7 Riley Bio

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT
by Thomas Earl Williams with primary illustrations by Katherine Kuonen and the great assistance of Robert Tinsley with Riley artifacts, Copyright, 1997, Thomas Earl Williams

WHERE IS LOVE FOR RILEY?
RILEY PLAYS THE ROLE OF AMPHINE, A LOVER.
AMPHINE'S WOMAN PROBLEMS
AND CAPACITIES FOR GREAT
FRIENDSHIPS

WHERE IS LOVE FOR RILEY?
AMPHINE'S WOMAN PROBLEMS AND
CAPACITIES FOR GREAT FRIENDSHIPS

There is at least one event in everyone's life which"tears you up." In Riley's great poem of self-scrutiny "The Flying Islands of the Night," Riley is "torn up" because of love. He can know it only at the level of the soul with an already married woman. How could a poetic genius have been driven to such an impasse? What foul fate fickled him?

Riley's self that bears this scar is Amphine, the Riley who can love. Riley wants to know love very badly. He needs his soulmate. Amphine is the lover who seeks reunion with his recently deceased married friend, Nellie Millikan Cooley who died in the days before he wrote "The Flying Islands of the Night."

No, Riley's relationship with Nellie Millikan Cooley was no ordinary one. Would we expect the tapestry of Riley's romance to be woven as traditional cloth? Riley's affair with Nellie was a combination silver, gold

and diamond friendship of souls. • Riley is dealing with his emotional self in

find love now that his beloved soul-mate before her marriage to George Cooley. (Neg. Nellie Millikan Cooley is dead? Riley is C7173, IMCPL-Riley Collection, Indiana

poet, love, a "feel" of warmth, of passion, of happiness, of fulfillment, occasions of loving and being loved in the past and future as well as the present. There is no definition of love but it does have a root meaning which can be expressed in descriptions of qualities and expressions, never matters of intention or demand, but always in happening and gift. It has to do with affection but is not limited to spheres of affections but rather finds its expression in relationships and the yearning to be with another. Riley knew this great love for Nellie Cooley, the source of his great inspiration. That is why it had the worth of silver, gold and diamond.

need for companionship with men as well as women. This is love which the Greeks referred to as "philia" rather than "eros." Riley was capable of assuming the role of Amphine, the lover and man of affectionate relationships, with ease. The company of others often saved him from his deep depression which we will consider in a following section on Crestillomeem, Riley's dejected and alcoholic self in the poem and in his life.

The company of Amphine probably leaves Riley at the end of "The Flying Island of the Night." Riley sought relief from his heavy depression in alcohol on many occasions. Riley "drowned" his sorrow as some refer to it. We are reminded of an effect of alcohol from Shakespeare's "Macbeth," Act II, iii29- 40, where Macbeth's porter made the following remark to a houseguest:

Porter: Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes and unprovokes. It provokes the desire,

but it takes away the performance. Therefore much drink can be said to be an equivocator with lechery. It makes him and it mars him, it sets him on and it takes him off, it persuades him and disheartens him, and makes him stand to and not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and giving him the lie, leaves him."

Amphine did not depart Riley other than as impotence might have reslteed from too great a consumption of alcohol. Possibly such problems marred every single one of Riley's later attempts to find a marriage partner. Most of the women Riley seems to have courted after his thirties cited Riley's alcoholism as a reason why they did not wish to marry him. We simply do not

The Riley "gang" in one of their town entertainments Note: Riley gives a "Comic Recitation" and "Comic Solo," while Nellie sings "Kiss Me and I'll Go to Sleep," "In the Days of Long-Ago" and "Castles in the Air." Riley's pal John Skinner even sings "Courting in the Rain." (Courtesy of The Riley Old Home Society. Greenfield, Indiana.)

Riley retained the great capacity for affectionate relationships. Anyway, Riley's "affair of the souls" with Nellie Millikan Cooley was enough to remember. It was a North Star to guide Riley's emotions even after her death.

We have so very, very little to go on to recreate the setting of the great "soul-level" love of James Whitcomb Riley's for Nellie Millikan Cooley. Those in Greenfield who gossiped after noticing Riley's horse tethered at Nellie's house so often are long gone but their tales have lived on to the present time in folklore. Riley retreated to Greenfield from wherever he wandered when he "felt bad." The soul-mate who shared this escape to find comfort in an unfriendly world who helped him survive such bouts was Nellie Millikan

We know that Nellie, married to another man, George Cooley, was taken from Greenfield by her husband to a far point in Illinois after many years of rambunctious youth for Riley and his Nellie together. Prior to that must have occurred the moments of sharing that brought Nellie and Riley into such great union of souls. Nellie and her husband, George Cooley, remained married for only a short time in Illinois -about two years -before Nellie died there. She was brought back to Greenfield for burial and Riley wrote a great emotionally draining obituary shortly before writing "The Flying Islands of the Night.- Were it not for this autobiographical poem and "taking stock of himself after Nellie's demise" we would probably have nothing at all from Riley about this great soul-love of his life. Riley would never have brooked causing Nellie's reputation to suffer because of their relationship.

The poem "The Flying Islands of the Night" contains much speculative material about this relationship which will be considered further in this section on the life of Amphine, Riley's romantic self, but for now we read a letter of Nellie's sent to Riley from her exile with her husband in Illinois.

Jim dear boy --...We have been too true and loving friends to say "Good Bye" and let that be all. How many times I have thoughts of you, how many good things I have read and wished you could read it. Oh, how many times I have only asked for one more evening like those happy ones spent in old

G... when you would come over and bring your violin and perhaps have one of your charming poems in your pocket to read to us and when it would rain and I would send the beggar maid to see you home. Jim, when your letter was brought to me yesterday, I was sitting reading over some of your poems and some of our correspondence, very strange "was noted." Sometimes you appear to me in a dream and how we do talk and laugh, and always we are the same warm friends that we have been for so many years and every evening I play over the same waltzes and sing the same songs but alas there is a missing link. I sound A in vain, but I still play them all the same...

Nellie's standard farewell was, "Your devoted friend," as in another letter extant of June 1, 1877. The distance of Riley from Nellie after George took her to Illinois apparently did not cool their "soul companionship." Forgive me for a little quote that comes to mind from Shakespeare's 116th Sonnet:

This seems to describe how Riley felt about Nellie wherever she might be. Riley's soul found a home in the encouragement of Nellie. Even death did not sever Riley's cord of regard for Nellie.

We also have a poem from one letter from Riley to Nellie preserved by her daughter, Emma Cooley Cox, which was brought to light in 1878 about eight years after Nellie's death. It attests to Nellie's encouragement to Riley.

Of the Morning's early gleams; And - at my shadow glancing -I feel a loss of strength,

Than to thank you for the thought That "my fame is growing stronger As you really think it ought."

Nellie's daughter, Emma Cooley Cox, mentioned this poem to the editor (Ochiltree) of the Indianapolis Saturday HERALD who thereafter published it many years after Nellie's death. Riley included the poem in a letter to Nellie in which Riley responded to Nellie's saying she felt his fame was growing stronger as she thought it ought.

In the original poem, "The Flying Island of the Night" as it appeared in the Indianapolis Saturday HERALD in 1878, Amphine, Riley's romantic and affectionate self, loved only the one woman, Dwainie, recently deceased as far as earthlife was concerned. Nellie was only dead weeks at this time.

was a woman married to another man whose life we shall connect with Riley's as Amphine grew into adolescence and with Nellie into his mid‑

Nellie Millikan Cooley with daughter Emma . (Neg. 07175, IMCPL-Riley Collection, Indiana Historical Society.)

twenties. Now, by the time Riley wrote his autobiographical poem, Nellie had died. Nellie was the great foe of Crestillomeem of the poem. While Crestillomeem plotted Riley's downfall, Dwainie, steeped in love for Riley, returned to Riley from the dead to save his great life-plan to achieve fame. Crestillomeem early in the poem recognizes Dwainie:

Nellie Millikan Cooley was not simply the woman who Riley loved, she was his great booster and encourager. Her death preceded the writing of the poem "The Flying Islands of the Night" bears Riley's otherwise unexpressible grief at her passing. Without Nellie, his love interest became alcohol, the Cresti I lomeem of the poem. His soul had lost its mate and needed another. Crestillomeem sought Riley's courtship.

"The Flying Islands of the Night" tells us that Riley loved Nellie Cooley. That is not to say that he did not have affection for others or even encounters "on the run" in his years of early manhood. These seem extremely probable. But with Nellie Cooley did Riley indulge in his great "soul" love affair. "The Flying Islands of the Night" written during R iley's great grief following Nellie's death, contains what this biographer considers the finest love lyric in all of literature. One recognizes echoes from Riley's obituary of Nellie alive in "Warm depths of azure skies, where merry birds, afloat on waves of sunshine, poured out their sweetest songs, and so baptized the world with sweetest melody..."

The teeper twitters Dwainie! -The tcheucker on his spray Teeters up and down the wind And will not fly away:

And Dwainie! - My Dwainie! The drowsy oovers drawl; -But Dwainie hides in Spirkland And answers not at all.

0 Dwainie! - My Dwainie! The breezes hold their breath -The stars are pale as blossoms, And the night as still as death: And Dwainie! - My Dwainie! The fainting echoes fall; ‑

The death of a beloved can never make more sense than Riley gives to this
Dwainie poem of "The Flying Islands of the Night." Love blurs reality and
takes its imagery from absurdity or from such alienation as delirium dreams.
There is only scant evidence of the life of Nellie Millikan Cooley.
Although Riley's obituary of her shows her burial in Greenfield's Park
Cemetery, no stone remains to mark the spot nor record of where she is
buried. Nor does the cemetery have record of it. The winter of the writing of
this biography, 1997, the biographer located the grave with cemetery per‑
sonnel from Greenfield's Riley Park Cemetery using a probe into the soft
early winter earth. Only the pea gravel which covered the wooden coffin
gave the tracings of the spot of her burial. I placed a wreath of the usual vari‑
ety on the grave once located. It will probably never be of interest hereafter.
The thought of my causing a "probe" to be sent into the ground to disturb

Riley sent his soul down into that grave I found to marry his Dwainie there. Marriage with any other was impossible.

In the 1870 United States census, Nellie is listed as living in Greenfield, Indiana in the household of George B. Cooley, age 30, as Nellie M. Cooley, age 25, "keeping house" and born in Ohio. Her children are listed as Emma, age 4, and Susannah, age 1. Also listed in the household of George B. Cooley is the mother, Rhoda Millikan, Riley's art and "home school" tutor from Riley's youth. She is listed as being age 50 and as an "artist."

The Millikans are not recorded in the 1860 United States census as being residents of Hancock County, Indiana. They arrived shortly after the American

Civil War began and Nellie Millikan's mother, Mrs. Rhoda Millikan, took up schooling in Greenfield from the opportunity that the local school had disbanded when its men teachers went off to war.

Shortly after her arrival with her family in the year 1862, Nellie Millikan - as a girl - joined the Ladies Saxhorn Band which apparently took the place of the men's group after it enlisted en masse to become a regimental band for a Hoosier Civil War Regiment.

While still a young girl, Nellie married George Cooley on February 22, 1865. George was in advertising and often traveled.

History tells us that Nellie, and sometimes her husband, George, were members of many casts of the Adeiphians, a Greenfield dramatic club. The Adeiphians put on plays at the Greenfield Masonic Hall. James Whitcomb Riley was very active in this group in the early 1870's and was said to have made most of the stage scenery and backdrops while Nellie provided piano accompaniments. Other familiar faces mentioned in Riley poetry or within his circle of friends who were in the casts were Lee 0. Harris, George A.

"Dwainie's currently unmarked grave. According to cemetery officials, the grave of Nellie Millikan Cooley is in a small row of lots purchased by her husband George when Greenfield, Indiana first opened its Park Cemetery. Only the resistance to a probe of pea gravel placed around the wooden coffins in those days permitted its location by a cemetery ground crew. I placed my jacket on the spot.

"Mother" Rhoda Millikan died October 2, 1903 after returning to Greenfield Indiana. She had lived with her son Jesse Millikan, born the same year as James Whitcomb Riley, who died the month before on September lst.

While Jesse Millikan lay on his deathbed shortly before his death, James Whitcomb Riley went to see him and tried to cheer him up saying, "Jesse, I just met old Fate up on the street and I knocked him the other way: he is going east now." Jesse was not able to do much more than smile and died

Riley loved the Millikans as his own family because they were in his mind his own family through his soul-love for Nellie. When Nellie died in Riley's late 20's his world was shattered. Nellie's brothers, Ed

Millikan, a Greenfield painter, and Jess Millikan, a Greenfield shoemaker, remained among Riley's closest friends throughout their long lives. After Riley bought his boyhood home in Greenfield, he left a standing order with Nellie's brother Ed to paint it once a year - "twice a year if you have time." When Nellie's brother Jess got sick, Riley cheered him by saying, "Hurry and get well, Jess, and if you haven't any leather in your shop, I'll see to getting some if I have to tan my own old hide," and to Jess's doctor, he said, "You've got to cure this man - I don't care what it costs." Riley paid for the care including an extended hospital bill.

Let us pose what Riley's life was like with Nellie. Can we imagine Riley serenading her? Serenading was very popular in the days of Riley's and Nellie's youth. Riley played the violin, mandolin, guitar, banjo and anything else he could lay his hands on. Did they make fudge, pull taffy or pop popcorn? Their moments together are shrouded in oblivion.

The finality of the death of Nellie Cooley in 1 878 left Riley with only the dreams of a life a woman with whom he could share his life's goals and aspirations, love and affection. But let us return to the earlier days in Riley's 20's when he returned to Greenfield on so many occasions to be with Nellie.

George Cooley. husband of Nellie Millikan Cooley. George Brewer Cooley was born Jan. 3, 1840 and died Sep. 1893. A Civil War veteran. he had seen action at Chicamauga where he was promoted to Captain on the battlefield. He also carried a bullet in his side from that battle for the rest of his life. (Neg. C7179, IMCPL-Riley Collection, Indiana Historical Society.)

His life when Nellie was alive included croquet parties, ice cream festivals on the courthouse lawn, dancing at the Twilight Club. They acted together in Adelphian plays and private entertainments. He played violin on moonlit nights with Nellie at the stone culvert over the Bradywine where the boys and girls of Greenfield went for privacy. Public appearances included other women. Alice Thayer took Riley as a date to a February party and he acted like a skittish girl. Then after the fun and socializing, if he didn't feel the urge to write and if he felt the need to bare his genius- soul, he went to Nellie's. George, who travelled selling advertisements, was perhaps not always around. Or perhaps he was. George did not get in the way.

The final stanza of "The Flying Islands" seems to indicate Riley's determination to love only Nellie and be content with these dreams of her even after her death.

The dead Nellie took Riley's life of his soul-love as one feels for a true mate to the grave with her. Riley married Nellie in heaven.

Riley once dismissed his failure to marry in another way as, "Should he find the right woman she would fail to find him the right man." But we suspect some altogether different reason. Nellie was the only woman he fully loved.

He seems to have enjoyed relationships with other women but these were simply encounters. There were no more Nellies. Content with his dreams permitted great imaginative contacts with her, one of which was Riley's poem, "An Old Sweetheart of Mine," written in 1875 before Nellie left Greenfield with her husband or Nellie was resettled by her husband in Illinois.

It is useless to speculate why Nellie left Greenfield with her husband at about the time Riley also left Greenfield. Did George become jealous about Riley and his wife's relationship at a soul level which he could not share?The relationship of Riley and the Cooleys in the lonesome letters that Riley later wrote to Nellie do not indicate any strain in Riley's friendship with George.

Riley's sadness at Nellie's departure is reflected in poetry of the Amphine of 1876 who wrote romantic and narrative verse. His was a stifled inspira‑

Lion most often drawn from recollection and personal experience. On the other hand some of Amphine's themes are borrowed from literary sources. Unlike Spraivoll's great kenotic poetry, inspired by an indirect route from the great Lutheran German theologians, Amphine's inspiration conies from Riley's heart. Here is a poem written after Nellie's departure from Greenfield when she was taken to Illinois by her husband.

He smiles in his heart, though his deep, sad eyes Never change to a glad surprise

As he finds the answer he seeks confessed In glowing features, and heaving breast.

Of the Coquette's art and the Serpent's trick, -She someway feels she would like to fling Her sins away as a robe, and spring Up like a lily pure and white,

The lids unfold like the rose's leaves, And the upraised eyes are moist and mild As the prayerful eyes of a drowsy child. Does she remember the spell they once Wrought in the past a few short months? Haply not - yet her lover's eyes

Close in the coil of his curving arm, And whirls her away in a gust of sound As wild and sweet as the poets found In the paradise where the silken tent Of the Persian blooms in the Orient, -While ever the chords of the music seem Whispering sadly, - "Only a dream!"

I . Nellie often played the piano while Riley sang or played his violin or guitar.

For two years the Cooleys lived in Belleville, Illinois where Riley wrote them this letter in Oct. 28, 1877.

I have neglected writing to you for so long that I come to you at last with my apologetic features elongated and stretched to their utmost tension. If you can forgive me for my long silence do so in God's name, and if you can't w'y take me your prisoner and 'fasten me down forever in the round tower of your heart' and I'll never murmur for release till heaven dawns thro' the gates.

I am so glad today - so 'sure-enough' glad - that you must join me in my joy, and become a portion of that fat and rare old sentiment - 'W'ats the hodds so long as you're happ!" I've a thousand things to tell you, and a thousand things to ask: but first I would suggest - by way of casual introductory - the propriety of your getting together the accessories of instant response, for I shall expect a reply by return mail.

Everything has changed here - everything - except, perhaps, old Johnny Rardin - who won't die, and don't care a cuss who knows it. Yes, Johnny is as "bright" as ever and as thoroughly up with the styles. I saw him blow past awhile ago in a cloud of leaves, but as he had taken precaution before, leaving home to have his straw hat firmly strapped on his head, that - valuable adornment will doubtless plug up some window of the future or furnish fodder of facts for some historian yet unborn. Speaking of old Johnny - you wouldn't know the old street passing his palatial residence - the old road home, you know. W'y it's had all the twists taken out of its vertebra, and

dug down and tilled up till it's as level as a brickyard from A to Izzard; a lovely sidewalk on either side, and a stone and iron fence occasionally -well, in fact it's the 'boss' thoroughfare in the city - no mistaking. But then, for all that, it can never be so good a friend to me as when in the old days -it led me through its ruts and puddies to the Cooley mansion. And as I write the words, a gust of memories blown from the Long Ago comes like a fragrance o'er my yearning heart and thrills me with‑

You were better friends to me than I could know - or appreciate then -but now - now when great blank miles and miles of cruel separation intervene I can but reach with empty hands and fancy they are pressed again with that old warmth of hale regard that still burns in your bosoms I am sure -but pardon! "My heart grows as weak as a woman's" and it "behooves me to fend off such puerile tho'ts and turn to manlier things - the girls for instance. I was at "the Club" last night (Terpsichorean)...(I'd like to give in this connection a genuine Hartpence local', but - space forbids, and thank God, that "Space" is still in our midst!"

Well, I've rattled away here for an hour or more, and have said nothing of importance or interest yet forgive me for my intentions were the best. Before I close I want to ask if you don't think it would do you all good to come home here for awhile. I want to see you - your friends want to see you, and in fact Greenfield as an individual would greet you with open arms. I have been building castles of a visit to you, but the Fates won't hear to it yet awhile. I will come tho' the very minute my incoming 'ship' sticks her nose against the shore...

I have been quite busy with my literary studies, and am progressing with every promise of success. I have in course of construction now a work I'd like to read to mother and Nell before the great eyes of the public - get a peek. Whatever you do write to me and write now and kiss the children for your old friend.

1. "Hartpence local" would be a local news account for William Hartpence, the Editor of the Greenfield NEWS to which Riley contributed (and later edited) until it folded.

The very subtitle of "The Flying Islands of the Night" reflects Nellie and Riley's love for her. In the original publication of "Flying Islands of the Night" in the Buzz Club series, Number IV of August 24. 1878, the poem was subtitled "A Twintorette."

As in many other instances, one can look to other writing of Riley for assistance in interpretation. A poem entitled "A Twintorette" was first published in 1881 but no doubt was written much earlier.

Ho! my little maiden

With the glossy tresses,

Come thou and dance with me A measure all divine;

Let my breast be laden

With but thy caresses ‑

Come thou and glancingly Mate thy face with mine.

Thou shalt trill a rondel, While my lips are purling Some dainty twitterings Sweeter than the birds';

And, with arms that fondle Each as we go, twirling,

We will kiss, with twitterings, Lisps and loving words.

"Twinning," as this poem proposes, has to do with romantic joinder. It refers to intimate union of two things. Torrid is suggestive of the depth of the "twinning" and "ette" simply means a short poem. Flying Islands was originally of course, published on a single page, Page 6 of the Indianapolis Saturday Herald of August 24, 1874.

A "twintorette" seems to be a poem in which a lover and beloved are rejoined. The two who are the subjects of this poem are Riley and his beloved Nellie Cooley, recently deceased by a bare two months, at the time of the writing.

Riley wrote to Mrs. Emma Cox, Nellie's daughter, on April 10, 1885 in response to the publication of a poem Riley had written to Nellie which Nellie's daughter had published.

It is Sunday, but to write you as I do is like a prayer, - Your beautiful tribute in the HERALD touched me deeply, recalling so tenderly your absent mother's kindliness when she was here; her brave, glad nature; the noble generous gentlewoman that she was; the truest friend on earth, or now in Heaven - God bless us always with the sweetness of her memory!

I can say no more now - only, my dear friend, I am very proud of your friendship, and of your talents - in music -composition - every way, and God bless us everyone!'

Literary friends of Mrs. Rhoda Millikan, Nellie Cooley's mother, asked her, during the summer of 1902 (a year before her death) to write her first impression of Mr. Riley. Though 83 years old she was still a constant reader, her mind was clear and her handwriting easily legible. Her recollections were reported in the Indianapolis STAR of October 4, 1931.

"I have been requested by some friends of Mr. James Whitcomb Riley to write my first impressions of that much admired poet, humorist and artist. My first impression of Mr. Riley was vague and uncertain. When I first saw him I was a middle-aged woman. He was a small boy, quiet, shy and modest. When I came to Greenfield, I was a stranger. I took charge of a school there. I had some of my own children with me. They soon became quite well acquainted with 'Jim' Riley. It was a great treat to them to hear him talk and they were constantly telling me something concerning what he had said to them. I soon became interested and requested them to bring their admired

Rhoda Millikan, Riley's teacher at the time of the American Civil War, and daughter, Nellie Cooley, as a child. (Neg. C7174, IMCPL-Riley Collection, Indiana Historical Society.

companion to my room. I soon saw he was trying to become a writer. After a time he could be found willing to read some of his poems and prose sketches to me. I was greatly surprised when I heard them though I had a hard time to make him believe they were of any merit.

After a while some of his poems were published in some of the Greenfield papers. They were not copied in papers outside of Greenfield. This was discouraging to our very young writer. He came to talk to me about it and said he would write no more. I told him that was what young writers might look for. Greenfield was then quite a small place, and editors of magazines were not looking for gems in smallcountry papers. I talked a good deal to him at this time as he was not much encouraged by his father, a lawyer of decided ability, who was anxious to have James study law...

Mr. Riley was in the way of coming in sometimes of an evening. He never was much inclined to talk very much, but what he did say counted. He nearly always had a pencil in his hand, and when he left the house we would find some of the most comical drawings or the queerest little poems imaginable.

One night, I remember, a Japanese fan had been left on the table. The picture on the fan was quite as ridiculous as are usually found on fans of that kind. It represented an impossible bridge, with three Chinamen in undress costume fishing on from the bridge. My daughter had just been singing Kingsley's "Three Fishers." We saw Mr. Riley writing something on the fan which proved to a parody on the first verse of "The Fishers' ‑

Well, time when on. I have lived eight-three years in this world and have seen many people, but I have never met any one that I felt was like James Whitcomb Riley. He stands quite alone. His writings are a strange mixture of humor and pathos blended with a strong element of unexpectedness which is a fascination of itself. I have been made happy by his success. I have able to exclaim with the famous old lady, "I told you so." Rhoda H. Millikan

While Nellie Millikan Cooley lived, it seems that Riley was able to use the verse of Longfellow as inspirational models to produce ballad like poetry of a similar ilk to Longfellow's. After Nellie died the possibility of Longfellow lyric also departed. Perhaps its lilt and feel were simply no longer possible in Riley's life.

Riley's earliest published poetry seems to have the ring of Longfellow about it. Much of his earliest poetry, published in local Greenfield newspapers such as the Greenfield COMMERCIAL, is lost but we do have the early "Amphine" poem "Man's Devotion" of 1872 published in The Indianapolis Saturday MIRROR to look at. Its theme is romantic in that we find the departures or separations of innocent first lovers is an inexplicable but necessary life situation.

(The Maiden promises to remain faithful to him until he returns, keeps his picture, but eventually after "years -dull years -in dull monotony" she marries another who eventually dies. The young wandering man\lover returns after much time, but the "Maiden" must admit she has been married.)

I suppose we recall that about this time, Riley was leaving Nellie Cooley behind in Greenfield for jaunts out into the countryside to paint barns or signs and also to travel in the medicine shows. His theme explores how attachments between lovers change and marital conditions become inevitable drawbacks to the permanency of stolen initial innocent love. Nevertheless personal ties, "vows," remain real and circumstances may later permit the first lovers to resume a more permanent residence together. In the poem the woman marries another but eventually the two again find each

other and resume life together again. It sounds like a "pipe-dream" but Riley perhaps had the youthful thought in his head, as evidenced by the poem, that he could leave Greenfield and come back to find the woman he loved a widow and then marry her.

After Nellie's death, the lyric of Longfellow's romantic ballad's was pretty much stilled. While Nellie lived, and was close, he could write "An Old Sweetheart of Mine," with its sentimental strain of satisfaction in a loving home he could conjure up with Nellie. Then Nellie left and we have no more such "Longfellow" type ballads.

Much has been made of the relationship of the .early James Whitcomb Riley and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This derives from Riley's recollections that Riley read Longfellow poetry from an early age. Riley's early ballad narratives do seem to bear this influence. His "Longfellow" poetry also seems to bear on his relationship with Nellie in the early period of Riley's twenties. Perhaps the figure in this poem was the Riley who never married because the woman he loved was already married. Perhaps one day they might marry. Perhaps we can see a little of Nellie as "Mary" and Riley in this one. In 1874, Riley wrote

Who's lived a cross old bachelor fer thirty year' and more - A-lookin' glad and smilin'! And they's none o' you can say That you can guess the reason why I feel so good to-day!

As to how it comes to happen that I never took a wife - • Kindo' "crawfish" from the present to the Springtime of my life!

I was brought up in the country: Of a family of five -Three brothers and a sister - I'm the only one alive, -

Fer they all died little babies; and `twos one o' Mother's ways, You know, to want a daughter; so she took a girl to raise.

The sweetest little thing she was, with rosy cheeks, and fat-We was little chunks o' shavers then about as high as that!

But someway we sort o' suited-like! and Mother she'd declare She never laid her eyes on a more lovin' pair

Than we was! So we growed up side by side _,fer thirteen year', And every hour of it she growed to me more dear! -

Of a certain sort o' notion that was runnin' through my head, -"Some day I'd maybe marry, and brother's love was one Thing - a lover's was another!" was the way the notion run!

I remember onc't in harvest, when the "cradle-in'" was done, (When the harvest of my summers mounted up to twenty-one), I was ridin' home with Mary at the closin' o' the day - A-chawin' straws and thinkin', in a lover's lazy way! And Mary's cheeks was burnin' like the sunset down the lane: I noticed she was thinkin', too, and ast her to explain.

Well - when she turned and kissed me, with her arms around me - law! I'd a bigger load a' Heaven than I had a load o' straw!

I don't p'tend to larnin', but I'll tell you what's a fac', They's a mighty truthful sayin' somers in a' almanac ‑

But it's jest as true as preachin'! - fer that was a sister's kiss, And a sister's lovin' confidence a-tellin' to me this: ‑

"She was happy, bein' promised to the son o' Farmer Brown." And my feelin's stuck a pardnership with sunset and went down!

Fer my heart seemed jest a-turnin' to an ice-cold lump o' lead; And the horses kind o' glimmered before me in the road, And the lines fell from my fingers - And that was all I knowed -

Fer - well, I don't know how long - They's a dim rememberence Of a sound o' snortin' horses, and a stake-and-ridered fence A-whizzin' past, and wheat-sheaves a-dancin' in the air, And Mary screamin' "Murder!" and a-runnin' up to where

I was layin' by the roadside, and the wagon upside down A-leanin' on the gate-post, with the wheels a-whirlin' roun'! And I tried to raise and meet her, but I couldn't, with a vague Sort o' notion comin' to me that I had a broken leg.

Well, the women nussed me through it; but many a time I'd sigh As I'd keep a-gettin' better instid o' goin' to die,

And my thoughts was as rebellious as the folks was good and kind When Brown and Mary married - Reilly must 'a' been my mind Was kind o' out o' kilter! - fer I hated Brown, you see,

And done a thousand little ac's o' kindness and respec' -And me a-wishin' all the time that I could break his neck! My relief was like a mourner's when the funeral is done When they moved to Illinois in the Fall o' Forty-one.

Then I went to work in airnest - I had nothin' much in view But to drownd out rickollections - and it kep' me busy, too! But I slowly thrived and prospered, tel Mother used to say She expected yit to see me a wealthy man some day.

Then I'd think how little money was, compared to happiness -And who'd be left to use it when I died I couldn't guess! But I've still kep' speculatin' and a-gainin' year by year, Tel I'm payin' half the taxes in the county, might near!

Well! - A year ago er better, a letter comes to hand Astin' how'd I'd like to dicker fer some Illinois land -"The feller that had owned it," it went ahead to state,

And then it closed by sayin' that I'd better come and see." -I'd never been West, anyhow - a'most too wild fer me, I'd al/us had a notion; but a lawyer here in town

So I bids good-by to Mother, and I jumps aboard the train, A-thinkin' what I'd bring her when I come back home again -And of she'd had an idy what the present was to be, 1 think it's more'n likely she'd `a'went along with me!

Well, in the morning airly - after huntin' up the man -The lawyer who was wantin' to swap a piece o' land -We started fer the country; and I ast the history Of the farm - its former owner - and so forth, etcetery!

By the loud and frequent manner in which 1 blowed my nose! -But his su'prise was greater, and it made him wonder more,

It was Mary:...They's a feelin' a-hidin' down in here -Of course I can't explain it, ner ever make it clear. ‑

It was with us in that meetin', I don't want you to fergit! And it makes me kind o' nervous when I think about it yit!

I bought that farm, and deeded it, afore I left the town, With 'title clear to mansions in the skies," to Mary Brown! And fu'thermore, I took her and the childern - fer you see,

Who's lived a cross old bachelor fer thirty year' and more Is a-lookin' glad and smilin'! - And I've jest come into town To git a pair o' license fer to marry Mary Brown."

While Nellie was alive, Riley might imagine a hopeful future. With Nellie in Greenfield, Riley could visualize his arrangement with her almost as a married life. He included the thought in poetry, thinking of her as the companion he had grown up with and the wife she might have been or could one day become after her more elderly husband's death, one of which is the following:

An old sweetheart of mine! - Is this her presence here with me, Or but a vain creation of a lover's memory?

Nay, let me then believe in all the blended false and true -The semblance of the old love and the substance of the new, ‑

The then of changeless sunny days - the now of shower and shine -But Love forever smiling - as that old sweetheart of mine.

This ever-restful sense of home, though shouts ring in the hall. -The easy chair - the old book-shelves and prints along the wall, The rare Habanas in their box, or gaunt church-warden-stem That often wags, above the jar, derisively at them.

As one who cons at evening o'er an album, all alone, And muses on the faces of the friends that he has known, So / turn the leaves of Fancy, til, in shadowy design, 1 find the smiling features of an old sweetheart of mine.

And light my pipe in silence, save a sigh that seems to yoke Its fate with my tobacco and to vanish with the smoke.

`Ti.s a fragrant retrospection, - for the loving thoughts that start Into being are like perfume from the blossom of the heart; And to dream the old dreams over is a luxury divine ‑

Though I hear beneath my study, like a fluttering of wings, The voices of my children and the mother as she sings - I feel no twinge of conscience to deny me any theme

In fact, to speak in earnest, I believe it adds a charm To spice the good a trifle with a little dust of harm, -For I _.find an extra flavor in Memory's mellow wine

m Childhood-days enchanted! 0 the magic of the Spring! -With all green boughs to blossom white, and all bluebirds to sing!

With eyes half closed in clouds that ooze from lips that taste, as well, The peppermint and cinnamon, I hear the old School bell, And from "Recess" romp in again from "Blackman's" broken line, To smile, behind my "lesson," at that old sweetheart of mine.

A face of lily beauty, with a form of airy grace, Floats out of my tobacco as the Genii from the vase; And I thrill beneath the glances of a pair of azure eyes As glowing as the summer and as tender as the skies.

I can see the pink sunbonnet and the little checkered dress She wore when first I kissed her and she answered the caress With the written declaration that, "as surely as the vine

The big "Rhode Island Greening ²"-I was hungry, too, that day! -But I follow her from Spelling, with her hand behind her - so -And I slip the apple in it - and the Teacher doesn't know!

And, if little girls played marbles, mine should all be hers, instead! But she gave me her photograph, and printed, "Ever thine" Across the back - in blue-and-red - that old sweetheart of mine!

As we used to talk together of the future we had planned, -When I should be a poet, and with nothing else to do But write the tender verses that she set the music to...

Where the vines were ever fruited, and the weather ever fine, And the birds were ever singing for that old sweetheart of mine.

And she my faithful sweetheart till the golden hair was gray; And we should be so happy that when either's lips were dumb They would not smile in Heaven till the other's kiss had come.

And the door is softly opened, and - my wife is standing there: Yet with eagerness and rapture all my visions I resign, -To greet the living presence of that old sweetheart of mine."

1. This poem was one of Riley's most popular. It was said to have earned him $500 a word - a princely sum in Riley's day. A story set in New York City demonstrates its popularity, A vagabond named McGlaughlin was brought to Court on an October day charged with loitering and vagrancy. In defending himself he said that he was an actor and simply out of work. "To prove I'm an actor just give me a poem to recite. I'll orate any piece you choose." The judge said if he could recite "An Old Sweetheart of Mine" he would acknowledge that he was no "bum." McGlaughlin did so and his reading was so good that the judge not only dismissed the charges but also had a collection taken up for the man in his courtroom.

2. Apples were the most commonly mentioned food in Riley's poetry and the variety known as Rhode Island Greening is the most obscure of Rileyana.

Shortly after the writing of this poem, Nellie was taken from Greenfield by her husband to exile in Illinois. Others have vied ever since for the honor of being Riley's "Old Sweetheart of Mine."

One of the most unseemly debates in all of literature is that over who was the woman pictured in the poem "An Old Sweetheart of Mine."

It seems that almost every otherwise "reputable" Greenfield family of the last century tried to publicize some one or other of its oth‑

erwise modest and chaste daughters as having sultry, wildly adulterous or loose affairs with Riley in order to have them pictured as the "Sweetheart." Some even published books to have a daughter deemed the one, unconcerned that their daughter's reputation might suffer a little in the process. It seems hard to imagine the mothers and fathers fighting so to have a daughter deemed promiscuous with James Whitcomb Riley, but they went at it with "unadulterated" frenzy.

Of course the poem was the most widely known poem of the last century and made Riley rich, but that hardly seems like a good excuse to slander an otherwise nice young daughter.

I think this genre of books, pushing a woman's claim to having had an affair with Riley, is the strangest of any ever published, but apparently the goal of having the woman declared the "Sweetheart" offered the gift of fame beyond any wish to keep the more private things of life about a family member under wraps, assuming an encounter between Riley and any of the girl candidates ever did occur with any of the many proposed "Sweethearts."

the Walker Block Building located at the Northwest corner of State and Main Streets, Greenfield, Indiana. long since removed. On the second floor of this building, in Reuben Riley's law office at the time, the poem "An Old Sweetheart of Mine." was composed.

tle private reminiscences as to what did or did not happen with James Whitcomb Riley. Although I do not believe any one woman is the model for the "Sweetheart," I agree with Minnie Belle Mitchell, one of the poet's great biographers, that the most important female influences on his life, and thus probably in his mind in picturing the Sweetheart, would have been his own mother, Elizabeth Riley, Nellie Millikan Cooley, and Adda Rowell Barber, both of the latter being early Riley girlfriends who married other men.

Having said that, let us remember the poem itself, not because it made Riley the most wealthy poet who ever lived, or because it has been the most widely published American piece of poetry in history, or for any other reason than to indulge in a picture of American homelife by Amphine's most hopeful vision of love itself within the intimacy of lover's fantasy sheltered from the world outside.

While it seems that Nellie Cooley was Riley's only fully beloved woman, Nellie's husband was also a friend of Riley's and perhaps never aware how intimate Riley and Nellie were. George Cooley wrote Riley letters of encouragement as did Nellie.

LETTER FROM NELLIE COOLEY'S HUSBAND, GEORGE Bellesville, IL Jan 1, 1877 (Holiday Eve)

I have had my letters but seldom one as welcome as yours to myself and Nellie. Those lines to Nellie were beautiful indeed. You have a talent - that is bound to meet with its first reward. Should you live a few years (Greenfield notwithstanding). Go on my Boy. Never look backward. It is in you. I only wish it was in my power to point you to a shorter and lazier road to fame than that you seem to have been compelled to travel but as before said, pass on. Look forward. Work - be determined and despite all back biting and jealousy, such as has been displayed with Hancock. Take my word for it. The time will come when it won't be Jim Riley, but James W. Riley, Esq. one of America's Famous Poets.

He goes on to encourage Riley to write both or either himself or Nellie and states Nellie will be writing him the next day.

As the poem "The Flying Islands of the Night" comes to an end, Riley comments how Dwainie takes Amphine with him into the grave.

Riley's memorial to Nellie was not just his written obituary to her or his poetry to her but also his play/poem, "The Flying Islands of the Night." This

poem, with all of its many revisions and additions and editings, retained the references to Nellie as its core.

Stay yet thy step upon the casement-stair -Poised be thy slipper-tip as is the tine

I . A casement is a window-frame. For it to be a stair would refer to it as an access down from heaven through it, or possibly, the reference is to the stair leading to Riley's place of writing at "The Seminary" where the Riley family lived called the "Crow's Nest" where Riley wrote much of this poetry.

Thy face, 0 Dwainie, lily-pure and fair,

Gleams i' the dusk, as in the dusky hair

The moony zhoomer ' glimmers, or the shine, Of the swift smile - Ah, Dwainie -Dwainie mine,

Yet linger - linger there!

1. Summer in intoxicatese.

With lifted wrist, where round the laughing air Hath blown a mist of lawn and clasped it there, Waft finger-thipt adieus that spray the wine

Of they waste kisses toward me, Dwainie mine ‑

Yet linger -linger there!

A fanciful illustration by Adrian Marcel of the line "Linger. my Dwainie! Dwainie, lily fair..." from the Homestead Edition of "The Flying Islands of the Night" as published 1908 by Charles Scribner's Sons.

What unloosed splendor is there may compare With thy hand's unfurled glory, anywhere?

It lays its tenderness like palms of prayer -It touches sacredly those lips of thine

The recollection of Nellie did not dim over the years. Riley added the following poem to the text of "The Flying Islands of the Night" many years after her death during a later revision:

Nellie remained Riley's salvation over the many years of his life. Nellie, from her dead state, continually intervened to encourage Riley over the years and fend off Crestillomeem.

By the time "The Flying Islands of the Night" was revised thirteen years later and placed into book form in 1891, Riley chose to add another beloved from his life to join the cast with Dwainie, Nellie Millikan Cooley. This was AEo, Riley's mother. The name derives from the centered letter "E," the abbreviated first letter of his mother's name surrounded by the Greek alpha and omega substitutes signaling his mother meant to him the beginning and end of his love.

The tombstone of James Whitcomb Riley's mother, Elizabeth Riley, at Greenfield, Indiana's Park Cemetery reflects that she lived from 1823 until

1870, "the year the mother died." Her grave on a hill overlooks Brandywine Creek meandering through the Hoosier landscape, the same "crick" on which was James Whitcomb Riley's "Old Swimmin' Hole" was located to the north near the old "National Road."

Her name was Elizabeth Marine before she married Reuben Riley and bore James Whitcomb Riley as her third child.

We can elaborate more upon the life of Riley's beloved mother. Elizabeth's family had come to America to avoid persecution in Europe. This seems to be the case with most of our ancestors which is why I find it so hard to understand how any American can have prejudice toward any member of another church, creed or race. Elizabeth's Marine (or Merine) grandparents were Welch Quakers who came to America when Quakers were being persecuted in England. The Marine grandmother's family had fled to England to avoid Protestant persecution in France. Their son, John, married Elizabeth'smother, Fanny. They were living on the border between North Carolina and South Carolina, near Rockingham, when Elizabeth, their tenth of eleven children, was born.

When Elizabeth was only two, her parents left North Carolina broke. By the time the family fled over the Blue Ridge Mountains and into Indiana, their total resources were a wagon pulled by a single horse. Elizabeth's parents became pioneer settlers of a Randolph County farm. At this place, Elizabeth became acquainted with Johnny Appleseed personally and had listened to the tales he told the pioneer children. Most people know of Johnny Appleseed's quaint habit of wearing a cooking pot for a hat and for planting apple trees wherever he went, but not everybody remembers that Johnny was also a gospel carrying preacher. Elizabeth believed him when he said you grow old on earth but you grow young again in heaven. You can find traces of Johnny's preachings in the poetry of James Whitcomb Riley, Elizabeth's son. As a child Elizabeth went to school obediently to her parents' wishes, but she enjoyed most wandering through the Hoosier woods.

Her father tried to turn part of his farm into a town called Rockingham after the town in North Carolina he had fled. The project failed and the platted town remains farmland to this day except for what was to be the town cemetery without stones in one of whose graves rests Elizabeth's mother, Fanny.

After her mother died, the Marines moved to a settlement on Cabin Creek near the Mississinewa River. At a Fourth of July picnic in 1843, Elizabeth met Reuben Riley. There was an Indian trail between the creek Elizabeth

lived on and the one where the family of Reuben Riley resided, Cabin Creek. After the two, Elizabeth and Reuben, met at the picnic, it is said this trail got worn down by Reuben's use. In Feb. 1844, Elizabeth married Reuben in a beautiful pioneer wedding performed by the local Methodist preacher. Pioneer Indiana was not so backwoodsy and crude as many think. Elizabeth wore a long white veil, white

kid gloves and shoes, and a pale pink silk dress. She was a truly beautiful woman.

Elizabeth and her new husband left for Greenfield five months after the wedding to settle in Greenfield. In the year 1844, Greenfield was a settlement of about 300 people. The legislature had only "created" Hancock County 16

years before. The town was mainly cabins and a few frame houses and businesses around the "public square." The Riley Home, then a cabin, was on the West edge of Greenfield and the Hoosier woods was behind it.

Elizabeth Riley was said to be gentle, kindly, sympathetic, tolerant, and patient. She and her son were on the same wave length at all times. Both were poetic, imaginative. If one saw fairies in their walks through the woods the other saw them too and each wove fanciful stories. Both were dreamers to live above the sordid impoverishment of their daily lives. She was the only one who fully recognized his talents and visualized the heights he could attain. Some have stated Elizabeth Riley was over-solicitous of James Whitcomb Riley. They note that on September 4, 1851, when he was two, his older sister, Martha Celeste died and that as sometimes happens after a child's death, the mother becomes extra extra careful about the next child.

What is clear is that Riley leaned heavily upon his mother's sympathetic encouragement and understanding and love and clung to her as strongly as he clung to his goal of being a writer. She was necessary to his very existence. He wished his success for her. Then one day she died.

The death of his mother gave Riley a deep abiding sympathy and pity for those who suffered bereavement and he wrote

rtL! TIRAT ROM UP CAPTAIN RILLY,IN GiitIMELD AND EIPAD
?Wirt OF JANE S it NITCOND 111,41. TSLYOET.

Drawing by Will Vawter, Greenfield-born artist, of the birthorne of the poet. Vawter was 21 years younger than Riley. The two first collaborated when Vawter illustrated the poem "Armzindy."

"Since my mother died, my face Knows not any resting-place, Save in visions, lightly pressed In its old accustomed rest On her shoulder. But 1 wake With a never-ending ache

A psychologist of my century, Jerome Kagan, teaches that an intelligent person is not necessarily creative but a creative person is generally intelligent with creativity based on three key characteristics: they have a mental set to search for the unusual, they take delight in generating novel ideas and they are not unduly apprehensive about making mistakes. A creative person is one whose life is not subject to humiliation upon failure. The caregiver has given such a person great freedom to try, to succeed, and to fail. High-risk solutions can be tried without fear of their potential. This describes Elizabeth Riley's strategy for her son, James Whitcomb Riley. She encouraged each of the three characteristics. Elizabeth Riley was the source of the poet's strength and courage as well.

In Riley's "Poem of the Seven Faces" comes the confession of a "face" of a character who is not one of the "Flying Islands" of the cast. The faces of the poems are those vivid recollections that confront Riley's life every day and often drive him into the relief of intoxication. The "Second Face" of the poems speaks of someone other than one of Riley's play-characters representing a fragmentation of himself. This "Second Face" says of Crestillomeem, Riley's alcoholic self:

Elizabeth Riley, Riley's mother who died in the midst of the poverty stricken years when Riley was 20, confesses from her seat in heaven that her

departure has precipitated Riley's initial descent into alcoholism. From heaven, AEo can only be horrified at Riley in the throes of Crestillomeem.

Riley's mother was with him as a living presence throughout his life as the poem acknowledges.

As though some spirited lady (AEo') talked with him. Full courteously he said: "In woman's guise Thou comest, yet I think thou art, in sooth But woman in thy form. - Thy words are strange And leave me mystified. I feel the truth

Of all thou hast declared, and yet so vague And shadow-like thy meaning is to me

Thou sayest is hanging o'er me even now." And then, with open hands held pleadingly,

He asked, "Who is my foe?" - And o'er his face A sudden pallor flashed, like death itself As though, if answer had been given, it

1. AEo, Riley's mother, now dead tries to caution him against his drunken lifestyle.

A letter is preserved which Riley wrote as an old man to a child, James L. Murray, confirming his mother was still very much in his thoughts.

Dear Little Boy, -No-sir-ee! I couldn't write verse when I was nine years old like you. But, as you do, I could get verses "by heart," for speeches at School - only I always got pale and sick and faint when I tried to speak 'em - and my chin wobbled, and my throat hurt, and then I broke clean down and cried. Oughtn't I been ashamed of myself? I bet you ain't goin' to cry - in the Second Room of the A Grade!

I was sorry to hear your mother died when you were only one year old. My mother is dead, too; and so I wouldn't be surprised if your mother and my mother were together right now, and know each other, and are the best friends in their World, just as you and I are in this. My best respects to your good father and teachers all.

Riley's finest set of complete works was published 1915 with dedication to his mother as the Elizabeth Marine Riley Edition. Original watercolors are inserted as illustrations in many of the limited edition of 150. From George Richman, a Hancock County historian we learn that Riley's mother was a "woman of rare strength of character, combined with deep sympathy and a clear understanding." Others recalled her as being a gardener and a writer of verse.

Speaking to his nephew and secretary, Edmund Eitel, Riley commented on the death of his mother when asked about it and after a long period of silence. "Sometimes I think mentality is developed by such things. Some terrible experience comes and worries and worries you until your mind seems stretched like the head of a drum. Well, you bear up bravely, and say to yourself, I can stand just this - but no more. Then some greater horror comes and turns the screws and turns the screws until you feel that your mind is surely strained to breaking...and so on, and so on, and if it doesn't break, it becomes very strong. "

The same Edmund Eitel added, "(Riley's mother, Elizabeth) alone understood the boy, Riley, and sympathized with him. Riley said, "I was her child in color of hair and eyes, in heart and soul. 1 worshiped her, and to see her in poverty and suffering was agony for me -and a mother so worthy of the best!"

Riley's mother probably did not know of his great love of Nellie Cooley in real life, but Riley imagined she must know of it from her vantage in heaven. She would also know of her son's great anguish at Nellie's departure from Greenfield and then death. After the death of Nellie Cooley, great sadness must have stroked Riley's life. Nellie did not outlive her husband, George, so that Riley might rush to Illinois, find her a widow with children, marry her and bring her back to Indiana to find happiness in the way envisioned in the 1974 poem, "Farmer Whipple-Bachelor."

The only memory Riley had was of his stolen love with Nellie as a married woman. This relationship might otherwise have been a sordid affair except that Riley knew that the "mother's heart" of Elizabeth understood his needs and situation and approved it. He writes of this in his autobiographical poem's Act H when speaking to the dead spirit of Nellie, he says:

And nestle in the warm home of my breast! So empty are mine arms, so full my heart The one must hold thee, or the other burst.

Dwainie (Throwing herself in his embrace)

AEo's own hand methinks hath flung me here: 0 hold me that He may not pluck me back!"

Riley felt his mother must have understood how much he needed Nellie. Her "own hand" encourages the relationship.

There was an earlier love interest of Riley than Nellie Cooley that we should speak of.

Adda Rowell was Riley's first romantic interest in his teens. The year was 1868. Adda was 16 when her family moved to Greenfield, arriving in town shortly after the Civil War. John Rowell, the father, was a New Englander and he was accompanied by his wife, a son, Edward, and the beautiful daughter, Adda. Riley was nineteen and fresh from an apprenticeship with John Keefer, the village sign painter. According to the memoir of Minnie Belle (Alexander) Mitchell, Riley had not before had an "affair of the heart" before Adda. Mitchell remembers, "Little Adda Rowell slipped easily into the social life of the village. She attended parties, shared in charades and tableaux, attended plays in the old Masonic Hall where the Riley youth displayed his unusual histrionic talent and, as a crowning glory, she heard him play the trap drum in the old Adelphian Band."

I repeat the account of this romance in the words of Mitchell who witnessed the events.

"All through the gay glad summer, young Riley worshiped at the shrine of winsome Adda, singing, rhyming and absorbing from her the art of playing the guitar. They had long walks down by Brandywine Creek, loitering in shady places and with Adda's little sunbonnet handing by a string...

At that early period a culvert made of rough hewn stone spanned a small brook which intruded through the heart of the village. Its low graceful arch was topped on either side by broad stone balustrades which provided seaOts for weary travelers, as well as trysting place for lovers. It was, indeed, a beautiful spot and a favorite resort of Bud's since it was an integral part of the old road which his father had glorified in his stories of early pioneer days. So the old stone culvert easily lured Bud and the fair Adda still with

a smile in her eyes, to its broad sides where the moonlight tunneled its way through borders of willow reeds and fell benignly upon the lovers.

The guitar, of course, shared in the scene and the lovers played and sang, she exchanging her eastern melodies for the lad's "Lilly Dale," "Sweet Belle Mahone," "Laurena," "Sweet Genevieve" and other songs of the day." Mitchell accounts this romance one from May, when Adda arrived in Greenfield, to Autumn. She recalls Riley re-naming Adda as the "Airy Fairie Lillian" and being very desperately in love with her.

The romance ended in the fall when John Rowell took his family from Greenfield to go to the Northwest. Riley and Adda exchanged letters for a time. Riley's were sometimes in rhyme.

Eventually Adda married and became Adda Barber living in Oregon and their letters ceased. She was later widowed with two daughters. Riley's last letter to Adda, written in 1906, just ten years before his death, was addressed in care of her brother, Edward, in Michigan. It contained two

his Adda had two children, with the following inscription, "For Mrs. Adda Rowell Barber, From her old Hoosier friend and fellow townsman of the days of our youth at Greenfield, Indiana, where Jess and Nell and Alice were living - now, alas, long gone. James Whitcomb Riley."

Even though he returned often to Greenfield, and apparently to Nellie Cooley, Riley did not feel constrained from seeking the company of many young women in the places he visited.

The recollections of James Whitcomb Riley by friends and letters support the probability that Riley, like many other unsettled young men of his time and ours, expressed his sexuality "on the run."

From every town where Riley traveled in his early days of his twenties and as he traveled from town to town painting signs and composing poetry on the sly, there seems to be a legend about an eligible young lady "left

An example comes from when Riley lived in Peru, Indiana earning his way as a sign painter. An acquaintance, A. William Neff, recalled a casual love affair Riley had while there. This was in the year 1872. Riley's partner named "Smith" was also a resident. They set up their shop on the second floor of a two story building over a livery stable owned by John and Ben E. Wallace located on East Third Street between Broadway (the main street of Peru) and Wabash Street. The business prospered and they became known in the community. Soon Riley became interested in a young woman named Catherine Musselman, an Irish girl. The year before, she had gone to live with the Neffs and lived there about five years. Riley dated her and called at the Neff residence on the corner of East Third and Wabash only half a block from his workshop. Most of his evenings in Peru were spent in her company and usually at the Neff home.

Another recollection of Neff's should be recorded. A. William Neff remembered Riley spending rainy days painting signs and pictures very skillfully. A few years younger than Riley, Neff remembered spending time watching him point and he was also Riley's messenger boy to take messages to Catherine. Eventually, Riley gave Neff several pictures as he painted them which remain in Peru and have been exhibited from time to time. One of the scenes was a farm scene with a young couple in a hay field with arms intertwined, the girl with a rake in her left hand the boy holding a hay fork,.. In the background was a cabin and dense woods. The boy was kissing the girl and a caption read, "Making Hay While the Sun Shines." Another picture was the head of a beautiful school girl in a low cut blouse, large white beaded necklace and wide brimmed hat. The picture was painted on poplar board and has "Riley and Smith" on the top for signature. It is believed they are on display at the Miami County Historical Museum.

While in Peru, it is remembered that Riley belonged to a social club known as the Academy Club of Peru. The club was composed of young men and had a dancing room and club room on the third floors of adjoining buildings at Second street and Broadway connected by a doorway. The club employed Riley to paint and redecorate the rooms. Riley frescoed the club room.

Eventually, Riley simply up and left. Catherine had no more explanation than anyone else. Eventually a letter came to Catherine and in it was a poem, "The Little Town of Tailholt," which Riley had just written and sent to her. Catherine Musselman was saddened at his departure. She was not the

Another recollection of Riley from roughly the same period - but a little later - has him at South Bend.

In South Bend, Riley worked for Major Blowney who was a painting contractor and had a number of men in his employment. As Henry Pershing remembers it, there were always many girls hanging around in Blowney's shop talking to the boys

while they worked. Riley liked to talk if there was anyone to listen while he painted signs in the shop. Riley was considered a "jolly short of fellow and everybody liked him; in fact, he was regarded by everyone as a hail fellow, making friends easily." In particular an incident is recalled in which Riley was

ing a newspaper in his hand, while the fellows were eating their lunch, he read to them. On this occasion, Riley began to read out loud so all could plainly hear him giving all the details about a disastrous fire over in Mansfield, Ohio, where the house of a "Henry Bronson" was burned to the ground and how the owner was barely saved by the firemen from a terrible death in the burning building. Riley read it with all the details of how Mr. Bronson was carried out by the firemen, when up jumped Jim Bronson, one of Riley's fellow workers who had been sitting in the circle listening, exclaiming, "My God, that's my father." Riley's reading had produced the affect desired and that was what he wanted and they all had a good laugh when Riley told them he was simply making it up as he went along. Riley had the reputation of being quite a joker. Jucklet was in Riley's heart.

Henry Miller, a friend working at Blowney's with Riley, does not remember Riley paying much attention to the girls in South Bend. When he called on the daughters of a Mrs. Harper, a prominent family in South Bend society, Miller reports that Mrs. Harper was not impressed enough with him to permit her girls to see Riley.

It is possible that Riley's sexuality was expended on casual sexual acquaintances both before and after the writing of "The Flying Islands of the Night." The record from "before" is far the greater.

A letter of McClanahan preserves the casual nature of the casual morality practiced by at least that close friend.