The James Larkin Pearson Library
The James Larkin Pearson Library is located
on the first floor of the new Lowe's Hall building. This combination library
and museum houses the personal papers, books, and memorabilia of Wilkes County
native James Larkin Pearson, who was the North Carolina Poet Laureate from 1953
to 1981. The library was opened in August 1981, after an extensive community
fund-raising effort.
Online access to this finding
aid was supported with money from funds created through the federal Library Services
and Technology Act (LSTA). These funds came through a grant from the Institute
of Museum and Library Services, which is administered by the State Library of
North Carolina, a division of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.
This grant is part of the North Carolina ECHO, Exploring Cultural Heritage Online,
Digitization Grant Program.
Administrative Information
Restrictions to Access
Please contact the Learning Resource
Center to make an appointment if you would like to use the James Larkin Pearson
Library.
Acquisitions Information
The James Larkin Pearson Library collection was
willed to Wilkes Community College by James Larkin Pearson.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], James Larkin Pearson
Library, Learning Resources Center, Wilkes Community College.
Biographical and Historical Note
James Larkin Pearson 1879-1981
The second Poet Laureate of North Carolina was
born in Wilkes County, September 13, 1879. His name was James Larkin Pearson,
son of William and Louise McNeil Pearson. Born in the Berry's Mountain community,
he was delivered by a "granny-woman" in a crude cabin his family called
home. As Pearson would state in his book My Fingers and My Toes, "So
far as could be discovered by the 'granny-woman' and all the visitors, I was
a normal baby. But about four years later they were not so sure. One cold winter
day when I was four-and-a-half years old, my father had me out with him and asked
me, "Jimmy, are you cold?" Without taking any time to study out my
answer, it came like a flash:
"My fingers and my toes,
My feet and my hands,
Are jist as cold
As you ever see'd a man's"
In early boyhood, James Larkin Pearson was determined
to become a poet. He had little formal education, and early in life he worked
on the farm and did some carpentering. Pearson says of his schooling: "Had
only a very moderate liking for history and geography, and couldn't endure arithmetic
at all. Liked my old Fourth Reader very well, because it had some poetry
in it…Was set down as a hopeless case, who there was no use trying to educate.
Quit school entirely at 16, having never been in school more than 12 months,
from first to last." He further states that he "Worked on the farm
till I was 21 years old. Many of my poems were composed as I went about my work
on the farm. I always carried my notebook and pencil to the field with me, and
as I trudged between the plow-handles in the hot sunshine, my mind was busy working
out a poem."
In the early 1900's Pearson worked with R. Don
Laws on The Yellow Jacket, a highly successful paper printed at Moravian
Falls, NC. Some few years later, Mr. Pearson began his own paper, The Fool-Killer.
This paper was a success, acquiring a circulation of some 5,000 readers.
On May 1,1907, James Larkin Pearson married
Cora Wallace. During the years with his first wife, the Pearson's adopted a daughter,
Agnes, who arrived in their home on the "Fifty Acres" near Boomer,
in May 1923. After many years, of being a semi-invalid, Cora passed away in 1934.
Five years later, he met Eleanor Fox of Guilford College and got married again. "She
was also a precious sweet person and I lived happily with her for 23 years."
After the death of Eleanor, he decided he should
return to North Wilkesboro, to the home of his daughter, Mrs. Agnes Eller. He
built a library/office/print shop building on the lot to the rear of his daughter's
home on Sparta Road. In this building is where he housed his collection of memorabilia,
books, and printing press. This collection was to become the James Larkin Pearson
Library, housed on the campus of Wilkes Community College.
Pearson's publications include, Castle Gates,
Fifty Acres and Other Selected Poems, Early Harvest, Pearson's Poems, Plowed
Ground, Selected Poems of James Larkin Pearson, and My Fingers and My Toes.
On August 4, 1953, Governor William B. Umstead appointed Pearson as the North
Carolina Poet Laureate of the State. He held this post until his death, on August
27, 1981.
Back to Top
|
