyan. Gray added that while at Wesleyan, Hopkins enjoyed teaching a class on publishing. “She believed in having students learn publishing by doing,” said Gray.

Potter further recounted that, “Every moment was a teachable moment for Jeannette. The end goal was to produce top-quality books, and she had the uncanny knack of getting everyone working together, striving toward that goal. Key to this, I think, is the fact that she never lost sight of what she had gone through when she started in the business. She was determined to have a staff that excelled through ability, regardless of whether they were men or women, and regardless of their race or background. She ran a tight ship but she treated everyone as equals–and, perhaps most important, she acknowledged a job well done. I will be always grateful to Jeannette for giving me my start in publishing. Not a day goes by that I don’t draw upon one of the many lessons I learned from her.”

Hopkins was born in Camden, NJ in 1922. She received a BA in English from Vassar College and a MS from the Columbia School of Journalism in 1945. She spent her early career working as a reporter for the New Haven Register, the Providence Journal-Bulletin and the Oklahoma City Times. At a time when women in the publishing industry were few and far between, she helped pave the way for female editors across the nation when she began working as a senior editor for the Beacon Press in Boston and eventually became a senior editor at Harcourt Brace. She left this post to become a senior editor at Harper & Row, where she spent close to ten years before leaving to set up her own editorial consulting business in New York City. During her time at Harper & Row, she also became executive editor of the Harper-Carnegie sponsored urban publications program.

Hopkins was very active in the Unitarian church, and was particularly interested in public affairs such as civil liberties and race relations. With Kenneth B. Clark she co-authored the book A Relevant War Against Poverty: A Study of Community Action Programs and Observable Social Change. Hopkins was an elected at-large member of the National Board of the American Civil Liberties Union and remained a member of the ACLU’s National Advisory Council until her death.

A memorial celebration service is slated for 10 a.m. Labor Day, Sept. 5, at South Church, located at 292 State Street in Portsmouth, NH. A reception will be held in Hopkins’ garden following the service. Donations in lieu of flowers should be made in Hopkins’ name to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or the ACLU Foundation.

********************************************************

Here is the link to the WesPress blog:  http://wespress.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2011/08/12/jeanette-hopkins-press-director-1980-89-dies/

The same article is also found on the WesLive blog for the university as a whole at this link:  http://community.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2011/08/12/jeanette-hopkins-press-director-1980-89-dies/

Logistics for Jeannette’s Memorial / Celebration Service

Please RSVP as to whether you plan to attend by calling Carol Gray at 413-256-0433, carolgray_2000@yahoo.com or Susan Gray, 914-260-2406, sgray777@aol.com.   In lieu of flowers (-- Jeannette requested flowers from her garden only), donations can be made to the ACLU Foundation, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the New Hampshire Democratic Party, the New York Civil Rights Coalition, Planned Parenthood NE, the Vassar College Scholarship Fund, or the Unitarian Universalist Church of Portsmouth Endowment Fund in memory of Jeannette. 
 

Hotel Recommendations in Portsmouth 

the first 3 are walking distance to the church)

Sheraton Harborside Hotel, 250 Market Street,  603-431-2300:  They have a few rooms available at the Friends and Family Rate (that is available for bereavement) which is half off their normal rate.  Their rates change but as of this moment, the normal rate for that weekend would be $271.41 (including tax) and the bereavement rate would be $129.71 including tax.  Once those few rooms are gone, they only offer a 10% discount which would be $244.

Sise Inn, 40 Court Street, 603-433-1200.  A couple blocks from the church.  If booking for the weekend, the normal nightly rate is $216.91 (including tax) and the discounted rate is $184.21 including tax, (more than a 10% discount).  If booking Sunday night, the nightly rate with the discount is $162.41 (including tax).  This rate includes breakfast and parking.  To obtain the discount, just say you are booking for the Jeannette Hopkins Memorial Service.

Hilton Garden Inn, 603-431-1477:  Their normal rate for Sunday night only including taxes is $238.71; the discounted rate is $206.01 (a $30 discount).  Parking is an additional $15 per night.  For the whole weekend, the rate if booking 3 nights would be $$195.11 per night including tax. Must speak with Tracy Jones for the discount.

Comfort Inn, 1190 Lafayette Road, Portsmouth, phone:  603-433-3330: Offering 20% off their normal rate.  Their normal rate for that weekend would be $163.45 (including tax), with the discounted rate being $130.76 (including tax).  Trip Advisor has good reviews for this hotel.  They said this rate includes breakfast and they have an indoor pool and fitness center.  They recommended you book early particularly if you want a nonsmoking room (-- you should specify this when you call).   The discount is only available by calling and mentioning the Funeral Discount, not by booking online.  This hotel is 4 miles from the center of town.

DRIVING DIRECTIONS to service:

From the West (NH Route 16/Spaulding Turnpike))

1. Continue to Portsmouth traffic circle, take the 2nd exit onto US-1 Bypass S                     Go 1.2 mi 2. Turn left onto Greenleaf Ave                 Go 0.2 mi 3. Slight left onto Lafayette Rd                   Go 0.3 mi 4. Continue onto Middle St                          Go 0.8 mi 5. Turn right onto State St Destination will be on the right                 Go 0.2 mi to 292 State Street.

Directions From the North (I-95)

1. Take exit 2 to merge onto ME-236 S toward US-1/Kittery                 Go 0.9 mi 2. At the traffic circle, take the 2nd exit onto State Rd                     Go 1.1 mi 3. Continue onto US-1 S/Newmarch St                 Continue to follow US-1 S                 Entering New Hampshire                 Go 0.9 mi 4. Turn left onto Fleet St                               Go 407 ft 5. Take the 2nd left onto State St Destination will be on the right                 Go 174 ft to 292 State Street.

Directions From the South (I-95)

1. Take exit 3 for NH-33 toward Greenland/Portsmouth                 Go 0.3 mi 2. Continue straight                        Go 0.3 mi 3. Turn right onto NH-33 E                            Go 1.8 mi 4. Continue onto Middle St                          Go 0.8 mi 5. Turn right onto State St Destination will be on the right                 Go 0.2 mi to 292 State Street.

Driving Directions from South Church to Jeannette’s house, 39 Pray Street, for the reception following the service:  Passing in front of the church (which is State Street), take the first right on Pleasant Street, then a left a block or so up on Court Street.  (If you’re parked at the back of the church, then just stay on Court Street passing the church on your left and the fire department on the right.)   Court Street feeds into Marcy Street, veering right and crossing a small bridge right after a fish market on the left.  Stay left at the fork after the bridge, then take the 2^nd left on Pray Street.  Jeannette’s house is the 3^rd or 4^th on the left with a flag hanging outside.  There is no parking on Pray Street so you’ll want to find somewhere on Marcy Street to park.   You could also walk from the church to Jeannette’s.  It’s a pleasant 15 minute walk.