Mary Kelley on Why I Wrote the Book, “The Weeping Angel”: A WOW Blog Tour
Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler with Mary Kelley
“I wish I could tell you more, but someday perhaps I can tell it “avec le livre.” –Pte. Hubert W. Kelley, Somewhere in France, August 14, 1917
I am very pleased to be participating in Mary Kelley’s WOW Blog Tour for her new book, The Weeping Angels: Letters and Poems From World War I France. The story behind the story about a father she only knew through his letters and poems is as fascinating as the story itself. The letters and poems he left provide a glimpse into another time and place.It makes me realize how we live in an age where letter writing is a lost art. Who will tell our stories if we don’t?
The Weeping Angel (L’Ange Pleurer) is a small statue poised over a tomb in Notre Dame d’Amiens Cathedral, carved by Nicolas Blasset in 1636. With one hand on an hourglass and the other on a skull, the angel came to symbolize the war to Kelley and the many soldiers who visited it during WW I. He wrote about it in his letters and in 1931 when he recalled one harrowing night lying in a field near Amiens with bombs falling around him. Life is brief, death is imminent.
My reviews of The Weeping Angel can be found on Amazon, Goodreads, LibraryThings and Riffle.
Welcome, Mary!
Author Mary Kelley
Why I Wrote the Book, The Weeping Angel
“Why did I do this?” I asked myself. Isn’t it true that sometimes our motives are not even in our consciousness until after the fact, perhaps when we have had time to reflect? The reason for writing and editing The Weeping Angel, Letters and Poems from World War I France only became clear to me several months after I had finished the book and held the printed copy in my hands.
My journey began with the boxes of letters and writing that I received from my half-brother. He asked me if I wanted them and I said, “Of course.” I was eager to read all of it. When I was fifteen and my father passed away, a colleague of his at Crowell Collier Publications in New York City, sent me a list of all the articles my father had written. I had only met my father once, a few months before he died, and this gift in the form of five typewritten pages (which I still have today) was all that remained of this man I never really knew. My mother had never allowed me to contact him and only relented to that meeting after I insisted. I went down to the N.Y. Public Library Reference Department and had them pull every magazine in which his articles appeared and I spent a few days there reading each word. Now, much later in life I had another gift – these letters – so I set about putting them in chronological order and reading them. In order to understand them better and share them with my eldest half-brother, who was in his late 80’s, I would type each one out on my little MacBook. I thought it would be great for interested family members to have a transcript of his missives home during the war. I was still unaware of the deep need I had inside.
The letters were fascinating to me. He was nineteen, a recent high school graduate and young enough to be my grandson but he had an ability to convey vivid pictures of his life through his writing. As I typed, I was transported to France, seeing what he saw. I was intrigued, where was he when those letters were written? The censors wouldn’t let him say. In one letter to his father after the war, he wrote about the places where his unit had been as they worked repairing and building railroads.
About a year after first reading the letters, I made a visit to an old family friend, Bruce Prince-Joseph, in Kansas City, MO. Bruce, then in his mid-eighties, had lived with our family when I was a baby, played the organ at my wedding, and he had known my father. So, with life’s clock ticking in our thoughts, my brother (I have five half-brothers and one brother) and I went to Bruce’s house and spent three days catching up and reliving old times. I visited the World War I Museum there and received a third gift related to the father I never knew.
My father, in the 12th Engineers, became the regimental poet for the unit, a source of pride to him and his family. Several of his poems were published in the Paris edition of the New York Herald Tribune and are included in my book. But the third gift was a book written by the Commander of the 12th, which outlined every moment of the regiment’s life from the moment they arrived in London to march before the King and Queen to their journey home from France five months after Armistice Day in 1918. This book enabled me to annotate each letter with what was really happening to these soldiers as they marched from battlefield to battlefield.
Finally, at my husband’s urging, we went to Amiens, France to see the grand cathedral which my father visited on his short furloughs from the war. We saw the little Weeping Angel he wrote about in his letters and after the war for the Kansas City Star where he became a reporter.
With the printed book finally in my hand, I realized that this journey had been all about me and my father, my getting to know and feel close to him. A wonderful trip, the last gift, and truly satisfying. I am so glad I was able to tell his story “avec le livre” as he wished.
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Thank you Mary for sharing your story with us. It resonates deeply with me as I also have a series of letters written by my paternal grandfather to my aunt and her husband during World War II. My grandfather died when I was thirteen so I knew him but his letters offered a whole new dimension into the person he was and the times in which he lived.. Truly a gift.
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How about you? Have you come across family letters that you want to publish? What have you learned about the person and the times in which they lived?
We’d love to hear from you. Please join in the conversation below~
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The Weeping Angel; Letters and Poems from World War I France
Genre
Memoir / Non Fiction / Historical
Paperback: 139 pages
Publisher: Willow Avenue Books (2016)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1940244706
ISBN-13: 978-1940244709
Amazon Link
https://www.amazon.com/Weeping-Angel-Letters-Poems-France/dp/1940244706
Facebook Page
Website
http://www.hwkletters.com/
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About The Weeping Angel
Now, on the Centennial of World War I, Kelley’s wish is realized with the publication of The Weeping Angel, his account of the war in northern France as he lived it. Told through letters and poems, Kelley writes home to his Kansas City family with vivid descriptions of day to day life on the edge of the battlefield. Enlisting right after graduation from Central High, he claims to play the bugle in order to be accepted and proves to be a talented raconteur and observer. Although he could not play the bugle and never really learned, he became the regimental poet of Company D of the Twelfth Engineers and found his true vocation as a writer.
Mary Kelley, his daughter, edited and researched this special collection of her father’s letters over the past six years. With the help of Colonel John Laird’s History of the Twelfth Engineers and research at the National WWI Museum, she has annotated the letters to show the actual path of the unit as they repaired and built light gauge railways to carry ordnance and materiel to the front lines in Cambrai, St. Mihiel and other important battlegrounds in France. Pte. Kelley and the 12th were among the first American troops in Europe and they stayed to prepare for the Occupation for months after the Armistice of November 11, 1918. He returned to Kansas City to become a reporter for the Kansas City Star and later the editor of American Magazine in New York.
Praise/Editorial Reviews
Posters in Kansas City adorned the army recruitment center: “Join up and be in France in 60 days.” Working as a soldier on the railroads in war-torn northern France during World War I, Hubert Kelley found his vocation as a poet and writer. This is the story of a boy’s journey into adulthood told through his vivid letters home written from 1917 to 1919. The Weeping Angel (L’Ange Pleureur) statue in the Amiens Cathedral came to symbolize the sadness of war to him and his fellow soldiers, and he visited it often. His poems and selected later writings are included in this volume.
“The Weeping Angel draws on one of the richest surviving collections of First World War letters to bring to life one of Uncle Sam’s most remarkable—and thoughtful—doughboys. In this compelling book, Mary Kelley restores the human story to one corner of an inhuman war. Whether they’ve read one book about the war or fifty, readers will be surprised and engaged by The Weeping Angel.”
—Christopher Capozzola, author of Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen
“It’s a wonderful book with so much compelling material…Kelley’s essay, ‘A Memory of Amiens,’ is extraordinary. The Weeping Angel rescues a wonderful voice from the period, as well as the story of a remarkable regiment that is too little known.”
—Steven Trout, author of On the Battlefield of Memory: The First World War and American Remembrance, 1919–1941
About Mary
Mary Kelley, editor of The Weeping Angel, is a former Broadway theater manager, non-profit arts administrator and consultant with The Field Organization, LLC. She has written in the genres of memoir and fiction. This is her first published book. She lives in Somerville MA.
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This Week:
ANNOUNCMENT: My memoir, Ever Faithful to His Lead: My Journey Away From Emotional Abuse will be FREE on Smashwords, March 5-11 with the coupon code SFREE.
Next Week:
Monday, March 13, 2017:
“How Reading is Helping Me Write a Better Memoir”
Weeping Angel WOW Blog Tour Dates:
February 1 st @ Bring on Lemons
Launch Day Post and Giveaway
http://bringonlemons.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, February 8th @11am PST with Donna Seebo
Tune in for this live broadcast and hear an enlightening interview between radio host Donna Seebo and Mary Kelley. This is your chance to hear from Mary herself as she talks about “The Weeping Angel; Letters and Poems from World War I France”.
http://delphiinternational.com/
Friday, February 24th @ 1-2pm EST with Frankie Picasso
You won’t want to miss today’s live radio show with Frankie Picasso as listeners go back in time to World War I France as they hear from Mary Kelley and learn more about her recent book “The Weeping Angel; Letters and Poems from World War I France”.
http://toginet.com/shows/frankiesenseandmore/
Monday, March 6th with Kathleen Pooler @ Memoir Writer’s Journey
Mary Kelley stops by Kathleen Pooler’s blog, Memoir Writer’s Journey, and shares a guest post with readers. This is a great opportunity to learn more from Mary and find out about her unique book “The Weeping Angel; Letters and Poems from World War I France”.
Wednesday, March 8th @ Bring On Lemons with Michelle DelPonte
Wisconsin history buff, mother, caregiver, and autism advocate Michelle DelPonte shares her thoughts after reading Mary Kelley’s book “The Weeping Angel; Letters and Poems from World War I France”. Stop by to learn more!
http://bringonlemons.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, March 21st @ Bring On Lemons with Crystal Otto
Crystal Otto talks more about “The Weeping Angel; Letters and Poems from World War I France” in her 5 star review of this unique book by Mary Kelley. Don’t miss this blog stop!
http://bringonlemons.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, March 28th @ 5:30pm EST with Cyrus Webb
“Cyrus Webb Presents” is the place where host Cyrus Webb introduces topics and guests that matter to you and today he is chatting live with Mary Kelley about her book “The Weeping Angel; Letters and Poems from World War I France”. Don’t miss this show!
www.blogtalkradio.com/cyruswebbpresents.
Friday, March 31st with Madeline Sharples @ Choices
Author and memoirist Madeline Sharples shares her thoughts after reading “The Weeping Angel; Letters and Poems from World War I France” by Mary Kelley. This insightful review is one you won’t want to miss!
