Nell Griffith Wilson
Nell Griffith Wilson was a poet and founding member of the Sonoma County Branch of the League of American Pen Women. She published a number of works.
She is mentioned by Edith in a couple of the Charmian (London ) letters. Charmian wrote the forward in her book Deeper Harvest (Atlanta: Banner Press, 1936) and contributed the photograph of “Jack London looking down upon the valley from his Beauty Ranch” for her book Our Valley of the Moon in Poems and Pictures (Sonoma Index-Tribune Press, 1941).
From the book jacket of The Heart Remembers:
"Nell Griffith Wilson was born and reared near Santa Rosa in that scenic part of California known as the Redwood Empire. Her mother wrote verse and was also artistic and musical. Her father was a musician, a great lover of nature, and planted many redwoods to beautify the lovely acres known as Griffith Woods. Mrs. Wilson began writing at an early age, and through high school was encouraged to write her English papers in verse. Some years later she had poems published in many of the leading newspapers and magazines, as well as in numerous anthologies, and many selections have been read over the radio. Though various of her poems have won prizes, she is perhaps best known for her "Blood Donor's Prayer," winner of a national prize, and which was used in several blood banks and widely reprinted during the war years. She is a member of the National League of Pen Women, the Western Writers, and other writers' groups; is the mother of two daughters, and now lives in Kenwood, in the Valley of the Moon. Two earlier volumes are to her credit: DEEPER HARVEST and OUR VALLEY OF THE MOON."
"My neighbor, Nell Griffith Wilson, has 'known beauty in a thousand ways.' Beauty is her concern, and this volume attests her success in transfusing into her readers the poet's ecstasy. Her philosophy is clean and sure, befitting her own normal, gracious soul."--Mrs. Jack London
I purchased a signed and inscribed copy of Nell Griffith Wilson's book "The Heart Remembers" and it included a newspaper clipping about her. I have scanned and posted the article below the images of the book. The article was written by Byrd Weyler Kellogg, another member of the Sonoma County Branch of the League of American Pen Women. There is no publication information included on the clipping, but one could guess it was around the time of the book's publication in 1948. I also have not yet verified the newspaper, but my guess is that it was one from Sonoma County and probably in or near Santa Rosa as an ad on the back included a Santa Rosa address. The article included two poems from the book, "Little Streams of Kenwood" and "Rich Offering."
Inscription by Nell Griffith Wilson
"To Irene Bufford with greetings from Our Valley of the Moon. Sincerely Nell Griffith Wilson. May 14, 1948"
Sonoma County is often referred to as the "Valley of the Moon" and Wilson also published a book titled "Our Valley of the Moon."
The copyright for "The Heart Remembers" lists Wilson of "Kenwood, California in the Valley of the Moon."
The Heart Remembers by Nell Griffith Wilson
Dallas, Texas: The Kaleidograph Press, 1948, 87 pages. Original list price was $2.
WilsonArticle.pdf“All Men are Poets at Heart” --Emerson
H.S. Teacher Encouraged Nell Griffith to Become a Poet
By Byrd Weyler Kellogg
Parents, proud of what their children say, repeat their remarks to anyone who will listen. If they have a talent for writing, the parents preserve the utterances of their children in prose or verse. In the last classification belongs to Nell Griffith Wilson of Kenwood, who started putting her own thoughts into verse when she was nine years old.
By the time she started recording her own children’s bright sayings and ingenuous experiences, she had become a mature poet. Her books of poetry are now in the San Francisco and University of California libraries, and she has been requested to send her most recent book, “The Heart Remembers,” to the Library of Congress and the Huntington Library.
Mrs. Wilson used rhythm in capturing the quaint sayings and happiness of her little daughters, now Carol Wilson Coon and June Wilson Holley, because it was her own natural medium of expression. Her talent for verse writing was inherited from the later Mr. and Mrs. Nathaniel A. Griffith of Vine Hill district, a mother “who wrote very good verse but not a great deal,” and a father who organized and conducted orchestras when not busy with his orchards and woods.
Adult encouragement to keep on writing was one of the factors that turned the former verse-writing Nell Griffith into the widely known poet, Nell Girffith Wilson. Miss Frances O’Meara, a former popular high school teacher, foresaw a literary future for the student poet just as she correctly believed schoolday art could become the avenue for success of Mrs. Wilson’s classmate, now the famous “Believe It or Not” Ripley.
Little Streams of Kenwood
The little streams of Kenwood
are running cold and clear,
And dreamy in the hush
of autumn haze,
With ferns and grasses bending
above their crystal pools,
They chant a song of warm
and peaceful days.
The little streams of Kenwood
unknowing of the sea,
May wander through green avenues
of trees,
While vivid leaves drift downward
to float upon their crest,
Like tiny ships with gay
and vagrant ease.
The little streams of Kenwood
are resting for the day
When winter bears its floodtide
from the hills,
And rushing down the canyons,
they sweep in curving grace
While every thirsty field
and hollow fills.
The little streams of Kenwood
can lead a troubled heart
Down happy trails, who follow
them along,
For idling over pebbles, or sweeping
in a flood,
The little streams of Kenwood
sing a song.
--Nell Griffith Wilson
Rich Offering
There is a love that knows
no barrier of race and creed.
That is a beauty
that the soul alone can see.
A loneliness
that has no answer to its need
Ave faith that God
is near throughout eternity.
There is a courage
that defies the deepest pain,
There is a happiness
that triumphs over grief.
A wealth not measured
by mere worldly gain,
and firm assurance
that effaces unbelief.
There is a loveliness
that only hearts discern,
There is a calmness
that surmounts all strife--
All these, and others,
let me humbly learn
That I may bring
rich offerings to eternal life.
--Nell Griffith Wilson