Recordpub.com - PORTAGE PATHWAYS: He never forgot Kent; Lucien Price immortalized fond memories of hometown

Lucien Price was 18 years old when he left Kent for Boston, where he earned a degree at Harvard and spent the rest of his life as a newspaper writer, but he never forgot his hometown.

"Excellence is to be found in very obscure and humble places," he once wrote, and that included small Midwestern towns such as Kent, where Junius Lucien Price was born on Jan. 6, 1883.

His grandfather, Abel Burt, settled in Brimfield after leaving a Massachusetts town bearing the same name, and Price was proud of the grit of his Yankee forebears. "We were New England transplantees," he wrote, "and we had two choices: either to rot or to grow."

Price celebrated those who chose to flourish "in a small town, bleak, drab and humdrum, miles from anywhere" in "Another Athens Shall Arise," a short, lightly fictionalized memoir of life in Kent in the late 19th Century. The book, published in 1956, was the first to bear the Kent State University Press imprint.

"Olympians in Homespun," which draws on Price's early memories and tales told to him by his mother in the 1920s, shares the story of four couples in "Woolwick," the pseudonym he used for Kent, who aspired to a life enriched by music and the arts.

The story centers on a choral group and orchestra formed by Dr. Ripley, a country doctor of Quaker-Abolitionist stock, and his pianist-wife, who "needed more than whist and dancing" to nurture their tastes. The Rip-leys are based on Price's parents; his father, Dr. Emmett Price, was a Kent physician.

Joining the Ripleys in their cultural endeavors are the Dacys and Willetts, who were partners in a glass factory and whose homes "stood side-by-side halfway up Presbyterian Hill." The two couples apparently are based on the families who owned the Day & Williams glassworks, a leading employer in Kent in the late 19th Century. Presbyterian Hill was located on Summit Street near the Lincoln and Willow intersections. The fourth couple is the Rev. Alan Burroughs and his wife.

Woolwick, as Price describes it, is familar to anyone who knows Kent's history. The village, he writes, was "built on the banks of a steep rivergorge ... half railroad-junction and half agrarian market-town. ... In the days of the canal, along which as a boy President Garfield drove mules, Franklin Mills was a good enough name for the town. But when the railroads came Zeno Kemp, in honor of his alpaca mill (which, perched like a towered and moated grange, half on bank and half in millrace), stipulated that its name be changed to Woolwick."

Woolwick's rival is neighboring "Verona," which is the county seat. "Never for a moment did Verona forget this or allow Woolwick to forget it. ... Its women were smartly dressed; its men were sharp lawyers and shrewd merchants."

The people of Woolwick, by contrast, were strivers battling a backwater mentality. "Olympians in Homespun" focuses on the efforts of the Ripleys and their friends to transcend small-town expectations as they marshal local talent to present classical choral and orchestral works.

Some of their venues also sound familiar. Rehearsals take place in "the upper story of the town hall, a red-brick New England schoolhouse sort of barracks with a white cupola and a bell in it, standing midway in the row of brick meeting houses where an intrepid Indian fighter, pursued by redskins, had made his prodigious leap of fifteen feet from cliff to cliff -- a yarn which the townspeople affected to disbelieve."

Another musical program is presented at "the Opera House (in which no opera was ever heard)."

Price's account, first published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1926, is more than an exercise in nostalgia. He uses the tale of Dr. and Mrs. Ripley and their friends to underscore a message that those who live in small towns such as "Woolwick" can broaden their cultural horizons -- although it might take hard work.

"If democracy is to be anything more than a dead level of squalid mediocrity, then common life must be lived nobly and well," Price wrote. The Ripleys and people like them, "humble folks though they were, ... had in them the stuff of greatness."

Despite his fondness for his hometown, Lucien Price himself wasn't content to remain in Ohio. After graduating from Western Reserve Academy in Hudson in 1901, he went to Harvard, graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1907 and joined the staff of the Boston Evening Transcript as an editorial writer and arts reviewer.

Price covered the bitter textile workers strike in Lawrence, Mass., in 1912 and lost his job at the Transcript after submitting articles that the paper refused to publish because that were sympathetic to the strikers. He found a more receptive audience at the Boston Globe; he joined its staff as an editorial writer in 1914 and remained there for the rest of his life.

He was the author of more than a dozen books, including "All Souls," a cycle of eight novels he began writing in the 1920s but didn't begin to publish until 1951.

In "Midwestern Man," a lecture he delivered at Kent State University in November 1955 that is included in "Another Athens Shall Arise," Price sounded a familiar note on life in a changing world. More than 50 years later, his words remain timely:

"Now ... nothing and nobody will or can stay put," he said. "In the past, we were educated to act in a world as it is; in the future we must be prepared to function in a world where change comes fast and will keep on coming faster."

He urged his listeners "to meet these oncoming waves of novelty" with a sense of excitement: "Another wonderful day! I wonder what will happen?"

Lucien Price was 81 years old and still writing for the Boston Globe after nearly 50 years there when he died on March 30, 1964.

The parents he immortalized as Dr. and Mrs. Ripley are buried on the north side of Standing Rock Cemetery in Kent. A large granite tomb in the family plot also bears his name and birth date, but he apparently was buried elsewhere.

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Home \| Back PORTAGE PATHWAYS: He never forgot Kent; Lucien Price immortalized fond memories of hometown Print Story \| Comments \| Roger Di Paolo April 27, 2008 Advertisement Lucien Price was 18 years old when he left Kent for Boston, where he earned a degree at Harvard and spent the rest of his life as a newspaper writer, but he never forgot his hometown. Advertisement "Excellence is to be found in very obscure and humble places," he once wrote, and that included small Midwestern towns such as Kent, where Junius Lucien Price was born on Jan. 6, 1883. Advertisement His grandfather, Abel Burt, settled in Brimfield after leaving a Massachusetts town bearing the same name, and Price was proud of the grit of his Yankee forebears. "We were New England transplantees," he wrote, "and we had two choices: either to rot or to grow." Price celebrated those who chose to flourish "in a small town, bleak, drab and humdrum, miles from anywhere" in "Another Athens Shall Arise," a short, lightly fictionalized memoir of life in Kent in the late 19th Century. The book, published in 1956, was the first to bear the Kent State University Press imprint. "Olympians in Homespun," which draws on Price's early memories and tales told to him by his mother in the 1920s, shares the story of four couples in "Woolwick," the pseudonym he used for Kent, who aspired to a life enriched by music and the arts. The story centers on a choral group and orchestra formed by Dr. Ripley, a country doctor of Quaker-Abolitionist stock, and his pianist-wife, who "needed more than whist and dancing" to nurture their tastes. The Rip-leys are based on Price's parents; his father, Dr. Emmett Price, was a Kent physician. Joining the Ripleys in their cultural endeavors are the Dacys and Willetts, who were partners in a glass factory and whose homes "stood side-by-side halfway up Presbyterian Hill." The two couples apparently are based on the families who owned the Day & Williams glassworks, a leading employer in Kent in the late 19th Century. Presbyterian Hill was located on Summit Street near the Lincoln and Willow intersections. The fourth couple is the Rev. Alan Burroughs and his wife. Woolwick, as Price describes it, is familar to anyone who knows Kent's history. The village, he writes, was "built on the banks of a steep rivergorge ... half railroad-junction and half agrarian market-town. ... In the days of the canal, along which as a boy President Garfield drove mules, Franklin Mills was a good enough name for the town. But when the railroads came Zeno Kemp, in honor of his alpaca mill (which, perched like a towered and moated grange, half on bank and half in millrace), stipulated that its name be changed to Woolwick." Woolwick's rival is neighboring "Verona," which is the county seat. "Never for a moment did Verona forget this or allow Woolwick to forget it. ... Its women were smartly dressed; its men were sharp lawyers and shrewd merchants." The people of Woolwick, by contrast, were strivers battling a backwater mentality. "Olympians in Homespun" focuses on the efforts of the Ripleys and their friends to transcend small-town expectations as they marshal local talent to present classical choral and orchestral works. Some of their venues also sound familiar. Rehearsals take place in "the upper story of the town hall, a red-brick New England schoolhouse sort of barracks with a white cupola and a bell in it, standing midway in the row of brick meeting houses where an intrepid Indian fighter, pursued by redskins, had made his prodigious leap of fifteen feet from cliff to cliff -- a yarn which the townspeople affected to disbelieve." Another musical program is presented at "the Opera House (in which no opera was ever heard)." Price's account, first published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1926, is more than an exercise in nostalgia. He uses the tale of Dr. and Mrs. Ripley and their friends to underscore a message that those who live in small towns such as "Woolwick" can broaden their cultural horizons -- although it might take hard work. "If democracy is to be anything more than a dead level of squalid mediocrity, then common life must be lived nobly and well," Price wrote. The Ripleys and people like them, "humble folks though they were, ... had in them the stuff of greatness." Despite his fondness for his hometown, Lucien Price himself wasn't content to remain in Ohio. After graduating from Western Reserve Academy in Hudson in 1901, he went to Harvard, graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1907 and joined the staff of the Boston Evening Transcript as an editorial writer and arts reviewer. Price covered the bitter textile workers strike in Lawrence, Mass., in 1912 and lost his job at the Transcript after submitting articles that the paper refused to publish because that were sympathetic to the strikers. He found a more receptive audience at the Boston Globe; he joined its staff as an editorial writer in 1914 and remained there for the rest of his life. He was the author of more than a dozen books, including "All Souls," a cycle of eight novels he began writing in the 1920s but didn't begin to publish until 1951. In "Midwestern Man," a lecture he delivered at Kent State University in November 1955 that is included in "Another Athens Shall Arise," Price sounded a familiar note on life in a changing world. More than 50 years later, his words remain timely: "Now ... nothing and nobody will or can stay put," he said. "In the past, we were educated to act in a world as it is; in the future we must be prepared to function in a world where change comes fast and will keep on coming faster." He urged his listeners "to meet these oncoming waves of novelty" with a sense of excitement: "Another wonderful day! I wonder what will happen?" Lucien Price was 81 years old and still writing for the Boston Globe after nearly 50 years there when he died on March 30, 1964. The parents he immortalized as Dr. and Mrs. Ripley are buried on the north side of Standing Rock Cemetery in Kent. A large granite tomb in the family plot also bears his name and birth date, but he apparently was buried elsewhere. 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