As an English major and later English teacher at Belhaven, I had the usual memories–looking up at her busy concentration at that manual typewriter as we waited for the #4 bus. But when I encountered her in Jitney #14, our discussion was focused on a mutual friend, garden writer Elizabeth Lawrence. pictured right with her nephew
Years later, on a trip to Washington, my family shared first a cab and then a Greyhound bus to Meridian with Miss Welty, to catch the “Southern Crescent.” As we were going to a Daffodil Convention, we talked about the “square daffodil” which is mentioned in Losing Battles, and I was able to identify it as Narcissus moschatus.
Later, as the train clicked along, our 4-year-old son said, “Mother, I know she’s a famous writer, but doesn’t she know all daffodils are round?”
-Written by Loyce Cain McKenzie
above: Eudora Welty with her mother Chestina from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History
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