Harold Everett Porter

Harold Everett Porter (19 September 1887 — 21 June 1936) was an American writer. Under the pen name of Holworthy Hall he published plays, verse, novels and short stories. He took his pseudonym from the dormitory for 1st-year students where he stayed at Harvard University.[1]

Biography

He was born in Boston, Mass., Porter was the son of New York publisher, Albert de Lance (D.) Porter, first a printer in Boston, and then a publisher in New York City, running the A. D. Porter Co.[1] His mother, Louella née Root, was born in Ohio and raised in Massachusetts.[2]

He attended Harvard College winning a scholarship in the year 1906-7[3] and was in the lacrosse team in 1906-1907.[4] Porter was the editor of the Harvard Lampoon from 1906 to 1909 (editors include Robert Benchley, John Marquand, George Plimpton and John Updike) and also an editor of the Harvard Advocate, the campus literary magazine, from 1907 to 1909 (eds. & contributors Wallace Stevens, e e cummings, T. S. Eliot and James Agee).[1] His short story "The Same Old Christmas Story" appeared in the 1,000th edition (or so) of the Advocate in May 1916. He was characterised in the rival Harvard Crimson as a "noble graduate of 1907, with a bank account, a tender heart and too much leisure."[5] He shared Room 13 in Holworthy Hall, the freshman's dormitory, with John Mansfield Groton,[6] next door to Robert Middlemass and the artist Julian Ellsworth Garnsey in Room 14.[7]

After graduating in 1909 he worked at Little, Brown & Co., the Boston publisher, and then with his father's firm at the A .D. Porter Company. The firm published a monthly magazine, The Housewife, which he edited. His first short story was printed in The Saturday Evening Post and he continued to write short stories for the rest of his life. In 1916, he was named the president of A. D. Porter Company.[1]

During World War I he served in the office of the Secretary of War in Washington, D.C., working in the Military Intelligence Division, first as a First Lieutenant and then Captain. He continued to publish stories, and was demobilized as a Major in the Officer Reserve Corps.[1] His two non-fiction books date from this period.

He joined the Skaneateles Country Club in 1920. He moved to France to escape the US, living in Paris and Cannes, in a house overlooking the Mediterranean. Playing golf was a particular passion, and he wrote less and less. His marriage ended in divorce, and he returned to the US alone to live in Connecticut. He continued to write stories and died in Torrington of pneumonia, aged 48.[1]

Personal life

In 1911 he married Marian 'Marnie' Heffron of Syracuse, New York. She was the daughter of Dr. John Lorenzo Heffron, the dean of the School of Medicine at Syracuse University.[1] He retired in June 1922 after 40 years' connection with the teaching staff of the medical school, 15 of them as dean.[8] After their separation/divorce she went back to the States with their three children, and became involved (as Mrs. Harold Everett Porter) with luncheons and dinners for the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Copley-Plaza Hotel.[9]

Selected bibliography

Poems
Short stories
Novels
Plays
Non-fiction

Light verse

Porter was evidently a great lover of classical music, and the following lines (which originally appeared in in Life magazine in 1913) evoke memories of his favourite operas, singers and musicians.

         Opera Porteri

O carmen jadlowker dalmorès
O lucia sextetta bizet;
O dippel caruso dolores,
Gioconda, o andré-caplet.

O conti, o eames tetrazzini,
O scotti mascagni farrar.
O gadski busoni puccini,
Calvé constantino, maquarre.

Ah, verdi, pagliacc' trovatore,
Aida fremstad meyerbeer;
Pol plançon and that tells the story,
The opera season is here.[1][2]

  1. ^ The Theatre, Vol. XVII, January 1913, p. 28
  2. ^ Treating 'Porter' as a Latin second declension noun like 'puer', the title might be roughly translated as 'The operas of Porter', or even 'Porter's opera'; classics scholars would have recognised a pun on titles like Herodoti opera / 'The works of Porter'.

Namesake

Harold Everett Porter should not be confused with H. E. Porter, a Yukon territory prospector who discovered the biggest deposit in the Whitehorse Copper Belt and the Division Coal mine.[14][15] A photo of him exists,[16] taken during the Second Riel Rebellion of 1885, where a relative of his (perhaps his brother) Andrew Everett Porter (1855-1940) was a doctor.[17]

References

Notes
  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 KIHM 2009.
  2. ↑ Barlow, John F. "Holworthy Hall". IMDb. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
  3. ↑ Cable, A. G. (May 1909). Secretary's First Report / Harvard College Class of 1909 (PDF). Cambridge (Mass.): Crimson Printing Co., printed for the Class. p. 44.
  4. ↑ Morse, J. M. (June 1908). Secretary's First Report / Harvard College Class of 1907. Cambridge (Mass.): Crimson Printing Co., printed for the Class. p. 99 [111].
  5. 1 2 Hart, Albert Bushnell (12 May 1916). "Anniversary Advocate Admirable". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
  6. ↑ By 1918 he was Rev. J. M. Groton. Son of the late Rev. William M. Groton (former rector of Christ Episcopal church, Westerly). Chaplain of the Episcopal base hospital, Unit 54, of Philadelphia, in France since December 1917, was appointed chaplain in the national army in July 1918. He is rector of the Church of Our Savior, Jenkintown, Pa. Source:"Westerly". Norwich Bulletin, 26 July 1918, p. 6g-h. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
  7. ↑ Dorm History Search. Harvard College. Accessed 6 March 2016.
  8. ↑ "Scientific Notes and News". Science. New Series (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 56 (1436): 15–17. 7 July 1922. JSTOR 1647388. (free access) NB In the same Notes & News section: the John Fritz Medal for applied science was awarded to Guglielmo Marconi.
  9. ↑ "Boston Symphony Orchestra: 52nd season 1932-1933. Programme". 13 March 1933, p. 15. Retrieved 6 March 2016.
  10. ↑ Appeared in My next imitation.
  11. ↑ Life was founded by Edward S. Martin, Holworthy Hall Room 4, also co-founder of Lampoon, which Porter edited.
  12. ↑ Revolves around an imaginary doctoral thesis, 'The Rôle of Vision in the Mental Life of a Mouse'. The Scrap Book 9, 5 (1910), p. 773. See Messing 2014, p. 139, 260. The Scrap Book was edited by Frank Munsey. See also Online Books Page: The Scrap Book.
  13. ↑ Includes "The Same Old Christmas Story", reprinted in the Harvard Advocate, May 1916. "It reads like that story of Bunner's, where the brave little boy sells the gold brick to a kind old gentleman, and thus provides a Christmas for the family of the unsuccessful bunco steerer."[5]
  14. ↑ McKenna, Dick. "H. E. Porter" (PDF). Yukon Prospectors' Association.
  15. ↑ McLaughlin, Les. "H.E. Porter". Copperbelt Railway and Mining Museum. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
  16. 1 2 Makahonuk, Glen. "A finding aid to the Dr. Andrew Everett Porter collection" (PDF). University of Sasketchewan. Retrieved 4 March 2013.
  17. ↑ Andrew Porter later served with the 218th regiment during the Great War, and on his return in 1916, A.E. Porter opened the Frank sanitarium for tubercular soldiers in Frank, B. C.[18] Andrew Porter seems to have written verse as well: a number of unpublished verses (sent to his wife) include The Song of the Broom ,Pile of Bones, The Borling of the Kegs, and Campaign Song.[16]
  18. ↑ "Fonds MSS 50 - Dr. Andrew Everett Porter Collection". Saskatchewan Archival Information Network. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
Sources
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Monday, March 14, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.