What About Bob?

I have been (and will be) blogging about a weird day I experienced recently with time spent in one local library and three nearby bookstores.  I published Episode 3 first, “The Lady Appeared,” HERE, on Friday, 9/4,  Yesterday, I jumped back to Episode 1, Scene 1, “Shadow of Itself,” HERE.  Today, Imma bump ahead a bit to Episode 1, Scene 3, “What About Bob?” – AND – I will add that the day, though filled with weirdly odd and oddly weird encounters, was not all negative.  No, for this scene, “What about Bob?”, is filled with pleasant discoveries – and one intriguing mystery (that, alas, has a sad ending). 

Now on this day of weirdly odd and oddly weird encounters, I was deep in the Dewey-decimal’d 800 shelves of the library scanning the various titles in the poetry section for tomes on Dickinson when I spied with my little eye a book of green entitled An Emily Dickinson Encyclopedia, edited by Jane Donahue Eberwein.  

As I pulled the tome from the shelf, I remembered perusing another Dickinsonian encyclopedia when I visited the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan this past July, the All Things Dickinson, An Encyclopedia of Emily Dickinson’s World, a two-volume set (A-H and I-Z) published in 2014.  I discussed that set in a post on July 19, HERE,

In the post, entitled "All Things Matter," I said this:

Because I’d recently learned  (HERE) that Mabel Loomis Todd’s father, Eben Jenks Loomis, had edited at least one of Dickinson’s poems for publication in the first edition of Dickinson’s poetry, “It will be Summer – eventually” (he omitted the first stanza and made modifications to the second and third stanzas) – and since I’d also published recent posts about letters from Dickinson to Loomis in the fall of 1885 and winter of 1886 (HERE) – I thought I would check to see what the two-volume encyclopedia had to say about old Mr. Loomis; however, nothing was there!
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Oops – seems that the “All Things Dickinson” tomes are really “Most Things Dickinson.”

Now, a month and a half later, here I was in my local library holding a one-volume Dickinson encyclopedia, so I thought I would give it the “Loomis” test:  Was Eben Jenks Loomis included in the book?  I turned to the pages for “L,” and – a drum roll please –  yes!  Yes, he and his wife Mary were, indeed, mentioned in the text.

I also happened to catch sight of the name “Jenny Lind.”  Do you know of Jenny Lind?

Did you see the movie “The Greatest Showman” with Hugh Jackman as P. T. Barnum?   Do you remember the scene where a singer performs the song “Never Enough”?  That was Jenny Lind, played in the movie by Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson, on her American tour arranged by P. T. Barnum. 

Info from Wikipedia (HERE): “At the height of her fame, she was persuaded by the showman P. T. Barnum to undertake a long tour of the United States. The tour began in September 1850 and continued into May 1852” – and it turns out that Emily Dickinson attended one of Lind's concerts!  To see the scene, click the picture below, or click HERE.

I also ended up on a few pages of “M” and noticed a couple of things:

First, Dickinson’s cousin “George Montague” was listed – but no mention of his later relative, “Gilbert Montague,” who ended up owning much of Dickinson’s works and belongings and leaving it all to Harvard!  I wrote about Gilbert recently, HERE.

Second, I found an entry for “Musical Settings” which was of interest to me, for I, too, compose songs based on Dickinson’s poetry.  Therefore, for the “250 composers” mentioned in the book, add one; and for the 1,400 hundred “musical settings,” add at least fifty more! 
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I was interested to read the list of “frequently set poems.”  For the seven poems named, I’ve composed songs for five of them. 

Now, before I get to the “intriguing mystery” included in the book which I mentioned at the start of this post, let me say that Appendix A, “Fascicle Listings of Dickinson Poems," which appears just after all of the A-to-Z entries, is a nice touch!  The lists inventory all of the poems found in all of Dickinson’s fascicles.

Sooo...the intriguing mystery?  

The mystery appeared just as I opened the book to an almost blank page with a two word dedication:  "For Bob."  And of course, my first thought was, "Who's Bob?"

Well, as you might have guessed, "Bob" was the editor's husband, Robert T. Eberwein -- and both taught at Oakland Universtiy for 38 years. In 1987 Professor Robert Eberwein received OU's Teaching Excellence Award, and in 1988 Professor Jane Eberwein received the Research Excellence Award.  Both retired in 2007, and I found info on their "last lecutres" HERE. 

Alas, Bob died in 2022.  Alas, I am unable to send him greetings from the Emmett Lee Dickinson Museum and poetry blog.  HIs obituary is HERE.
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Stay tuned! 

Tomorrow I'll jump ahead to Episode 2, "Life Poet,"  Scenes 1 and 2!