One of the reasons why I started this blog about Emmett’s book was (is!) to locate his scrapbooks, correspondence, or anything that exists out there that may not be already digitized.

A snippet of Emmett’s will, page two. Emmett Wilson Kehoe was the son of his best friend, J. Walter Kehoe. Emmett lived with the Kehoes starting in the summer of 1910 until his death. I would love to find his scrapbooks, or, pieces of them. Anything.

Crowd sourcing the research has worked fairly well; last year I wrote about Emmett’s sister, Katie Wilson Meade, and a antique dealer contacted me about a photograph he’d found in a box with Katie’s name on it. That was cool.

This is the photo sent to me by the antique dealer in Virginia. Katie Wilson Meade, June 23, 1936. Love her smile!

I’ve discovered that Emmett was a prolific letter writer. Yesterday, I found a few more references to letters he wrote to Nick Van Sant after he’d moved back to Florida in 1906. Turns out that Emmett and Nick remained friends, even though their business relationship did not work out, and (I’m sure) that it was an uncomfortable ending for Emmett — at least for a little while.

October 4, 1906. Emmett tells Nick about the hurricane that did a million dollars (1906 dollars) damage. Source: Sterling Evening Gazette

Here’s another:

September 27, 1907. The only way the Sterling paper would have known this is through Nicholas Van Sant, via a letter from Emmett. Source: Sterling Evening Gazette, page 1.

I think Emmett let both Nick Van Sant and the paper know this one. Nick might have felt odd if he’d read about this in the Sterling paper before hearing about it directly from Emmett.

Finally, there’s this one:

The Sterling Evening Gazette, 1908, editorial page. Emmett never made it back to Sterling in 1908 for the Fourth of July; he never returned to Sterling.

Any letters out there to or from Emmett Wilson? Anything?

I would love to see them.

Categories: Research Status The Writing Life

Tagged as: crowd-sourcing research Elusive Scrapbooks Katie Wilson Meade Nicholas Van Sant

jsmith532

Professor,
Communication, Arts, and the Humanities
The University of Maryland Global Campus