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Maryat Lee, born Mary Attaway Lee in Covington, Kentucky, is typically remembered for three things: her relationship with famed author Flannery O’Connor, pioneering street theater in Harlem through the Salt and Latin Theater (SALT), and founding EcoTheater, an indigenous theater that created plays out of oral histories in Appalachia and used non-actors in its productions.

However, despite the overwhelming acknowledgement of Lee’s impact on theater and the arts, an untapped well of research can be found within the detailed and deeply personal journals she kept from 1936 until her death in 1989. Save for a lack of writing in the 1940s, Lee kept up her diaristic practices religiously and took it just as seriously as her work in theater.

A large part of her journaling details her tumultuous business and romantic relationship with Fran Belin, a Brooklyn-native pianist and photographer who left New York City with Lee to create The Women’s Farm in Powley’s Creek, West Virginia, in 1973. While The Women’s Farm would go on to be overshadowed by the creation of EcoTheater some years later, it aimed to be a retreat for artists and intellectuals, primarily women and feminists. Some prominent visitors that Lee would write about included the “grandmother of Appalachian Studies” Helen Matthews Lewis; Paul and Nanine Dowling of the America the Beautiful Fund; music critic Howard Klein and realist painter Patricia Windrow as well as their two sons, Adam Klein and Moondi Klein; artist Maxi Cohen; writers and activists Toni Cade Bambara and Sonia Sanchez; playwright Clare Coss; and theater producer Susan Richardson.

Visitors of The Women’s Farm often became long-time friends (and sometimes romantic partners) with Lee and Belin, who were involved in the feminist movement and often attended women’s workshops and events with people they had met through The Women’s Farm.

Throughout her journals, Lee’s descriptions of people are oftentimes frank and unforgiving, such as referring to writer James Dickey as “gross”, journalist Dorothy Day as “sunken and ravaged” and writer Hannah Tillich as “smug in a very European way”.

Lee also wrote about world events that interested her. On the day she found out that Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes tennis match in 1973, she expressed her excitement by scrawling “BILLIE JEAN WON!!” at the top of the page, starkly out of place surrounded by her otherwise contained penmanship.

Some pages are written in a variety of different inks, showcasing Lee’s tendency to return to old passages to provide updates, clarify issues, and include more detailed descriptions.

Apparent in all journals are the inclusion of materials she references in her writings: letters, newspaper clippings, cards, and other ephemeral material like bird feathers and pressed flowers. Occasionally, Lee would sketch scenes to accompany text.

If Lee could not immediately access her journals when the urge to write struck, she would record her thoughts on any nearby paper. This can be seen with a few pages torn from a spiral notebook that she must have scavenged and wrote on during a hospital stay, which she later stapled into her journal.

The surprising details found throughout Lee’s journals are numerous and showcase her deep inner life alongside the practical realities of the unconventional life she led, whether that be as an emerging playwright in Harlem, New York City or as a farmer in the countryside of Powley’s Creek, West Virginia.

Lee’s journals, as well as countless other materials related to her life and works, can be found and accessed in the Maryat Lee, Playwright, Papers at the West Virginia and Regional History Center.

Following Veterans Day this November, the West Virginia & Regional History Center (WVRHC) will have the pleasure of working with West Virginia high school students for the third consecutive year of the West Virginia National Cemeteries Project. The goal of the project, which is funded by the West Virginia Humanities Council, is for students to research veterans who are buried in one of the two national cemeteries located in West Virginia and publish works that tell their stories.

In the first year of the project, students created biographies of many of these veterans, including men and women from different branches of the military, which can be found on the project website. In the second year of the project, the students researched veterans Clifford Condon and Nelson Bickley and contributed to online exhibitions about their lives and service: “The Record Keepers,” about Clifford Condon, and “The Mentor,” about Nelson Bickley.

The role of the WVRHC in the project is to provide hands-on experience with primary sources that reinforce what students are learning from their project advisors. The WVRHC has also scanned related documents from the collections to create a ‘surrogate’ collection that the students could use in their classrooms. This year, we will be hosting students from University High School, in Morgantown, and Grafton High School. Their field trips will bring them into a university library and archive, perhaps for the first time, and introduce them to the foundations of historical research. In small groups, the students will rotate through stations where they will analyze different types of archival material with guidance from the WVRHC and project staff.

This collaboration can spark the interest of the next generation of historical researchers and educate the public about the service members laid to rest in our national cemeteries. This Veterans Day, we encourage you to take a look at the exhibits and biographies online, and we look forward to sharing with you what this year’s students publish!

Written by Olivia Howard, reference assistant

Another Fall semester means the start of a new football season! As we headed into the first game of the season on August 31^st, I became curious about the history of football at West Virginia University.

I began my search by looking through the many photos of Mountaineer football through the years that can be viewed on West Virginia History OnView and then filled in the gaps with more detailed information from books within the West Virginia & Regional History Center’s collection, such as Bring on the Mountaineers by Kevin Keys and Shelly Poe.

WVU football traces its origins all the way back to 1891, but like most great things in history, it didn’t have an easy start.

It all began with a small group determined to organize a team. At the time, only 224 students were enrolled at the university, but even with limited options, they were able to recruit others and create a team of fourteen players. Despite knowing very little about the game and facing a negative response from faculty and other students, the team enthusiastically took on the challenge. They arranged a game with Washington & Jefferson on Thanksgiving Day, raised money for equipment, and worked to transform pastureland into a suitable game site.

An estimated crowd of 250 gathered to watch the game. They arrived in carriages decorated in gold and blue and enjoyed treats like hot chocolate before the game in an early version of the ever-popular fan tradition of tailgating.

Though WVU suffered a loss of 72-0, this first game made its mark. It served as the beginning of the long-lasting tradition of Mountaineer spirit that we know today.

Over the next several years, WVU football experienced many changes. They increased the number of games in their schedule and took on new opponents, even beginning a rivalry with one. On October 24, 1895, they played their first game against Pitt (then Western University of Pennsylvania) and took home the victory with a score of 8-0.

In 1918, a record crowd of 8,000 attended a game against Washington & Jefferson and by 1922, during their only undefeated season, the Mountaineers saw another record crowd of 15,000. They had come a long way since that first crowd of only 250 spectators and it was time for a stadium upgrade.

Plans for a new stadium were set in motion in 1922 by athletic director Harry A. Stansbury. The site of the new stadium, located down the hill from Woodburn Hall, was chosen because of its proximity to the railroad stations. Steam shovels and horse-drawn wagons were used for the excavation process, which took more than four weeks to complete.

Mountaineer Field was completed in time for the 1924 season. The first game was a win against West Virginia Wesleyan with a score of 21-6 in front of a crowd of 16,000. At the time, this was the largest crowd to gather for a sporting event in West Virginia, but by 1979, Mountaineer Field would see a crowd as large as 38,681!

When the location of the original Mountaineer Field limited its ability to be expanded, Mountaineer Field at Milan Puskar Stadium was constructed. The field was dedicated on September 6, 1980. Not only was this game the first for head coach Don Nehlen, but it was also the exciting game where John Denver made an appearance and led fans in the singing of “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”

The largest crowd the newest stadium has seen was in 1993 with 70,222 in attendance and it regularly sees crowds of around 60,000.

WVU Football has come a long way since that first game in 1891, but one thing has remained the same through it all: the deep sense of pride one feels to be a mountaineer.

Let’s have another great season and let’s go, Mountaineers!